’This part of Scythia, in its whole Northern extent, I take to have been the vast Hive out of which issued so many mighty swarms of barbarous nations,’ &c.  And again, ’Each of these countries was like a mighty hive, which, by the vigour of propagation and health of climate, growing too full of people, threw out some new swarm at certain periods of time, that took wing and sought out some new abode, expelling or subduing the old inhabitants, and seating themselves in their rooms, if they liked the conditions of place and commodities of life they met with; if not, going on till they found some other more agreeable to their present humours and dispositions.’  He attributes their successes and their rapid propagation to the greater vigour of life in the northern climates; and the only reason he gives for the absence of like effects during the continued presence of like causes is, that Christianity abated their enthusiasm and allayed ’the restless humour of perpetual wars and actions.’]

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No. 22.  Monday, March 26, 1711.  Steele.

      ‘Quodcunque ostendis mihi sic incredulus odi.’

      Hor.

The word Spectator being most usually understood as one of the Audience at Publick Representations in our Theatres, I seldom fail of many Letters relating to Plays and Operas.  But, indeed, there are such monstrous things done in both, that if one had not been an Eye-witness of them, one could not believe that such Matters had really been exhibited.  There is very little which concerns human Life, or is a Picture of Nature, that is regarded by the greater Part of the Company.  The Understanding is dismissed from our Entertainments.  Our Mirth is the Laughter of Fools, and our Admiration the Wonder of Idiots; else such improbable, monstrous, and incoherent Dreams could not go off as they do, not only without the utmost Scorn and Contempt, but even with the loudest Applause and Approbation.  But the Letters of my Correspondents will represent this Affair in a more lively Manner than any Discourse of my own; I [shall therefore [1] ] give them to my Reader with only this Preparation, that they all come from Players, [and that the business of Playing is now so managed that you are not to be surprised when I say] one or two of [them [2]] are rational, others sensitive and vegetative Actors, and others wholly inanimate.  I shall not place these as I have named them, but as they have Precedence in the Opinion of their Audiences.

  “Mr. SPECTATOR,