suspend the Possession of it till proper Periods of Life, or Death it self.  If you would not rather be commended than be Praiseworthy, contemn little Merits; and allow no Man to be so free with you, as to praise you to your Face.  Your Vanity by this Means will want its Food.  At the same time your Passion for Esteem will be more fully gratified; Men will praise you in their Actions:  Where you now receive one Compliment, you will then receive twenty Civilities.  Till then you will never have of either, further than

  SIR,

  Your humble Servant.’

  R.

[Footnote 1:  Dr. Thomas Burnet, who produced in 1681 the ’Telluris Theoria Sacra,’ translated in 1690 as ‘the Sacred Theory of the Earth,’ was living in the ‘Spectator’s’ time.  He died in 1715, aged 80.  He was for 30 years Master of the Charter-house, and set himself against James II. in refusing to admit a Roman Catholic as a Poor Brother.  Burnet’s Theory, a romance that passed for science in its day, was opposed in 1696 by Whiston in his ‘New Theory of the Earth’ (one all for Fire, the other all for Water), and the new Romance was Science even in the eyes of Locke.  Addison, from Oxford in 1699, addressed a Latin ode to Burnet.]

[Footnote 2:  Lord Cowper.]

* * * * *

No. 39.  Saturday, April 14, 1711.  Addison.

      ’Multa fero, ut placem genus irritabile vatum,
      Cum scribo.’

      Hor.

As a perfect Tragedy is the Noblest Production of Human Nature, so it is capable of giving the Mind one of the most delightful and most improving Entertainments.  A virtuous Man (says Seneca) struggling with Misfortunes, is such a Spectacle as Gods might look upon with Pleasure:  [1] And such a Pleasure it is which one meets with in the Representation of a well-written Tragedy.  Diversions of this kind wear out of our Thoughts every thing that is mean and little.  They cherish and cultivate that Humanity which is the Ornament of our Nature.  They soften Insolence, sooth Affliction, and subdue the Mind to the Dispensations of Providence.

It is no Wonder therefore that in all the polite Nations of the World, this part of the Drama has met with publick Encouragement.

The modern Tragedy excels that of Greece and Rome, in the Intricacy and Disposition of the Fable; but, what a Christian Writer would be ashamed to own, falls infinitely short of it in the Moral Part of the Performance.

This I [may [2]] shew more at large hereafter; and in the mean time, that I may contribute something towards the Improvement of the English Tragedy, I shall take notice, in this and in other following Papers, of some particular Parts in it that seem liable to Exception.