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their Children, Care of their Families, and Love of their Husbands, which are the great Qualities and Atchievements of Womankind: As the making of War, the carrying on of Traffick, the Administration of Justice, are thofe by which Men grow famous, and get themselves a Name.

BUT as this Paffion for Admiration, when it works according to Reason, improves the beautiful Part of our Species in every thing, that is Laudable; fo nothing is more Destructive to them when it is governed by Vanity and Folly. What I have therefore here to fay, only re gards the vain Part of the Sex, whom for certain Reafons, which the Reader will hereafter fee at large, I fhall distinguifh by the Name of Idols. An Idol is wholly taken up in the Adorning of her Perfon. You fee in every Pofture of her Body, Air of her Face, and Motion of her Head, that it is her Business and Employment to gain Adorers. For this Reafon your Idols appear in all publick Places and Affemblies, in order to feduce Men to their Worfhip. The Play-houfe is very frequently filled with Idols; feveral of them are carried in Proceffion every Evening about the Ring, and feveral of them fet up their Worship even in Churches. They are to be accofted in the Language proper to the Deity. Life and Death are in their Power: Joys of Heaven and Pains of Hell are at their difpofal: Paradife is in their Arms, and Eternity in every Moment that you are prefent with them. Raptures, Tranfports and Ecftafies are the Rewards which they confer: Sighs and Tears, Prayers and broken Hearts are the Offerings which are paid to them. Their Smiles make Men happy; their Frowns drive them to Defpair. I fhall only add under this Head, that Ovid's Book of the Art of Love is a kind of Heathen Ritual, which contains all the Forms of Worship which are made ufe of to an Idol.

IT would be as difficult a Task to reckon up thefe different kinds of Idols, as Milton's was to number those that were known in Canaan, and the Lands adjoining. Most of them are Worshipped, like Moloch, in Fires and Flames. Some of them, like Baal, love to fee their Votaries cut and flashed, and fhedding their Blood for them. Some of them, like the Idol in the Apocrypha, must have Treats and Collations prepared for them every Night. It has

inded been known, that fome of them have been used by their incenfed Worfhippers like the Chinese Idols, who are Whipped and Scourged when they refufe to comply with the Prayers that are offered to them,

I must here obferve, that those Idolaters who devote themselves to the Idols I am here fpeaking of, differ very much from all other kinds of Idolaters. For as others fall out because they worship different Idols, these Idolaters quarrel because they Worfhip the fame.

THE Intention therefore of the Idol is quite contrary to the Wishes of the Idolater; as the one defires to confine the Idol to himself, the whole Bufinefs and Ambition of the other is to multiply Adorers. This Humour of an Idol is prettily defcribed in a Tale of Ckaucer: He reprefents one of them fitting at a Table with three of her Votaries about her, who are all of them courting her Favour, and paying their Adorations: She fmiled upon one, drank to another, and trod upon the other's Foot which was under the Table. Now which of thefe three, fays the old Bard, do you think was the Favourite? In troth, fays he, not one of all the three.

THE Behaviour of this old Idol in Chaucer, puts me in mind of the Beautiful Clarinda, one of the greatest Idols among the Moderns. She is worshipped once a Week by Candle-light in the midft of a large Congregation, generally called an Affembly. Some of the gayeft Youths in the Nation endeavour to plant themselves in her Eye, while fhe fits in form with multitudes of Tapers burning about her. To encourage the Zeal of her Idolaters, fhe bestows a Mark of her Favour upon every one of them, before they go out of her Prefence. She asks a Question of one, tells a Story to another, glances an Ogle upon a third, takes a Pinch of Snuff from the fourth, lets her Fan drop by accident to give the fifth an occafion of taking it up. In fhort, every one goes away fatisfied with his Succefs, and encouraged to renew his Devotions on the fame Canonical Hour that Day Sevennight.

AN Idol may be Undeified by many accidental Causes. Marriage in particular is a kind of Counter-Apotheofis, or a Deification inverted. When a Man becomes familiar with his Goddefs, fhe quickly finks into a Woman.

OLD

OLD Age is likewise a great Decayer of your Idol: The truth of it is, there is not a more unhappy Being than a Superannuated Idol, efpecially when fhe has contracted fuch Airs and Behaviour as are only Graceful when her Worshippers are about her.

CONSIDERING therefore that in these and ma. ny other Cafes the Woman generally out-lives the Idol, I muft return to the Moral of this Paper, and defire my fair Readers to give a proper Direction to their Paffion for being admired: In order to which, they must endeavour to make themselves the Objects of a reasonable and lafting Admiration. This is not to be hoped for from Beauty, or Drefs, or Fashion, but from thofe inward Or, naments which are not to be defaced by Time or Sickness, and which appear moft amiable to those who are most acquainted with them.

N° 74°

I

Friday, May 25.

Pendent opera interrupta ·

Virg.

C

N my last Monday's Paper I gave fome general Inftances of thofe beautiful Strokes which please the Reader in the old Song of Chevy Chase; I fhall here, according to my Promife, be more particular, and fhew that the Sentiments in that Ballad are extreamly natural and poetical, and full of the majeftick Simplicity which we admire in the greatest of the ancient Poets: For which Reafon I fhall quote feveral Paffages of it, in which the Thought is altogether the fame with what we meet in feveral Paffages of the Eneid; not that I would infer from thence, that the Poet (whoever he was) proposed to himfelf any Imitation of thofe Paffages, but that he was directed to them in general by the fame Kind of Poetical Genius, and by the fame Copyings after Nature.

HAD this old Song been filled with Epigrammatical Turns and Points of Wit, it might perhaps have pleafed the wrong Tafte of fome Readers; but it would never have become the Delight of the common People, nor have warmed the Heart of Sir Philip Sidney like

the

the Sound of a Trumpet, it is only Nature that can have this Effect, and please those Taftes which are the most unprejudiced or the moft refined. I muft however beg Leave to diffent from fo great an Authority as that of Sir Philip Sidney, in the Judgment which he has paffed as to the rude Style and evil Apparel of this antiquated Song; for there are feveral Parts in it where not only the Thought but the Languge is majestick, and the Numbers fonorous at least, the Apparel is much more gorgeous than many of the Poets made use of in Queen Elizabeth's Time, as the Reader will fee in feveral of the following Quotations. WHAT can be greater than either the Thought or the Expreffion in that Stanza,

To drive the Deer with Hound and Horn

Earl Piercy took his Way;

The Child may rue that was unborn

The Hunting of that Day!

This way of confidering the Misfortunes which this Battel would bring upon Pofterity, not only on those who were born immediately after the Battel, and loft their Fathers in it, but on thofe alfo who perifhed in future Battels which took their rife from this Quarrel of the two Earls, is wonderfully beautiful, and conformable to the Way of Thinking among the ancient Poets.

Audiet pugnas vitio parentum

Rara juventus.

Hor.

What can be more founding and poetical, or resemble more the majestick Simplicity of the Ancients, than the following Stanzas?

The ftout Earl of Northumberland
A Vow to God did make,
His Pleafure in the Scottish Woods
Three Summer's Days to take.

With fifteen hundred Bowmen bold,
All chofen Men of Might,

Who knew full well, in Time of Need,
To aim their Shafts aright.

The Hounds ran fwiftly thro' the Woods

The nimble Deer to take,

And with their Cries the Hills and Dales
An Eccho fhrill did make.

Vocat

Vocat ingenti Clamore Citharon

Taygetique canes, domierixque Epidaurus equorum:
Et vox affenfu nemorum ingeminata remugit.

Lo, yonder doth Earl Dowglas come,
His Men in Armour bright;
Full twenty hundred Scottish Spears,
All marching in our Sight.

All Men of pleasant Tividale,
Faft by the River Tweed, &c.

The Country of the Scotch Warriors, defcribed in these two laft Verfes, has a fine romantick Situation, and affords a Couple of smooth Words for Verfe. If the Reader compares the foregoing fix Lines of the Song with the following Latin Verfes, he will fee how much they are written in the Spirit of Virgil.

Adverfi campo apparent, haftafque reductis
Protendunt longè dextris; & fpicula vibrant:
Quique altum Prenefte viri, quique arva Gabine
Junonis, gelidumque Anienem, & rofcida rivis
Hernica faxa colunt : -- qui rofea rura Velini,
Qui Tetrica horrentes rupes, montemque Severum,
Cafperiamque colunt, Forulofque & flumen Himella.
Qui Tiberim Fabarimque bibunt.

But to proceed.

Earl Dowglas on a milk-white Steed,

Moft like a Baron bold,

Rode foremost of the Company

Whofe Armour fhone like Gold.

Turnus ut antevolans tardum precefferat agmen, &c.
Vidifti, quo Turnus equo, quibus ibat in armis
Aureus

Our English Archers bent their Bows,
Their Hearts were good and true;
At the firft Flight of Arrows fent,
Full threefcore Scots they flew.
They los'd full faft on ev'ry Side,
No Slackness there was found;
And many a gallant Gentleman
Lay gasping on the Ground,

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