I might have inserted also several Passages of Tasso, which our Author
[has [3]] imitated; but as I do not look upon Tasso to be a sufficient
Voucher, I would not perplex my Reader with such Quotations, as might do
more Honour to the Italian than the English Poet. In short, I have
endeavoured to particularize those innumerable kinds of Beauty, which it
would be tedious to recapitulate, but which are essential to Poetry, and
which may be met with in the Works of this great Author. Had I thought,
at my first engaging in this design, that it would have led me to so
great a length, I believe I should never have entered upon it; but the
kind Reception which it has met with among those whose Judgments I have
a value for, as well as the uncommon Demands which my Bookseller tells
me have been made for these particular Discourses, give me no reason to
repent of the Pains I have been at in composing them.

L.

[Footnote 1: Prospect]

[Footnote 2: shew]

[Footnote 3: has likewise]

* * * * *

No. 370. Monday, May 5, 1712. Steele.

'Totus Mundus agit Histrionem.'

Many of my fair Readers, as well as very gay and well-received Persons
of the other Sex, are extremely perplexed at the Latin Sentences at the
Head of my Speculations; I do not know whether I ought not to indulge
them with Translations of each of them: However, I have to-day taken
down from the Top of the Stage in Drury-Lane a bit of Latin which often
stands in their View, and signifies that the whole World acts the
Player. It is certain that if we look all round us, and behold the
different Employments of Mankind, you hardly see one who is not, as the
Player is, in an assumed Character. The Lawyer, who is vehement and loud
in a Cause wherein he knows he has not the Truth of the Question on his
Side, is a Player as to the personated Part, but incomparably meaner
than he as to the Prostitution of himself for Hire; because the
Pleader's Falshood introduces Injustice, the Player feigns for no other
end but to divert or instruct you. The Divine, whose Passions transport
him to say any thing with any View but promoting the Interests of true
Piety and Religion, is a Player with a still greater Imputation of
Guilt, in proportion to his depreciating a Character more sacred.
Consider all the different Pursuits and Employments of Men, and you will
find half their Actions tend to