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in the world, but forget that there was ever | inquire after Constantia; whom he looked such a man in it as THEODOSIUS.'

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upon as given away to his rival upon the day on which, according to common fame, their marriage was to have been solemn

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This letter was conveyed to Constantia that very evening, who fainted at the read-ized. Having in his youth made a good ing of it; and the next morning she was progress in learning, that he might' dedimuch more alarmed by two or three mes- cate himself more entirely to religion, he sengers, that came to her father's house, entered into holy orders, and in a few years one after another, to inquire if they had became renowned for his sanctity of life, heard any thing of Theodosius, who, it and those pious sentiments which he inseems, had left his chamber about mid- spired into all who conversed with him. It night, and could no where be found. The was this holy man to whom Constantia had deep melancholy which had hung upon his determined to apply herself in confession, mind some time before, made them appre- though neither she nor any other, besides hend the worst that could befal him. Con- the prior of the convent, knew any thing stantia, who knew that nothing but the of his name or family. The gay, the amiareport of her marriage could have driven ble Theodosius, had now taken upon him him to such extremities, was not to be the name of Father Francis, and was so far comforted. She now accused herself of concealed in a long beard, a shaven head, having so tamely given an ear to the pro- and a religious habit, that it was impossible posal of a husband, and looked upon the to discover the man of the world in the new lover as the murderer of Theodosius. venerable conventual. In short, she resolved to suffer the utmost As he was one morning shut up in his effects of her father's displeasure, rather confessional, Constantia kneeling by him than comply with a marriage which ap-opened the state of her soul to him; and peared to her so full of guilt and horror. The father seeing himself entirely rid of Theodosius, and likely to keep a considerable portion in his family, was not very much concerned at the obstinate refusal of his daughter; and did not find it very difficult to excuse himself upon that account to his intended son-in-law, who had all along regarded this alliance rather as a marriage of convenience than of love. Constantia had now no relief but in her devotions and exercises of religion, to which her afflictions had so entirely subjected her mind, that after some years had abated the violence of her sorrows, and settled her thoughts in a kind of tranquillity, she resolved to pass the remainder of her days in a convent. Her father was not displeased with a resolution which would save money in his family, and readily complied with his daughter's intentions. Accordingly in the twenty-fifth year of her age, while her beauty was yet in all its height and bloom, he carried her to a neighbouring city, in order to look out a sisterhood of nuns among whom to place his daughter. There was in this place a father of a convent who was very much renowned for his piety and exemplary life; and as it is usual in the Romish church for those who are under any great affliction, or trouble of mind, to apply themselves to the most eminent confessors for pardon and consolation, our beautiful votary took the opportunity of confessing herself to this celebrated father.

We must now return to Theodosius, who, the very morning that the above-mentioned inquiries had been made after him, arrived at a religious house in the city where now Constantia resided; and desiring that secrecy and concealment of the fathers of the convent, which is very usual upon any ex"traordinary occasion, he made himself one of the order, with a private vow never to

after having given him the history of a life full of innocence, she burst out into tears, and entered upon that part of her story in which he himself had so great a share. My behaviour,' says she, has I fear been the death of a man who had no other fault but that of loving me too much. Heaven only knows how dear he was to me whilst he lived, and how bitter the remembrance of him has been to me since his death.' She here paused, and lifted up her eyes that streamed with tears, towards the father; who was so moved with the sense of her sorrows, that he could only command his voice, which was broke with sighs and sobbings, so far as to bid her proceed. She followed his directions, and in a flood of tears poured out her heart before him. The father could not forbear weeping aloud, insomuch that in the agonies of his grief the seat shook under him. Constantia, who thought the good man was thus moved by his compassion towards her, and by the horror of her guilt, proceeded with the utmost contrition to acquaint him with that vow of virginity in which she was going to engage herself, as the proper atonement for her sins, and the only sacrifice she could make to the memory of Theodosius. The father, who by this time had pretty well composed himself, burst out again in tears upon hearing that name to which he had been so long disused, and upon receiving this instance of unparalleled fidelity from one whom he thought had several years since given herself up to the possession of another. Amidst the interruptions of his sorrow, seeing his penitent overwhelmed with grief, he was only able to bid her from time to time be comforted-to tell her that her sins were forgiven her-that her guilt was not so great as she apprehended-that she should not suffer herself to be afflicted above measure. After which he recovered

aimself enough to give her the absolution | where she resided; and are often read to in form; directing her at the same time to the young religious, in order to inspire repair to him again the next day, that he them with good resolutions and sentiments might encourage her in the pious resolu- of virtue. It so happened, that after Contions she had taken, and give her suitable stantia had lived about ten years in the exhortations for her behaviour in it. Con- cloister, a violent fever broke out in the stantia retired, and the next morning re- place, which swept away great multitudes, newed her applications. Theodosius having and among others Theodosius. Upon his manned his soul with proper thoughts and death-bed he sent his benediction in a very reflections, exerted himself on this occasion moving manner to Constantia, who at that n the best manner he could to animate his time was so far gone in the same fatal dispenitent in the course of life she was enter- temper, that she lay delirious. Upon the ing upon, and wear out of her mind those interval which generally precedes death in groundless fears and apprehensions which sicknesses of this nature, the abbess, finding had taken possession of it; concluding with that the physicians had given her over, told a promise to her, that he would from time her that Theodosius was just gone before to time continue his admonitions when she her, and that he had sent her his benedicshould have taken upon her the holy veil. tion in his last moments. Constantia reThe rules of our respective orders,' says ceived it with pleasure. And now,' says he, will not permit that I should see you, she, if I do not ask any thing improper, but you may assure yourself not only of let me be buried by Theodosius. My vow having a place in my prayers, but of re-reaches no farther than the grave; what I ceiving such frequent instructions as I can convey to you by letters. Go on cheerfully in the glorious course you have undertaken, and you will quickly find such a peace and satisfaction in your mind, which is not in the power of the world to give.'

Constantia's heart was so elevated with the discourse of Father Francis, that the very next day she entered upon her vow. As soon as the solemnities of her reception were over; she retired, as it is usual, with the abbess into her own apartment.

ask is, I hope, no violation of it.'- -She died soon after, and was interred according to her request.

Their tombs are still to be seen, with a short Latin inscription over them to the following purpose:

"Here lie the bodies of Father Francis and Sister Constance. They were lovely in their lives, and in their deaths they were not divided.' C.

The abbess had been informed the night No. 165.] before of all that had passed between her noviciate and Father Francis; from whom she now delivered to her the following letter:

Saturday, September 8, 1711.

-Si forte necesse est,

Fingere cinctutis non exaudita Cethegis,
Continget: dabiturque licentia sumpta pudenter.
Hor. Ars Poet. v. 48.

-If you would unheard of things express,
Invent new words; we can indulge a muse,
Until the license rise to an abuse.

Creech.

I HAVE often wished that as in our con

'As the first fruits of those joys and consolations which you may expect from the life you are now engaged in, I must acquaint you that Theodosius, whose death stitution there are several persons whose sits so heavy upon your thoughts, is still business it is to watch over our laws, our alive; and that the father to whom you liberties, and commerce, certain men might have confessed yourself, was once that Theodosius whom you so much lament. be set apart as superintendents of our lanThe love which we have had for one an-guage, to hinder any words of a foreign other will make us more happy in its disappointment than it could have done in its success. Providence has disposed of us for our advantage, though not according to our wishes. Consider your Theodosius still as dead, but assure yourself of one who will not cease to pray for you, in Father

'FRANCIS.'

Constantia saw that the hand-writing agreed with the contents of the letter; and upon reflecting on the voice of the person, the behaviour, and above all the extreme sorrow of the father during her confession, she discovered Theodosius in every particular. After having wept with tears of joy, 'It is enough,' says she, Theodosius is still in being: I shall live with comfort and die in peace.'

The letters which the father sent her afterwards are yet extant in the nunnery

coin from passing among us; and in particular to prohibit any French phrases from becoming current in this kingdom when valuable. The present war has so adultethose of our own stamp are altogether as it would be impossible for one of our greatrated our tongue with strange words, that grandfathers to know what his posterity have been doing, were he to read their exploits in a modern newspaper. Our warriors are very industrious in propagating the French language, at the same time that they are so gloriously successful in beating down their power. Our soldiers are men of strong heads for action, and perform such feats as they are not able to express. They want words in their own tongue to tell us what it is they achieve, and there-. fore send us over accounts of their performances in a jargon of phrases, which they learn among their conquered enemies.

They ought however to be provided with secretaries, and assisted by our foreign ministers, to tell their story for them in plain English, and to let us know in our mothertongue what it is our brave countrymen are about. The French would indeed be in the right to publish the news of the present war in English phrases, and make their campaigns unintelligible. Their people might Hatter themselves that things are not so bad as they really are, were they thus palliated with foreign terms, and thrown into shades and obscurity; but the English cannot be too clear in their narrative of those actions, which have raised their country to a higher pitch of glory than it ever yet arrived at, and which will be still the more admired the better they are explained.

when our country was delivered from the greatest fears and apprehensions, and raised to the greatest height of gladness it had ever felt since it was a nation, I mean the year of Blenheim, I had the copy of a letter sent me out of the country, which was written from a young gentleman in the army to his father, a man of good estate and plain sense. As the letter was very modishly chequered with this modern military eloquence, I shall present my reader with a copy of it.

and Bavarian armies they took post behind 'SIR,-Upon the junction of the French a great morass which they thought impracticable. Our general the next day sent a party of horse to "reconnoitre" them from a little "hauteur," at about a quarter For my part, by that time a siege is car- of an hour's distance from the army, who ried on two or three days, I am altogether returned again to the camp unobserved lost and bewildered in it, and meet with so many inexplicable difficulties, that I scarce through several "defiles," in one of which know which side has the better of it, until they met with a party of French that had been "marauding,' "and made them all I am informed by the Tower-guns that the place is surrendered. I do indeed make prisoners at discretion. The day after a some allowances for this part of the war; which he would communicate to none but drum arrived at our camp, with a message fortifications have been foreign inventions, the general; he was followed by a trumpet, and upon that account abounding in foreign who they say behaved himself very saucily, terms. But when we have won battles with a message from the Duke of Bavaria. which may be described in our own lan- The next morning our army being divided guage, why are our papers filled with so many unintelligible exploits, and the French wards the enemy. You will hear in the corps," made a movement toobliged to lend us a part of their tongue before we can know how they are conquered? public prints how we treated them, with the other circumstances of that glorious They must be made accessary to their own day. I had the good fortune to be in that disgrace, as the Britons were formerly so artificially wrought in the curtain of the Several French battalions, which some say regiment that pushed the " d'armes." gens Roman theatre, that they seemed to draw it up, in order to give the spectators an op- of resistance; but it only proved a gaswere a "corps de reserve," made a show portunity of seeing their own defeat cele-conade," for upon our preparing to fill up brated upon the stage; for so Mr. Dryden has translated that verse in Virgil:

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Which interwoven Britons seem to raise,
And show the triumph that their shame displays.

The histories of all our former wars are transmitted to us in our vernacular idiom, to use the phrase of a great modern critic.* I do not find in any of our chronicles, that Edward the Third ever reconnoitred the enemy, though he often discovered the posture of the French, and as often vanquished them in battle. The Black Prince passed many a river without the help of pontoons, and filled a ditch with faggots as successfully as the generals of our times do it with fascines. Our commanders lose half their praise, and our people half their joy, by means of those hard words and dark expressions in which our newspapers do so much abound. I have seen many a prudent citizen, after having read every article, inquire of his next neighbour what news the mail had brought.

I remember, in that remarkable year

Dr. Richard Bentley.

into two "

66

a little "fosse" in order to attack them, they beat the "chamade," and sent us a "carte blanche." Their "commandant," with a great many other general officers, and troops without number, are made prisoners of war, and will, I believe, give you a visit in England, the "cartel" not being yet settled. Not questioning but these particulars will be very welcome to you, I congratulate you upon them, and am your most dutiful son,' &c.

The father of the young gentleman upon the perusal of the letter found it contained great news, but could not guess what it was. He immediately communicated it to the curate of the parish, who upon the reading of it, being vexed to see any thing he could not understand, fell into a kind of a passion, and told him, that his son had sent him a letter that was neither fish, flesh, nor good red-herring. I wish,' says he, the captain may be "compos mentis," he talks of a saucy trumpet, and a drum that carries messages; then who is this "carte blanche?" He must either banter us, or he is out of his senses.' The father, who always looked upon the curate as a learned man, began to fret inwardly at his son's usage, and pro

ducing a letter which he had written to him [ an advantage above all the great masters, about three posts before, 'You see here,' is this, that they can multiply their origisays he, when he writes for money he nals: or rather can make copies of their knows how to speak intelligibly enough; there is no man in England can express himself clearer, when he wants a new furniture for his horse.' In short the old man was so puzzled upon the point, that it might have fared ill with his son, had he not seen all the prints about three days after filled with the same terms of art, and that Charles only writ like other men. L.

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ARISTOTLE tells us that the world is a copy or transcript of those ideas which are in the mind of the first Being, and that those ideas which are in the mind of man, are a transcript of the world. To this we may add, that words are the transcript of those ideas which are in the mind of man, and that writing or printing are the transcript of words.

As the Supreme Being has expressed, and as it were printed his ideas in the creation, men express their ideas in books, which by this great invention of these latter ages may last as long as the sun and moon, and perish only in the general wreck of nature. Thus Cowley in his poem on the Resurrection, mentioning the destruction of the universe, has those admirable lines:

Now all the wide extended sky,

works, to what number they please, which shall be as valuable as the originals themselves. This gives a great author something like a prospect of eternity, but at the same time deprives him of those other advantages which artists meet with. The artist finds greater returns in profit, as the author in fame. What an inestimable price would a Virgil or a Homer, a Cicero or an Aristotle bear, were their works like a statue, a building, or a picture, to be confined only in one place, and made the property of a single person!

If writings are thus durable, and may pass from age to age throughout the whole course of time, how careful should an author be of committing any thing to print that may corrupt posterity, and poison the of great talents, who employ their parts minds of men with vice and error! Writers in propagating immorality, and seasoning

to be looked upon as the pests of society, vicious sentiments with wit and humour, are and the enemies of mankind. They leave books behind them (as it is said of those who die in distempers which breed an illwill towards their own species) to scatter act the counterparts of a Confucius or a infection and destroy their posterity. They Socrates; and seem to have been sent into the world to deprave human nature, and sink it into the condition of brutality.

I have seen some Roman Catholic authors who tell us, that vicious writers continue in Purgatory so long as the influence of their writings continues upon posterity: ‘for purgatory,' say they, is nothing else but a cleansing us of our sins, which cannot be And all th' harmonious worlds on high, said to be done away, so long as they conAnd Virgil's sacred work shall die. tinue to operate, and corrupt mankind. There is no other method of fixing those The vicious author,' say they, 'sins after thoughts which arise and disappear in the death, and so long as he continues to sin, mind of man, and transmitting them to the so long must he expect to be punished.' last periods of time; no other method of Though the Roman Catholic notion of purgiving a permanency to our ideas, and pre-gatory be indeed very ridiculous, one canserving the knowledge of any particular person, when his body is mixed with the common mass of matter, and his soul retired into the world of spirits. Books are the legacies that a great genius leaves to mankind, which are delivered down from generation to generation, as presents to the posterity of those who are yet unborn.

All other arts of perpetuating our ideas continue but a short time. Statues can last but a few thousands of years, edifices fewer, and colours still fewer than edifices. Michael Angelo, Fontana, and Raphael, will hereafter be what Phidias, Vitruvius, and Apelles are at present, the names of great statuaries, architects, and painters, whose works are lost. The several arts are expressed in mouldering materials. Nature sinks under them and is not able to support the ideas which are imprest upon it.

The circumstance which gives authors

not but think that if the soul after death has any knowledge of what passes in this world, that of an immoral writer would receive much more regret from the sense of corrupting, than, satisfaction from the thought of pleasing his surviving admirers.

To take off from the severity of this speculation, I shall conclude this paper with a story of an atheistical author, who at a time when he lay dangerously sick, and had desired the assistance of a neighbouring curate, confessed to him with great contrition, that nothing sat more heavy at his heart than the sense of his having seduced the age by his writings, and that their evil influence was likely to continue even after his death. The curate upon farther examination finding the penitent in the utmost agonies of despair, and being himself a man of learning, told him that he hoped his case was not so desperate as he apprehended,

since he found that he was so very sensible |
of his fault and so sincerely repented of it.
The penitent still urged the evil tendency
of his book to subvert all religion, and the
little ground of hope there could be for one
whose writings would continue to do mis-
chief when his body was laid in ashes. The
curate, finding no other way of comforting
him, told him that he did well in being
afflicted for the evil design with which he
published his book; but that he ought to be
very thankful that there was no danger of
its doing any hurt: that his cause was so
very bad, and his arguments so weak, that
he did not apprehend any ill effects of it: in
short, that he might rest satisfied his book
could do no more mischief after his death,
than it had done whilst he was living. To
which he added, for his farther satisfaction,
that he did not believe any besides his par-
ticular friends and acquaintance had ever
been at the pains of reading it, or that any
body after his death would ever inquire
after it. The dying man had still so much
the frailty of an author in him, as to be cut
to the heart with these consolations; and,
without answering the good man, asked his
friends about him (with a peevishness that
is natural to a sick person) where they had
picked up such a blockhead? And whether
they thought him a proper person to attend
one in his condition? The curate finding
that the author did not expect to be dealt
with as a real and sincere penitent, but as
a penitent of importance, after a short ad-
monition withdrew; not questioning but he
should be again sent for if the sickness grew
desperate. The author however recovered,
and has since written two or three other
tracts with the same spirit, and, very luckily
for his poor soul, with the same success.

C.

Him the damn'd doctor and his friends immur'd; They bled, they cupp'd, they purg'd, in short, they cur'd;

Whereat the gentleman began to stare

My friends! he cry'd, pox take ye for your care!
That from a patriot of distinguished note,
Have bled and purg'd me to a simple vote.'-Pope.

THE unhappy force of an imagination unguided by the check of reason and judgment, was the subject of a former speculation. My reader may remember that he has seen in one of my papers a complaint of an unfortunate gentleman, who was unable to contain himself (when any ordinary matter was laid before him,) from adding a few circumstances to enliven plain narrative. That correspondent was a person of too warm a complexion to be satisfied with things merely as they stood in nature, and therefore formed incidents which should have happened to have pleased him in the story. The same ungoverned fancy which pushed that correspondent on, in spite of himself, to relate public and notorious falsehoods, makes the author of the following letter do the same in private; one is a prating, the other a silent, liar.

There is little pursued in the errors of either of these worthies, but mere present amusement: but the folly of him who lets his fancy place him in distant scenes untroubled and uninterrupted, is very much preferable to that of him who is ever forcing a belief, and defending his untruths with new inventions. But I shall hasten to let this liar in soliloquy, who calls himself a castle-builder, describe himself with the same unreservedness as formerly appeared in my correspondent above-mentioned. If a man were to be serious on this subject, he might give very grave admonitions to those who are following any thing in this life, on which they think to place their hearts, and tell them that they are really castle-builders. Fame, glory, wealth, honour, have in the

No. 167.] Tuesday, September 11, 1711. prospect pleasing illusions; but they who

Fuit haud ignobilis Argis,

Qui se credebat miros audire tragados,
In vacuo lætus sessor plausorque theatro;
Cætera qui vitæ servaret munia recto
More; bonus sane vicinus, amabilis hospes:
Comis in uxorem; posset qui ignoscere servis,
Et signo læso non insanire lagenæ;

Posset qui rupem et puteum vitare patentem,
Hic ubi cognatorum opibus curisque refectus,
Expulit elleboro morbum bilemque meraco,
Et redit ad sese: Pol me occidistis, amici,
Non servastis, ait; cui sic extorta voluptas,
Et demptus per vim mentis gratissimus error.
Hor. Lib. 2. Ep. ii. 128.

IMITATED.

There lived in Primo Georgii (they record)
A worthy member, no small fool, a lord:
Who, though the house was up, delighted sate,
Heard, noted, answer'd, as in full debate;
In all but this, a man of sober life,
Fond of his friend, and civil to his wife;
Not quite a madman, though a pasty fell
And much too wise to walk into a well.

*This was probably Mr. John Toland, author of the ife of Milton, whose deistical writings had exposed him

to the repeated attacks of the Tatler. There appears to be another blow aimed at him in No. 234.

come to possess any of them will find they are ingredients towards happiness, to be regarded only in the second place: and that when they are valued in the first degree, they are as disappointing as any of the phantoms in the following letter.

'Sept. 6, 1711.

'MR. SPECTATOR,-I am a fellow of a very odd frame of mind, as you will find by the sequel; and think myself fool enough to deserve a place in your paper. I am unhappily far gone in building, and am one of that species of men who are properly denominated castle-builders, who scorn to be beholden to the earth for a foundation, or dig in the bowels of it for materials, but erect their structures in the most unstable of elements, the air; fancy alone laying the line, marking the extent, and shaping the model. It would be difficult to enumerate what august palaces and stately porticos have grown under my forming imagination, or what verdant meadows and shady

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