to have this Entertainment in a Readiness for the
next Winter; and doubt not but it will please more than the Opera or
Puppet-Show. I will not say that a Monkey is a better Man than some of
the Opera Heroes; but certainly he is a better Representative of a
Man, than the most artificial Composition of Wood and Wire. If you
will be pleased to give me a good Word in your paper, you shall be
every Night a Spectator at my Show for nothing.

I am, &c.

C.

[Footnote 1: It is as follows.]

[Footnote 2: In the 'Spectator's' time numbering of houses was so rare
that in Hatton's 'New View of London', published in 1708, special
mention is made of the fact that

'in Prescott Street, Goodman's Fields, instead of signs the houses are
distinguished by numbers, as the staircases in the Inns of Court and
Chancery.']

[Footnote 3: sheep]

[Footnote 4: The sign before her Waxwork Exhibition, in Fleet Street,
near Temple Bar, was 'the Golden Salmon.' She had very recently removed
to this house from her old establishment in St. Martin's le Grand.]

[Footnote 5: Ben Jonson's Alchemist having taken gold from Abel Drugger,
the Tobacco Man, for the device of a sign--'a good lucky one, a thriving
sign'--will give him nothing so commonplace as a sign copied from the
constellation he was born under, but says:

'Subtle'. He shall have 'a bel', that's 'Abel';
And by it standing one whose name is 'Dee'
In a 'rug' grown, there's 'D' and 'rug', that's 'Drug':
And right anenst him a dog snarling 'er',
There's 'Drugger', Abel Drugger. That's his sign.
And here's now mystery and hieroglyphic.

'Face'. Abel, thou art made.

'Drugger'. Sir, I do thank his worship.]

[Footnote 6: Bel, in the apocryphal addition to the Book of Daniel,
called 'the 'History of the Destruction of Bel and the Dragon.']

* * * * *

No. 29. Tuesday, April 3, 1711 Addison

... Sermo lingua concinnus utraque
Suavior: ut Chio nota si commista Falerni est.

Hor.

There is nothing that [has] more startled our _English_ Audience, than
the _Italian Recitativo_ at its first Entrance upon the Stage. People
were wonderfully surprized to hear Generals singing the Word of Command,
and Ladies delivering Messages in Musick. Our Country-men could not
forbe