me in the quality of a love-casuist; for which place he conceives himself to be thoroughly qualified, having made this passion his principal study, and observed it in all its different shapes and appearances from the fifteenth to the forty-fifth year of his age. after our manner or notions of existence. Reve- "In the first revelation which he makes of his own being, he entitles himself, "I Am that I Am;' and when Moses desires to know what name he shall give him in his embassy to Pharaoh, he bids him say, that I Am hath sent you.' Our great Creator, by this revelation of himself, does in a manner exclude everything else from a real existence, and distinguishes himself from his creatures as the only being which truly and really exists. The ancient Platonic notion, which was drawn from speculations of eternity, wonderfully agrees with this revelation which God has made of himself. There is nothing, say they, which in reality exists, whose existence, as we call it, is pieced up of past, present, and to come. Such a flitting and successive existence, is rather a shadow of existence, and something which is like it, than existence itself. He only properly exists whose exist ence is entirely present; that is, in other words, who exists in the most perfect manner, and in such a manner as we have no idea of. "I shall conclude this speculation with one useful inference. How can we sufficiently prostrate ourselves and fall down before our Maker, when we consider that ineffable goodness and wisdom which contrived this existence for finite natures? What must be the overflowings of that good-will, which prompted our Creator to adapt existence to beings in whom it is not necessary; especially when we consider that he himself was before in the complete possession of existence and of happiness, and in the full enjoyment of eternity. What man can think of himself as called out and separated from nothing, of his being made a conscious, a reasonable, and a happy creature; in short, of being taken in as a sharer of existence, and a kind of partner in eternity, without being swallowed up in wonder, in praise, in adoration! It is indeed a thought too big for the mind of man, and rather to be entertained in the secrecy of devotion, and in the silence of the soul, than to be expressed by words. The supreme Being has not given us powers or faculties sufficient to extol and magnify such unutterable goodness. "It is however some comfort to us, that we shall be always doing what we shall never be able to do; and that a work which cannot be finished, will however be the work of eternity," No. 591.] WEDNESDAY, SEPT. 8, 1714. OVID, Trist. 3 El. li. 73. If my invention, therefore, should be almost exhausted on this head, he offers to serve under | He assures me with an air of confidence, which hope proceeds from his real abilities, that be does not doubt of giving judgment to the satisfaction of the parties concerned on the most nice and intricate cases which can happen in an amour: as, How great the contraction of the fingers must be before it amounts to a squeeze by the hand. from a maid, and what from a widow. What can be properly termed an absolute denial What advances a lover may presume to make, after having received a pat upon his shoulder from his mistress's fan. Whether a lady, at the first interview, may allow a humble servant to kiss her hand. in order to succeed with the mistress. What constructions a man may put upon a smile, As a further proof of his skill, he also sent me several maxims in love, which he assures me are the result of a long and profound reflection, some of which I think myself obliged to communicate to the public, not remembering to have seen them before in any author: "There are more calamities in the world arising from love than from hatred. "Love is the daughter of Idleness, but the mother of Disquietude. 66 Men of grave natures, says Sir Francis Bacon, are the most constant; for the same reason men should be more constant than women. The gay part of mankind is most amorous, the serious most loving. "A coquette often loses her reputation while she preserves her virtue. A prude often preserves her reputation when she has lost her virtue. "Love refines a man's behavior, but makes a woman's ridiculous. "Love is generally accompanied with good-will in the young, interest in the middle-aged, and a passion too gross to name in the old. "The endeavors to revive a decaying passion generally extinguish the remains of it. "A woman who from being a slattern becomes overneat, or from being overneat becomes a slattern, is most certainly in love." I shall make use of this gentleman's skill as I see occasion; and since I am got upon the subject of love, shall conclude this paper with a copy of verses which were lately sent me by an unknown hand, as I look upon them to be above the ordinary run of sonneteers. The author tells me they were written in one of his despairing fits; and I find entertains some hope that his mistress may pity such a passion as he has described, before she knows that she is herself Corinna: Conceal, fond man, conceal the mighty smart, In vain wouldst thou complain, in vain pretend Thou must submit to see thy charmer bless No. 592.] FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 1714. -Studium sine divite vena.-HOR. Ars Poet. ver. 409 Art without a vein.-ROSCOMMON. I LOOK upon the playhouse as a world within itself. They have lately furnished the middle region of it with a new set of meteors, in order to give the sublime to many modern tragedies. I was there last winter at the first rehearsal of the new thunder, which is much more deep and sonorous than any hitherto made use of. They have a Salmoneus behind the scenes who plays it off with great success. Their lightnings are made to flash more briskly than heretofore; their clouds are also better furbelowed, and more voluminous; not to mention a violent storm locked up in a great chest, that is designed for the Tempest. They are also provided with above a dozen showers of snow, which, as I am informed, are the plays of many unsuccessful poets artificially cut and shredded for that use. Mr. Rymer's Edgar is to fall in snow at the next acting of King Lear, in order to heighten, or rather to alleviate, the distress of that unfortunate prince; and to serve by way of decoration to a piece which that great critic has written against. I do not indeed wonder that the actors should be such professed enemies to those among our nation who are commonly known by the name of critics, since it is a rule among these gentlemen to fall upon a play, not because it is ill written, but because it takes. Several of them lay it down as a maxim, that whatever dramatic performance has a long run, must of necessity be good for nothing; as though the first precept in poetry were "not to please." Whether this rule holds good or not, I shall leave to the determination of those who are better judges than myself; if it does, I am sure it tends very much to the honor of those gentlemen who have established it; few of their pieces having been disgraced by a run of three days, and most of them being so exquisitely written, that the town would never give them more than one night's hearing. I have a great esteem for a true critic, such as Aristotle and Longinus among the Greeks; Horace and Quintilian among the Romans; Boileau and Dacier among the French. But it is our misfortune that some, who set up for professed critics among us, are so stupid, that they do not know how to put ten words together with elegance or common propriety; and withal so illiterate, that they have no taste of the learned languages, and therefore criticise upon old authors only at second-hand. They judge of them by what others have written, and not by any notions they have of the authors themselves. The words unity, action, sentiment, and diction, pronounced with an air of authority, give them a figure among unlearned readers, who *The author of these verses was Gilbert, the second brother of Eustace Budgell, Esq. +Apparently an allusion to Mr. Dennis' new and improved method of making thunder; at whom several oblique strokes in this paper seemed to have been aimed. are apt to believe they are very deep because they are unintelligible. The ancient critics are full of the praises of their cotemporaries; they discover beauties which escaped the observation of the vulgar, and very often find out reasons for palliating and excusing such little slips and oversights as were committed in the writings of eminent authors. On the contrary, most of the smatterers in criticism, who appear among us, make it their business to vilify and depreciate every new production that gains applause, to decry imaginary blemishes, and to prove, by far-fetched arguments, that what pass for beauties in any celebrated piece are faults and errors. In short, the writings of these critics, compared with those of the ancients, are like the works of the sophists compared with those of the old philosophers. and ignorance; which was probably the reason, Envy and cavil are the natural fruits of laziness that in the heathen mythology, Momus is said to be the son of Nox and Somnus, of darkness and sleep. Idle men, who have not been at the pains to accomplish or distinguish themselves, are very apt to detract from others; as ignorant men are very subject to decry those beauties in a celebrated work which they have not eyes to discover. Many the name of critics, are the genuine descendants of our sons of Momus, who dignify themselves by of these two illustrious ancestors. They are often daily instruct the people, by not considering that, led into those numerous absurdities in which they first, there is sometimes a greater judgment shown them; and, secondly, that there is more beauty in in deviating from the rules of art than in adhering to the works of a great genius, who is ignorant of all the rules of art, than in the works of a little genius, who not only knows but scrupulously ob serves them. First, We may often take notice of men who are perfectly acquainted with all the rules of good writing, and notwithstanding choose to depart from them on extraordinary occasions. I could give instances out of all the tragic writers of antiquity who have shown their judgment in this fished rule of the drama, when it has made way particular; and purposedly receded from an estabfor a much higher beauty than the observation of such a rule would have been. Those who have surveyed the noblest pieces of architecture and statuary, both ancient and modern, know very well works of the greatest masters, which have prothat there are frequent deviations from art in the duced a much nobler effect than a more accurate and exact way of proceeding could have done. This often arises from what the Italians call the gusto grande in these arts, which is what we call the sublime in writing. In the next place, our critics do not seem sensible that there is more beauty in the works of a great genius, who is ignorant of the rules of art, observes them. It is of these men of genius that than in those of a little genius, who knows and Terence speaks, in opposition to the little artificial cavilers of his time: Quorum æmulari exoptat negligentiam Whose negligence he would rather imitate than these success of his play as Dr. South tells us a physiA critic may have the same consolation in the ill cian has at the death of a patient, that he was killed secundum artem. Our inimitable Shakspeare is a stumbling-block to the whole tribe of these rigid critics. Who would not rather read one of his plays, where there is not a single rule of the stage observed, than any production of a modern critic, where there is not one of them violated! Shakspeare was indeed born with all the seeds of | vicissitude of sleeping and waking as in the pres poetry, and may be compared to the stone in ent world, the dreams of its inhabitants would be Pyrrhus' ring, which as Pliny tells us, had the very happy. figure of Apollo and the nine Muses in the veins. And so far at present our dreams are in power, of it, produced by the spontaneous hand of nature, that they are generally conformable to our waking without any help from art. thoughts, so that it is not impossible to convey ourselves to a concert of music, the conversation of distant friends, or any other entertainment which has been before lodged in the mind. No. 593.] MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 1714. Thus wander travelers in woods by night, By the moon's doubtful and malignant light.-DRYDEN. Mr dreaming correspondent, Mr. Shadow, has sent me a second letter, with several curious observations on dreams in general, and the method to render sleep improving; an extract of his letter will not, I presume, be disagreeable to my readers. "Since we have so little time to spare, that none of it may be lost, I see no reason why we should neglect to examine those imaginary scenes we are presented with in sleep, only because they have less reality in them than our waking meditations. A traveler would bring his judgment in question, who should despise the directions of his map for want of real roads in it, because here stands a dot instead of a town, or a cipher instead of a city; and it must be a long day's journey to travel through two or three inches. Fancy in dreams give us much such another landscape of life as that does of countries; and though its appearances may seem strangely jumbled together, we may often observe such traces and footsteps of noble thoughts, as, if carefully pursued, might lead us into a proper path of action. There is so much rapture and ecstasy in our fancied bliss, and something so dismal and shocking in our fancied misery, that, though the inactivity of the body has given occasion for calling sleep the image of death, the briskness of the fancy affords us a strong intimation of something within us that can never die. "I have wondered that Alexander the Great, who came into the world sufficiently dreamed of by his parents, and had himself a tolerable knack at dreaming, should often say that sleep was one thing which made him sensible he was mortal. I, who have not such fields of action in the daytime to divert my attention from this matter, plainly perceive that in those operations of the mind, while the body is at rest, there is a certain vastness of conception very suitable to the capacity, and demonstrative of the force of that divine part in our composition which will last forever. Neither do I much doubt but, had we a true account of the wonders the hero last mentioned performed in his sleep, his conquering this little globe would hardly be worth mentioning. I may affirm, without vanity, that, when I compare several actions in Quintus Curtius with some others in my own noctuary, I appear the greater hero of the two." I shall close this subject with observing, that while we are awake we are at liberty to fix our thoughts on what we please, but in sleep we have not the command of them. The ideas which strike the fancy arise in us without our choice, either from the occurrences of the day past, the temper we lie down in, or it may be the direction of some superior being. It is certain the imagination may be so differently affected in sleep, that our actions of the day might be either rewarded or punished with a little opinion that, if in Paradise there was the same age of happiness or misery. St. Austin was of My readers, by applying these hints, will find the necessity of making a good day of it, if they heartily wish themselves a good night. I have considered Marcia's prayer, and Lucius's account of Cato, in this light: Marc. O ye immortal powers that guard the just, Mr. Shadow acquaints me in a postscript, that he has no manner of title to the vision which suc ceeded his first letter; but adds, that, as the gen tleman who wrote it dreams very sensibly, he shall be glad to meet him some night or other, under the great elm-tree, by which Virgil has given us a fine metaphorical image of sleep, in order to turn over a few of the leaves together, and oblige the public with an account of the dreams that lie under them. No. 594.] WEDNESDAY, SEPT. 15, 1714. Qui non defendit, alio culpante; solutos He that shall rail against his absent friends, Tells tales, and brings his friends in disesteem; should find that a great part of them proceed from WERE all the vexations of life put together, we those calumnies and reproaches which we spread abroad concerning one another. There is scarce a man living, who is not, in some degree, guilty of this offense; though at the be confessed, that we all consent in speaking ill same time, however we treat one another, it must of the persons who are notorious for this practice. It generally takes its rise either from an ill-will to mankind, a private inclination to make ourselves esteemed, an ostentation of wit, and vanity of be ing thought in the secrets of the world; or from a desire of gratifying any of these dispositions of mind in those persons with whom we converse. The publisher of scandal is more or less odions to mankind, and criminal in himself, as he is influenced by any one or more of the foregoing mo tives. But, whatever may be the occasion of spreading these false reports, he ought to consider that the effect of them is equally prejudicial and pernicious to the person at whom they are aimed. The injury is the same, though the principle from whence it proceeds may be different. As every one looks upon himself with too much thoughts or actions, and as very few would be indulgence when he passes a judgment on his own thought guilty of this abominable proceeding, mon discretion. I shall only add, that whatever which is so universally practiced, and at the same pleasure any man may take in spreading whispers time so universally blamed, I shall lay down three of this nature, he will find an infinitely greater rules, by which I would have a man examine and satisfaction in conquering the temptation he is search into his own heart, before he stands acquit- under, by letting the secret die within his own ted to himself of that evil disposition of mind breast. which I am here mentioning. First of all, Let him consider whether he does not take delight in hearing the faults of others. Secondly, Whether he is not too apt to believe such little blackening accounts, and more inclined to be credulous on the uncharitable than on the good-natured side. Thirdly, Whether he is not ready to spread and propagate such reports as tend to the disreputation of another. These are the several steps by which this vice proceeds and grows up into slander and defamation. In the first place, a man who takes delight in hearing the faults of others, shows sufficiently that he has a true relish of scandal, and consequently the seeds of this vice, within him. If his mind is gratified with hearing the reproaches which are cast on others, he will find the same pleasure in relating them, and be the more apt to do it, as he will naturally imagine every one he converses with is delighted in the same manner with himself. A man should endeavor, therefore, to wear out of his mind this criminal curiosity, which is perpetually heightened and inflamed by listening to such stories as tend to the disreputation of others. In the second place, a man should consult his own heart whether he be not apt to believe such little blackening accounts, and more inclined to be credulous on the uncharitable than on the goodnatured side. Such a credulity is very vicious in itself, and generally arises from a man's consciousness of his own secret corruptions. It is a pretty saying of Thales, "Falsehood is just as far distant from truth as the ears are from the eyes."* By which he would intimate, that a wise man should not easily give credit to the reports of actions which he has not seen. I shall, under this head, mention two or three remarkable rules to be observed by the members of the celebrated Abby de la Trappe, as they are published in a little French book.t The fathers are there ordered never to give an ear to any accounts of base or criminal actions; to turn off all such discourse if possible; but, in case they hear anything of this nature, so well attested that they cannot disbelieve it, they are then to suppose that the criminal action may have proceeded from a good intention in him who is guilty of it. This is, perhaps, carrying charity to an extravagance; but it is certainly much more laudable than to suppose, as the ill-natured part of the world does, that indifferent and even good actions proceed from bad principles and wrong intentions. In the third place, a man should examine his heart, whether he does not find in it a secret inclination to propagate such reports as tend to the disreputation of another. No. 595.] FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 1714. -Nature, and the common laws of sense, Or make a snake engender with a dove, In order to set this matter in a clear light to every reader, I shall in the first place observe, that a metaphor is a simile in one word, which serves to convey the thoughts of the mind under resemblances and images which affect the senses. There is not anything in the world which may not be compared to several things, if considered in several distinct lights; or, in other words, the same thing may be expressed by different metaphors. But the mischief is, that an unskillful author shall run these metaphors so absurdly into one another, that there shall be no simile, no agreeable picture, no apt resemblance; but confusion, obscurity, and noise. Thus I have known a hero compared to a thunderbolt, a lion, and the sea; all and each of them proper metaphors for impetuosity, courage, or force. But by bad management it hath so happened, that the thunderbolt hath overflowed its banks, the lion hath been darted through the skies, and the billows have rolled out of the Libyan desert. The absurdity in this instance is obvious. And yet every time that clashing metaphors are put together, this fault is committed more or less. It hath already been said, that metaphors are images of things which affect the senses. An image, therefore, taken from what acts upon the sight, cannot, without violence, be applied to the hearing; and so of the rest. It is no less an impropriety to make any being in nature or art to do things in its metaphorical state, which it could not do in its original. I shall illustrate what I have said by an instance which I have read more than once in controversial writers. "The heavy lashes," saith a celebrated author, "that have dropped from your pen," etc. I suppose this gentleman having frequently heard of "gall dropping from a pen, and being lashed in a satire," he was resolved to have them both at any rate, and so uttered this complete piece of nonsense. It will most effectually discover the absurdity of these monstrous unions, if we will suppose these metaphors or images actually painted. Imagine then a hand holding a pen, and several lashes of whipcord falling from it, and you have the true representation of this sort of eloquence. I believe, by this very +Felibien. Description de l'Abbaye de la Trappe, Paris, 1671: reprinted in 1682. It is a letter of M. Felibien to the Duchess rule, a reader may be able to judge of the union of of Liancourt. all metaphors watsoever, and determine which are When the disease of the mind, which I have hitherto been speaking of, arises to this degree of malignity, it discovers itself in its worst symptom, and is in danger of becoming incurable. I need not, therefore, insist upon the guilt in this last particular, which every one cannot but disapprove, who is not void of humanity, or even com *St Lai Serm. 61. There is yet one evil more which I must take cise of, and that is the running of metaphors innoted, las allegones; which, though an error on the better hand, causes confusion as much as the uber. This becomes abominable, when the luster of one word leads a writer out of his road, and makes him wander from his subject for a page to gether I remember a young fellow of this turn, who, having said by chance that his mistress had a world of charms, thereupon took occasion to ender her as one possessed of frigid and torrid zes, and pursued her from the one pole to the I shall conclude this paper with a letter written in that enormous style, which I hope my reader hath by this time set his heart against. The epistle hath heretofore received great applause; but after what hath been said, let any man commend it if he dare. | "After the many heavy lashes that have fallen rom your pen, you may justly expect in return all the load that my ink can lay upon your shoulders. You have quartered all the foul language upon me that could have raked out of the air of Billingsgate, without knowing who I am, or whether I deserved to be cupped and scarified at this rate. I tell you once for all, turn your eyes where you please, you shall never smell me out. Do you think that the panics, which you sow about the parish, will ever build a monument to your glory? No, Sir, you may fight these battles as long as you will; but when yon come to balance the account, you will find that you have been fishing in troubled waters, and that an ignis fatuus hath bewildered you, and that indeed you have built upon a sandy foundation, and brought your hogs to a fair market. "I am, Sir, yours," etc. No. 596.] MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 1714. Molle meum levibus cor est violabile telis. Cupid's light darts my tender bosom move.—POPE. THE case of my correspondent, who sends me the following letter, has somewhat in it so very whimsical, that I know not how to entertain my readers better than by laying it before them: "SIB, Middle Temple, Sept. 18. "I am fully convinced that there is not upon earth a more impertinent creature than an importunate lover. We are daily complaining of the severity of our fate to people who are wholly unconcerned in it; and hourly improving a passion, which we would persuade the world is the torment of our lives. Notwithstanding this reflection, Sir, I cannot forbear acquainting you with my own case. You must know then, Sir, that, even from my childhood, the most prevailing inclination I could perceive in myself was a strong desire to be in favor with the fair sex. I am at present in the one-and-twentieth year of my age; and should have made choice of a she bedfellow many years since, had not my father, who has a pretty good estate of his own getting, and passes in the world for a prudent man, been pleased to lay it down as a maxim, that nothing spoils a young fellow's fortune so soon as marrying early; and that no man ought to think of wedlock until six-and-twenty. Knowing his sentiments upon his head, I thought it in vain to apply myself to women of condition who expect settlements; so that all my amours have hitherto been with ladies who had no fortunes; but I know not how to give you so good an idea of me, as by laying before you the history of my life. "I can very well remember, that at my schoolmistress's, whenever we broke up, I was always for joining myself with the miss who lay-in, and was constantly one of the first to make a party in the play of Husband and Wife. This passion for being well with the females still increased as I advanced in years. At the dancing-school I contracted so many quarrels by struggling with my fellow-scholars for the partner I liked best, that upon a ball-night, before our mothers made their appearance, I was usually up to the nose in blood. My father, like a discreet man, soon removed me from this stage of softness to a school of discipline, where I learnt Latin and Greek. I underwent sev eral severities in this place, until it was thought convenient to send me to the university; though, to confess the truth, I should not have arrived so early at that seat of learning, but from the discovery of an intrigue between me and my master's housekeeper; upon whom I had employed my rhetoric so effectually, that, though she was a very elderly lady, I had almost brought her to consent to marry me. Upon my arrival at Oxford, I found logic so dry, that instead of giving attention to the dead, I soon fell to addressing the living. My first amour was with a pretty girl whom I shall call Parthenope; her mother sold ale by the town-wall. Being often caught there by the proctor, I was forced at last, that my mistress's reputation might receive no blemish, to confess my addresses were honorable. Upon this I was immediately sent home; but Parthenope soon after marrying a shoemaker, I was again suffered to return. My next affair was with my tailor's daughter, who deserted me for the sake of a young barber. Upon my complaining to one of my particular friends of this misfortune, the cruel wag made a mere jest of my calamity, and asked me with a smile, where the needle should turn but to the pole?* After this I was deeply in love with a milliner, and at last with my bed-maker; upon which I was sent away, or, in the university phrase, rusticated forever. "Upon my coming home, I settled to my studies so heartily, and contracted so great a reservedness by being kept from the company I most affected, that my father thought he might venture me at the Temple. "Within a week after my arrival, I began to shine again, and became enamored with a mighty pretty creature, who had everything but money to recommend her. Having frequent opportunities of uttering all the soft things which a heart formed for love could inspire me with, I soon gained her consent to treat of marriage; but unfortunately for us all, in the absence of my charmer I usually talked the same language to her eldest sister, who is also very pretty. Now I assure you, Mr. Spectator, this did not proceed from any real affection I had conceived for her; but, being a perfect stranger to the conversation of men, and strongly addicted to associate with the women, I knew no other language but that of love. I should, however be very much obliged to you if you could free me from the perplexity I am at present in. I have sent word to my old gentleman in the country that I am desperately in love with the younger sister; and her father, who knew no better, poor man, acquainted him by the same post, that I had for some time made my addresses to the elder. Upon * The common sign of a barber's shop. |