more extended, and the Pomp of Business better maintaind.  And what can be a greater Indication of the Dignity of Dress, than that burdensome Finery which is the regular Habit of our Judges, Nobles, and Bishops, with which upon certain Days we see them incumbered?  And though it may be said this is awful, and necessary for the Dignity of the State, yet the wisest of them have been remarkable, before they arrived at their present Stations, for being very well dressed Persons.  As to my own Part, I am near Thirty; and since I left School have not been idle, which is a modern Phrase for having studied hard.  I brought off a clean System of Moral Philosophy, and a tolerable Jargon of Metaphysicks from the University; since that, I have been engaged in the clearing Part of the perplexd Style and Matter of the Law, which so hereditarily descends to all its Professors:  To all which severe Studies I have thrown in, at proper Interims, the pretty Learning of the Classicks.  Notwithstanding which, I am what Shakespear calls A Fellow of no Mark or Likelihood; [3] which makes me understand the more fully, that since the regular Methods of making Friends and a Fortune by the mere Force of a Profession is so very slow and uncertain, a Man should take all reasonable Opportunities, by enlarging a good Acquaintance, to court that Time and Chance which is said to happen to every Man.

T.

[Footnote 1:  The passage is nearly at the beginning of Steeles third chapter,

  It is in every bodys observation with what disadvantage a Poor Man
  enters upon the most ordinary affairs, &c.]

[Footnote 2:  [clearing]]

[Footnote 3:  Henry IV.  Pt.  I. Act iii. sc. 2.]

* * * * *

No. 361.  Thursday, April 24, 1712.  Addison.

  Tartaream intendit vocem, qua protinus omnis
  Contremuit domus—­

  Virg.

I have lately received the following Letter from a Country Gentleman.

  Mr. SPECTATOR,

The Night before I left London I went to see a Play, called The Humorous Lieutenant. [1] Upon the Rising of the Curtain I was very much surprized with the great Consort of Cat-calls which was exhibited that Evening, and began to think with myself that I had made a Mistake, and gone to a Musick-Meeting, instead of the Play-house.  It appeared indeed a little odd to me to see so many Persons of Quality of both Sexes assembled together at a kind of Catterwawling; for I cannot look upon that Performance to have been any thing better, whatever the Musicians themselves might think of it.  As I had no Acquaintance in the House to ask Questions of, and was forced to go out of Town early the next Morning, I could not learn the Secret of this Matter.  What I would therefore desire of you, is, to give some account of this strange Instrument, which I found the Company