ed by horse, or ass, or, in fine, in any moving in coversation. By conversing generally with market, which is not perished or putrefied; the dead, I grew almost unfit for the society of witness the wheel-barrows of rotten raisins, the living; so by a long confinement I conalmonds, figs, and currants, which you see tracted an ungainly aversion to conversation, vended by a merchant dressed in a second and ever discoursed with pain to myself, and hand suit of a foot soldier. Youshould consider little entertainment to others. At last I was that a child may be poisoned for the worth of in some measure made sensible of my failing, a farthing; but except his poor parents send and the mortification of never being spoke to, him to one certain doctor in town, they can or speaking, unless the discourse ran upon have no advice for him under a guinea. When books put me upon forcing myself amongst poisons are thus cheap, and medicines thus men. I immediately affected the politest dear, how can you be negligent in inspecting company, by the frequent use of which I what we eat and drink, or take no notice of hoped to wear off the rust I had contracted: such as the above-mentioned citizens, who but, by an uncouth imitation of men used to have been so serviceable to us of late in that act in public, I got no further than to discover particular? It was a custom among the old I had a mind to appear a finer thing than I reRomans, to do him particular honours who ally was.

had saved the life of a citizen. How much Such I was, and such was my condition, more does the world owe to those who pre-when I became an ardent lover, and passionvent the death of multitudes ! As these men ate admirer to the beauteous Belinda. Then it deserve well of your office, so such as act was that I really began to improve. This pasto the detriment of our health you ought to sion changed all my fears and diffidences in represent to themselves and their fellow-my general behaviour to the sole concern of subjects in the colours which they deserve to pleasing her. I had not now to study the acwear. I think it would be for the public tion of a gentleman; but love possessing all good, that all who vend wines should be un-my thoughts, made me truly be the thing I der oath in that behalf. The chairman at had a mind to appear. My thoughts grew the quarter-sessions should inform the coun- free and generous; and the ambition to be try, that the vintner who mixes wine to his agreeable to her I admired, produced in my customers shall (upon proof that the drinker carriage a faint similitude of that disengaged thereof died within a year and a day after tak- manner of my Belinda. The way we are in ing it) be deemed guilty of wilful murder, and at present is, that she sees my passion, and the jury shall be instructed to inquire and pre- sees I at present forbear speaking of it through sent such delinquents accordingly. It is no prudential regards. This respect to her she mitigation of the crime, nor will it be conceiv-returns with much civility, and makes my vaed that it can be brought in chance-medley or lue fot her as little misfortune to me as is conman-slaughter, upon proof that it shall ap- sistent with discretion. She sings very charmpear wine joined to wine, or right Hereford-ingly, and is readier to do so at my request, shire poured into Port O Port: but his selling it because she knows I love her. She will dance for one thing, knowing it to be another, must with me rather than another for the same reajustly bear the 'foresaid guilt of wilful murder: son. My fortune must alter from what it is, for that he, the said vintner, did an unlawful before I can speak my heart to her and her act willingly in the false mixture, and is there- circumstances are not considerable enough to fore with equity liable to all the pains to which make up for the narrowness of mine. But I a man would be, if it were proved that he de- write to you now, only to give you the characsigned only to run a man through the arm ter of Belinda, as a woman that has address whom he whipped through the lungs. This is enough to demonstrate a gratitude to her lover, my third year at the Temple, and this is. or without giving him hopes of success in his passhould be, law. An ill intention, well proved, sion. Belinda has from a great wit, governed should meet with no alleviation, because it out- by as great prudence, and both adorned with ran itself. There cannot be too great severity innocence, the happiness of always being reaused against the injustice as well as cruelty dy to discover her real thoughts. She has of those who play with men's lives, by pre- many of us, who now are admirers; but her paring liquors whose nature, for aught they treatment of us is so just and proportioned to know, may be noxious when mixed, though our merit towards her, and what we are in ourinnocent when apart and Brooke and Hel-selves, that I protest to you I have neither jealier, who have ensured our safety at our lousy nor hatred towards my rivals. Such is meals, and driven jealousy from our cups in conversation, deserve the custom and thanks of the whole town; and it is your duty to remind them of the obligation.

'I am, Sir,

Your humble servant,

'TOM POTTLE.'

her goodness, and the acknowledgment of eve ry man who admires her, that he thinks he ought to believe she will take him who best deserves her. I will not say that this peace among us is not owing to self-love, which prompts each to think himself the best deserver. I think there is something uncommon and worthy of imitation in this lady's chaI am a person who was long immured in a racter. If you will please to print my letcollege, read much, saw little; so that I knew ter, you will oblige the little fraternity of no more of the world than what a lecture or happy rivals, and in a more particular manview of the map taught me. By this means I ner, improved in my study, but became unpleasant

MR. SPECTATOR,

Sir,

'Your most humble servant,

'WILL CYMON.'

No. 363.] Saturday, April 26, 1712.

to him in a vision, 'adds, that every one had four faces, and that their whole bodies, and their backs, and their hands, and their wings, were full of eyes round about:

The cohort bright

Of watchful cherubim, four faces each
Had, like a double Janus, all their shape
Spangled with eyes-

Crudelis ubique Luctus, ubique pavor, et plurima mortis imago. Virg. Æn. ii. 268. All parts resound with tumults, plaints, and fears, And grisly Death in sundry shapes appears.-Dryden. MILTON has shown a wonderful art in decribing that variety of passions which arise in our first parents upon the breach of the comThe assembling of all the angels of heaven, to hear the solemn decree passed upon man, is mandment that had been given them. We see them gradually passing from the triumph of represented in very lively ideas. The Almightheir guilt, through remorse, shame, despair, ty is here described as remembering mercy in contrition, prayer and hope, to a perfect and the midst of judgment, and commanding Micomplete repentance. At the end of the tenth chael to deliver his message in the mildest book they are represented as prostrating them- terms, lest the spirit of man, which was alreaselves upon the ground, and watering the earth dy broken with the sense of his guilt and misewith their tears: to which the poet joins this ry shoul fail before him : beautiful circumstance, that they offered up their penitential prayers on the very place where their judge appeared to them when he pronounced their sentence:

They forthwith to the place

Repairing where he judg'd them, prostrate fell
Before him rev'rent, and both confess'd
Humbly their faults, and pardon begg'd, with tears
Watering the ground.

Yet lest they faint

At the sad sentence rigorously urg'd,
For I behold them soft'ned, and with tears
Bewailing their excess, all terror hide.'

The conference of Adam and Eve is full of moving sentiments. Upon their going abroad, after the melancholy night which they had passed together, they discover the lion and the eagle, each of them pursuing their prey toThere is a beauty of the same kind in a wards the eastern gates of Paradise. There is tragedy of Sophocles, where Edipus, after a double beauty in this incident, not only as having put out his own eyes, instead of break-it presents great and just omens which are aling his neck from the palace battlements, ways agreeable in poetry, but as it expresses (which furnishes so elegant an entertainment that enmity which was now produced in the for our English audience) desires that he may animal creation. The poet, to show the like be conducted to Mount Citharon, in order to changes in nature, as well as to grace his fable end his life in that very place where he was with a noble prodigy, represents the sun in exposed in his infancy, and where he should an eclipse. This particular incident has likethen have died, had the will of his parents been wise a fine effect upon the imagination of the executed.* reader, in regard to what follows; for at the

As the author never fails to give a poetical same time that the sun is under an eclipse, a turn to his sentiments, he describes in the be- bright cloud descends in the western quarter ginning of this book the acceptance which of the heavens, filled with an host of angels, these their prayers met with in a short allego- and more luminous than the sun itself. The ry formed upon that beautiful paseage in holy whole theatre of nature is darkened, that this writ, And another angel came and stood at glorious machine may appear with all its lustre the altar, having a golden censer; and there and magnificence. was given unto him much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all saints upon the golden altar, which was before the throne and the smoke of the incense, which came with the prayers of the saints, ascended up before God.t

Why in the east

Darkness ere day's mid-course? and morning light
More orient in that western cloud that draws
O'er the blue firmament a radiant white,
And slow descends with something heavenly fraught?"
He err'd not, for by this the heavenly bands
Down from a sky of jasper lighted now
In Paradise, and on a hill made halt;
A glorious apparition -

I need not observe how properly this author, who always suits his parts to the actors whom he introduces, has employed Michael in the expulsion of our first parents from Paradise. The archangel on this occasion neither

We have the same thought expressed a se- appears in his proper shape, nor in the facond time in the intercession of the Messiah,miliar manner with which Raphael the sociawhich is conceived in very emphatical senti- ble spirit entertained the father of mankind ments and expressions. before the fall. His person, his port, and beAmong the poetical parts of seripture, which haviour, are suitable to a spirit of the highest Milton has so finely wrought into this part of rank, and exquisitely described in the followhis narration, I must not omit that wherein ing passage: Ezekiel, speaking of the angels who appeared

This paragraph was not in the original paper in folio, but added on the republication of the papers in volumes. † Rev. viii. 3, 4.

-Th' archangel soon drew nigh,
Not in his shape celestial; but as man
Clad to meet man: over his lucid arms
A military vest of purple flow'd,
Livelier than Melibaan, or the grain

Of Sarra, worn by kings and heroes old,
In time of truce: Iris had dipt the woof:
His starry helm, unbuckled, show'd him prime
In manhood where youth ended; by his side,
As in a glist'ring zodiac, hung the sword,
Satan's dire dread, and in his hand the spear,
Adam bow'd low; he kingly from his state
Inclin'd not, but his coming thus declared.'

Eve's complaint, upon hearing that she was to be removed from the garden of Paradise, is wonderfully beautiful. The sentiments are not only proper to the subject, but have something in them particularly soft and womanish:

'Must I then leave thee, Paradise? Thus leave
Thee, native soil, these happy walks and shades,
Fit haunt of Gods, where I had hope to spend
Quiet, though sad the respite of that day
That must be mortal to us both? O flowers,
That never will in other climate grow,
My early visitation, and my last

At even, which I bred up with tender hand
From the first opening hud, and gave you names!
Who now shall rear you to the sun, or rank
Your tribes, and water from th' ambrosial fount?
Thee, lastly, nuptial bower, by me adorn'd
With what to sight or smell was sweet: from thee
How shall I part? and wither wander down
Into a lower world, to this, obscure

And wild? How shall we breathe in other air
Less pure, accustomed to immortal fruits?'

Adam's speech abounds with thoughts which are equally moving, but of a more masculine and elevated turn. Nothing can be conceived more sublime and poetical than the following passage in it;

"This most afflicts me, that departing hence
As from his face I shall be hid, deprived
His blessed count'nance; here I could frequent,
With worship, place by place where he vouchsaf'd
Presence divine; and to my sons relate.
On this mount he appeared, under this tree
Stood visible, among these pines his voice

I heard; here with him at this fountain talk'd;
So many grateful altars I would rear
Of grassy turf, and pile up every stone
Of lustre from the brook, in memory
Or monuments to ages, and thereon
Offer sweet-smelling gums and flow'rs.
In yonder nether world, where shall I seek
His bright appearances, or footsteps trace?
For though I fled him angry, yet recall'd
To life prolong'd and promis'd race, I now
Gladly behold though but his utmost skirts
Of glory, and far off his steps adore.'

in Adam at the sight of the first dying man is touched with great beauty:

'But have I now seen death? Is this the way

I must return to native dust? O sight
Of terror foul, and ugly to behold!
Horrid to think, how horrible to feel!'

The second vision sets before him the image of death, in a great variety of appearances. The angel, to give him a general idea of those effects which his guilt had brought upon his posterity, places before him a large hospital, or lazar-house, filled with persons lying under all kinds of mortal diseases. How finely has the poet told us that the sick persons languished under lingering and incurable distempers, by an apt and judicious use of such imaginary beings as those I mentioned in my last Saturdry's paper:

Dire was the tossing, deep the groans; Despair
Tended the sick, busy from couch to couch;
And over them triumphant Death his dart
Shook, but delay'd to strike, tho' oft invok'd
With vows, as their chief good and final hope.

The passion which likewise rises in Adam on this occasion is very natural:

Sight so deform what heart of rock could long
Dry-ey'd behold? Adam could not, but wept,
Though not of woman born; compassion quell'a
His best of man, and gave him up to tears.
The discourse between the angel and Adam,
which follows, abounds with noble morals.

As there is nothing more delightful in poetry than a contrast and opposition of incidents, the author, after this melancholy prospect of death and sickness, raises up a scene of mirth, love, and jollity. The secret pleasure that steals into Adam's heart, as he is intent upon this vision, is imagined with great delicacy. I must not omit the description of the loose female troop, who seduced the sons of God, as they are called in Scripture.

'For that fair female troop thou saw'st, that seem'd
Of goddesses, so blythe, so smooth, so gay,
Yet empty of all good, wherein consists
Woman's domestic honour, and chief praise;
Bred only and completed to the taste

Of lustful appetence, to sing, to dance,

To dress, and troule the tongue, and roll the eye;
To these that sober race of men, whose lives
Religious titled them the sons of God,
Shall yield up all their virtue, all their fame,
Ignobly, to the trains and to the smiles

Of those fair atheists

The angel afterwards leads Adam to the highest mount of Paradise, and lays before him a whole hemisphere, as a proper stage for those visions which were to be represented on it. I have before observed how the plan of Milton's poem is, in many particulars, greater and filled with the horrors of war. than that of the Iliad, or Æneid.

The next vision is of a quite contrary nature,

Adam at

Virgil's the sight of it melts into tears, and breaks out

bero, in the last of these poems, is entertained into that passionate speech,

with a sight of all those who are to descend from him; but though that episode is justly admired as one of the noblest designs in the whole Æneid, every one must allow that this of Milton is of a much higher nature. Adam's. vision is not confined to any particular tribe of mankind, but extends to the whole species.

-O what are these!

Death's ministers, not men, who thus deal death
Inhumanly to men, and multiply

Ten thousandfold the sin of him who slew
His brother: for of whom such massacre
Make they, but of their brethren, men of men?'

Milton to keep up an agreeable variety in In this great review which Adam takes of his visions, after having raised in the mind of all his sons and daughters, the first objects he his reader the several ideas of terror which are is presented with exhibit to him the story of conformable to the description of war, passes Cain and Abel, which is drawn together with on to those softer images of triumphs and fesmuch closeness and propriety of expression. [tivals, in that vision of lewdness and luxury The curiosity and natural horror which arises which ushers in the flood.

As it is visible that the poet had his eye upon for which reason the reader might be apt to Ovid's account of the, universal deluge, the overlook those many passages in it which dereader may observe with how much judgment serve our admiration. The eleventh and twelfth he has avoided every thing that is redundant are indeed built upon that single circumstance or puerile in the Latin poet. We do not here of the removal of our first parents from Parasee the wolf swimming among the sheep, nor dise; but though this is not in itself so great any of those wanton imaginations which Sene- a subject as that in most of the foregoing books, ca found fault with, as unbecoming this great it is extended and diversified with so many catastrophe of nature. If our poet has imi- surprising incidents and pleasing episodes, that tated that verse in which Ovid tells us that these two last books can by no means be looked there was nothing but sea, and that this sea upon as unequal parts of this divine poem. had no shore to it, he has not set the thought I must further add, that, had not Milton rein such a light as to incur the censure which presented our first parents as driven out of critics have passed upon it. The latter part Paradise, his fall of man would not have been of that verse in Ovid is idle and superfluous, complete, and consequently his action would but just and beautiful in Milton. have been imperfect.

In Milton the former part of the description does not forestall the latter. How much more great and solemn on this occasion is that which follows in our English poet,

-And in their palaces,
Where luxury late reign'd, sea-monsters whelp'd
And stabled-

L.

Hor. Ep. xi. Lib. 1. 29. Anxious through seas and land to search for rest, Is but laborious idleness at best. Francis.

MR. SPECTATOR,

'A LADY of my acquaintance, for whom I have too much respect to be easy while she is doing an indiscreet action, has given occasion to this trouble. She is a widow, to whom the indulgence of a tender husband has intrusted the management of a very great fortune, and than that in Ovid, where we are told that the a son about sixteen, both which he is extremely sea-calf lay in those places where the goats fond of. The boy has parts of the middle size, were used to browse! The reader may find neither shining nor despicable, and has passed several other parallel passages in the Latin and the common exercises of his years with toleraEnglish description of the deluge, wherein our ble advantage, but is withal what you would poet has visibly the advantage. The sky's be- call a forward youth: by the help of this last ing overcharged with clouds, the descending of qualification, which serves as a varnish to all the rains, the rising of the seas, and the ap- the rest, he is enabled to make the best use of pearance of the rainbow, are such descriptions his learning, and display it at full length upon as every one must take notice of. The cir-all occasions. Last summer he distinguished cumstance relating to Paradise is so finely himself two or three times very remarkably, imagined, and suitable to the opinions of many by puzzling the vicar, before an assembly of learned authors, that I cannot forbear giving most of the ladies in the neighbourhood; and it a place in this paper.

Then shall this mount

Of Paradise, by might of waves, be mov'd
Out of his place, push'd by the horned flood;
With all his verdure spoil'd, and trees adrift
Down the great river to th' op'ning gulf,
And there take root; an island salt and bare,
The haunt of seals and orcs and sea-mews' clang.'

The transition which the poet makes from the vision of the deluge, to the concern it occasioned in Adam, is exquisitely graceful, and copied after Virgil, though the first thought it introduces is rather in the spirit of Ovid:

'How didst thou grieve then, Adam, to behold
The end of all thy offspring, end so sad,
Depopulation! Thee another flood,

Of tears and sorrow, a flood, thee also drown'd,
And sunk thee as thy sons; till gently rear'd
By th' angel, on thy feet thou stood'st at last,
Though comfortless, as when a father mourns
His children all in view destroy'd at once.'

I have been the more particular in my quotations out of the eleventh book of Paradise Lost, because it is not generally reckoned among the most shining books of this poem; VOL. II.

from such weighty considerations as these, as it too often unfortunately falls out, the mother is become invincibly persuaded that her son is a great scholar; and that to chain him down to the ordinary methods of education, with others of his age, would be to cramp his faculties, and do an irreparable injury to his wonderful capacity.

'I happened to visit at the house last week, and missing the young gentleman at the teatable, where he seldom fails to officiate, could not upon so extraordinary a circumstance avoid inquiring after him. My lady told me he was gone out with her woman in order to make some preparation for their equipage ; for that she intended very speedily to carry him to "travel." The oddness of the expression shocked me a little; however, I soon recovered myself enough to let her know, that all I was willing to understand by it was, that she designed this summer to show her son his estate in a distant country, in which he had never yet been. But she soon took care to rob me of that agreeable mistake, and let me into the whole affair. She enlarged upon young

10

master's prodigious improvements, and his tages be attained by one who is a mere strancomprehensive knowledge of all book-learn-ger to the customs and policies of his native ing; concluding, that, it was now high time country, and has not yet fixed in his mind the he should be made acquainted with men first principles of manners and behaviour? To and things; that she had resolved he should endeavour it, is to build a gaudy structure withmake the tour of France and Italy, but out any foundation; or, if I may be allowed could not bear to have him out of her sight, the expression, to work a rich embroidery upand therefore intended to go along with him. on a cobweb.

'I was going to rally her for so extravagant 'Another point of travelling, which deserves a resolution, but found myself not in a fit hu- to be considered, is the improving our taste of mour to meddle with a subject that demanded the best authors of antiquity, by seeing the the most soft and delicate touch imaginable. places where they lived, and of which they I was afraid of dropping something that might wrote; to compare the natural face of the seem to bear hard either upon the son's abili- country with the descriptions they have given ties, or the mother's discretion, being sensible us, and observe how well the picture agrees that in both these cases, though supported with with the original. This must certainly be a all the powers of reason, I should, instead of most charming exercise to the mind that is gaining her ladyship over to my opinion, only rightly turned for it; besides that, it may in a expose myself to her disesteem: I therefore good measure be made subservient to morality, immediately determined to refer the whole if the person is capable of drawing just conclumatter to the Spectator. sions concerning the uncertainty of human 'When I came to reflect at night, as my things, from the ruinous alterations time and custom is, upon the occurrences of the day, barbarity have brought upon so many palaces, I could not but believe that this humour of cities, and whole countries, which make the carrying a boy to travel in his mother's lap, most illustrious figures in history. And this and that upon pretence of learning men and hint may be not a little improved by examinthings, is a case of an extraordinary nature, ing every little spot of ground that we find celeand carries on it a peculiar stamp of folly. I brated as the scene of some famous action, or did not remember to have met with its parallel retaining any footsteps of a Cato, Cicero, or within the compass of my observation, though Brutus, or some such great virtuous man. A I could call to mind some not extremely unlike nearer view of any such particular, though reit. From thence my thoughts took occasionally little and trifling in itself, may serve the to ramble into the general notion of travel- more powerfully to warm a generous mind to ling, as it is now made a part of education. an emulation of their virtues, and a greater Nothing is more frequent than to take a lad ardency of ambition to imitate their bright exfrom grammar and taw, and, under the tuition amples, if it comes duly tempered and preof some poor scholar, who is willing to be ba-pared for the impression. But this I benished for thirty pounds a year, and a little lieve you will hardly think those to be, who victuals, send him crying and snivelling into are so far from entering into the sense and foreign countries. Thus he spends his time as spirit of the ancients, that they do not yet children do at puppet-shows, and with much understand their language with any exactthe same advantage, in staring and gaping at ness. * an amazing variety of strange things, strange 'But I have wandered from my purpose, indeed to one who is not prepared to compre-which was only to desire you to save, if posşihend the reasons and meaning of them, whilst ble, a fond English mother, and mother's own he should be laying the solid foundations of son, from being shown a ridiculous spectacle knowledge in his mind, and furnishing it with through the most polite parts of Europe. Pray just rules to direct his future progress in life tell them, that though to be sea-sick, or jumunder some skilful master of the art of in-bled in an outlandish stage-coach, may perstruction. haps be healthful for the constitution of the body, yet it is apt to cause such dizziness in

'Can there be a more astonishing thought in nature, than to consider how men should fall into so palpable a mistake? It is a large field, and may very well exercise a sprightly genius; but I do not remember you have yet taken a turn in it. I wish, Sir, you would make people understand that "travel" is really the last step to be taken in the institution of youth, and that to set out with it, is to begin where they should end.

*The following paragraph, in the first edition of this paper in folio, was afterwards suppressed. It is here reprinted from the Spect. in folio, No. 364. ments to one of the most entertaining pieces this age has 'I cannot quit this head without paying my acknowledgproduced for the pleasure it gave me. You will easily guess that the book I have in my head is Mr. Addison's Remarks upon Italy. That ingenious gentleman has with of all the parts of classical learning, to illustrate the seveso much art and judgment applied his exact knowledge ral occurrences of his travels, that his work alone is a pregnant proof of what I have said. Nobody that has a taste this way, can read him going from Rome to Naples, and making Horace and Silius Italicus his chart, but he

Certainly the true end of visiting foreign parts, is to look into their customs and policies, and observe in what particulars they excel or come short of our own; to unlearn some odd peculiarities in our manners, and wear off such must feel some uneasiness in himselfto reflect that he was awkward stiffnesses and affectations in our be-not in his retinue. I am sure I wished it ten times in haviour, as possibly may have been contracted every page, and that not without a secret vanity to think from constantly associating with one nation of in what state I should have travelled the Appian road, with Horace for a guide, and in company with a counmen, by a more free, general, and mixed con-tryman of my own, who, of all men living, knows best versation. But how can any of these advan-how to follow his steps.