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‘Poets lose half the Praise they would have got,
Were it but known what they discreetly blot’.

As nothing is more easy than to be a Wit, with all the above-mentioned Liberties, it requires some Genius and Invention to appear such without them.

What I have here said is not only in regard to the Publick, but with an Eye to my particular Correspondent who has sent me the following Letter, which I have castrated in some Places upon these Considerations.

SIR,

‘Having lately seen your Discourse upon a Match of Grinning, I cannot forbear giving you an Account of a Whistling Match, which, with many others, I was entertained with about three Years since at the Bath. The Prize was a Guinea, to be conferred upon the ablest Whistler, that is, on him who could whistle clearest, and go through his Tune without Laughing, [to] which at the same time he was [provoked [2]] by the antick Postures of a Merry-Andrew, who was to stand upon the Stage and play his Tricks in the Eye of the Performer. There were three Competitors for the Ring. The first was a Plow-man of a very promising Aspect; his Features were steady, and his Muscles composed in so inflexible a Stupidity, that upon his first Appearance every one gave the Guinea for lost. The Pickled Herring however found the way to shake him; for upon his Whistling a Country Jigg, this unlucky Wag danced to it with such a Variety of Distortions and Grimaces, that the Country-man could not forbear smiling upon him, and by that means spoiled his Whistle, and lost the Prize.

The next that mounted the Stage was an Under-Citizen of the Bath, a Person remarkable among the inferior People of that Place for his great Wisdom and his Broad Band. He contracted his Mouth with much Gravity, and, that he might dispose his Mind to be more serious than ordinary, began the Tune of The Children in the Wood, and went through part of it with good Success; when on a sudden the Wit at his Elbow, who had appeared wonderfully grave and attentive for some time, gave him a Touch upon the left Shoulder, and stared him in the Face with so bewitching a Grin, that the Whistler relaxed his Fibres into a kind of Simper, and at length burst out into an open Laugh. The third who entered the Lists was a Foot-man, who in Defiance of the Merry-Andrew, and all his Arts, whistled a Scotch Tune and an Italian Sonata, with so settled a Countenance, that he bore away the Prize, to the great Admiration of some Hundreds of Persons, who, as well as my self, were present at this Trial of Skill. Now, Sir, I humbly conceive, whatever you have determined of the Grinners, the Whistlers ought to be encouraged, not only as their Art is practised without Distortion, but as it improves Country Musick, promotes Gravity, and teaches ordinary People to keep their Countenances, if they see any thing ridiculous in their Betters; besides that it seems an Entertainment very particularly adapted to the Bath, as it is usual for a Rider to whistle to his Horse when he would make his Waters pass.

I am, Sir, etc.

POSTSCRIPT.

After having despatched these two important Points of Grinning and Whistling, I hope you will oblige the World with some Reflections upon Yawning, as I have seen it practised on a Twelfth-Night among other Christmas Gambols at the House of a very worthy Gentleman, who always entertains his Tenants at that time of the Year. They Yawn for a Cheshire Cheese, and begin about Midnight, when the whole Company is disposed to be drowsie. He that Yawns widest, and at the same time so naturally as to produce the most Yawns among his Spectators, carries home the Cheese. If you handle this Subject as you ought, I question not but your Paper will set half the Kingdom a Yawning, tho’ I dare promise you it will never make any Body fall asleep.

L.

[Footnote 1: Upon Roscommon’s Tr. of Horace’s ‘Art of Poetry’.]

[Footnote 2: provoked to]