this antiquated song, that I shall give my reader a critique upon it, without any farther apology for so doing

*

Like tidings to King Henry came
Within as short a space,
That Percy of Northumberland
Was slain in Chevy-chace.
Now God be with him, said our king,
Sith 'twill no better be,

I trust I have within my realm
Five hundred good as he.

Yet shall not Scot or Scotland say,

But I will vengeance take,
And be revenged on them all
For brave Lord Percy's sake.
This vow full well the king perform'd
After on Humble-down,

In one day fifty knights were slain,
With lords of great renown.
And of the rest of small account

Did many thousands die, &c.

The greatest modern critics have laid it down as a rule, That an heroic poem should be founded upon some important precept of morality, adapted to the constitution of the country in which the poet writes. Homer and Virgil have formed their plans in this view. As Greece was a collection of many governments who suffered very much among themselves, and gave the Persian emperor, who was their common enemy, many advantages over them by their mutual jealousies and animosities, Homer, in order to establish among them a union which was so necessary for their safety, grounds his poem upon the discords of the several Grecian princes who were engaged in a confederacy against an Asiatic prince, and the several advantages which the enemy gained by such discords. At the time the poem we are now treating of was written, the dissensions of the barons, who were then so many petty princes, ran very high, whether they quarrelled among themselves, or with their neighbours, and produced unspeakable calamities to the country. The poet, to deter men from such unnatural contentions, describes a bloody His sentiments and actions are every way suitable battle and dreadful scene of death, occasioned by to a hero. One of us two, says he, must die: I am the mutual feuds which reigned in the families of an an earl as well as yourself, so that you can have no English and Scotch nobleman. That he designed pretence for refusing the combat: however, says he, this for the instruction of his poem, we may learn it is pity, and indeed would be a sin, that so many from his four last lines, in which, after the example innocent men should perish for our sakes; rather of the modern tragedians, he draws from it a precept | let you and I end our quarrel in a single fight :for the benefit of his readers:

God save the king, and bless the land

In plenty, joy, and peace;

And grant henceforth that foul debate
'Twixt noblemen may cease.

The next point observed by the greatest heroic poets, hath been to celebrate persons and actions which do honour to their country: thus Virgil's hero was the founder of Rome, Homer's a prince of Greece; and for this reason Valerius Flaccus and Statius, who were both Romans, might be justly derided for having chosen the expedition of the Golden Fleece, and the Wars of Thebes, for the subjects of their epic writings.

At the same time that our poet shows a laudable partiality to his countrymen, he represents the Scots after a manner not unbecoming so bold and brave a people :

Earl Douglas on a milk-white steed,
Most like a baron bold,
Rode foremost of the company,

Whose armour shone like gold,

Ere thus I will out-braved be,

One of us two shall die;

I know thee well, an earl thou art,
Lord Percy, so am I.

But trust me, Percy, pity it were
And great offence to kill
Any of these our harmless men,
For they have done no ill.
Let thou and I the battle try,
And set our men aside;
Accurst be he, Lord Percy said,

By whom it is deny'd.

When these brave men had distinguished themselves in the battle, and in single combat with each The poet before us has not only found out a hero other, in the midst of a generous parley, full of heroic in his own country, but raises the reputation of it by words encourages his men to revenge his death, resentiments, the Scotch earl falls; and with his dying several incidents. The English are the first who presenting to them, as the most bitter circumstance take the field, and the last who quit it. The Eng-of it, that his rival saw him fall:lish bring only fifteen hundred to the battle; the Scotch two thousand. The English keep the field with fifty-three; the Scotch retire with fifty-five : all the rest on each side being slain in battle. But the most remarkable circumstance of this kind is the different manner in which the Scotch and English kings receive the news of this fight, and of the great men's deaths who commanded in it :

This news was brought to Edinburgh,
Where Scotland's king did reign,
That brave Earl Douglas suddenly
Was with an arrow slain.

O heavy news, King James did say,
Scotland can witness be,

I have not any captain more
Of such account as he.

This supposition is strangely incorrect. At the time Homer wrote, the Persian government (most probably) did not exist. In his days there was a jealousy among the Greeks and Asiatics, not between Greeks and Persians. Not. Herod. Lib. I. Cap. i. et seq.-L.

The battle of Otterburn, usually called Chevy-Chase, was fought A. D. 1388, in the reigns of Richard II of England, and Robert II of Scotland. Others with less probability have brought down the action to the reigns of Henry IV. of England, and James I. of Scotland.

With that there came an arrow keen
Out of an English bow,
Which struck Earl Douglas to the heart
A deep and deadly blow.

Who never spoke more words than these,
Fight on, my merry-men all,
For why? my life is at an end,
Lord Percy sees my fall.

Merry-men, in the language of those times, is no
more than a cheerful word for companions and fel-
low-soldiers. A passage in the eleventh book of
Virgil's Eneid is very much to be admired, where
Camilla, in her last agonies, instead of weeping
over the wound she had received, as one might have
expected from a warrior of her sex, considers only
(like the hero of whom we are now speaking) how
the battle should be continued after her death:-

Tum sic expirans, &c.—Æn. xi. 820.

A gathering mist o'erclouds her cheerful eyes,
And from her cheeks the rosy colour flies,
Then turns to her, whom, of her female train,
She trusted most, and thus she speaks with pain:

• Impossible! for it was more than three times the distance.

Earl Percy's lamentation over his enemy is generous, beautiful, and passionate: I must only caution the reader not to let the simplicity of the style, which one may well pardon in so old a poet, prejudice him against the greatness of the thought:

Then leaving life, Earl Percy took
The dead man by the hand,
And said, Earl Douglas, for thy life
Would I had lost my land.

O Christ! my very heart doth bleed
With sorrow for thy sake;
For sure a more renowned knight

Mischance did never take.

The beautiful line, "Taking the dead man by the
hand," will put the reader in mind of Æneas' beha-
viour towards Lausus, whom he himself had slain as
he came to the rescue of his aged father:-

At vero ut vultum vidit morientis, et ora,
Ora modis Anchisiades pallentia miris;
Ingemuit, miserans graviter, dextramque tetendit.

En. x. 821.

The pious prince beheld young Lausus dead;
He griev'd, he wept, then grasp'd his hand, and said, &c.
DRYDEN.

I shall take another opportunity to consider the other parts of this old song.

No. 71. TUESDAY, MAY 22, 1711.
Scribere jussit amor.-OVID, Epist. iv. 10.
Love bade me write.

C.

By chance conducted, or by thirst constrain'd,
The deep recesses of the grove he gain'd,
Where in a plain, defended by the wood,
Crept through the matted grass a crystal flood,
By which an alabaster fountain stood;
And on the margin of the fount was laid
(Attended by her slaves) a sleeping maid-
Like Dian and her nymphs, when, tir'd with sport,
To rest by cool Eurotas they resort:

The dame herself the goddess well express'd,
Not more distinguish'd by her purple vest,

Than by the charming features of her face,
And e'en in slumber a superior grace;

Her comely limbs compos'd with decent care,
Her body shaded with a light cymar;
Her bosom to the view was only bare;

The fanning wind upon her bosom blows,
To meet the fanning wind her bosom rose ;

The fanning wind and purling streams continue her repose
The fool of nature stood with stupid eyes,
And gaping mouth, that testified surprise;
Fix'd on her face, nor could remove his sight,
New as he was to love, and novice in delight;
Long mute he stood, and leaning on his staff,
His wonder witness'd with an idiot laugh;

Then would have spoke, but by his glimm ring sense
First found his want of words, and fear'd offence;
Doubted for what he was he should be known,
By his clown-accent, and his country-tone.

But lest this fine description should be excepted against, as the creation of that great master Mr. Dryden, and not an account of what has really ever happened in the world, I shall give you verbatim the epistle of an enamoured footman in the country to his mistress. Their surnames shall not be inserted, because their passions demand a greater respect than is due to their quality. James is servant in a great family, and Elizabeth waits upon the daughter of one as numerous, some miles off her lover. James, before he beheld Betty, was vain of his strength, a rough wrestler, and quarrelsome cudgel-player; Betty a public dancer at may-poles, a romp at stool-ball: he always following idle women, she playing among the peasants: he a country bully, she a country coquette. But love has made her constantly in her mistress's chamber, where the young lady gratifies a secret passion of her own, by making Betty talk of James; and James is become a constant waiter near his master's apartment, in reading, as well as he can, romances. I cannot learn who Molly is, who it seems walked ten miles to carry the angry message, which gave occasion to what follows:

THE entire conquest of our passions is so difficult a work, that they who despair of it should think of a less difficult task, and only attempt to regulate them. "MY DEAR BETTY, May 14, 1711. But there is a third thing which may contribute not "Remember your bleeding lover who lies bleeding only to the ease, but also to the pleasure of our life; at the wounds Cupid made with the arrows he borand that is refining our passions to a greater ele-rowed at the eyes of Venus, which is your sweet gance than we receive them from nature. When person. the passion is Love, this work is performed in inno- "Nay more, with the token you sent me for my cent, though rude and uncultivated minds, by the love and service offered to your sweet person; which mere force and dignity of the object. There are was your base respects to my ill conditions; when, forms which naturally create respect in the behold-alas! there is no ill conditions in me, but quite coners, and at once inflame and chastise the imagina trary; all love and purity, especially to your sweet tion. Such an impression as this gives an immediate person; but all this I take as a jest. ambition to deserve, in order to please. This cause and effect are beautifully described by Mr. Dryden in the fable of Cymon and Iphigenia. After he has represented Cymon so stupid, that

He whistled as he went, for want of thought;
he makes him fall into the following scene, and
shows its influence upon him so excellently, that it
appears as natural as wonderful→→→

It happened on a summer's holiday,
That to the greenwood shade he took his way:
His quarter-staff, which he could ne'er forsake,
Hung half before, and half behind his back.
He trudg'd along, unknowing what he sought,
And whistled as he went for want of thought.

"But the sad and dismal news which Molly brought me struck me to the heart, which was, it seems, and is, your ill conditions for my love and respects to you.

"For she told me, if I came forty times to you, you would not speak with me, which words I am sure is a great grief to me.

"Now, my dear, if I may not be permitted to your sweet company, and to have the happiness of speaking with your sweet person, I beg the favour of you to accept of this my secret mind and thoughts, which hath so long lodged in my breast, the which if you do not accept, I believe will go nigh to break my

heart.

"For indeed, my dear, I love you above all the beauties I ever saw in my life.

"The young gentleman, and my master's daughter, the Londoner that is come down to marry her, sat in the arbour most part of last night. Oh, dear Betty, must the nightingales sing to those who marry for money, and not to us true lovers! Oh, my dear Betty, that we could meet this night where we used to do in the wood!

HAVING already given my reader an account of Now, my dear, if I may not have the blessing of several extraordinary clubs, both ancient and mo kissing your sweet lips, I beg I may have the hap-dern, I did not design to have troubled him with any piness of kissing your fair hand, with a few lines from your dear self, presented by whom you please or think fit. I believe, if time would permit me, I could write all day; but the time being short, and paper little, no more from your never-failing lover till death.

"JAMES

more narratives of this nature; but I have lately re
ceived information of a club, which I can call neither
ancient nor modern, that I dare say will be no less
surprising to my reader than it was to myself; for
which reason I shall communicate it to the public as
one of the greatest curiosities in its kind.
is related to him, after having represented him as a
A friend of mine complaining of a tradesman who
and spent most of his time over a bottle, told me, to
very idle worthless fellow, who neglected his family,

Poor James! since his time and paper were so short, I that have more than I can use well of both, will put the sentiments of this kind letter (the style of which seems to be confused with the scraps he had got in hearing and reading what he did not under-conclude his character, that he was a member of the stand) into what he meant to express.

"DEAR CREATure,

Everlasting club. So very odd a title raised my cu-
riosity to inquire into the nature of a club that had
me the following account:
such a sounding name; upon which my friend gave

bers, who divide the whole twenty-four hours among
The Everlasting club consists of a hundred mem-
them in such a manner, that the club sits day and
night from one end of the year to another; no party
presuming to rise till they are relieved by those who
are in course to succeed them. By this means a
member of the Everlasting club never wants com-
pany; for though he is not upon duty himself, he is
sure to find some who are; so that if he be disposed
to take a whet, a nooning, an evening's draught, or
a bottle after midnight, he goes to the club, and finds
a knot of friends to his mind.

"Can you then neglect him who has forgot all his recreations and enjoyments, to pine away his life in thinking of you? When I do so, you appear more amiable to me than Venus does in the most beautiful description that ever was made of her. All this kindness you return with an accusation, that I do not love you: but the contrary is so manifest, that I cannot think you in earnest. But the certainty given me in your message by Molly, that you do not love me, is what robs me of all comfort. She says you will not see me : if you can have so much cruelty, at least write to me, that I may kiss the impression made by your fair hand. I love you above all things; and in my condition, what you It is a maxim in this club, that the steward never look upon with indifference is to me the most ex-dies; for as they succeed one another by way of roquisite pleasure or pain. Our young lady and a tation, no man is to quit the great elbow-chair which fine gentleman from London, who are to marry for stands at the upper end of the table, till his successor mercenary ends, walk about our gardens, and hear is in readiness to fill it; insomuch that there has not the voice of evening nightingales, as if for fashion- been a sede vacante in the memory of man. sake they courted those solitudes, because they have heard lovers do so. Oh Betty! could I hear these rivulets murmur, and birds sing, while you stood near me, how little sensible should I be that we are both servants, that there is any thing on earth above Oh! I could write to you as long as I love you,

us!
till death itself.

"JAMES.

N. B. By the words ill conditions, James means, in a woman coquetry, in a man inconstancy.-R.

This man's name was James Hirst. He was a servant to the Hon. Edward Wortley, Esq., and in delivering a parcel of letters to his master, gave by mistake this letter, which he had just prepared for his sweetheart, and kept in its stead one of his master's. He quickly returned to rectify the blunder, but it was too late. Unfortunately the letter to Betty was the first that presented itself to Mr. Wortley, who had indulged his curiosity in reading the love-tale of his enamoured footman. James requested to have it returned in vain. "No, James," said his master, you shall be a great man, and this letter must appear in the Spectator."

James succeeded in putting an end to Betty's "ill conditions," and obtained her consent to marry him; but the marriage was prevented by her sudden death. James Hirst, soon after, from his regard and love for Betty, married her sister. and died about thirteen years ago, by Pennistone, in the neighbourhood of Wortley, near Leeds. Betty's sister and successor was probably the Molly who walked ten miles to carry the angry message which occasioned the preceding letter.

This club was instituted towards the end (or as some of them say, about the middle) of the civil wars, and continued without interruption till the time of the great fire,* which burnt them out, and dispersed them for several weeks. The steward at that time maintained his post till he had like to have been blown up with a neighbouring house (which was demolished in order to stop the fire); and would not leave the chair at last, till he had emptied all the bottles upon the table, and received repeated directions from the club to withdraw himself. This steward is frequently talked of in the club and looked upon by every member of it as a greater man than the famous captain mentioned in my Lord Clarendon, who was burnt in his ship because he would not quit it without orders. It is said, that towards the close of 1700, being the great year of jubilee, the club had under consideration whether they should break up or continue their session; but after many speeches and debates, it was at length agreed to sit out the other century. This resolution passed in a general club nemine contradicente.

Having given this short account of the institution and continuation of the Everlasting club, I should here endeavour to say something of the manners and characters of its several members, which I shall

* Anno, 1666.

do according to the best lights I have received in this matter.

It appears by their books in general, that, since their first institution, they have smoked fifty tons of tobacco, drunk thirty thousand butts of ale, one thousand hogsheads of red port, two hundred barrels of brandy, and a kilderkin of small beer. There has been likewise a great consumption of cards. It is also said, that they observe the law in Ben Jonson's club, which orders the fire to be always kept in, (focus perennis esto) as well for the convenience of lighting their pipes, as to cure the dampness of the club-room. They have an old woman in the nature of a vestal, whose business it is to cherish and perpetuate the fire which burns from generation to generation, and has seen the glass-house fires in and out above a hundred times.

The Everlasting club treats all other clubs with an eye of contempt, and talks even of the Kit-Cat and October as of a couple of upstarts. Their ordinary discourse (as much as I have been able to learn of it) turns altogether upon such adventures as have passed in their own assembly; of members who have taken the glass in their turns for a week together, without stirring out of the club; of others who have smoked a hundred pipes at a sitting; of others, who have not missed their morning's draught for twenty years together. Sometimes they speak in raptures of a run of ale in King Charles's reign; and sometimes reflect with astonishment upon games at whist, which have been miraculously recovered by members of the society, when in all human probability the case was desperate.

They delight in several old catches, which they sing at all hours to encourage one another to moisten their clay, and grow immortal by drinking; with many other edifying exhortations of the like nature. There are four general clubs held in a year, at which times they fill up vacancies, appoint waiters, confirm the old fire-maker, or elect a new one, settle contributions for coals, pipes, tobacco, and other

necessaries.

The senior member has outlived the whole club twice over, and has been drunk with the grandfathers of some of the present sitting members.-C.

No. 73.] THURSDAY, MAY 24, 1711.

-O Dea certe!-VIRG. En. i. 328.
O Goddess! for no less you seem.

man considers what he wants, and the fool what he abounds in. The wise man is happy when he gains his own approbation, and the fool when he recommends himself to the applause of those about him.

But however unreasonable and absurd this passion for admiration may appear in such a creature as man, it is not wholly to be discouraged; since it often produces very good effects, not only as it restrains him from doing any thing which is mean and contemptible, but as it pushes him to actions which are great and glorious. The principle may be defective or faulty, but the consequences it produces are so good, that, for the benefit of mankind, it ought not to be extinguished.

It is observed by Cicero, that men of the greatest and the most shining parts are the most actuated by ambition; and if we look into the two sexes, I believe we shall find this principle of action stronger in women than in men.

The passion for praise, which is so very vehement in the fair sex, produces excellent effects in women of sense, who desire to be admired for that only which deserves admiration; and I think we may observe, without a compliment to them, that many of them do not only live in a more uniform course of virtue, but with an infinitely greater regard to their honour, than what we find in the generality of our own sex. How many instances have we of chastity, fidelity, devotion! How many ladies distinguish themselves by the education of their children, care of their families, and love of their husbands,-which are the great qualities and achievements of woman-kind, as the making of war, the carrying on of traffic, the administration of justice, are those by which men grow famous, and get themselves a name.

But as this passion for admiration, when it works according to reason, improves the beautiful part of our species in every thing that is laudable; so nothing is more destructive to them, when it is governed by vanity and folly. What I have therefore here to say, only regards the vain part of the sex, whom for certain reasons, which the reader will hereafter see at large, I shall distinguish by the name of idols. An idol is wholly taken up in the adorning of her person. You see in every posture of her body, air of her face, and motion of her head, that it is her business and employment to gain adorers. For this reason your idols appear in all public places and assemblies, in order to seduce men Ir is very strange to consider, that a creature to their worship. The playhouse is very frequently like man, who is sensible of so many weaknesses and filled with idols; several of them are carried in proimperfections, should be actuated by a love of fame: them set up their worship even in churches. They cession every evening about the ring, and several of that vice and ignorance, imperfection and misery, should contend for praise, and endeavour as much are to be accosted in the language proper to the as possible to make themselves objects of admiration. Deity. Life and death are in their power: joys of But notwithstanding man's essential perfection is heaven, and pains of hell, are at their disposal: but very little, his comparative perfection may be paradise is in their arms, and eternity in every movery considerable. If he looks upon himself in an ment that you are present with them. Raptures, abstracted light, he has not much to boast of; but transports, and ecstasies, are the rewards which if he considers himself with regard to others, he they confer: sighs and tears, prayers and broken may find occasion of glorying, if not in his own Their smiles make men happy; their frowns drive hearts, are the offerings which are paid to them. virtues, at least in the absence of another's imper- them to despair. I shall only add under this head, fections. This gives a different turn to the reflec- that Ovid's book of the Art of Love is a kind of tions of the wise man and the fool. The first en-heathen ritual, which contains all the forms of wordeavours to shine in himself, and the last to outshine others. The first is humbled by a sense of his own infirmities, the last is lifted up by the discovery of those which he observes in other men. The wise

see the Leges Conviviales of this club, in Langbaine's Lives of English Poets, &c. Art. Ben Jonson.

ship which are made use of to an idol.

different kinds of idols, as Milton's was to number It would be as difficult a task to reckon up these those that were known in Canaan, and the lands adjoining. Most of them are worshipped like Moloch in fire and flames. Some of them, like Baal,