I have heard of a couple of preachers in a country town, who endeavoured which should out-shine one another, and draw together the greatest congregation. One of them being well versed in the fathers, used to quote every now and then a Latin sentence to his illiterate hearers, who it seems found themselves so edified by it, that they flocked in greater numbers to this learned man than to his rival. The other finding his congregation mouldering every Sunday, and hearing at length what was the occasion of it, resolved to give his parish a little Latin in his turn but being unacquainted with any of the fathers, he digested into his sermons the whole book of Quæ Genus, adding, Lowever, such explications to it as he thought might be for the benefit of his people. He afterwards entered upon As in præsenti, which he converted in the same manner to the use of his parishioners. This in a very little time thickened his audience, filled his church, and routed his antagonist. The natural love to Latin, which is so prevalent in our common people, makes me think that my speculations fare never the worse among them for that little scrap which appears at the head of them; and what the more encourages me in the use of quotations in an unknown tongue, is, that I hear the ladies, whose approbation I value more than that of the whole learned world, declare themselves in a more particular manner pleased with my Greek mottoes. Designing this day's work for a dissertation upon the two extremities of my paper, and having already dispatched my motto, I shall, in the next place, discourse upon those single capital letters which are placed at the end of it, and which have afforded great matter of speculation to the curious. I have heard various conjectures upon this subject. Some tell us that C is the mark of those papers that are written by the Clergyman, though others ascribe them to the Club in general. That the papers marked with R, were written by my friend Sir Roger. That L signifies the Lawyer, whom I have described in my second Speculation; and that T stands for the Trader or Merchant: but the letter X which is placed at the end of some few of my papers, is that which has puzzled the whole town, as they cannot think of any name which begins with that letter, except Xenophon and Xerxes, who can neither of them be supposed to have had any hand in these speculations. In answer to these inquisitive gentlemen, who have many of them made inquiries of me by letter, I must tell them the reply of an ancient philosopher, who carried something hidden under his cloak. A certain acquaintance desiring him to let him know what it was he covered so carefully, 'I cover it (says he) on purpose that you should not know.' I have made use of these obscure marks for the same purpose. They are, perhaps, little amulets or charms to preserve the paper against the fascination or malice of evil eyes: for which reason I would not have my reader surprised if hereafter he sees any of my papers marked with a Q, a Z, a Y, &c. or with the word Abracadabra.' I shall, however, so far explain myself to the reader, as to let him know that the letters C, L, and X, are cabalistical, and carry more in them than it is proper for the world to be acquainted with. Those who are versed in the philosophy of Pythagoras, and swear by the Tetrachtys, that is, the number four, will know very well that the number ten, which is signified by the letter X, {and which has so much perplexed the town,) has in it many particular powers; that it is called by platonic writers the com 1 A noted charm for agues, said to have been invented by Basilides, an heretic of the second century, who thought that very sublime mysteries were contained in the number 365 (not only the days of the year, but the different orders of celestial beings, &c.), to which number the Hebrew letters that compose the word Abracadabra are said to amount.-C. Stanley's Lives of the Philosophers, p. 527. ed. 1687. fol.-C plete number; that one, two, three, and four, put together, make up the number ten; and that ten is all. But these are not mysteries for ordinary readers to be let into. spent many years in hard study before he knowledge of them. A man must have can arrive at the We had a robbinical divine in England, who was chaplain to the Earl of Essex in Queen Elizabeth's time, that had an admirable head for secrets of this nature. Upon his taking the doctor of divinity's degree, he preached before the university of Cambridge, upon the first verse of the first chapter of the first book of Chronicles, in which (says he) you will see the three following words, Adam, Sheth, Enosh. He divided this short text into many parts, and discovering several mysteries in each word, made a most learned and elaborate discourse. The name of this profound preacher was doctor Alabaster, of whom the reader may find a more particular account in Doctor Fuller's book of English Worthies.1 This instance will, I hope, convince my readers, that there may be a great deal of fine writing in the capital letters which bring up the rear of my paper, and give them some satisfaction in that particular. But as for the full explication of these matters, I must refer them to time, which discovers all things. C. ▲ Adam signifies 'man;' Sheth, 'placed;' Enoch, misery;' hence this profound doctor, (to use the words of the historian referred to) 'mined for a mystical meaning,' and dug out this moral inference, that 'man is placed in misery or pain.' See Fuller's Worthies of Suffolk, p. 70.—C. No. 223. THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 15. C suavis anima! qualem bonam Antehac fuisse, tales cùm sint reliquiæ! PHED. iii. i. E U sweet soul! how good you must have been heretofore, wher, your WHEN I reflect upon the various fate of those multitudes of ancient writers who flourished in Greece and Italy, I consider time as an immense ocean in which many noble authors are entirely swallowed up, many very much shattered and damaged some quite disjointed and broken into pieces, while some have wholly escaped the common wreck; but the number of the last is very small. Apparent rari nantes in gurgite vasto. VIRG. En. i. 122. One here and there floats on the vast abyss. Among the mutilated poets of antiquity, there is none whose fragments are so beautiful as those of Sappho. They give us a taste of her way of writing, which is perfectly conformable with that extraordinary character we find of her, in the remarks of those great critics who were conversant with her works when they were entire. One may see by what is left of them, that she fol lowed nature in all her thoughts, without descending to those little points, conceits, and turns of wit, with which many of our 1 Between 610-580 before Christ. Temperat Archilochi musam pede mascula Sappho, Eoliis fidibus querentem Sappho puellis de popularibus. HOR. Ep. i. 19, 28. Carm. ii. 19, 24. Of her numerous writings we have only a few fragments, and one entir øde preserved by Dionys. Hal. and one by Longinus. The first is given in the present paper, and the other in No. 229-V. Dionysius Hal. de Comp c. 23-Longinus, c. 10. Sappho has found an ingenious defender in Welcker. Sappho von einem herschenden Vorurtheil befreit. Göttingen, 1816, 8vo.-G. modern lyrics are so miserably infected. Her soul seems to have been made up of love and poetry; she felt the passion in all its warmth, and described it in all its symptoms. She is called by ancient authors the Tenth Muse and by Plutarch is compared to Cacus, the son of Vulcan, who breathed out nothing but flame. I do not know by the character that is given of her works, whether it is not for the benefit of mankind that they are lost. They were filled with such bewitching tenderness and rapture, that it might have been dangerous to have given them a reading.1 It was in that have made the An inconstant lover, called Phaon, occasioned great calamities to this poetical lady. She fell desperately in love with him, and took a voyage into Sicily, in pursuit of him, he having withdrawn himself thither on purpose to avoid her. island, and on this occasion, she is supposed to Hymn to Venus, with a translation of which I shall present my reader. Her Hymn was ineffectual for the procuring that happi ness which she prayed for in it. Phaon was still obdurate, and Sappho so transported with the violence of her passion, that she was resolved to get rid of it at any price. There was a promontory in Acarnania called Leucat, on the top of which was a little temple dedicated to Apollo. In this temple it was usual for despairing lovers to make their vows in secret, and afterwards to fling themselves from the top of the precipice into the sea, where they were sometimes taken up alive. This place was therefore called The Lover's Leap; and whether or no the fright they had been in, or the resolution that could push them to so dreadful a remedy, or the bruises which they 1 The application of the two lines of Phædrus in the motto, has called forth a warm eulogium from Warton, in his 'Essay on the Genius of Pope. His supposition that both this and the translation of the ode preserved by Longinus, was corrected and altered by Addison himself, is a compliment to his genius, at the expense of his modesty; reminding you of the patron of the young poetess in Miss Edgeworth's Helen.-G. |