songs of the common people, and has been the delight of most Englishmen in some part of their age. This song is a plain simple copy of nature, destitute of all the helps and ornaments of art. The tale of it is a pretty tragical story, and pleases for no other reason but because it is a copy of nature. There is even a despicable simplicity in the verse, and yet, because the sentiments appear genuine and unaffected, they are able to move the mind of the most polite reader with inward meltings of humanity and compassion. The incidents grow out of the subject, and are such as are the most proper to excite pity. For which reason the whole narration has something in it very moving, notwithstanding the author of it (whoever he was) has delivered it in such an abject phrase and poorness of expression, that the quoting any part of it would look like a design of turning it into ridicule. But though the language is mean, the thoughts, as I have before said, from one end to the other are natural, and therefore cannot fail to please those who are not judges of language, or those who, notwithstanding they are judges of language, have a true3 and unprejudiced taste of nature. The condition, speech, and behaviour of the dying parents, with the age, innocence, and distress of the children, are set forth in such tender circumstances that it is impossible for a reader of common humanity* not to be affected with Such as Virgil himself would have touched upon, had the like story been told by that divine poet' (folio). The thoughts from one end to the other are wonderfully natural' (folio). 3 Genuine' (folio). A good-natured reader' (folio). them. As for the circumstance of the robin redbreast, it is indeed a little poetical ornament; and to show the genius of the author1 amidst all his simplicity, it is just the same kind of fiction which one of the greatest of the Latin poets has made use of upon a parallel occasion; I mean that passage in Horace where he describes himself when he was a child fallen asleep in a desert wood, and covered with leaves by the turtles that took pity on him : Me fabulosæ vulture in Appulo, Ludo fatigatumque somno 3 I have heard that the late Lord Dorset, who had the greatest wit tempered with the greatest candour,* and was one of the finest critics as well as the best poets of his age, had a numerous collection of old English ballads, and took a particular pleasure in the reading of them. I can affirm the same of Mr. Dryden, and know several of the most refined writers of our present age who are of the same humour. I might likewise refer my reader to Molière's thoughts on this subject, as he has expressed them in the character of the Misanthrope; but those only who are endowed with a true greatness of soul and genius, can divest themselves of the little images of ridicule, and admire nature in her simplicity and 1 Show what a genius the author was master of' (folio). 2 4 Od. iv. 3 Charles Sackville, Earl of Dorset, died in 1706. 4 Humanity' (folio). 5 Alceste, Molière's misanthrope, preferred an old song to a new sonnet which was recited to him by its author. nakedness. As for the little conceited wits of the age, who can only show their judgment by finding fault, they cannot be supposed to admire these productions which have nothing to recommend them but the beauties of nature, when they do not know how to relish even those compositions that, with all the beauties of nature, have also the additional advantages of art.1 No. 86. Friday, June 8, 1711 L. [ADDISON. Heu quam difficile est crimen non prodere vultu! TH 2 HERE are several arts which all men are in some measure masters of, without having been at the pains of learning them. Every one that speaks or reasons is a grammarian and a logician, though he may be wholly unacquainted with the rules of grammar or logic, as they are delivered in books and systems. In the same manner, every one is in some degree a master of that art which is generally distinguished by the name of physiognomy; and naturally forms to himself the character or fortune of a stranger, from the features and lineaments of his face. We are no sooner presented to any one we never saw before, but we are immediately struck with the idea of a proud, a reserved, an affable, or a good-natured man; and upon our first going into 1 Addison's papers upon Chevy Chase' were ridiculed in 'A Comment upon the History of Tom Thumb,' a pamphlet printed in 1711, and elsewhere. 2 Which every man is in some measure master' (folio). a company of strangers,' our benevolence or aversion, awe or contempt, rises naturally towards several particular persons, before we have heard them speak a single word, or so much as know who they are. Every passion gives a particular cast to the countenance, and is apt to discover itself in some feature or other. I have seen an eye curse for half-anhour together, and an eyebrow call a man scoundrel. Nothing is more common than for lovers to complain, resent, languish, despair, and die, in dumb show. For my own part, I am so apt to frame a notion of every man's humour or circumstances by his looks, that I have sometimes employed myself from Charing Cross to the Royal Exchange in drawing the characters of those who have passed by me. When I see a man with a sour, rivelled face, I cannot forbear pitying his wife; and when I meet with an open ingenuous countenance, think on the happiness of his friends, his family, and relations. 2 I cannot recollect the author of a famous saying to a stranger who stood silent in his company, Speak that I may see thee.' But with submission, I think we may be better known by our looks than by our words; and that a man's speech is much more easily disguised than his countenance. In this case, however, I think the air of the whole face is much more expressive than the lines of it. The truth of it is, the air is generally nothing else but the inward disposition of the mind made visible. Those who have established physiognomy into an art, and laid down rules of judging men's tempers 1 Unknown persons' (folio). 2 Wrinkled. Cf. Pope (Rape of the Lock,' canto ii.)'Shrink his thin essence like a rivelled flower.' 3 Socrates, in Apul. Flor. by their faces, have regarded the features much more than the air. Martial has a pretty epigram on this subject: Crine ruber, niger ore, brevis pede, lumine læsus; Thy beard and head are of a different dye; With all these tokens of a knave complete, Shouldst thou be honest, thou'rt a devilish cheat. 3 I have seen a very ingenious author on this subject, who founds his speculations on the supposition, that as a man hath in the mould of his face a remote likeness to that of an ox, a sheep, a lion, an hog, or any other creature, he hath the same resemblance in the frame of his mind, and is subject to those passions which are predominant in the creature that appears in his countenance. Accordingly he gives the prints of several faces that are of a different mould; and by a little overcharging the likeness, discovers the figures of these several kinds of brutal faces in human features. I remember in the life of the famous Prince of Condé the writer observes, the face of that prince was like the face of an eagle, and that the prince was very well pleased to be told So. In this case therefore we may be sure that he had in his mind some general implicit notion of this art of physiognomy which I have just now mentioned; and that when his courtiers told him his face was made like an eagle's, he understood them in the same manner as if they had told him, there was something in his looks which showed him to be 1 Epig. liv. 12. 2 Baptista della Porta, De Humanæ Physiognomiæ.' |