of my worthy friend the clergyman, whom I can never mention but with a particular respect.

Having maturely weighed these several particulars, with the many remonstrances that have been made to me on this subject, and considering how invidious an office I shall take upon me if I make the whole election depend upon my single voice, and being unwilling to expose myself to those clamours, which on such an occasion will not fail to be raised against me for partiality, injustice, corruption, and other qualities, which my nature abhors, I have formed to myself the project of a club as follows.

I have thoughts of issuing out writs to all and every of the clubs that are established in the cities of London and Westminster, requiring them to choose out of their respective bodies a person of the greatest merit, and to return his name to me before Ladyday, at which time I intend to sit upon business.

By this means I may have reason to hope, that the club over which I shall preside will be the very flower and quintessence of all other clubs. I have communicated this my project to none but a particular friend of mine, whom I have celebrated twice or thrice for his happiness in that kind of wit which is commonly known by the name of a pun. The only objection he makes to it is, that I shall raise up enemies to myself if I act with so regal an air, and that my detractors, instead of giving me the usual title of Spectator, will be apt to call me the King of Clubs."

But to proceed on my intended project: it is very well known that I at first set forth in this work with the character of a silent man; and I think I have so well preserved my taciturnity, that I do not remember to have violated it with three sentences in

the space of almost two years. As a monosyllable

is my delight, I have made very few excursions, in the conversations which I have related, beyond a Yes or a No. By this means my readers have lost many good things which I have had in my heart, though I did not care for uttering them.

Now in order to diversify my character, and to show the world how well I can talk if I have a mind, I have thoughts of being very loquacious in the club which I have now under consideration. But that I may proceed the more regularly in this affair, I design, upon the first meeting of the said club, to have my mouth opened in form; intending to regulate myself in this particular by a certain ritual which I have by me, that contains all the ceremonies which are practised at the opening of the mouth of a cardinal. I have likewise examined the forms which were used of old by Pythagoras, when any of his scholars, after an apprenticeship of silence, was made free of his speech. In the mean time, as I have of late found my name in foreign gazettes upon less occasions, I question not but in their next articles from Great Britain they will inform the world, that the Spectator's mouth is to be opened on the twenty-fifth of March next.' I may perhaps publish a very useful paper at that time of the proceedings in that solemnity, and of the persons who shall assist at it. But of this more hereafter.

0.

2

N° 551. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 2, 1712.

Sic bonor et nomen divinis vatibus atque

Carminibus venit.

So ancient is the pedigree of verse,

And so divine a poet's function.

Mr. SPECTATOR,

HOR. Ars Poet. ver. 400.

ROSCOMMON.

WHEN men of worthy and excelling geniuses have obliged the world with beautiful and instructive writings, it is in the nature of gratitude that praise should be returned them, as one proper consequent reward of their performances. Nor has mankind ever been so degenerately sunk but they have made this return, and even when they have not been wrought up by the generous endeavour so as to receive the advantages designed by it.

praise, which arises first in the mouth of particular persons, spreads and lasts according to the merit of authors; and when it thus meets with a full success changes its denomination, and is called fame. They, who have happily arrived at this, are, even while they live, inflamed by the acknowledgments of others, and spurred on to new undertakings for the benefit of mankind, notwithstanding the detraction which some abject tempers would cast upon them: but when they decease, their characters being free from the shadow which envy laid them under, begin to shine with the greater splendour; their spirits survive in their works; they are admitted into the highest companies, and they continue pleasing and instructing posterity from age to age. Some of the

best gain a character, by being able to show that they are no strangers to them; and others obtain a new warmth to labour for the happiness and ease of mankind, from a reflection upon those honours which are paid to their memories.

'The thought of this took me up as I turned over those epigrams which are the remains of several of the wits of Greece, and perceived many dedicated to the fame of those who had excelled in beautiful poetic performances. Wherefore, in pursuance to my thought, I concluded to do something along with them to bring their praises into a new light and language, for the encouragement of those whose modest tempers may be deterred by the fear of envy or detraction from fair attempts, to which their parts might render them equal. You will perceive them as they follow to be conceived in the form of epitaphs, a sort of writing which is wholly set apart for a short-pointed method of praise.

ON ORPHEUS, WRITTEN BY ANTIPATER.

"No longer, Orpheus, shall thy sacred strains
Lead stones, and trees, and beasts along the plains;
No longer sooth the boisterous winds to sleep,

Or still the billows of the raging deep:

For thou art gone. The Muses mourn'd thy fall
In solemn strains, thy mother most of all.
Ye mortals, idly for your sons ye moan,
If thus a goddess could not save her own."

'Observe here, that if we take the fable for granted, as it was believed to be in that age when the epigram was written, the turn appears to have piety to the gods, and a resigning spirit in its application. But if we consider the point with respect to our present knowledge, it will be less esteemed; though the author himself, because he believed it,

may still be more valued than any one who should now write with a point of the same nature.

ON HOMER, BY ALPHEUS OF MYTILENE.

"Still in our ears Andromache complains,
And still in sight the fate of Troy remains;
Still Ajax fights, still Hector 's dragg'd along:
Such strange enchantment dwells in Homer's song;
Whose birth could more than one poor realm adorn,
For all the world is proud that he was born."

The thought in the first part of this is natural, and depending upon the force of poesy; in the latter part it looks as if it would aim at the history of seven towns contending for the honour of Homer's birth-place; but when you expect to meet with that common story, the poet slides by, and raises the whole world for a kind of arbiter, which is to end the contention amongst its several parts.

ON ANACREON, BY ANTIPATER.

"This tomb be thine, Anacreon! All around
Let ivy wreathe, let flow'rets deck the ground;
And from its earth, enrich'd with such a prize,
Let wells of milk and streams of wine arise:
So will thine ashes yet a pleasure know,
If any pleasure reach the shades below."

The poet here written upon is an easy gay author, and he who writes upon him has filled his own head with the character of his subject. He seems to love his theme so much, that he thinks of nothing but pleasing him as if he were still alive, by entering into his libertine spirit; so that the humour is easy and gay, resembling Anacreon in its air, raised by such images, and painted with such a turn as he might have used. I give it a place here, be