But however unreasonable and absurd | smiles make men happy; their frowns drive this passion for admiration may appear in them to despair. I shall only add under such a creature as man, it is not wholly to this head, that Ovid's book of the Art of be discouraged; since it often produces very Love is a kind of heathen ritual, which good effects, not only as it restrains him contains all the forms of worship which are from doing any thing which is mean and made use of to an idol. 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. when they refuse to comply with the prayers that are offered to them. It would be as difficult a task to reckon up these different kinds of idols, as Milton's was to number those that were known in Canaan, and the lands adjoining. Most of them are worshipped like Moloch in fires and flames. Some of them, like Baal, love to see their votaries cut and slashed, and shedding their blood for them. Some of them, like the idol in the Apocrypha, must have treats and collations prepared for them every night. It has indeed been known, that some of them have been used The passion for praise, which is so very by their incensed worshippers like the Chivehement in the fair sex, produces excel-nese idols, who are whipped and scourged lent 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 womankind! as the making of war, the carrying on of traffic, the administration of justice, are those by which men grow famous, and get them selves a name. I must here observe that those idolaters who devote themselves to the idols I am here speaking of, differ very much from all other kinds of idolaters. For as others fall out because they worship different idols, these idolaters quarrel because they worship the same. The intention therefore of the idol is quite contrary to the wishes of the idolater: as the one desires to confine the idol to himself, the whole business and ambition of the other is to multiply adorers. This humour of an idol is prettily described in a tale of Chaucer. He represents one of them sitting at a table with three of her votaries about her, who are all of them courting her favour, and paying their adorations. She smiled upon one, drank to another, and trod upon the other's foot which was under the table. Now which of these three, says the old bard, do you think was the favourite? In troth, says he, not one of all the three. 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, The behaviour of this old idol in Chaucer, whom for certain reasons, which the reader puts me in mind of the beautiful Clarinda, will hereafter see at large, I shall distin-one of the greatest idols among the moderns. guish by the name of idols. An idol is She is worshipped once a week by candlewholly taken up in the adorning of her per-light, in the midst of a large congregation, son. 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 to their worship. The playhouse is very frequently filled with idols; several of them are carried in procession every evening about the ring, and several of them set up their worship even in churches. They are to be accosted in the language proper to the deity. Life and death are in their power: joys of heaven and pains of hell, are at their disposal; paradise is in their arms, and eternity in every moment that you are present with them. Raptures, transports, and ecstacies are the rewards which they confer; sighs and tears, prayers and broken hearts, are the offerings which are paid to them. Their generally called an assembly. Some of the gayest youths in the nation endeavour to plant themselves in her eye, while she sits in form with multitudes of tapers burning about her. To encourage the zeal of her idolaters, she bestows a mark of her favour upon every one of them, before they go out of her presence. She asks a question of one, tells a story to another, glances an ogle upon a third, takes a pinch of snuff from the fourth, lets her fan drop by accident to give the fifth an occasion of taking it up. In short, every one goes away satisfied with his success, and encouraged to renew his devotions on the same canonical hour that day seven-night. An idol may be undeified by many accidental causes. Marriage in particular is a kind of counter-apotheosis, or a deification inverted.-When a man becomes familiar with his goddess, she quickly sinks into a woman. Old age is likewise a great decayer of your idol. The truth of it is, there is not a more unhappy being than a superannuated idol, especially when she has contracted such airs and behaviour as are only graceful when her worshippers are about her. Considering therefore that in these and many other cases the woman generally outlives the idol, I must return to the moral of this paper, and desire my fair readers to give a proper direction to their passion for being admired; in order to which, they must endeavour to make themselves the objects of a reasonable and lasting admiration. This is not to be hoped for from beauty, or dress, or fashion, but from those inward ornaments which are not to be defaced by time or sickness, and which appear most amiable to those who are most acquainted with them, C. No. 74.] Friday, May 25, 1711. Virg. Æn. iv. 83. IN my last Monday's paper I gave some general instances of those beautiful strokes which please the reader in the old song of Chevy-Chase; I shall here, according to my promise, be more particular, and show that the sentiments in that ballad are extremely natural and poetical, and full of the majestic simplicity 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 same with what we meet in several passages 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 same kind of poetical genius, and by the same copyings after nature. Had this old song been filled with epigrammatical 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 sound of a trumpet; it is only nature that can have this effect, and please those tastes which are the most unprejudiced, or the most refined. I must however beg leave to dissent from so great an authority as that of Sir Philip Sidney, in the judgment which he has passed as to the rude style 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 sonorous; at least the apparel is much more gorgeous than many of the poets made use of in Queen Elizabeth's time, as the reader Posterity, thinn'd by their fathers' crimes, Shall read, with grief, the story of their times. What can be more sounding and poetical, or resemble more the majestic simplicity of the ancients, than the following stanzas? The stout Earl of Northumberland 'With fifteen hundred bowmen bold, Who knew full well, in time of need "The hounds ran swiftly through the woods And with their cries the hills and dales -Vocat ingenti clamore Citharon, Citharon loudly calls me to my way; Fam'd for his hills, and for his horses' breed: Lo yonder doth Earl Douglas come, '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 smooth words for verse. If the reader compares the foregoing six lines of the song with the following Latin verses, he will see how much they are written in the spirit of Virgil: Adversi campo apparent, hastasque reductis En. xi. 605-vii. 682, 712. Advancing in a line, they couch their spears— Turnus ut antevolans tardum præcesserat agmen, Vidisti, quo Turnus equo, quibus ibat in armis Aureus Our English archers bent their bows, Their hearts were good and true; At the first flight of arrows sent, Full threescore Scots they slew. With that there came an arrow keen Which struck Earl Douglas to the heart, A deep and deadly blow.' &c. Eneas was wounded after the same manner by an unknown hand in the midst of a parley. Has inter voces, media inter talia verba, Thus while he spake, unmindful of defence, Or hostile god, is left unknown by fame. Dryden. But of all the descriptive parts of this song, 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 circumstances. The thought in the third stanza was never touched by any other poet, and is such a one as would have shined in Homer or Virgil: So thus did both these nobles die, 'He had a bow bent in his hand, 'Against Sir Hugh Montgomery The grey-goose wing that was thereon This fight did last from break of day For when they rung the ev'ning bell The battle scarce was done.' One may observe, likewise, that in the catalogue of the slain, the author has followed the example of the great ancient poets, not only in giving a long list of the dead, but by diversifying it with little characters of particular persons. And with Earl Douglas there was slain Sir Charles Carrel, that from the field Sir Charles Murrel of Ratcliff too, His sister's son was he; Sir David Lamb, so well esteem'd, Yet saved could not be.' The familiar sound in these names destroys the majesty of the description; for this rea In the catalogue of the English who fell, Witherington's behaviour is in the same 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 seen that passage ridiculed in Hudibras) will not be able to take the beauty of it: for which reason I dare not so much as quote it.' Then stept a gallant 'squire forth, That e'er my captain fought on foot, And I stood looking on." We meet with the same heroic sentiment in Virgil. Non pudet, O Rutuli, cunctis pro talibus unam Can we before the face of Heav'n confess 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, Their bodies bath'd in purple blood, They kiss'd them dead a thousand times, Thus we see how the thoughts of this poem, which naturally arise from the subject, are always simple, and sometimes exquisitely noble; that the language is often very sounding, and that the whole is written with a true poetical spirit. 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 such a profusion of Latin quotations; which I should not have made use of, but that I feared my own judgment would have looked too singular on such a subject, had not I supported it by the practice and authority of Virgil. C. *There is nothing ludicrous in the verse alluded to, as it stands in the original bailad: For Wetharryngton my harte is wo, For when both his legges wear hewyne in to, No. 75.] Saturday, May 26, 1711. Omnis Aristippum decuit color, et status, et res. All fortune fitted Aristippus well.-Creech. vail, as the standards of behaviour, in the country wherein he lives. What is opposite to the eternal rules of reason and good sense, must be excluded from any place in confess, explain myself enough on this the carriage of a well-bred man. I did not, subject, when I called Dorimant a clown, and made it an instance of it, that he called the orange-wench, Double Tripe: I should have shown, that humanity obliges a gentleman to give no part of humankind reproach, for what they, whom they rethe most virtuous and worthy amongst us. proach, may possibly have in common with When a gentleman speaks coarsely, he has dressed himself clean to no purpose. The clothing of our minds certainly ought to be regarded before that of our bodies. To beis a much greater offence against the contray in a man's talk a corrupt imagination, versation of a gentleman, than any negligence of dress imaginable. But this sense of the matter is so far from being received among people even of condition, that Vocifer passes for a fine gentleman. He is loud, haughty, gentle, soft, lewd, and obsequious by turns, just as a little understanding and sent moment. He passes among the silly great impudence prompt him at the prepart of our women for a man of wit, because he is generally in doubt. He contradicts with a shrug, and confutes with a It was with some mortification that II suffered the raillery of a fine lady of my acqaintance, for calling, in one of my papers,* Dorimant a clown. She was so unmerciful as to take advantage of my invincible taciturnity, and on that occasion with great freedom to consider 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 persons who have a great deal of humour. She had the play of Sir Fopling in her hand, and after she had said it was happy for her there was not so charming a creature as Dorimant now living, she began with a theatrical air and tone of voice to read, by way of triumph over me, some of his speeches. "Tis she! that lovely air, that easy shape, those wanton eyes, and all those melting charms about her mouth, which Medley 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.' Then turning over the leaves, she reads certain sufficiency, in professing such and alternately, and speaks, 'And you and Loveit to her cost shall find I fathom all the depths of woman-kind.' Oh the fine gentleman! But here, continues she, is the passage I admire most, where he begins to tease Loveit, and mimic Sir Fopling. Oh, the pretty satire, in his resolving to be a coxcomb to please, since noise and nonsense have such powerful charms. 'I, that I may successful prove, Transform myself to what you love.' such a thing is above his capacity. What makes his character the pleasanter is, that he is a professed deluder of women; and because the empty coxcomb has no regard to any thing that is of itself sacred and inviolable. I have heard an unmarried lady of fortune say, It is a pity so fine a gentleman as Vocifer is so great an atheist. The crowds of such inconsiderable creatures, that infest all places of assembling, every reader will have in his eye from his own observation; but would it not be worth Then how like a man of the town, so wild considering what sort of figure a man and gay is that! "The wise will find a difference in our fate, You wed a woman, I a good estate.' who formed himself upon those principles among us, which are agreeable to the dictates of honour and religion, would make in the familiar and ordinary occurrences of life? It would have been a very wild endeavour for a man of my temper to offer any opposition to so nimble a speaker as my fair several duties of life better than Ignotus. I hardly have observed any one fill his enemy is; but her discourse gave me very All the under parts of his behaviour, and many reflections, when I had left her com- such as are exposed to common observapany. Among others, I could not but con- tion, have their rise in him from great and sider with some attention, the false impres- noble motives. A firm and unshaken exsions the generality (the fair sex more especially) have of what should be in- pectation of another life makes him become tended, when they say a fine gentleman; by the sense of virtue, has the same effect this; humanity and good-nature, fortified and could not help revolving that subject upon him as the neglect of all goodness has in my thoughts, and settling, as it were, an idea of that character in my own imagina- in all matters of importance, that certain upon many others. Being firmly established tion. No man ought to have the esteem of the rest of the world, for any actions which are disagreeable to those maxims which pre * Spect. No. 65. inattention which makes men's actions look easy, appears in him with greater beauty: lencies, he is perfectly master of them. by a thorough contempt of little excelThis temper of mind leaves him under no necessity of studying his air, and he has this He that can work himself into a pleasure in considering 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 a gentleman-like ease. Such a one does not behold his life as a short, transient, 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. Reflection upon death is not a gloomy and sad thought of resigning 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 a man is, the nearer he will naturally be to the character of genteel and agreeable. A man whose fortune is plentiful, shows 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 something so inexpressibly graceful in his words and actions, that every circumstance must become him. The change of persons or things around him does not alter his situation, 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 so much in constant 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 else he on whom it depends, would not have permitted R. peculiar distinction, that his negligence is | alliances. A man who is but a mere Specunaffected. tator of what passes around him, and not engaged in commerces of any consideration, is but an ill judge of the secret motions of the heart of man, and by what degrees it is actuated to make such visible alterations in the same person: but at the same time, when a man is no way concerned in the effect of such inconsistencies in the behaviour of men of the world, the speculation must be in the utmost degree both diverting and instructive; yet to enjoy such observations in the highest relish, he ought to be placed in a post of direction, and have the dealings of their fortunes to them. I have therefore been wonderfully diverted with some pieces of secret history, which an antiquary, my very good friend, lent me as a curiosity. They are memoirs of the private life of Pharamond of France. 'Pharamond,' says my author, was a prince of infinite humanity and generosity, and at the same time the most pleasant 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 exquisite pleasure in conversation, but among equals; and would pleasantly bewail himself that he always lived in a crowd, but was the only man in France that could never get into company. This turn of mind made him delight in midnight rambles, attended only with one person of his bed-chamber. 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 minister. He generally found himself neglected by his new acquaintance as soon as they had hopes of growing great; and used on such occasions to remark, that it was a great injustice to tax princes of forgetting themselves in their high fortunes, when there were so few that could with constancy bear the favour of their very creatures.' My author in these loose hints has one passage 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 discourse with him one day, he gave him an opportunity of saying how much would satisfy all his wishes. The prince immediately revealed himself, doubled the sum, and spoke to him in this manner: Sir, you have twice what you desired, by the favour of Pharamond; but look to it, that you are satisfied with it, for it is the last you shall ever receive. I from this moment consider you as mine; and to make you truly so, I give you my royal word you shall never be greater or less than you are at present. Answer me not (concluded the prince smiling,) but enjoy the fortune I have put you in, which is above my own condition; for you have hereafter nothing to hope or fear. it to have befallen him at all, No. 76.] Monday, May 28, 1711. Creech. THERE is nothing so common as to find a man whom in the general observation of nis carriage you take to be of a uniform temper, subject to such unaccountable starts of humour and passion, that he is as much unlike himself, and differs as much from the man you at first 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 such a manner as to create proper habits both in our minds and bodies. The negligence of this, leaves us exposed, not only to an unbecoming levity in our usual conversation, but also to the same instability in our friendships, interests, and His majesty having thus well chosen and |