crofs my amorous inclinations. The lady is confined to her chamber, and for my part I 6 am ready to hang myfelf with the thoughts that I have danced myself out of favour with ⚫ her father, I hope you will pardon the trouble I give; but fhall take it for a mighty favour, if you will give me a little more of your advice to put me in a right way to cheat the old dragon and obtain my miftrefs. I am once Sir, Your very humble fervant, O be a very well bred man. Mr. Spectator, 'N. B.' The Spectator. to know that I am naturally of this claim in the audience, and let us know when we may cry Altro Volto," Anglice, "again, again," for the future. I am an Englishman, and expect fome reafon or other to be given me, and perhaps an ordinary one may ferve;but I expeЯ your answer. 'I am, Sir, ་ Your most humb le fervant, OV must give me leave, amongst the rest of your temale correfpondents, to addrefs you about an affair which has already given you many a fpeculation; and which, I know, I need not tell you have had a very happy influence over the adult part of our fex: but as many of us are either too old to learn, or too obftinate in the purfuit of the vanities, wh ch have been bred up with us from our infancy, and all of us qutting the ftage whilft you are prompting us to act our part well; you ought, methinks, rather to turn your intructions for the benefit of that part of our fex who are yet in their native innocence, and ignorant of the vices and that variety of unhappineffes that reign amongst us. I must tell you, Mr. Spectator, that it is as much a part of your office to overfee the education of the female part of the nation, as well as of the male; and to convince the world you are not partial, may proceed to detect the maladministration of governeffcs as fuccefsfully as you have expofed that of pedagogues; and forefcue our fex from the prejudice and tyranny of education as well as that of your own, who without your seasonable interpofition are like to improve upon the vices that are now in vogue, I who know the dignity of your poft, as Spectator, and the authority a skilful eye ought to bear in the female world, could not forbear 'confulting you, and beg your advice in fo critical a point, as is that of the education of young gentlewomen, Having already provid⚫ed myself with a very convenient house in a good air, I am not without hope but that you will promote this generous defign. I must 'farther tell you, Sir, that all who fhall be com'mitted to my conduct, befides the usual ac'complishments of the needle, dancing, and the French tongue, fhall not fail to be your con. ftant readers. It is therefore my humble petition, that you will entertain the town on this 'important fubject, and fo far oblige a stranger, as to raise a curiofity and inquiry in my be half, by publishing the following advertisement. Ybrave, and love fighting as well as any man in England. This gallant temper of mine makes me extremely delighted with bat❝tles on the stage. I give you this trouble to complain to you, that Nicolini refufed to ⚫ gratify me in that part of the opera for which I have most taste. I obferve it is become a custom, that whenever any gentlemen are ⚫ particularly pleased with a fong, at their crying out Encore, or Altro Volto, the performer is fo obliging as to fing it over again. I was at the opera the last time Hydafpes was performed. At that part of it where the hero engages with the lion, the graceful manner with which he 'put that terrible monster to death, gave me fo great a pleasure, and at the fame time so just a fenfe of that gentleman's intrepidity and conduct, that I could not forbear defiring a repetition of it, by crying out Altro Volto, in a very audible voice; and my friends flatter me that I pronounced thofe words with a tolerable good accent, confidering that was but the third opera I had ever feen in my life. Yet, notwithstanding all this, there was fo little regard had to me, that the lion was carried off, and went to bed, without being killed any more that night. Now, Sir, pray confider ⚫ that I did not understand a word of what Mr. Nicolini faid to this cruel creature; befides I ⚫ have no ear for mufic; fo that during the long 66 difpute between them, the whole entertainment I had was from my eyes; why then have not I as much right to have graceful action repeated as another has a pleasing found, fince he only hears as I only fee, and we nei. ther of us know that there is any reasonable thing a doing? Pray, Sir, fettle the bufinefs <<of the vigilance and ability of the perfons con❝cerned, may inquire at the two Golden-Balls, on Mile-End-Green, near Stepney, where they "will receive further fatisfaction. fion, and in a clearer and stronger light than I ever met with in any other writer. As these points are dry in themselves to the generality of readers, the concife and clear manner in which “This is to give notice, that the Spectator has he has treated them, is very much to be ad” taken upon him to be visitant of all boarding-mired, as is likewife that particular art which "schools where young women are educated; he has made ufe of in the interfperfing of all " and defigns to proceed in the said office after thofe graces of poetry, which the fubject was "the fame manner that vifitants of colleges do capable of receiving. in the two famous univerfities of this land. "All lovers who write to the Spectator, are "defired to forbear one expreffion which is in "most of the letters to him, either out of lazi"nefs or want of invention, and is true of not above two thoufand women in the whole "world; viz. She has in her all that is va4luable in woman." T No 315. SATURDAY, March. 1. Nec deus interfit, nifi dignus vindice nodus Never prefume to make a God appear, ROSCOMMON. The furvey of the whole creation, and of every thing that is tranfacted in it, is a profpect worthy of omniscience; and as much above that, in which Virgil has drawn his Jupiter, as the chriftian idea of the Supreme Being is more rational and fublime than that of the heathens. The particular objects on which he is defcribed to have caft his eye, are reprefented in the most beautiful and lively manner, Now had th' Almighty Father from above High thron'd above all height, bent down his eye, ORACE advifes a poer to confider Hthoroughly the nature and force of his genius. Milton feems to have known perfectly well, wherein his ftrength lay, and has therefore chofen a fubject intirely conformable to thofe talents of which he was master. As his genius was wonderfully turned to the fublime, his fubject is the nobleft that could have entered into the thoughts of man. Every thing that is truly great and aftonishing, has a place in it. The whole fyftem of the intellectual world; the chaos, and the creation: heaven, earth, and hell; enter into the conftitution of his poem. Having in the first and fecond books reprefented the infernal world with all its horrors, the thread of his fable naturally leads him into the oppofite regions of blifs and glory. if Milton's majesty forfakes him any where, it is in thofe parts of his poem, where the divine perfons are introduced as fpeakers, One may, I think, obferve, that the author proceeds with a kind of fear and trembling, whilft he defcribes the fentiments of the Almighty. He dares not give his imagination its full play, but chufes to confine himself to fuch thoughts as are drawn from the books of the most orthodox divines and to fuch expreffions as may be met with in fcrip. ture. The beauties, therefore, which we are to look for in thefe fpeeches, are not of a poetical nature, nor fo proper to fill the mind with fentiments of grandeur, as with thoughts of devotion. The paffions, which they are defigned to raife, are a divine love and religious fear. The particular beauty of the fpeeches in the third book, confifts in that fhortnefs and perfpicuity of ftile, in which the poet has couched the greatest myfteries of chriftianity, and drawn together, in a regular scheme, the whole difpenfation of Providence with refpect to man. He has reprefented all the abftrufe doctrines of predeftination, free-will and grace, as alfo the great points of incarnation and redemption, which naturally grow up in a poem that treats of the fall of man, with great energy of expref. Satan's approach to the confines of the creation is finely imaged in the beginning of the fpeech which immediately follows, The effects of this fpeech in the bleffed fpirits, and in the divine perfon to whom it was addreffed, cannot but fill the mind of the reader with a fecret pleafure and complacency, Thus while God spake, ambrofial fragrance fill'd I need not point out the beauty of that cir. cumftance, wherein the whole hoft of angels are reprefented as ftanding mute; nor fhew how proper the occafion was to produce fuch a fis lence in heaven. The ciofe of this divine colloquy, with the hymn of angels that follows upon it, are fo wonderfully beautiful and poetical, that I fhould not forbear inferting the whole paffage, if the bounds of my paper would give me leave. No fooner had th' Almighty ceafed, but all (Loud as from numbers without number, fweet As from bleft voices) utt'ring joy, heav'n rung With jubilee, and loud hofannas fill'd Th' eternal regions; &c. &c.Satan's walk upon the outfide of the univerfe, which at a distance appeared to him of a globujar form, but, upon his nearer approach, looked like an unbounded plain, is natural and noble: as his roaming upon the frontiers of the creation between that mafs of matter, which was wrought into a world, and that fhapeless unformed heap of materials, which ftill lay in chaos and confufion, ftrikes the imagination with fomething aftonishingly great and wild. I have before fpoken of the limbo of vanity, which the poet places upon this outermoft fur face of the univerfe, and fhall here explain my felf more at large on that, and other parts of the poem, which are of the fame fhadowy na ture. Ariftotle obferves, that the fable of an epic poem should abound in circumftances that are both credible and aftonishing; or as the French critics choose to phrafe it, the fable fhould be filled with the probable and the marvellous. This rule is as fine and just as any in Ariftotle's whole art of poetry." If the fable is only probable, it differs nothing from a true history; if it is only marvellous it is no better than a romance. The great fe cret therefore of heroic poetry is to relate fuch circumstances as may produce in the reader at the fame time both belief and aftonishment. This is brought to pafs in a well chofen fable, by the account of fuch things as have really happened, or at leaft of fuch things as have happened according to the received opinions of mankind. Milton's fable is a mafter-piece of this nature; as the war in heaven, the condition of the fallen angels, the ftate of innocence, the temptation of the ferpent, and the fall of man, though they are very aftonishing in themselves, are not only credible, but actual points of faith. The next method of reconciling miracles with credibility, is by a happy invention of the poet; as in particular, when he introduces agents of à fuperior nature, who are capable of effecting what is wonderful, and what is not to be met with in the ordinary courfe of things, Ulyffes's fhip being turned into a rock, and Æneas's fleet into a fhoal of water-nymphs, though they are very furprising accidents, are nevertheless probable when we are told that they were the gods who thus transformed them. It is this kind of machinery which fills the poems both of Homer and Virgil with fuch circumftances as are wonderful but not impoffible, and fo frequently produce in the reader the most pleasing paffion that can rife in the mind of man, which is admiration. If there be any inftance in the Eneid liable to exception upon this account, it is in the beginning of the third book, where Aneas is reprefented as tearing up the myrtle that dropped blood. To qualify this wonderful circumftance, Polydorus tells a story from the root of the myrtle, that the barbarous inhabitants of the country having pierced him with fpears and arrows, the wood which was left in his body took root in his wounds, and gave birth to that bleeding tree. This circumstance feems to have the marvellous without the probable, because it is reprefented as proceeding from natural caufes, without the interpofition of any God, or other fupernatural power capable of producing it. The fpears and arrows grow of themselves without fo much as the modern help of inchantment. If we look into the fiction of Milton's fable, though we find it full of furprifing incidents, they are generally fuited to our notions of the things and perfons defcribed, and tempered with a due measure of probability. I muft only make an exception to the death, and fome of his imaginary perfons in his limbo of vanity, with this episode of fin and credible; the reader cannot fo far impose upon chaos. Thefe paffages are aftonishing, but not himfelf as to fee a poffibility in them; they are the defcription of dreams and fhadows, not of things or perfons. I know that many critics look upon the ftories of Circe, Polypheme, the Sirens, nay the whole Odyffey and Iliad, to be allegories; but allowing this to be true, they mankind that prevailed in the age of the poet, are fables, which confidering the opinions of might poffibly have been according to the letter. The perfons are fuch as might have acted what is afcribed to them, as the circumstances in which they are reprefented, might poffibly have been truths and realities. This appearance of er kinds of poetry, that Ariftotle obferves the probability is fo abfolutely requifite in the greatancient tragic writers made ufe of the names of fuch great men as had actually lived in the world, though the tragedy proceeded upon adventures they were never engaged in, on purpofe to make the fubject more credible. In a word, befides the hidden meaning of an epic allegory, the plain literal fenfe ought to appear probable. The ftory (hould be fuch as an ordinary reader may acquiefce in, whatever natural, moral, or political truth may be discovered in it by men of greater penetration. Satan, after having long wandered upon the furface, or outmoft wall of the univerfe, difcovers at last a wide gap in it, which led into the creation, and is defcribed as the opening through which the angels pafs to and fro into the lower world, upon their errands to mankind. His fitting upon the brink of this paffage and taking a furvey of the whole face of nature that appeared to him new and fresh in all its beautics, with the fimile illuftrating this circumftance, fills the mind of the reader with as furprising and glorious an idea as any that arifes in the whole poem. He looks down into that vaft hollow of the univerfe with the eye, or, as Milton calls it in his first book, with the ken of an angel. He furveys all the wonders in this immenfe amphitheatre that lie between both the poles of heaven, and takes in at one view the whole round of the creation. His flight between the feveral worlds that fhined on every fide of him, with the particular defcription of the fun, are fet forth in all the wantonnefs of a luxuriant imagination. His fhape, fpeech and behaviour upon his transforming himfelf into an angel of light, are touched with exquifite beauty. The poet's thought of directing Satan to the fun, which in the vulgar opinion of mankind is the most confpicuous part of the creation, and the placing in it an angel, is a circumftance very finely contrived, and the more adjusted to a poetical pro bability, bability, as it was a received doctrine among I faw when at his word the formless mafs, In the following part of the fpeech he points out the earth with fuch circumftances, that the reader can scarce forbear fancying himself employed on the fame diftant view of it. Look downward on the globe whofe hither fide With light from hence, tho' but reflected, fhines; That place is earth, the feat of man, that light His day, &c. L Libertas; quæ fera, tamen refpexit inertem. I' come. Mr. Spectator, you ever read a letter which is fent with the more pleasure for the reality of its complaints, this may have reason to hope for a favourable acceptance; and if time be the most irretrievable lofs, the regrets which fol to have ended them both. The occafion of this feems to be the want of fome necessary employment, to put the fpirits in motion, and awaken them out of their lethargy; if I had lefs leifure, I should have more; for I fhould then find my time distinguished into portions, • fome for business, and others for the indulging of pleasures: but now one face of indolence overfpreads the whole, and I have no land'mark to direct myself by. Were one's time a little ftraitened by bufinefs, like water inclofed in its banks, it would have fome determined courfe; but unless it be put into fome channel it has no current, but becomes a deluge without either ufe or motion. • When Scanderbeg, prince of Epirus, was dead, the Turks who had but too often felt the force of his arm in the battles he had won from them, imagined that by wearing a piece of his bones near their heart, they should be animated with a vigour and force like to that which infpired him when living. As I am like to be but of little ufe whilft I live, I am refolved to do what good I can after my deceafe; and have accordingly ordered my bones to be difpofed of in this manner for 'the good of my countrymen, who are troubled with too exorbitant a degree of fire. All foxhunters, upon wearing me, would in a fhort time be brought to endure their beds in a 'morning, and perhaps even quit them with regret at ten: inftead of hurrying away to teize a poor animal, and run away from their own thoughts, a chair or a chariot would be thought the most desirable means of performing a remove from one place to another. I fhould be a cure for the unnatural defire of John Trot for dancing, and a specific to leffen the inclination Mrs. Fidget Has to motion, and cause her always to give her approbation to the prefent place fhe is in. In fine, no Egyptian mummy was ever half fo ufeful in phyfic, as I fhould be to these feverish conftitutions, to reprefs the violent fallies of youth, and give each action its proper weight and repofe. I can ftifle any violent inclination, and op. 'pofe a torrent of anger, or the folicitations of revenge, with fuccefs. But indolence is a • ftream which flows flowly on, but yet under'mines the foundation of every virtue. A vice of a more lively nature were a more defirable tyrant than this ruft of the mind, which gives a tincture of its nature to every action of one's life. It were as little hazard to be toffed in a ftorm, as to lie thus perpetually becalmed; and it is to no purpose to have within one the feeds of a thoufand good qualities, if we low will be thought, I hope, the moft juftifi-want the vigour and refolution neceffary for • able. the exerting them. Death brings all perfons back to an equality; and this image of it, this number of the mind, leaves no difference between the greatest genius and the meanest understanding: a faculty of doing things remarkably praife-worthy thus concealed, is of no more ufe to the owner, than a heap of gold to the man who dares not use it. To-morrow is ftill the fatal time when all is to be rectified: to-morrow comes, it goes, and ftill I pleafe myfelf with the fhadow, "whilft I lofe the reality; unmindful that the prefent time alone is ours, the future is yet unborn, and the paft is dead, and can only 3 F a live, live, as parents in their children, in the acti· ons it has produced. The time we live ought not to be computed ⚫ by the number of years, but, by the ufe that ⚫ has been made of it; thus it is not the exterit of ground, but the yearly rent which gives the value to the estate. Wretched and thought all thofe qualifications you expect in him 'who pretends to the honour of being. • Madam, Your most humble fervant, • Clytander, lefs creatures, in the only place where cove, No 317. TUESDAY, MARCH 4. tousness were a virtue we turn prodigals! Nothing lies upon our hands with fuch uncafi nefs, nor has there been fo many devices for any one thing, as to make it flide away imperceptibly and to no purpofe. A fhilling fhall be hoarded up with care, whilft that away which is above the price of an eftate, is flung with difregard and contempt. There is nothing now. a-days fo much avoided, as a ⚫ folicitous improvement of every part of time; it is a report must be fhunned as one tenders the name of a wit and a fine genius, and as one fears the dreadful character of a laborious plodder: but notwithstanding this, the great eft wits any age has produced thought far otherwife; for who can think either Socrates or Demosthenes loft any reputation, by their continual pains both in overcoming the de⚫fects and improving the gifts of nature. All are acquainted with the labour and affiduity with which Tully acquired his eloquence. Seneca in his letters to Lúcilius affures him, there was not a day in which he did not either write fomething, or read and epitomize fome good author; and I remember Pliny in one of his letters, where he gives an account of the various methods he ufed to fill up every vacancy of time, after feveral employments ⚫ which he enumerates; fometimes, fays he, I ⚫ hunt; but even then I carry with me a pocket book, that whilft my fervants are bufied in difpofing of the nets and other matters, I may be employed in fomething that may be useful to me in ftudies; and that If I mifs of my game, I may at the leaft bring home fome of my own thoughts with me, and not have the mortification of having caught nothing all day. Thus, Sir, you fee how many examples, I recal to my mind, and what arguments I ufe with myfelf, to regain my liberty: but as I am afraid it is no ordinary perfuafion that ⚫ will be of service, I shall expect your thoughts on this fubject, with the greatest impatience, efpecially fince the good will not be confined to me alone, but will be of universal use. For these is no hopes of amendment where men are pleased with their ruin, and whilft they think laziness is a defirable character: whether it be that they like the ftate itfelf, or that they think it gives them a new luftre when they do exert themfelves, feemingly to be able to do that without labour and application, which others attain to but with the "greatest diligence. -Fruges confumere nati. Hor. Ep. 2. lib. 1. ver. 27 Born to drink and eat. CREECH. Auftus, a few moments before his death, afked his friends who stood about him, if they thought he had acted his part well; and upon receiving fuch an answer as was due to his extraordinary merit, "Let me then," fays he, go off the ftage with your applaufe;" using the expreffion with which the Roman actors made their exit at the conclufion of a dramatic piece. I could with that men, while they are in health, would confider well the nature of the part they are engaged in, and what figure it will make in the minds of thofe they leave behind them: whether it was worth coming into the world for; whether it be fuitable to a reasona ble being; in fhort, whether it appears graceful in this life, or will turn to an advantage in the next. Let the fycophant or buffoon, the fatirift, or the good companion, confider with himself, when his body fhall be laid in the grave, and his foul pafs into another state of existence, how much it would redound to his praife to have it faid of him, that no man in England eat better, that he had an admirable talent at turning his friends into ridicule, that nobody out-did him at an ill-natured jeft, or that he never went to bed before he had difpatched his third bottle. Thefe are, however, very common funeral orations, and elogiums on deceased persons who have acted among mankind with some figure and reputation. But if we look into the bulk of our fpecies, they are fuch as are not likely to be remembered a moment after their difappearance. They leave behind them no traces of their existence, but are forgotten as though they had never been. They are neither wanted by the poor, regretted by the rich, nor celebrated by the learned. They are neither miffed in the commonwealth, nor lamented by private perfons. Their actions are of no fignificancy to mankind, and might have been performed by creatures of much lefs dignity than those who are diftinguished by the faculty of reafon. An eminent French author fpeaks fomewhere to the following purpofe; I have often feen from my chamber-window two noble creatures, both of them of an erect countenance and endowed with reafon. These two intellectual beings are employed from morning to night, in rubbing two smooth stones one upon another; that is, as the vulgar phrase is, in polishing marble. My friend, Sir Andrew Freeport, as we were fitting in the club laft night, gave us an account of a fober citizen, who died a few days fince. This honeft man being of greater confequence in his own thoughts, than in the eye of the world, had for fome years paft kept a jourmal, week of it. Since the occurrences fet down in |
