book that I have ever seen; and is a true instance of the English genius, which, though it does not come the first into any art, generally carries it to greater heights than any other country in the world. I am particularly glad that this author comes from a British printing-house in so great a magnificence, as he is the first who has given us any tolerable account of our country. My illiterate readers, if any such there are, will be surprised to hear me talk of learning as the glory of a nation, and of printing as an art that gains a reputation to a people among whom it flourishes. When men's thoughts are taken up with avarice and ambition, they cannot look upon any thing as great or valuable which does not bring with it an extraordinary power or interest to the person who is concerned in it. But as I shall never sink this paper so far as to engage with Goths and Vandals, I shall only regard such kind of reasoners with that pity which is due to so deplorable a degree of stupidity and ignorance.-L. No. 368.] FRIDAY, MAY 2, 1712. Nos decebat EURIP. apud TULL As the Spectator is in a kind a paper of news from the natural world, as others are from the busy and politic part of mankind, I shall translate the following letter, written to an eminent French gentleman in this town from Paris, which gives us the exit of a heroine who is a pattern of patience and generosity. "STR, Paris, April 18, 1712. "It is so many years since you left your native country, that I am to tell you the characters of your Dearest relations as much as if you were an utter stranger to them. The occasion of this is to give you an account of the death of Madame de Villacerfe, whose departure out of this life I know not whether a man of your philosophy will call unfortunate or not, since it was attended with some circumstances as much to be desired as to be lamented. She was her whole life happy in an uninterrupted health, and was always honoured for an evenness of temper and greatness of mind. On the 10th instant that lady was taken with an indisposition which confined her to her chamber, but was such as was too slight to make her take a sick-bed, and yet too grievous to admit of any satisfaction in being out of it. It is notoriously known that some years ago Monsieur Festeau, one of the most considerable surgeons in Paris, was desperately in love with this lady. Her quality placed her above any application to her on the account of his passion; but as a woman always has some regard to the person whom she believes to be her real admirer, she now took it in her head (upon advice of her physicians to lose some of her blood) to send for Monsieur Festeau on that occasion. I happened to be there at that time, and my near relation gave me the privilege to be present. it to my cousin with some apprehension. She smiled and said, she knew M. Festeau had no inclination to do her injury. He seemed to recover himself, and smiling also, proceeded in his work. Immediately after the operation, he cried out that he was the most unfortunate of all men, for that he had opened an artery instead of a vein. It is as impossible to express the artist's distraction as the patient's composure. I will not dwell on little circumstances, but go on to inform you, that within three days' time it was thought necessary to take off her arm, She was so far from using Festeau as it would be natural to one of a lower spirit to treat him, that she would not let him be absent from any consultation about her present condition, and on every oecasion asked if he was satisfied in the measures that were taken about her. Before this last operation she ordered her will to be drawn, and, after having been about a quarter of an hour alone, she bid the surgeons, of whom poor Festeau was one, go on in their work. I know not how to give you the terms of art, but there appeared such symptoms after the amputation of her arm, that it was visible she could not live four-and-twenty hours. Her behaviour was so magnanimous throughout this whole affair, that I was particularly curious in taking notice of what passed as her fate approached nearer and nearer, and took notice of what she said to all about her, particularly word for word what she spoke to M. Festeau, which was as follows : "Sir, you give me inexpressible sorrow for the anguish with which I see you overwhelmed. I am removed to all intents and purposes from the interests of human life, therefore I am to begin to think like one wholly unconcerned in it. I do not con sider you as one by whose error I have lost my life; no, you are my benefactor, as you have hastened my entrance into a happy immortality. This is my sense of this accident: but the world in which you live may have thoughts of it to your disadvantage: I have therefore taken care to provide for you in my will, and have placed you above what you have to fear from their ill-nature.' "While this excellent woman spoke these words, Festeau looked as if he received a condemnation to die, instead of a pension for his life. Madame de Villacerfe lived till eight of the clock the next night; and though she must have laboured under the most exquisite torments, she possessed her mind with so wonderful a patience, that one may rather say she ceased to breathe, than she died at that hour. You, who had not the happiness to be personally known to this lady, have nothing but to rejoice in the honour you had of being related to so great merit; but we, who have lost her conversation, cannot so easily resign our own happiness by reflection upon hers. "I am, Sir, your affectionate kinsman, "PAUL REGNAUD." There hardly can be a greater instance of an heroic mind than the unprejudiced manner in which this lady weighed this misfortune. The regard of life itself could not make her overlook the contrition of the unhappy man, whose more than ordinary concern for her was all his guilt. It would certainly be of singular use to human society to have practice of all that is praiseworthy, which made her capable of beholding death, not as the dissolution, but consummation of her life.-T. As soon as her arm was stripped bare, and he began an exact account of this lady's ordinary conduct, to press it in order to raise the vein, his colour which was crowned by so uncommon magnanimity. changed, and I observed him seized with a sudden Such greatness was not to be acquired in the last tremor, which made me take the liberty to speak of article; nor is it to be doubted but it was a constant No. 369.] SATURDAY, MAY 3, 1712. HOR. Ars. Poet. 180. What we hear moves less than what we see. -RoSCOMMON. a history MILTON, after having represented in vision the history of mankind to the first great period of nature, dispatches the remaining part of it in narration. He has devised a very handsome reason for the angel's proceeding with Adam after this manner; though doubtless the true reason was the difficulty which the poet would have found to have shadowed out so mixed and complicated a story in visible objects. I could wish, however, that the author had done it, whatever pains it might have cost him. To give my opinion freely, I think that the exhibiting part of the history of mankind in vision, and part in narrative, is as if painter should put in colours one-half of his subject, and write down the remaining part of it. If Mil. ton's poem flags any where, it is in this narration, where in some places the author has been so attentive to his divinity that he has neglected his poetry. The narration, however, rises very happily on several occasions, where the subject is capable of poetical ornaments, as particularly in the confusion which he describes among the builders of Babel, and in his short sketch of the plagues of Egypt. The storm of hail and fire, with the darkness that overspread the land for three days, are described with great strength. The beautiful passage which follows is raised upon noble hints in Scripture: Thus with ten wounds, The river dragon, tam'd, at length submits The river-dragon is an allusion to the crocodile, which inhabits the Nile, from whence Egypt derives her plenty. This allusion is taken from that sublime passage in Ezekiel: "Thus saith the Lord God, Behold I am against thee, Pharaoh, king of Egypt, the great dragon that lieth in the midst of his rivers, which hath said, My river is mine own, and I have made it for myself." Milton has given us another very noble and poetical image in the same description, which is copied almost word for word out of the history of Moses: All night he will pursue, but his approach On their embattell'd ranks the waves return, And overwhelm their war As the principal design of this episode was to give Adam an idea of the holy person who was to reinstate human nature in that happiness and perfection from which it had fallen, the poet confines himself to the line of Abraham, from whence the Messiah was to descend. The angel is described as seeing the patriarch actually travelling towards the land of promise, which gives a particular liveliness to this part of the narration: I see him, but thou canst not, with what faith Of herds, and flocks, and num rous servitude: As Virgil's vision in the sixth Æneid probably gave Milton the hint of this episode, the last line is a translation of that verse where Anchises mentions the names of places, which they were to bear hereafter: Hæe tum nomina erunt, nunc sunt sine nomine terrae. The poet has very finely represented the joy and gladness of heart which rises in Adam upon his discovery of the Messiah. As he sees his day at a distance through types and shadows, he rejoices in it: but when he finds the redemption of man completed, and Paradise again renewed, he breaks forth in rapture and transport: O goodness infinite, goodness immense! I have hinted in my sixth paper on Milton, that an heroic poem, according to the opinion of the best critics, ought to end happily, and leave the mind of the reader, after having conducted it through many doubts and fears, sorrows and disquietudes, in a state of tranquillity and satisfaction. Milton's fable, which had so many other qualifica tions to recommend it, was deficient in this pasticular. It is here therefore that the poet has shown a most exquisite judgment, as well as the finest invention, by finding out a method to supply this natural defect in his subject. Accordingly he leaves the adversary of mankind, in the last view which he gives us of him, under the lowest state of mortification and disappointment. We see him chewing ashes, grovelling in the dust, and loaded with stupernumerary pains and torments. On the contrary, our two first parents are comforted by dreams and visions, cheered with promises of salvation, and in a manner raised to a greater happiness than that which they had forfeited. In short, Satan is represented miserable in the height of his triumphs, and Adam triumphant in the height of misery. Milton's poem ends very nobly. The last speeches of Adam and the archangel are full of moral and instructive sentiments. The sleep that fell upon Eve, and the effects it had in quieting the disorders of her mind, produces the same kind of consolation in the reader, who cannot peruse the last beautiful speech, which is ascribed to the mother of mankind, without a secret pleasure and satisfaction: Whence thou return'st, and whither went'st, I know; The following lines, which conclude the poem, rise in a most glorious blaze of poetical images and expressions. Heliodorus in his Æthiopics acquaints us, that the motion of the gods differs from that of mortals, as the former do not stir their feet, nor proceed step by step, buť slide over the surface of the earth by a aniform swimming of the whole body. The reader may observe with how poetical a description Milton has attributed the same kind of motion to the angels who were to take possession of Paradise: So spake our mother Eve; and Adam heard The author helped his invention in the following passage, by reflecting on the behaviour of the angel who in holy writ has the conduct of Lot and his family. The circumstances drawn from that relation are very gracefully made use of on this occasion: In either hand the hast'ning angel caught The scene which our first parents are surprised with, upon their looking back on Paradise, fully strikes the reader's imagination, as nothing can be more natural than the tears they shed on that occasion: They, looking back, all th' eastern side beheld, If I might presume to offer at the smallest alteration in this divine work, I should think the poem would end better with the passage here quoted, than the two verses which follow: They hand in hand, with wand'ring steps and slow, These two verses, though they have their beauty, fall very much below the foregoing passage, and renew in the mind of the reader that anguish which was pretty well laid by that consideration: The world was all before them, where to choose The number of books in Paradise Lost is equal to those of the Eneid. Our author in his first editiou had divided his poem into ten books, but afterward broke the seventh and the eleventh each of them into two different books, by the help of some small additions. This second division was made with great indgment, as any one may see who will be at the pains of examining it. It was not done for the sake of such a chimerical beauty as that of resembling Virgil in this particular, but for the more just and regular disposition of this great work. Those who have read Bossu, and many of the critics who have written since his time, will not pardon me if I do not find out the particular moral which is inculcated in Paradise Lost Though I can by no means think, with the last-mentioned French author, that an epic writer first of all pitches upon a certain moral, as the ground-work and foundation of his poem, and afterward finds out a story to it; I am however of opinion, that no just hercic poem ever was or can be made, from whence one great moral may not be deduced. That which reigns in Milton is the most universal and most useful that can be imagined. It is in short this, that obedience to the will of God makes men happy, and that disobedience makes them miserable. This is visibly the moral of the principal fable, which turns upon Adam and Eve, who continued in Paradise while they kept the command that was given them, and were driven out of it as soon as they had transgressed. This is likewise the moral of the principal episode, which shows us how an innumerable multitude of angels fell from their state of bliss, and were cast into hell upon their disobedience. Besides this great moral, which may be looked upon as the soul of the fable, there are an affinity of under morals which are to be drawn from the several parts of the poem, and which make this work more useful and instructive than any other poem in any language. Those who have criticized on the Odyssey, the Iliad, and Æneid, have taken a great deal of pains to fix the number of months or days contained in the action of each of those poems. If any one thinks it worth his while to examine this particular in Milton, he will find, that from Adam's first appearance in the fourth book, to his expulsion from Paradise in the twelfth, the author reckons ten days. As for that part of the action which is described in the three first books, as it does not pass within the regions of nature, I have before observed that it is not subject to any calculations of time. I have now finished my observations on a work which does an honour to the English nation. I have taken a general view of it under these four headsthe fable, the characters, the sentiments, and the language, and made each of them the subject of a particular paper. I have in the next place spoken of the censures which our author may incur under each of these heads, which I have confined to two papers, though I might have enlarged the number if I had been disposed to dwell on so ungrateful a subject; I believe, however, that the severest reader will not find any little fault in heroic poetry, which this author has fallen into, that does not come under one of those heads among which I have distributed his several blemishes. After having thus treated at large of Paradise Lost, I could not think it sufficient to have celebrated this poem in the whole without descending to particulars. I have therefore bestowed a paper upon each book, and endeavoured not only to prove that the poem is beautiful in general, but to point out its particular beauties: and, to determine wherein they consist. I have endeavoured to show how some passages are beautiful by being sublime, others by being soft, others by being natural; which of them are recommended by the passion, which by the moral, which by the sentiment, and which by the expression. I have likewise endeavoured to show how the genius of the poet shines by a happy invention, a distant allusion, or a judicious imitation; how he has copied or improved Homer or Virgil, and raised his own imaginations by the use which he has made of several poetical passages in Scripture. I might have inserted also several passages in Tasso, which our author has imitated: but, as I do not look upon Tasso to be a sufficient voucher, I would not perplex my reader with such quotations as might do more honour to the Italian than to the English poet. In short, I have endea voured to particularize those innumerable kinds of bear a figure on the stage, that his talents were un beauty which it would be tedious to recapitulate, but derstood; it is their business to impose upon him which are essential to poetry, and which may be met what cannot become him, or keep out of his hands with in the works of this great author. Had I any thing in which he would shine. Were one to thought, at my first engaging in this design, that it raise a suspicion of himself in a man who passes would have led me to so great a length, I believe I upon the world for a fine thing, in order to alarm should never have entered upon it; but the kind re- him, one might say, If Lord Foppington was not on ception which it has met with among those whose the stage (Cibber acts the false pretensions to a judgment I have a value for, as well as the uncom- genteel behaviour so very justly), he would have mon demands which my bookseller tells me have in the generality of mankind more that would adbeen made for these particular discourses, give me no reason to repent of the pains I have been at in composing them.-L. No. 370.] MONDAY, MAY 5, 1712. Totus mundus agit histrionem. All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players.-SHAKSPEARE MANY of my fair readers, as well as very gay and well-received persons of the other sex, are extremely perplexed at the Latin sentences at the head of my speculations. I do not know whether I ought not to indulge them with translations of each of them: however, I have to-day taken down from the top of the stage in Drury-lane a bit of Latin which often stands in their view, and signifies, that "The whole world acts the player." It is certain that if we look all round us, and behold the different employments of inankind, you hardly see one who is not, as the player is, in an assumed character. The lawyer who is vehement and loud in the cause wherein he knows he has not the truth of the question on his side, is a player as to the personated part, but incomparably meaner than he as to the prostitution of himself for hire: because the pleader's falsehood introduces injustice; the player feigns for no other end but to divert or instruct you. The divine, whose passions transport him to say any thing with any view but promoting the interests of true piety and religion, is a player with a still greater imputation of guilt, in proportion to his depreciating a character more sacred. Consider all the different pursuits and employments of men, and you will find half their actions tend to nothing else but disguise and imposture; and all that is done which proceeds not from a man's very self, is the action of a player. For this reason it is that I make so frequent mention of the stage. It is with me a matter of the highest consideration, what parts are well or ill performed, what passions or sentiments are indulged or cultivated, and consequently what manners and customs are transfused from the stage to the world, which reciprocally imitate each other. As the writers of epic poems introduce shadowy persons, and represent vices and virtues under the characters of men and women; so I, who am a Spectator in the world, may perhaps sometimes make use of the names of the actors on the stage, to represent or admonish those who transact affairs in the world. When I am commending Wilks for representing the tenderness of a husband and a father in Macbeth, the contrition of a reformed prodigal in Harry the Fourth, the winning emptiness of a young man of good-nature and wealth in The Trip to the Jubilee, the officiousness of an artful servant in the For; when thus I celebrate Wilks, I talk to all the world who are engaged in any of those circumstances. If I were to speak of merit neglected, misapplied, or misunderstood, might I not say Estcourt has a great capacity? But it is not the interest of others who mire than deride him. When we come to characters directly comical, it is not to be imagined what effect a well-regulated stage would have upon men's manners. The craft of a usurer, the absurdity of a rich fool, the awkward roughness of a fellow of half courage, the ungraceful mirth of a creature of half wit, might for ever be put out of countenance by proper parts for Degget. Johnson, by acting Corbacchio the other night, must have given all who saw him, a thorough detestation of aged avarice. The petulancy of a peevish old fellow, who loves and hates he knows not why, is very excellently performed by the ingenious Mr. William Penkethman in the Fop's Fortune; where, in the character of Don Choleric Snap Shorto de Testy, he answers no questions but to those whom he likes, and wants no account of any thing from those he approves. Mr. Penkethman is also master of as many faces in the dumb scene as can be expected from a man in the circumstances of being ready to perish out of fear and hunger. He wonders throughout the whole scene very masterly, without neglecting his victuals. If it be, as I have heard it sometimes mentioned, a great qualification for the world to follow business and pleasure too, what is it in the ingenious Mr. Penkethman to represent a sense of pleasure and pleasure pain at the same time-as you may see him do this evening? As it is certain that a stage ought to be wholly suppressed, or judiciously encouraged, while there is one in the nation, men turned for regular pleasure cannot employ their thoughts more usefully, for the diversion of mankind, than by convincing them that it is in themselves to raise this entertainment to the greatest height. It would be a great improvement, as well as embellishment to the theatre, if dancing were more regarded, and taught to all the actors. One who has the advantage of such an agreeable girlish person as Mrs. Bicknell, joined with her capacity of imitation, could in proper gesture and motion represent all the decent characters of female life. An amiable modesty in one aspect of a dancer, and assumed confidence in another, a sudden joy in another, a falling-off with an impatience of being beheld, a return towards the audietice with an unsteady resolution to approach them, and a well-acted solicitude to please, would revive in. the company all the fine touches of mind raised in observing all the objects of affection or passion they had before beheld. Such elegant entertainments as these would polish the town into judgment in their gratifications; and delicacy in pleasure is the first step people of condition take in reformation from vice. Mrs. Bicknell has the only capacity for this sort of dancing of any on the stage; and I dare say all who see her performance to-morrow night, when sure the romp will do her best for her own benefit, will be of my mind.-T. No. 371.1 TUESDAY, MAY 6, 1712. I SHALL communicate to my readers the following letter for the entertainment of this day : "SIR, "You know very well that our nation is more famous for that sort of men who are called 'whims' and 'humorists, than any other country in the world: for which reason it is observed, that our English comedy excels that of all other nations in the novelty elty and variety of its characters. "Among those innumerable sets of whims which tar country produces, there are none whom I have regarded with more curiosity than those who have invented any particular kind of diversion for the entertainment of themselves and their friends. My letter shall single out those who take delight in sorting a company that has something of burlesque and ridicule in its appearance. I shall make my self understood by the following example. One of the wits of the last age, who was a man of a good estate,† thought he never laid out his money better than in a jest. As he was one year at the Bath, guests being a brave man, and fuller of resentment than he knew how to express, went out of the room, and sent the facetious inviter a challenge in writing, which, though it was afterward dropped by the interposition of friends, put a stop to these ludicrous entertainments. "Now, sir, I dare say you will agree with me, that as there is no moral in these jests, they ought to be discouraged, and looked upon rather as pieces of unluckiness than wit. However, as it is natural for one man to refine upon the thought of another; and impossible for any single person, how great soever his parts may be, to invent an art, and bring it to its utmost perfection; I shall here give you an account of an honest gentleman of my acquaintance, who, upon hearing the character of the wit above mentioned, has himself assumed it, and endeavoured to convert it to the benefit of mankind. He invited were each of them famous for inserting several rehalf a dozen of his friends one day to dinner, who dundant phrases in their discourse, as 'D'ye hear me?-D'ye see?-That is,-And so, Sir. Each of his guests making frequent use of his particular elegance, appeared so ridiculous to his neighbour, pearing equally ridiculous to the rest of the conthat he could not but reflect upon himself as appany. By this means before they had sat long to observing that, in the great confluence of fine peo-gether, every one, talking with the greatest circum ple, there were several among them with long chins, 4 part of the visage by which he himself was very much distinguished, he invited to dinner half a score of these remarkable persons, who had their mouths in the middle of their faces. They had no sooner placed themselves about the table but they began to stare upon one another, not being able to imagine what had brought them together. Our English proverb says, 'Tis merry in the hall, It proved so in the assembly I am now speaking of, who seeing so many peaks of faces agitated with eating, drinking, and discourse, and observing all the chins that were present meeting together very spection, and carefully avoiding his favourite expletive, the conversation was cleared of its redundancies, and had a greater quantity of sense though less of sound in it. "The same well-meaning gentleman took ocсаsion, at another time, to bring together such of his friends as were addicted to a foolish habitual custom of swearing. In order to show them the absurdity of the practice, he had recourse to the invention above mentioned, having placed an amanuensis in a private part of the room. After the second bottle, open their minds without reserve, my honest friend began to take notice of the many so norous but unnecessary words that had passed in his house since their sitting down at table, and how much good conversation they had lost by giving often over the centre of the table, every one grew sensible of the jest, and came into it with so much way to such superfluous phrases. What a tax, good humour, that they lived in strict friendship and says he, 'would they have raised for the poor, had we put the laws in execution upon one another!' alliance from that day forward. The same gentleman some time after packed Every one of them took this gentle reproof in part; packed together a set of eglers as he called them, consisting of such as had an unlucky cast in their eyes. His diversion on this occasion was to see the cross bows, mistaken signs, and wrong connivances, that passed amidst so many broken and refracted rays of sight. "The third feast which this merry gentleman exhibited was to the stammerers, whom he got together in a sufficient body to fill his table. He had ordered good conversation would have no secrets in it, he had There were ten sheets of it, which might have been interpolations I have before mentioned. Upon the reading of it in cold blood, it looked rather like a one of his servants, who was placed behind a screen, conference of fiends than of men. In short, every twenty words spoken during the first course; that he made use of the same invention to cure a differ was a quarter of an ducklings and asparagus were very good; and that two former, though they do it more innocently-I versation, and murder time as much as either of the mean, that dull generation of story-tellers, My friend got together about half a dozen of his acquaintance, who were infected with this strange malady. The first day one of them sitting down entered upon the siege of Namur, which lasted till four o'clock, their time of parting The second day a North Briton took possession of the discourse, 2 F |