thought in the third stanza was never touched by any other poet, and is such an one as would have shined in Homer or in Virgil. So thus did both these nobles die, He had a bow bent in his hand, Against Sir Hugh Montgomery This fight did last from break of day For when they rung the evening bell One may observe likewise, that in the catalogue of the slain the author has followed the example of the greatest ancient poets, not only in giving a long list of the dead, but by diversifying it with little characters of particular persons. And with Earl Douglas there was slain Sir Hugh Montgomery, Sir Charles Carrell, that from the field Sir Charles Murrell of Ratcliff too, His sister's son was he, Sir David Lamb, so well esteemed, Yet saved could not be. The familiar sound in these names destroys the majesty of the description; for this reason I do 389 not mention this part of the poem but to show the natural cast of thought which appears in it, as the two last verses look almost like a translation of Virgil: Cadit et Ripheus justissimus unus 2 1 In the catalogue of the English who fell, Witherington's behaviour is in the same manner particularised very artfully, as the reader is prepared for it by that account which is given of him in the beginning of the battle; though I am satisfied your little buffoon readers (who have seen that passage ridiculed in Hudibras') will not be able to take the beauty of it: for which reason I dare not so much as quote it. Then stepped a gallant squire forth, Who said, I would not have it told That e'er my captain fought on foot, We meet with the same heroic sentiment in Virgil. Non pudet, O Rutuli, cunctis pro talibus unam 1 En., ii. 426. ? 2 The remainder of this paragraph was added when the Spectator was reprinted in volumes. 3 'Hudibras,' Part I. Book iii. 97. The bear fought on desperately 4 Æn., 'As Widdrington, in doleful dumps, xii. 229. What can be more natural or more moving, than the circumstances in which he describes the behaviour of those women who had lost their husbands on this fatal day? Next day did many widows come They washed their wounds in brinish tears, Their bodies bathed in purple blood They bore with them away; They kissed them dead a thousand times, Thus we see how the thoughts of this poem, which naturally arise from the subject, are always simple, and sometimes exquisitely noble; that the language is often very sounding, and that the whole is written with a true poetical spirit. If this song had been written in the Gothic manner, which is the delight of all our little wits, whether writers or readers, it would not have hit the taste of so many ages, and have pleased the readers of all ranks and conditions. I shall only beg pardon for such a profusion of Latin quotations; which I should not have made use of, but that I feared my own judgment would have looked too singular on such a subject, had not I supported it by the practice and authority of Virgil. C. No. 75. Saturday, May 26, 1711 [STEELE. Omnis Aristippum decuit color, et status, et res. T was with some mortification that I suffered the raillery of a fine lady of my acquaintance, for calling, in one of my papers,1 Dorimant a clown. She was so unmerciful as to take advantage of my invincible taciturnity, and on that occasion, with great freedom to consider the air, the height, the face, the gesture of him who could pretend to judge so arrogantly of gallantry. She is full of motion, jaunty and lively in her impertinence, and one of those that commonly pass, among the ignorant, for persons who have a great deal of humour. She had the play of Sir Fopling' in her hand, and after she had said it was happy for her there was not so charming a creature as Dorimant now living, she began with a theatrical tone of voice to read, by way of triumph over me, some of his speeches. 'Tis she, that lovely hair, that easy shape, those wanton eyes, and all those melting charms about her mouth, which Medley spoke of; I'll follow the lottery, and put in for a prize with my friend Bellair. I wille w of some e lady of "In love the victors from the vanquished fly; They fly that wound, and they pursue that die." Then turning over the leaves, she reads alternately and speaks : ""And you and Loveit to her cost shall find, I fathom all the depths of womankind." 1 No. 65. 'Oh the fine gentleman! But here,' continues she, 'is the passage I admire most, where he begins to tease Loveit, and mimic Sir Fopling. Oh the pretty satire, in his resolving to be a coxcomb to please, since noise and nonsense have such powerful charms' "I, that I may successful prove, Transform myself to what you love." 'Then how like a man of the town, so wild and gay is that "The wife will find a difference in our fate ; You wed a woman, I a good estate.' It would have been a very wild endeavour for a man of my temper to offer any opposition to so nimble a speaker as my fair enemy is, but her discourse gave me very many reflections, when I had left her company. Among others, I could not but consider, with some attention, the false impressions the generality (the fair sex more especially) have of what should be intended, when they say a fine gentleman; and could not help revolving that subject in my thoughts, and settling, as it were, an idea of that character in my own imagination. No man ought to have the esteem of the rest of the world, for any actions which are disagreeable to those maxims which prevail as the standards of behaviour, in the country wherein he lives. What is opposite to the eternal rules of reason and good sense, must be excluded from any place in the carriage of a well-bred man. I did not, I confess, explain myself enough on this subject, when I called Dorimant a clown, and made it an instance of it, that he called the orange wench Double Tripe: I |