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tic fimplicity which we admire in the greatest of the ancient poets, for which reason I shall quote several passages of it, in which the thought is altogether the fame with what we meet in several paflages of the Æneid; not that I would infer from thence, that the poet, whoever he was, proposed to himself any imitation of those passages, 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 fong been filled with epigrammati cal turns and points of wit, it might perhaps have pleased the wrong taste of some readers; but it would never have become the delight of the common people, nor have warmed the heart of Sir Philip Sidney like the found of a trumpet; it is only nature that can have this effect, and please those taftes which are the most unprejudiced or the most refined. I must however beg leave to diffent from fo great an authority as that of Sir Philip Sidney, in the judgment which he has passed as to the rude stile and evil apparel of this antiquated song; for there are several parts in it where not only the thought but the language is majestic, 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 several of the following quotations.

What can be greater than either the thought of the expression 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 battle would bring upon pofterity, not only on those who were born immediately after the battle, and Ioft their fathers in it, but on those also who perished in future battles 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. Od. I. ii. 23. • Pofterity, thinn'd by their fathers cimes,

Shall read, with grief, the story of their times.' What can be more founding and poetical, or refem. ble more the majestic fimplicity of the ancients, than the following stanzas?

The ftout earl of Northumberland
A vow to God did make,

His pleasure in the Scotish woods

Three fummers days to take.

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• High Epidaurus urges on my speed,

Fam'd for his hills, and for his horfes breed :
• From hills and dales the chearful cries rebound;
For echo hunts along, and propagates the found."
DRYDEN,

Lo, yonder doth ear! Douglas come.
His men in armour bright;
Full twenty hundred Scotish spears,
All marching in our fight.

All men of pleasant Tividale,

Fast by the river Tweed, &c.

The country of the Scotch warriors, described in these two last verses, has a fine romantic situation, and affords a couple of fmooth words for verse. If the reader compares the foregoing fix lines of the song with the following Latin verses, he will see how much they are written in the spirit of Virgil,

arva

Adversi campo apparent, bastasque reductis
Protendunt longe dextris; & Spicula vibrant-
Quique altum Prænefte viri, quique
Gabina
Junonis, gelidumque Anienem, & rofcida rivis
Hernica Jaxa colunt : - -qui rojea rura Velini,
Qui Tetricæ borrentes rupes, montemque Severum,
Casperiamque colunt, Forulosque & flumen Himelle&
Qui Tiberim Fabarimque bibunt-

Æn. xi. 605-7.682.712.

Advancing in a line, they couch their spears-
-Præneste sends a chofen band,
With those who plow Saturnia's Gabine land:
Befides the fuccours which cold Anien yields:
The rocks of Hernicus- befides a band,
That follow'd from Velinum's dewy land-
And mountaineers that from Severus came:
And from the craggy cliffs of Tetrica;

And those where yellow Tiber takes his waya
And where Himella's wanton waters play:
Casperia sends her arms, with those that lie
By Fabaris, and fruitful Foruli,

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DRYDEN,

:

Whose armour shone like gold.' Turnus ut antevolans tardum præcefferat agmen, &c, Vidifti, quo Turnus equo, quibus ibat in armis

Aurcus

Our English archers bent their bows, • Their hearts were good and true; At the first flight of arrows sent,

Full threefcore Scots they flew.
They clos'd full fast on ev'ry fide,
• No flackness there was found;
And many a gallant gentleman
Lay gafping on the ground.

With that there came an arrow keen
Out of an English bow,

Which struck earl Douglas to the heart
A deep and deadly blow.'

Æneas was wounded after the fame manner by an unknown hand in the midst of a parley.

Has inter voces, media inter talia verba,
Ecce viro ftridens alis allapsa sagitta eft,
Incertum quá pulfa manu

Æn.xii. 318.

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* But whether from an human hand it came, Or hoftile God, is left unknown by fame.'

DRYDEN.

But of all the defcriptive parts of this long, there are none more beautiful than the four following stanzas, which have a great force and spirit in them, and are filled with very natural circum

stances. The thought in the third stanza was never touched by any other poet, and is such an one as would have shined in Homer or Virgil,

So thus did both those nobles die,
Whose courage none could stain:
An English archer then perceiv'd
The noble earl was slain.

He had a bow bent in his hand,
Made of a trusty tree,
An arrow of a cloth-yard long
Unto the head drew he.

Against Sir Hugh Montgomery
So right his shaft be fet,

**The gray-goose wing that was thereon
In his heart-blood was wet.

This fight did last from break of day
'Till fetting of the fun;

• For when they rung the ev'ning-bell
The battle scarce was done.

One may observe likewife, that in the catalogue of the flain the author has followed the example of the greatest ancient poet, not only in giving a long lift of the dead, but by diversifying it with little characters of particular persons.

And with earl Douglas there was flain
• Sir Hugh Montgomery,
Sir Charles Carrel, that from the field
One foot would never fly:

Sir Charles Murrel of Ratcliff too,
His fifter's son was he;

Sir David Lamb, so well esteem'd,
Yet saved could not be.'

The familiar found in these names destroys the majesty of the description; for this reason I do not mention this part of the poem but to shew the natural caft of thought which appears in it, as the two last verses look almost like a transsation of Virgil.

-Cadit & Ripheus, justissimus unus
Qui fuit
Dis aliter vifum

in Teucris, & Jervantiffimus aqui.

Then Ripheus fell in the unequal fight, Just of his word, observant of the right: Heav'n thought not fo.'

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What can be more natural or more moving, than the circumstances in which he describes the behaviour of those women who had lost their husbands on this fatal day?

* Next day did many widows come Their husbands to bewail;

* They wash'd their wounds in brinish tears,
'But all would not prevail.

* Their bodies bath'd in purple blood,
'They bore with them away;
They kiss'd them dead a thousand times,
When they were clad in clay:'

Thus we fee how the thoughts of this poem, which naturally arife from the subject, are always simple, and sometimes exquifitely noble; that the language is often very founding; and that the whole is written with a true poetical fpirit.

If this song had been written in the Gothic manner, which is the delight of all our little wits, whether writers or readers, it would not have hit the taste of so many ages, and have pleased the readers of all ranks and conditions. I shall only beg pardon for fuch a profusion of Latin quotations: which I should not have made use of, but that I feared my own judgment would have looked too fingular on such a subject, had not I supported it by the practice and authority of Virgil.

N° 75. SATURDAY, MAY 26.

I

C

Omnis Ariftippum decuit colar, & ftatus, & res. HOR. Ep. I. xvii. 23. All fortune fitted Ariftippus well. CREECH. T was with some mortification that I fuffered the raillery of a fine lady of my acquaintance, for calling, in one of my papers, Dorimant a clown. Æn. ii. 426. She was so unmerciful as to take advantage of my invincible taciturnity, and on that occafion, with great freedom to confider the air, the height, the face, the gesture of him who could pretend to judge so arrogantly of gallantry. She is full of motion, janty, and lively in her impertinence, and one of those that commonly pass, among the ignorant, for perfons who have a great deal of humour. She had the play of Sir Fopling in her hand, and after she had faid it was happy for her here was not fo charming a creature as Dorimant now living, the began with a theatrical air and tone of voice to read, by way of triumph over me. fome of his speeches. ''Tis she, that lovely air,

DRYDEN.

In the catalogue of the English who fell, Witherington's behaviour is in the fame manner particularized very artfully, as the reader is prepared for it by that account which is given of him in the beginning of the battle; though I am satisfied your little buffoon readers, who have feen that paffage ridiculed in Hudibras, will not be able to take the beauty of it; for which reason I dare not fo mich as quote it.

Then stept a gallant 'squire forth,
Witherington was his name,
Who faid, I would not have it told
To Henry our king for shame,

That e'er my captain fought on foot
And I stood looking on,'

that easy shape, those wanton eyes, and all those melting charms about her mouth, which Med'ley spoke of; I'll follow the lottery, and put in ' for a prize with my friend Bellair.'

• In love the victors from the vanquish'd fly; They fly that wound, and they pursue that die."

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N°. 76. Then turning over the leaves, the reads alter- formed himself upon those principles among us, nately, and speaks,

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which are agreeable to the dictates of honour and religion, would make in the familiar and ordinary occurrences of life?

I hardly have observed any one fill his several duties of life better than Ignotus, All the under parts of his behaviour, and such as are exposed to common obfervation, have their rife in him from great and noble motives. A firm and urshaken expectation of another life, makes him become this. Humanity and good-nature, fortified by the sense of virtue, has the fame effect upon him, as the neglect of all goodness has upon many others. Being firmly established in all matters

Then how like a man of the town, so wild and of importance, that certain inattention which

gay is that!

The wife will find a diff'rence in our fate,

• You wed a woman, I'a good eftate.'

It would have been a very wild endeavour for a man of my temper to offer any oppofition to so nimble a speaker as my fair enemy is; but her discourse gave me very many reflections, when I had left her company. Among others, I could not but confider, with fome attention, the false impressions the generality, the fair fex more especially, have of what should be intended, when they say a Fine Gentleman; and could not help revolving that subject in my thoughts, and fettling, as it were, an idea of that character in my own imaginatior.

No man ought to have the esteem of the rest of the world, for any actions which are difagreeable to those maxims which prevail, as the standards of behaviour, in the country whercin he lives. What is oppofite to the eternal rules of reason and good sense, must be excluded from any place in the car. riage of a well-bred man. I did not, I confefs, explain myself enough on this fubject, when I called Dorimant a clown, and made it an instance of it, that he called the Orange Wench, Double Tripe: I should have shewed, that humarizy obliges a gentleman to give no part of human-kind reproach, for what they, whom they reproach, may poffibly have in common with the most virtuous and worthy among us. When a gentleman speaks coarfly, he has dressed himself clean to no purpofe: the clothing of our minds certainly ought to be regarded before that of our bodies. To be tray in a man's talk a corrupted imagination, is a much greater offence against the conversation of a gentleman, than any negligence of dress imaginabie. But this fenfe of the matter is so far from being received among people even of condition, that Vocifer paffes for a fine gentleman. He is loud, haughty, gentle, foft, lewd, and obsequious by turns, just as a little understanding and great impudence prompt him at the present moment, He paffes among the filly part of our women for a man of wit, because he is generally in doubt. He contradicts with a shrug, and confutes with a certain fufficiency, in profefsing fuch and fuch a thing i. above his capacity, What makes his character the pleasanter is, that he is a profeffed dGuder of women; and because the empty coxcond has no regard to any thing that is of itfelf facred and iny olable, I have heard an unmarried lady of forture say, it is pity fo fine a gentleman as Vorifer is to great an atheist. The crowds of fuch inconfiderable creatures, that infeft all places of affembling, every reader will have in his eye from his own hiervation; but would it not be worth confidering what fort of figure a man who

makes mens actions look eafy appears in him with greater beauty: by a thorough contempt of little excellences, he is perfectly master of them. This temper of mind leaves him under no necefsity of studying his air, and he has this peculiar diftinction, that his negligence is unaffected. He that can work himself into a pleasure in confidering this being as an uncertain one, and think to reap an advantage by its discontinuance, is in a fair way of doing all things with a graceful unconcern, and gentleman-like eafe. Such a one does not behold his life as a short, tranfient, perplexing state, made up of trifling pleasures, and great anxieties; but sees it in quite another light; his griefs are momentary, and his joys immortal. Reflexion upon death is not a gloomy and fad thought of refigning every thing that he delights in, but it is a short night followed by an endless day. What I would here contend for is, that the more virtuous the man is, the nearer he will naturally be to the character of genteel and agreeable. A man whose fortune is plentiful, shews an ease in his countenance, and confidence in his behaviour, which he that is under wants and difficulties cannot assume. It is thus with the state of the mind; he that governs his thoughts with the everlasting rules of reason and sense, must have fomething so inexpreffibly graceful in his words and actions, that every circumstance must become him. The change of perfons or things around him do not at all alter his fituation, but he looks disinterested in the occurrences with which others are distracted, because the greatest purpose of his life is to maintain an indifference both to it and all its enjoyments. In a word, to be a fine gentleman is to be a generous and a brave man. What can make a man fo much in conftant good-humour, and shine, as we call it, than to be supported by what can never fail him, and to believe that whatever happens to him was the best thing that could possibly befal him, or elfe he on whom it depends would not have permitted it to have befallen him at all?

N° 76. MONDAY, MAY 28. Ut tu fortunam, fic nos te, Celfe, feremus.

R

HOR. Ep. I. viii. 17.

As you your fortune bear, we will bear you. CREECH.

HERE is nothing fo common, as to find a

his carriage you take to be of an uniform temper, subject to fuch unaccountable starts of humour and paffion, that he is as much unlike himfelf, and differs as much from the man ycuatfirft thought

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thought him, as any two distinct persons can differ from each other. This proceeds from the want of forming some law of life to ourselves, or fixing some notion of things in general, which may affect us in fuch manner as to create proper habits both in our minds and bodies. The negligence of this leaves us exposed not only to an uncommon levity in our ufual conversation, but alfo to the fame instability in our friendships, in. terests, and alliances. A man who is but a mere spectator of what passes around him, and not engaged in commerces of any confideration, is but an ill judge of the fecret motions of the heart of man, and by what degrees it is actuated to make fuch visible alterations in the fame perfon: but at the fame time, when a man is no way concerned in the effect of fuch inconsistencies in the behaviour of men of the world, the speculation must be in the utmost degree both diverting and instructive; yet to enjoy fuch observations in the highest relish, he ought to be placed in a post of direction, and have the dealing of their fortunes to them. I have therefore been wonderfully diverted with fome pieces of fecret history, which an antiquary, my very good friend, lent me as a curiofity. They are memoirs of the private life of Pharamond of France, 'Pharamond,' says my author, was a prince of infinite humanity and generofity, and at the fame time the most plea'fant and facetious companion of his time. He had a peculiar taste in him, which would have ' been unlucky in any prince but himself; he thought there could be no exquifite pleasure in converfation but among equals; and would pleafantly bewail himself that he always lived in a crowd, but was the only man in France that never could get into company. This turn of • mind made him delight in midnight rambles, ' attended only with one person of his bedchamber: he would in these excursions get acquainted with men, whose temper he had a mind to try, and recommend them privately to ' the particular observation of his first minifter. • He generally found himfelf neglected by his new acquaintance as soon as they had hopes of grow'ing great; and used on fuch occasions to remark, that it was a great injustice to tax princes ' of forgetting themselves in their high fortunes, ' when they were fo few that could with con' stancy bear the favour of their very creatures.' My authorin these loofe hints has one paffage that gives us a very lively idea of the uncommon genius of Pharamond. He met with one man whom he had put to all the usual proofs he made of those he had a mind to know thoroughly, and found him for his purpose: in difcourse with him one day, he gave him opportunity of faying how much would fatisfy all his wishes. The prince immediately revealed himself, doubled the fum, and spoke to him in this manner. "Sir, you have "twice what you defired, by the favour of Phara"mond; but look to it, that you are fatisfied " with it, for 'tis the last you shall ever receive. "I from this moment confider you as mine; "and to make you truly fo, I give you my reyal "word you shall never be greater or leis than you are at present. Answer me not," concluded the prince fmiling, "but enjoy the fortune "I have put you in, which is above my own "condition: for you have hereafter nothing to "hope or to fear."

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His majesty having thus well chofen and bought a friend and companion, he enjoyed alternately all the pleasures of an agreeable private man and a great and powerful monarch: he gave himself with his companion, the name of the merry tyrant; for he punished his courtiers for their infolence and folly, not by any act of public disfavour, but by humouroufly practifing upon their imaginations. If he observed a man untractable to his inferiors, he would find an opportunity to take some favourable notice of him, and render him infupportable. He knew all his own looks, words, and actions, had their interpretations; and his friend Monfieur Eucrate, for fo he was called, having a great foul without ambition, he could communicate all his thoughts to him, and fear no artful use would be made of that freedom. It was no small delight when they were in private to reflect upon all which had passed in public.

Pharamond would often, to fatisfy a vain fool of power in his country, talk to him in a full court, and with one whisper make him despise all his old friends and acquaintance. He was come to that knowledge of men by long observation, that he would profess altering the whole mafs of blood in fometempers by thrice speaking to them. As fortune was in his power, he gave himself conftant entertainment in managing the mere followers of it with the treatment they deserved. He would, by a skilful caft of his eye and half a smile, make two fellows who hated, embrace and fall upon each other's neck with as much eagernefs, as if they followed their real inclinations, and intended to stifle one another. When he was in high good-humour, he would lay the scene with Eucrate, and on a public night exercise the paffions of his whole court. He was pleased to fee an haughty beauty watch the looks of the man she had long despised, from obfervation of his being taken notice of by Pharamond; and the lover conceive higher hopes, than to follow the woman he was dying for the day before. In a court, where men speak affection in the strongest terms, and diflike in the faintest, it was a comical mixture of incidents to fee disguises thrown aside in one case and increased on the other, according as favour or disgrace attended the respective objects of mens approbation or disesteem. Pharamond, in his mirth upon the meanness of mankind, used to say, "As he could take away a man's five fen"fes, he could give him an hundred. The man " in disgrace shall immediately lofe all his natu "ral endowments, and he that finds favour have "the attributes of an angel." He would carry it fo far as to say, "It should not be only so in "the opinion of the lower part of his court, but "the men themfelves thall think thus meanly or greatly of themselves, as they are out, or in the "good graces of a court."

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A monarch, who had wit and humour like Pharamond, must have pleasures which no man else can ever have an opportunity of enjoying. He gave fortune to none but those whom he knew could receive it without transport: he made a noble and generous use of his obfervations; and did not regard his ministers as they werc agrecable to himself, but as they were useful to his kingdom: by this means the king appeared in every officer of state; and no man had a participation of the power, who had not a familitude of the virtuc of Pharamond.

R

No.

N° 77. TUESDAY, MAY 29.
Non convivere licet, nec urbe totâ
Quisquam est tam propè tam proculque nobis.

confefs that I once laboured under the fame in firmity myself. The method I took to conquer it was a firm resolution to learn fomething from whatever I was obliged to fee or hear. There is a way of thinking, if a man can attain to it, MART. Epig. Ixxxvii. i. by which he may strike somewhat out of any What correfpondence can I hold with you, Who are so near, and yet so distant too?

M

Y friend Will. Honeycomb is one of those fort of men who are very often abfent in conversation, and what the French call a reveur and a distrait. A little before our club time last night we were walking together in Somerfet-garden, where Will. had picked up a small pebble of fo odd a make, that he faid he would present it to a friend of his, an eminent Virtuoso. After we had walked fome time, I made a full stop with my face towards the west, which Will, knowing to be my usual method of asking what's o'clock in an afternoon. immediately pulled out his watch, and told me we had seven minutes good. We took a turn or two more, when to my great furprize, I faw him squir away his watch a confiderable way into the Thames, and with great fedateness in his looks put up the pebble he had before found, in his fob. As I have naturally an averfion to much speaking, and do not love to be the messenger of ill news, especially when it comes too late to be useful, I left him to be convinced of his mistake in due time, and continued my walk, reflecting on these little absences and distractions in mankind, and refolving to make them the fubject of a future speculation.

I was the more confirmed in my design, when I confidered that they were very often blemithes in the characters of men of excellent sense; and helped to keep up the reputation of that Latin proverb, which Mr. Dryden has tranflated in the following lines:

'Great wit to madress sure is near ally'd,

And thin partition do their bounds divide.'

My reader, does, I hope, perceive, that I distinguish a man who is abfent, because he thinks of fomething else, from one who is abfent, because he thinks of nothing at all the latter is too innocent a creature to be taken notice of; but the diftractions of the former may, I believe, be generally accounted for from ore of these reasons.

Either their minds are wholly fixed on fome particular science, whi h is often the cafe of mathematicians and otl er learned men; or are wholly taken up with fome violent passion, fuch as anger, fear, or love, which ties the mind to fome diftant object; or, lastly, these distra@ions proceed from a certain vivacity and ficklencess in a man's temper, which while it raises up infinite numbers of ideas in the mind, is continually pushing it on, without allowing it to reft on any particular image. Nothing therefore is more unnatural than the thoughts and conceptions of fuch a man, which are seldom occafioned either by the company he is in, or any of those objects which are placed before him. While you fancy he is admiring a beautiful woman. it is an even wager that he is felving a propofition in Fuckd; and while you may imagine he is reading the Paris Gazette it is far from being impoffible, that he is po ng down and rebuilding the front of his country-hoofe.

At the fame time that am endeavouring to expole this weaknefsta others, I thall readily

thing. I can at present observe those starts of good fenfe and struggles of unimproved reason in the conversation of a clown, with as much fatisfaction as the most shining periods of the moft finished orator; and can make a shift to command my attention at a Puppet-show or an Opera, as well as at Hamlet or Othello. I always make one of the company I am in; for though I say little myself, my attention to others, and those nods of approbation which I never bestow unmersted, fuificiently shew that I am among them. Whereas Will. Honeycomb, though a fellow of good sense, is every way doing and saying an hundred things which he afterwards confefses, with a well-bred frankness, were fomewhat mal à propos, and undesigned.

I chanced the other day to go into a coffeehouse, where Will. was standing in the midst of several auditors whom he had gathered round him, and was giving them an account of the perfon and character of Moll Hinton: My appearance before him just put him in mind of me, without making him reflect that I was actually present. So that keeping his eyes full upon me, to the great furprize of his audience, he broke off his first harangue, and proceeded thus :-" Why now there's my friend," mentioning me by name, "he is a fellow that thinks "a great deal, but never opens his mouth; I "warrant you he is now thrusting his short "face into fome coffee-house about 'Change. "I was his bail'in the time of the Popifh-plots, "when he was taken up for a jefuit." If he had looked on me a little longer, he had certainly described me so particularly, without ever confidering what led him into it, that the whole company must neceffarily have found me out; for which reason, remembering the old proverb, 'Out of fight out of mind, I left the room, and, upon meeting him an hour afterwards, was asked by him, with a great deal of goodhumour, in what part of the world I had lived, that he had not feen me these three days.

Monfieur Bruyere has given us the character of an absent Man, with a great deal of humour, which he has pushed to an agreeable extravagance; with the heads of it I shall conclude my present paper.

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'Menalcas,' fays that excellent author, 'comes ' down in a morning, opens his door to go out, but shuts it again, because he perceives that he has his night-cap on; and examining himfelf 'further finds that he is but half-fhaved, that he ' has stuck his fword on his right fide, that his ' stockings are about his heels, and that his thirt ' is over his breeches. When he is dressed, he goes to court, comes into the drawing-room, ' and walking bolt-upright under a branch of 'candlesticks his wig is caught up by one of them, and hangs dangling in the air. All the courtiers fall a laughing, but Menalcas laughs louder than any of them, and looks about for 'the perfon that is the jest of the company. Coming down to the court-gate lhe finds a coach, which taking for his own he whips into it; and the coach, man drives off, not doubting but he 'carries his mafter, As foon as he stops, Menalcas

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