For that fair female troop thou saw'st, that seeni'd To dress, and troll the tongue, and roll the eye. Shall yield up all their virtue, all their fame, Of these fair atheists The next vision is of a quite contrary nature, and filled with the horrors of war. Adam at the sight of it melts into tears, and breaks out into that passionate speech, O what are these! Death's ministers, not men, who thus deal death Ten thousandfold the sin of him who slew As it is visible that the poet had his eye upon Ovid's account of the universal deluge, the reader may observe with how much judgment he has avoided every thing that is redundant or puerile in the Latin poet. We do not here see the wolf swimming among the sheep, nor any of those wanton imaginations which Seneca found fault with, as un.. becoming this great catastrophe of nature. If our poet has imitated that verse in which Ovid telis us that there was nothing but sea, and that this sea had no shore to it, he has not set the thought in such a light as to incur the censure which critics have passed upon it. The latter part of that verse in Ovid is idie and superfluous, but just and beautiful in Milton. Jamque mare et tellus nullum discrimen habebant; Sea without shore -Sea cover'd sea, -MILTON. In Milton the former part of the description does not forestai the latter. How much more great and solemn on this occasion is that which follows in our English poet, -And in their palaces, The transition which the poet makes from the vi sion 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 Of tears and sorrow, a flood, thee also drown'd, 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; for which reason the reader might be apt to overlook those many passages in it which deserve our admiration. The eleventh and twelfth are indeed built upon that single circumstance of the removal of our first parents from Paradise; but though this is not in itself so great a subject as that in most of the foregoing books, it is extended and diversified with so many surprising incidents and pleasing episodes, that these two last books can by no means be looked upon as unequal parts of this divine poem. I must further add, that had not Milton represented our first parents as driven out of Paradise, his fall of man would not have been complete, and consequently his action would have been imperfect.-L. No. 364.] MONDAY, APRIL 28, 1712. Quadrigis petimus bene vivere.-HOR. 1. Ep. xi. 29. "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 a son about sixteen, both which she is extremely fond of. The boy has parts of the middle size, neither shining nor despicable, and bas passed the common exercises of his years with tolerable advantage, but is withal what you would call a forward youth: by the help of this last qualification, which serves as a varnish to all the rest, he is enabled to make the best use of his learning, and display it at full length upon all occasions. Last summer he distinguished himself two or three times very rethan that in Ovid, where we are told that the sea-markably, by puzzling the vicar before an assembly calf lay in those places where the goats were used to browse! The reader may find several other parallel passages in the Latin and English description of the deluge, wherein our poet has visibly the advantage. The sky's being overcharged with clouds, the descending of the rains, the rising of the seas, and the appearance of the rainbow, are such descriptions as every one must take notice of. The circumstance relating to Paradise is so finely imagined, and suitable to the opinions of many learned authors, that I cannot forbear giving it a place in this paper. of most of the ladies in the neighbourhood; and 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 tea-table, 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 equi page; for that she intended very speedily to carry him to travel.' The oddness of the expression shocked me a little; however, I soon recovered my self enough to let her know, that all I was willing principles of manners and behaviour? To endeato understand by it was, that she designed this sum-vour it, is to build a gaudy structure without any mer to show her son his estate in a distant county, foundation; or, if I may be allowed the expression, in which he had never yet been. But she soon took to work a rich embroidery upon a cobweb. care to rob me of that agreeable mistake, and let "Another end of travelling, which deserves to be me into the whole affair. She enlarged upon young considered, is the improving our taste of the best master's prodigious improvements, and his compre-authors of antiquity, by seeing the places where hensive knowledge of all book-learning; concluding, they lived, and of which they wrote; to compare that it was now high time he should be made acquainted with men and things: that she had resolved he should make the tour of France and Italy, but could not bear to have him out of her sight, and therefore intended to go along with him. "I was going to rally her for so extravagant a resolution, but found myself not in a fit humour to meddle with a subject that demanded the most soft and delicate touch imaginable. I was afraid of dropping something that might seem to bear hard either upon the son's abilities, or the mother's discretion, being sensible that in both these cases, though supported with all the powers of reason, I should, instead of gaining her ladyship over to my opinion, only expose myself to her disesteem: I therefore immediately determined to refer the whole matter to the Spectator. the natural face of the country with the descriptions they have given us, and observe how well the picture agrees with the original. This must certainly be a most charming exercise to the mind that is rightly turned for it; besides that it may in a good measure be made subservient to morality, if the person is capable of drawing just conclusions concerning the uncertainty of human things, from the ruinous alterations time and barbarity have brought upon so many places, cities, and whole countries, which make the most illustrious figures in history. And this hint may be not a little improved by examining every spot of ground that we find celebrated as the scene of some famous action, or retaining any footsteps of a Cato, Cicero, or Brutus, or some such great virtuous man. A nearer view of any such particular, though really little and trifling in "When I came to reflect at night, as my custom itself, may serve the more powerfully to warm a is, upon the occurrences of the day, I could not but generous mind to an emulation of their virtues, and believe that this humour of carrying a boy to travel a greater ardency of ambition to imitate their in his mother's lap, and that upon a pretence of bright examples, if it comes duly tempered and prelearning men and things, is a case of an extraordi-pared for the impression. But this I believe you rary nature, and carries on it a peculiar stamp of fully. I did not remember to have met with its parallel within the compass of my observation, though I could call to mind some not extremely unlike it. From hence my thoughts took occasion to ramble into the general notion of travelling, as it is now made a part of education. Nothing is more frequent than to take a lad from grammar and taw, and, under the tuition of some poor scholar, who is iling to be banished for thirty pounds a year and a little victuals, send him crying and snivelling into foreign countries. Thus he spends his time as children do at puppet-shows, and with much the same advantage, in staring and gaping at an amazing variety of strange things; strange indeed to one who is not prepared to comprehend the reasons and meaning of them, whilst he should be laying the solid foundations of knowledge in his mind, and furnishing it with just rules to direct his future progress in life under some skilful master of the art of instruction. "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. will hardly think those to be, who are so far from entering into the sense and spirit of the ancients, that they do not yet understand their language with any exactness.* But I have wandered from my purpose, which was only to desire you to save, if possible, a fond English mother, and mother's own son, from being shown a ridiculous spectacle through the most polite part of Europe. Pray tell them, that though to be sea-sick, or jumbled in an outlandish stagecoach, may perhaps be healthful for the constitution of the body, yet is apt to cause such a dizziness in young empty heads as too often lasts their lifetime. "I am, Sir, your most humble Servant, "PHILIP HOMEBRED." Birchin-lane. "SIR, "I was married on Sunday last, and went peaceably to bed; but, to my surprise, was awakened These warlike sounds (methinks) are very improper the next morning by the thunder of a set of drums. in a marriage-concert, and give great offence; they seem to insinuate, that the joys of this state are in folio, whether written originally by the Earl of Hardwicke, The following paragraph, in the first edition of this paper or inserted afterward by Sir R. Steele, was probably suppressed on the first republication, at the request of Addison. It is re printed here from the Spect. in folio, No. 364. "I cannot quit this head without paying my acknowledgments "Certainly the true end o. visiting foreign parts to one of the most entertaining pieces this age has produced, is to look into their customs and policies, and ob- for the pleasure it gave me. You will easily guess that the serve in what particulars they excel or come short book I have in my head is Mr. Addison's Remarks upon Italy. of our own; to unlearn some odd peculiarities in applied his exact knowledge of all the parts of classical learnThat ingenious gentleman has with so much art and judgment our manners, and wear off such awkward stiffnesses ing, to illustrate the several occurrences of his travels, that his and affectations in our behaviour, as may possibly work alone is a pregnant proof of what I have said. Nobody have been contracted from constantly associating Naples, and making Horace and Silius Italicus his chart, but that has a taste this way, can read him going from Rome to with one nation of men, by a more free, general, he must feel some uneasiness in himself to reflect that he was and mixed conversation. But how can any of these advantages be attained by one who is a mere stranger to the customs and policies of his native country, and has not yet fixed in his mind the first not in his retinue. I am sure I wished it ten times in every page, and that not without a secret vanity to think in what state. I should have travelled the Appian road, with llorace for a guide, and in company with a countryman of my own, who, of all men living, knows best how to follow his steps.** short, and that jars and discord soon ensue. I fear by a kind of instinct to throw herself on a bed of they have been ominous to many matches, and flowers, and not to let those beautiful couches which sometimes proved a prelude to a battle in the honey-nature has provided lie useless. However it be, moon. A nod from you may hush them; therefore, the effects of this month on the lower part of the pray, Sir, let them be silenced, that for the future sex, who act without disguise, are very visible. It none but soft airs may usher in the morning of a is at this time that we see the young wenches in a bridal night; which will be a favour not only to country parish dancing round a Maypole, which those who come after, but to me, who can still sub- one of our learned antiquaries supposes to be a relic scribe myself, of a certain pagan worship that I do not think fit to mention. "Your most humble, "I am one of that sort of women whom the gayer part of our sex are apt to call a prude. But to show them that I have a very little regard to their raillery, I shall be glad to see them all at the Amorous Widow, or the Wanton Wife, which is to be acted for the benefit of Mrs. Porter, on Monday the 28th instant. I assure you I can laugh at an amorous widow, or wanton wife, with as little temptation to imitate them, as I could at any other vicious character. Mrs. Porter obliged me so very much in the exqui. site sense she seemed to have of the honourable sentiments and noble passions in the character of Hermione, that I shall appear in her behalf at a comedy, though I have no great relish for any entertainments where the mirth is not seasoned with a certain severity, which ought to recommend it to people who pretend to keep reason and authority over all their actions. I am, Sir, T. "Your frequent Reader, No. 365.] TUESDAY, APRIL 29, 1712. VIRG. Georg. iii. 272. ADAPTED. Flush'd by the spirit of the genial year, THE author of the Menagiana acquaints us, that discoursing one day with several ladies of quality about the effects of the month of May, which infuses a kindly warmth into the earth, and all its inhabitants, the Marchioness of S, who was one of the company, told him, that though she would promise to be chaste in every month besides, she could not engage for herself in May. As the beginning therefore of this month is now very near, I design this paper for a caveat to the fair sex, and publish it before April is quite out, that if any of them should be caught tripping, they may not pretend they had not timely notice. I am induced to this, being persuaded the abovementioned observation is as well calculated for our climate as for that of France, and that some of our British ladies are of the same constitution with the French marchioness. I shall leave it among physicians to determine what may be the cause of such an anniversary inclination; whether or no it is that the spirits, after having been as it were frozen or congealed by winter, are now turned loose, and set a rambling; or that the gay prospects of fields and meadows, with the courtship of the birds in every bush, naturally unbend the mind, and soften it to pleasure: or 'that, as some have imagined, a woman is proced It is likewise on the first day of this month that we see the ruddy milkmaid exerting herself in a most sprightly manner under a pyramid of silver tankards, and like the virgin Tarpeia, oppressed by the costly ornaments which her benefactors lay upon her. I need not mention the ceremony of the green gown, which is also peculiar to this gay season. The same periodical love-fit spreads through the whole sex, as Mr. Dryden well observes in his description of this merry month. For thee, sweet month, the groves green liv`ries wear, If not the first, the fairest of the year; For thee the Graces lead the dancing hours, And nature's ready pencil paints the flowers. The sprightly May commands our youth to keep The vigils of her night, and breaks their sleep; Each gentle breast with kindly warmth she moves, Inspires new flames, revives extinguish'd loves. Accordingly, among the works of the great mas ters in painting, who have drawn this genial season of the year, we often observe Cupids confused with Zephyrs, flying up and down promiscuously in seve ral parts of the picture. I cannot but add from my own experience, that about this time of the year love-letters come up to me in great numbers, from all quarters of the nation. I received an epistle in particular by the last post from a Yorkshire gentleman, who makes heavy complaints of one Zelinda, whom it seems he has courted unsuccessfully these three years past. He tells me that he designs to try her this May; and if he does not carry his point, he will never think of her more. Having thus fairly admonished the female sex, and laid bore them the dangers they are exposed to in this critical month, I shall in the next place lay down some rules and directions for their better avoiding those calentures which are so very frequent in this season. In the first place, I would advise them never to venture abroad in the fields, but in the company of a parent, a guardian, or some other sober discreet person. I have before shown how apt they are to trip in the flowery meadow; and shall further observe to them, that Proserpine was out a-maying when she met with that fatal adventure to which Milton alludes when he mentions -That fair field Of Enna, where Proserpine gath`ring flowers, Since I am got into quotations, I shall conclude this In the second placa, I cannot but approve those prescriptions which our astrological physicians give in their almanacs for this month: such as are “* * T. Livii Hist Don 11.5, i. cap. xi. spare and simple diet, with a moderate use of phle- As I have often declared that I have nothing more at heart than the honour of my dear countrywomen, I would beg them to consider, whenever their resolutions begin to fail them, that there are but one-and-thirty days of this soft season, and that if they can but weather out this one month, the rest of the year will be easy to them. As for that part of the fair sex who stay in town, I would advise them to be particularly cautious how they give themselves up to their most innocent entertainments. If they cannot forbear the playhouse, I would recommend tragedy to them rather than comedy; and should think the puppet-show much safer for them than the opera, all the while the sun is in Gemini. The reader will observe, that this paper is written for the use of those ladies who think it worth while to war against nature in the cause of honour. As for that abandoned crew, who do not think virtue worth contending for, but give up their reputation at the first summons, such warnings and premonitions are thrown away upon them. A prostitute is the same easy creature in all months of the year, and makes no difference between May and Decembet.-X. No. 366.] WEDNESDAY, APRIL 30, 1712. Pone me pigris ubi nulla campis Dulce loquentem.-HOR. 1 Od. xxii. 17. Set me whereon some pathless plain To see the chariot of the sun So near the scorching country run: The burning zone, the frozen isles, land love song, which I met with in Scheffer's history of that country. I was agreeably surprised to find a spirit of tenderness and poetry in a region which I never suspected for delicacy. In hotter climates, though altogether uncivilized, I had not wondered if I had found some sweet wild notes among the natives, where they live in groves of oranges, and hear the melody of birds about them. But a Lapland lyric, breathing sentiments of love and poetry, not unworthy old Greece or Rome; a regular ode from a climate pinched with frost, and cursed with darkness so great a part of the year; where it is amazing that the poor natives should get food, or be tempted to propagate their species-this, I confess, seemed a greater miracle to me than the famous stories of their drums, their winds, and enchantments. "I am the bolder in commending this northern song, because I have faithfully kept to the sentiments, without adding or diminishing; and pretend to no greater praise from my translation, than they who smooth and clean the furs of that country which have suffered by carriage. The numbers in the original are as loose and unequal as those in which the British ladies sport their Pindarics; and perhaps the fairest of them might not think it a disagreeable present from a lover, But I have ventured to bind it in stricter measures, as being more proper for our tongue, though perhaps wilder graces may better suit the genius of the Laponian language. "It will be necessary to imagine that the author of this song, not having the liberty of visiting his mistress at her father's house, was in hopes of spying her at a distance in the fields: Thou rising sun, whose gladsome ray Oh! were I sure my dear to view, I'd climb that pine-tree's topmost bough, And round and round for ever gaze. My Orra Moor, where art thou laid? My bliss too long my bride denies, What may for strength with steel compare? No longer then perplex thy breast: THERE are such wild inconsistencies in the thoughts of a man in love, that I have often reflected there can be no reason for allowing him more liberty than others possessed with frenzy, but that his distemper has no malevolence in it to any mortal. That devotion to his mistress kindles in his mind a general tenderness, which exerts itself towards every object as well as his fair one. When this passion is represented by writers, it is common with them to endeavour at certain quaintnesses and turns of imagination, which are apparently the work of a mind at ease; but the men of true taste can easily distinguish the exertion of a mind which overflows with tender sentiments, and the labour of one which is only describing distress. In performances of this "I am one of those despicable creatures called a kind, the most absurd of all things is to be witty; chamber-maid, and have lived with a mistress for every sentiment must grow out of the occasion, and some time, whom I love as my life, which has made be suitable to the circumstances of the character. my duty and pleasure inseparable. Where this rule is transgressed, the humble servant delight has been in being employed about her perMy greatest in all the fine things he says, is but showing his mis-son; and indeed she is very seldom out of humour tress how well he can dress, instead of saying how for a woman of her quality. But here lies my comwell he loves. Lace and drapery is as much a man, plaint, Sir. To bear with me is all the encourageas wit and turn is passion. ment she is pleased to bestow upon me; for she gives her cast-off clothes from me to others some "MR. SPECTATOR, “MR. SPECTATOR, April the 10th. "The following verses are a translation of a Lap. This Lapland love song is ascribed to Mr. Ambrose Phillips. she is pleased to bestow in the house to those that neither want nor wear them, and some to hangers on that frequent the house daily, who come dressed out in them. This, Sir, is a very mortifying sight to me, who am a little necessitous for clothes, and love to appear what I am; and causes an uneasiness, so that I cannot serve with that cheerfulness as formerly; which my mistress takes notice of, and calls envy and ill-temper at seeing others preferred before me. My mistress has a younger sister lives in the house with her, that is some thousands below her in estate, who is continually heaping her favours on her maid; so that she can appear every Sunday, for the first quarter, in a fresh suit of clothes of her mistress's giving, with all other things suitable. All this I see without envying, but not without wishing my mistress would a little consider what a discouragement it is to me to have my perquisites divided between fawners and jobbers, which others enjoy entire to themselves. I have spoken to my mistress, but to little purpose; I have desired to be discharged (for indeed 1 fret myself to nothing), but that she answers with silence. I beg, Sir, your direction what to do, for I am fully resolved to follow your counsel; who am they fly through the town in Post men, Post-boys, Daily Courants, Reviews, Medleys, and Examiners. Men, women, and children, contend who shall be the first bearers of them, and get their daily sustenance by spreading them. In short, when I trace in my mind a bundle of rags to a quire of Spectators, I find so many hands employed in every step they take through their whole progress, that while I am writing a Spectator, I fancy myself providing bread for a multitude. If I do not take care to obviate some of my witty readers, they will be apt to tell me, that my paper, after it is thus printed and published, is still beneficial to the public on several occasions. I must confess I have lighted my pipe with my own works for this twelvemonth past. My landlady often sends up her little daughter to desire some of my old Spectators, and has frequently told me that the paper they are printed on is the best in the world to wrap spice in. They likewise make a good foundation for a mutton-pie, as I have more than once experienced, and were very much sought for last Christmas by the whole neighbourhood. It is pleasant enough to consider the changes that a linen fragment undergoes, by passing through the several hands above mentioned. The finest pieces of Holland, when worn to tatters, assume a new whiteness more beautiful than the first, and often return in the shape of letters to their native country. A lady's shift may be metamorphosed into billetsdoux, and come into ner possession a second time. A beau may peruse his cravat after it is worn out, with greater pleasure and advantage than ever be did in a glass. In a word, a piece of cloth, after having officiated for some years as a towel or a napkin, may by this means be raised from a dunghill, and become the most valuable piece of furniture in a prince's cabinet. I HAVE often pleased myself with considering the The politest nations of Europe have endeavoured two kinds of benefits which accrue to the public to vie with one another for the reputation of the from these my speculations, and which, were I to finest printing. Absolute governments, as well as speak after the manner of logicians, I would distin-republics, have encouraged an art which seems to guish into the material and the formal. By the be the noblest and most beneficial that was ever inlatter I understand those advantages which my vented among the sons of men. The present King readers receive, as their minds are either improved of France, in his pursuits after glory, has particuor delighted by these my daily labours; but having larly distingaished himself by the promoting of this already several times descanted on my endeavours useful art, insomuch that several books have been in this light, I shall at present wholly confine my-printed in the Louvre at his own expense, upon self to the consideration of the former. By the word material, I mean those benefits which arise to the public from these my speculations, as they consume a considerable quantity of our paper-manufacture, employ our artisans in printing, and find business for great numbers of indigent persons. Our paper-manufacture takes into it several mean materials, which could be put to no other use, and affords work for several hands in the collecting of them which are incapable of any other employment. Those poor retailers, whom we see so busy in every street, deliver in their respective gleanings to the merchant. The merchant carries them in loads to the paper-mill, where they pass through a fresh set of hands, and give life to another trade. Those who have mills on their estates, by this means considerably raise their rents; and the whole nation is in great measure supplied with a manufacture for which formerly she was obliged to her neighbours. a The materials are no sooner wrought into paper, but they are distributed among the presses, where they again set innumerable artists at work, and furnish business to another mystery. From hence, accordingly as they are stained with news or politics, which he sets so great a value, that he considers them as the noblest presents he can make to foreign princes and ambassadors. If we look into the commonwealths of Holland and Venice, we shall find that in this particular they have made themselves the envy of the greatest monarchies. Elzevir and Aldus are more frequently mentioned than any pensioner of the one, or doge of the other. The several presses which are now in England, and the great encouragement which has been given to learning for some years last past, has made our own nation as glorious upon this account, as for its late triumphs and conquests. The new edition which is given us of Caesar's Commentaries has already been taken notice of in foreign gazettes, and is a work that does honour to the English press. It is no wonder that an edition should be very cotrect which has passed through the hands of one of the most accurate, learned, and judicious writers this age has produced. The beauty of the paper, of the character, and of the several cuts with which this noble work is illustrated, makes it the finest A most beautiful edition of Caesar's Memoirs, published about this time in folio, by Dr. Samuel Clarke |