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No. 371.  Tuesday, May 6, 1712.  Addison.

  ’Jamne igitur laudas quod se sapientibus unus
  Ridebat?’

  Juv.

I shall communicate to my Reader the following Letter for the Entertainment of this Day.

  Sir,

You know very well that our Nation is more famous for that sort of Men who are called Whims and Humourists, than any other Country in the World; for which reason it is observed that our English Comedy excells that of all other Nations in the Novelty and Variety of its Characters.

Among those innumerable Setts of Whims which our Country produces, there are none whom I have regarded with more Curiosity than those who have invented any particular kind of Diversion for the Entertainment of themselves or their Friends.  My Letter shall single out those who take delight in sorting a Company that has something of Burlesque and Ridicule in its Appearance.  I shall make my self understood by the following Example.  One of the Wits of the last Age, who was a Man of a good Estate [1], thought he never laid out his Money better than in a Jest.  As he was one Year at the Bath, observing that in the great Confluence of fine People, there were several among them with long Chins, a part of the Visage by which he himself was very much distinguished, he invited to dinner half a Score of these remarkable Persons who had their Mouths in the Middle of their Faces.  They had no sooner placed themselves about the Table, but they began to stare upon one another, not being able to imagine what had brought them together.  Our English Proverb says,

    Tis merry in the Hall,
    When Beards wag all.

It proved so in the Assembly I am now speaking of, who seeing so many Peaks of Faces agitated with Eating, Drinking, and Discourse, and observing all the Chins that were present meeting together very often over the Center of the Table, every one grew sensible of the Jest, and came into it with so much Good-Humour, that they lived in strict Friendship and Alliance from that Day forward.

The same Gentleman some time after packed together a Set of Oglers, as he called them, consisting of such as had an unlucky Cast in their Eyes.  His Diversion on this Occasion was to see the cross Bows, mistaken Signs, and wrong Connivances that passed amidst so many broken and refracted Rays of Sight.

The third Feast which this merry Gentleman exhibited was to the Stammerers, whom he got together in a sufficient Body to fill his Table.  He had ordered one of his Servants, who was placed behind a Skreen, to write down their Table-Talk, which was very easie to be done without the help of Short-hand.  It appears by the Notes which were taken, that tho’ their Conversation never fell, there were not above twenty Words spoken during the first Course; that upon