No. 551.] TUESDAY, DECEMBER 2, 1712.

Sie honor et nomen divinis vatibus atque Carıminibus venit

HOR. Ars Poet. ver. 400.

So ancient is the pedigree of verse,
And so divine a poet's function. RosCOMMON.

MR. SPECTATOR,

"WHEN men of worthy and excelling geniuses have obliged the world with beautiful and instructive writings, it is in the nature of gratitude that praise should be returned them, as one proper consequent reward of their performances. Nor has mankind ever been so degenerately sunk but they have made this return, and even when they have not been wrought up by the generous endeavour so as to receive the advantages designed by it. This praise, which arises first in the mouth of particular persons, spreads and lasts according to the merit of authors; and when it thus meets with a full success changes its denomination, and is called fame. They, who have happily arrived at this, are, even while they live, inflamed by the acknowledgments of others, and spurred on to new undertakings for the benefit of mankind, notwithstanding the detraction which some abject tempers would cast upon them: but when they decease, their characters being free from the shadow which envy laid them under, begin to shine out with the greater splendour; their spirits survive in their works; they are admitted into the highest companies, and they continue pleasing and instructing posterity from age to age. Some of the best gain a character, by being able to show that they are no strangers to them and others obtain a new warmth to labour for the happiness and ease of mankind, from a reflection upon those honours which are paid to their memories.

"The thought of this took me up as I turned over those epigrams which are the remains of several of the wits of Greece, and perceived many dedicated to the fame of those who had excelled in beautiful poetic performances. Wherefore, in pursuance to my thought, I concluded to do something along with them to bring their praises into a new light and language, for the encouragement of those whose modest tempers may be deterred by the fear of envy or detraction from fair attempts, to which their paris might render them equal. You will perceive them, as they follow, to be conceived in the form of epitaphs, a sort of writing which is wholly set apart for a short-pointed method of praise.

ON ORPHEUS, WRITTEN BY ANTIPATER
No Ienger, Orpheus, shall thy sacred strains
Lead stones, and trees, and beasts along the plains:
No longer soothe the boisterous winds to sleep,
Or still the billows of the raging deep.
For thou art gone. The Muses mourn thy fall
In solemn strains, thy mother most of all.
Ye mortals, idły for your sons ye moan,

If thus a goddess could not save her own.

Whose birth could more than one poor realm adorn,
For all the world is proud that he was born.

"The thought in the first part of this is natural, and depending upon poesy; in the latter part it looks as if it would aim at the history of seven towns contending for the honour of Homer's birth-place; but when you expect to meet with that common story the poet slides by, and raises the whole world for a kind of arbiter, which is to end the contention amongst its several parts.

ON ANACREON, BY ANTIPATER.
This tomb be thine, Anacreon! All around
Let ivy wreathe, let flow'rets deck the ground;
And from its earth, enrich'd by such a prize,
Let wells of milk and streams of wine arise:
So will thine ashes yet a pleasure know,
If any pleasure reach the shades below.

"The poet here written upon is an easy gay author, and he who writes upon him has filled his own head with the character of his subject. He seems to love his theme so much, that he thinks of nothing but pleasing him as if he were still alive, by entering into his libertine spirit; so that the humour is easy and gay, resembling Anacreon in its air, raised by such images, and pointed with such a turn as he might have used. I give it a place here because the author may have designed it for his honour; and I take an opportunity from it to advise others, that when they would praise they cautiously avoid every looser qualification, and fix only where there is a real foundation in merit.

ON EURIPIDES, BY ION.

Divine Euripides, this tomb we see,
So fair, is not a monument for thee,
So much as thou for it, since all will own
Thy name and lasting praise adorn the stone.

"The thought here is fine, but its fault is, that it is general, that it may belong to any great man, because it' points out no particular character. It would be better if, when we light upon such a turn, we join it with something that circumscribes and bounds it to the qualities of our subject. He who gives his praise in gross, will often appear either to have been a stranger to those he writes upon, or not to have found anything in them which is praiseworthy.

ON SOPHOCLES, BY SIMONIDES.

Wind, gentle evergreen, to form a shade
Around the tomb where Sophocles is laid;
Sweet ivy. wind thy boughs, and intertwine
With blushing roses and the clustering vine:
Thus will thy lasting leaves, with beauties hung,
Prove grateful emblems of the lays he sung.
Whose soul, exalted like a God of wit,
Among the Muses and the Graces writ.

"This epigram I have opened more than any of the former: the thought towards the latter end seemed closer couched, so as to require an explication. I fancied the poet aimed at the picture which is generally made of Apolio and the Muses, he sitting with his harp in the middle, and they around him. This looked beautiful to my thought; and bethe original as I was reading it, I ventured to explain them so.

"Observe here, that if we take the fable for granted, as it was believed to be in that age when the epigram was written, the turn appears to have piety to the gods, and a resigning spirit in its ap- cause the image arose before me out of the words of

plication. But if we consider the point with respect
to our present knowledge, it will be less esteemed;
though the author himself, because he believed it,
may still be more valued than any one who should
now write with a point of the same nature.

ON HOMER, BY ALPHEUS OF MYTILENE.
Stili in our ears Andromache complains,
And still in sight the fate of Troy remains:
Still Ajax fights, still Hector's dragg'd along:
Such strange enchantment divells in Homer's song:

ON MENANDER, THE AUTHOR UNNAMED.
The very bees, O sweet Menander, hung
To taste the Muses' spring upon thy tongue
The very Graces made the scenes you writ
Their happy point of fire expression hit.
Thus still you live, you make your Athers shine,
And raise its glory to the skies in thine

"This epigram has a respect to the character of

"I will offer no more instances at present to show, that they who deserve praise have it returned them from different ages; let these which have been laid down show men that envy will not always pre- " 4th Dec. vail. And to the end that writers may more successfully enliven the endeavours of one another, let them consider, in some such manner as I have attempted, what may be the justest spirit and art of praise. It is indeed very hard to come up to it. Our praise is trifling when it depends upon fable: it is false when it depends upon wrong qualifications; it means nothing when it is general; it is extremely difficult to hit when we propose to raise characters high, while we keep to them justly. I shall end this with transcribing that excellent epitaph of Mr. Cowley, wherein, with a kind of grave and philosophic humour, he very beautifully speaks of himself (withdrawn from the world and dead to all the interests of it) as of a man really deceased. At the same time it is an instruction how to leave the public with a good race.

No.552.] WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 3, 1712. lic, by acquainting them with his proposals for a

Qui prægravat artes
Infra se positas, extinctus amabitur idem-Hor. 2 Ep. 1. 13.
For those are hated that excel the rest,
Although, when dead, they are belov'd and blest. CREECH.

pair of new globes. After this preamble, he promises in the said proposals that,

IN THE CELESTIAL GLOBE,

"Care shall be taken that the fixed stars be placed according to their true longitude and latitude, from the many and correct observations of Hevelius, Cassini, Mr. Flamstead, reg. astonomer; Dr. Halley, Savilian professor in geometry in Oxon; and from whatever else can be procured to render the globe more exact, instructive, and useful.

As I was tumbling about the town the other day in a hackney-coach, and delighting myself with busy scenes in the shops on each side of me, it came into my head, with no small remorse, that I had not been frequent enough in the mention and recommendation of the industrious part of mankind. It very naturally upon this occasion touched my con"That all the constellations be drawn in a curiscience in particular, that I had not acquitted my-ous, new, and particular manner; each star in so

self to my friend Mr. Peter Motteux. That industrious man of trade, and formerly brother of the quill, has dedicated to me a poem upon tea. It would injure him, as a man of business, if I did not let the world know that the author of so good verses writ them before he was concerned in traffic. In order to expiate my negligence towards him, I immediately resolved to make him a visit. I found his spacious warehouses filled and adorned with tea, China, and India-ware. I could observe a beautiful ordonnance of the whole; and such different and considerable branches of trade carried on in the same house, I exulted in seeing disposed by a poetical head. In one place were exposed to view silks of various shades and colours, rich brocades, and the wealthiest product of foreign looms. Here you might see the finest laces held up by the fairest hands; and there, examined by the beauteous eyes of the buyers, the most delicate cambrics, muslins, and linens. I could not but congratulate my friend on the humble, but I hope beneficial, use he had made of his talents, and wished I could be a patron to his trade, as he had been pleased to make me of his poetry. The honest man has I know that modest desire of gain which is peculiar to those who understand better things than riches; and I dare say he would be contented with much less than what is called wealth in that quarter of the town which he inhabits, and will oblige all his customers with demands agreeable to the moderation of his desires.

Among other omissions of which I have been also guilty, with relation to men of industry of a superior order, I must acknowledge my silence towards a proposal frequently enclosed to me by Mr. Renatus Harris, organ-builder. The ambition of this artificer is to erect an organ in St. Paul's cathedral, over the west door, at the entrance into the body of the church, which in art and magnificence shall transcend any work of that kind ever before invented. The proposal in perspicuous language sets forth the honour and advantage such a performance would be to the British name, as well as that it would apply the power of sounds in a manner more amazingly forcible than perhaps has yet been known, and I am sure to an end much more worthy. Had the vast sums which have been laid out upon operas

just, distinct, and conspicuous a proportion, that its true magnitude may be readily known by bare inspection, according to the different light and sizes of the stars. That the track or way of such comets as have been well observed, but not hitherto expressed in any globe, be carefully delineated in this."

IN THE TERRESTRIAL GLOBE,

"That by reason the descriptions formerly made, both in the English and Dutch great globes, are erroneous, Asia, Africa, and America, be drawn in a manner wholly new; by which means it is to be noted that the undertakers will be obliged to alter the latitude of some places in ten degrees, the longitude of others in twenty degrees; besides which great and necessary alterations, there be many remarkable countries, cities, towns, rivers, and lakes, omitted in other globes, inserted here according to the best discoveries made by our late navigators. Lastly, that the course of the trade-winds, the monsoons, and other winds periodically shifting between the tropics, be visibly expressed.

"Now, in regard that this undertaking is of so universal use, as the advancement of the most necessary parts of the mathematics, as well as tending to the honour of the British nation, and that the charge of carrying it on is very expensive, it is desired that all gentlemen who are willing to promote so great a work will be pleased to subscribe on the following conditions:

" I, The undertakers engage to furnish each subscriber with a celestial and terrestrial globe, each of thirty inches diameter, in all respects curiously adorned, the stars gilded, the capital cities plainly distinguished, the frames, meridians, horizons, hour circles, and indexes, so exactly finished up, and accurately divided, that a pair of these globes will really appear, in the judgment of any disinterested and intelligent person, worth fifteen pounds more than will be demanded for them by the undertakers.

" II. Whosoever will be pleased to subscribe and pay twenty-five pounds in the manner following for a pair of the globes, either for their own use, or to present them to any college in the universities, or any public library or schools, shall have his coat of arms, name, title, seat, or place of residence, &c. inserted in some convenient place of the globe.

without skill or conduct, and to no other purpose "III. That every subscriber do at first pay down but to suspend or vitiate our understandings, been the sum of ten pounds, and fifteen pounds more upon disposed this way, we should now perhaps have had the delivery of each pair of globes perfectly fitted an engine so formed as to strike the minds of half a up. And that the said globes be delivered within people at once in a place of worship, with a forget- twelve months after the number of thirty subscribers fulness of present care and calamity, and a hope of be completed; and that the subscribers be served endless rapture, joy, and hallelujah hereafter. with globes in the order in which they subscribed.. When I am doing this justice, I am not to forget "IV. That a pair of these globes shall not herethe best mechanic of my acquaintance, that useful after be sold to any person but the subscribers unde servant to sciences and knowledge, Mr. John Rowley; but think I lay a great obligation on the pubthirty pounds.

"V.

That, if there be not thirty subscribers within

four months after the first of December 1712, the money paid shall be returned on demand by Mr. John Warner, goldsmith, near Temple-bar, who shall receive and pay the same according to the above-mentioned articles."-T.

it is sent me from gentlemen who belong to a bod which I shall always honour, and where (I canno speak it without a secret pride) my speculations have met with a very kind reception. It is usual for poets, upon the publishing of their works, to print before them such copies of verses as have been made in their praise. Not that you must imagine No. 553.] THURSDAY, DECEMBER 4, 1712. they are pleased with their own commendation, but

be continued daily, or the same spots of ground elegant and valuable an entertainment. And we which are cleared for a while will in a little time be could not, without sorrow, reflect that we were likely overrun as much as ever." Another gentleman lays to have nothing to interrupt our sips in the morning, before me several enormities that are already sprout- and to suspend our coffee in mid-air, between our ing, and which he believes will discover themselves lips and right ear, but the ordinary trash of news in their full growth immediately after my disappear- papers. We resolved, therefore, not to part with ance. "There is no doubt," says he, "but the you so. But since, to make use of your own alluladies' heads will shoot up as soon as they know sion, the cherries began now to crowd the market, they are no longer under the Spectator's eye; and and their season was almost over, we consulted our I have already seen such monstrous broad-brimmed future enjoyments, and endeavoured to make the hats under the arms of foreigners, that I question exquisite pleasure that delicious fruit gave our taste not but they will overshadow the island within a as lasting as we could, and by drying them, protract

month or two after the dropping of your paper." But, among all the letters which are come to my hands, there is none so handsomely written as the following one, which I am the more pleased with as

of after-ages, who should proceed upon his notices or conjectures.

other fruit at its first appearance. To speak plain, there are a number of us who have begun your works afresh, and meet two nights in the week in "The excellent Mr. Boyle was the person who order to give you a re-hearing. We never come seems to have been designed by nature to succeed together without drinking your health, and as sel- to the labours and inquiries of that extraordinary dom part without general expressions of thanks to genius I have just mentioned. By innumerable you for our night's improvement. This we conceive experiments, he in a great measure filled up those

to be a more useful institution than any other club whatever, not excepting even that of Ugly Faces. We have one manifest advantage over that renowned Society, with respect to Mr. Spectator's company. For though they may brag that you sometimes make your personal appearance amongst them, it is impossible they should ever get a word from you, whereas you are with us the reverse of what Phædria would have his mistress be in his rival's company, 'present in your absence.' We make you talk as much and as long as we please; and, let me tell you, you seldom hold your tongue for the whole evening. I promise myself you will look with an eye of favour upon a meeting which owes its original to a mutual emulation among its members, who shall show the most profound respect for your paper; not but we have a very great value for your person: and I dare say you can no where find four more sincere Admirers, and humble Servants, than

"T. F. G. S. J. T. E. F."

No. 554] FRIDAY, DECEMBER 5, 1712.
-Tentanda via est, qua me quoque possim
Tollere humo, victorque virum volitare per ora.
VIRG. Georg. iii. 9.
New ways I must attempt, my grovelling name
To raise aloft, and wing my flight to fame.-DRYDEN.

I AM obliged for the following essay, as well for that which lays down rules out of Tully for pronunciation and action, to the ingenious author of a poem just published, entitled An Ode to the Creator of the World, occasioned by the Fragments of Orpheus.

"It is a remark, made as I remember by a celebrated French author, that no man ever pushed his capacity as far as it was able to extend. I shall not inquire whether this assertion be strictly true. It may suffice to say, that men of the greatest application and acquirements can look back upon many vacant spaces, and neglected parts of time, which have slipped away from them unemployed; and there is hardly any one considering person in the world but is apt to fancy with himself, at some time or other, that if his life were to begin again he could fill it up better.

"The mind is most provoked to cast on itself this ingenuous reproach, when the examples of such men are presented to it as have far outshot the generality of their species in learning, arts, or any valuable improvements.

plans and outlines of science, which his predecessor had sketched out. His life was spent in the pursuit of nature through a great variety of forms and changes, and in the most rational as well as devout adoration of its divine Author.

"It would be impossible to name many persons who have extended their capacities so far as these two, in the studies they pursued; but my learned readers on this occasion will naturally turn their thoughts to a third, who is yet living, and is likewise the glory of our own nation. The improvements which others had made in natural and inathematical knowledge has so vastly increased in his hands, as to afford at once a wonderful instance how great the capacity is of a human soul, and how inexhaustible the subject of its inquiries: so true is that remark in holy writ, that though a wise man seek to find out the works of God from the beginning to the end, yet shall he not be able to do it.'

"I cannot help mentioning here one character more of a different kind indeed from these, yet such a one as may serve to show the wonderful force of nature and of application, and is the most singular instance of a universal genius I have ever met with. The person I mean is Leonardo de Vinci, an Italian painter, descended from a noble family in Tuscany, about the beginning of the sixteenth century. In his profession of history-painting he was so great a master, that some have affirmed he excelled all who went before him. It is certain that he raised the envy of Michael Angelo, who was his contemporary, and that from the study of his works Raphael himself learned his best manner of designing. He was a master too in sculpture and architecture, and skilful in anatomy, mathematics, and mechanics. The aqueduct from the river Adda to Milan is mentioned as a work of his contrivance. He had learned several languages, and was acquainted with the studies of history, philosophy, poetry, and music. Though it is not necessary to my present purpose, I cannot but take notice, that all who have writ of him mention likewise his perfection of body. The instances of his strength are almost incredible. He is described to have been of a well-formed person, and a master of all genteel exercises. And, lastly, we are told that his moral qualities were agreeable to his natural and intellectual endowments, and that he was of an honest and generous mind, adorned with great sweetness of manners. I might break off the account of him here, but I imagine it will be an entertainment to the curiosity of my readers, to find so remarkable a character distinguished by as remarkable a circumstance at his death. The fame of his works having gained him France, where, after some time, he fell sick; and Francis the First coming to see him, he raised himself in his bed to acknowledge the honour which was done him by that visit. The king embraced him, and Leonardo, fainting in the same instant, expired in the arms of that great monarch.

"One of the most extensive and improved geniuses we have had any instance of in our own nation, or in any other, was that of Sir Francis Bacon, Lord Verulam. This great man, by an extraordinary force of nature, compass of thought, and indefatiga- a universal esteem, he was invited to the court of

ble study, had amassed to himself such stores of knowledge as we cannot look upon without amazement. His capacity seemed to have grasped all that was revealed in books before his time; and, not satisfied with that, he began to strike out new tracts of seience, too many to be travelled over by any one man in the compass of the longest life. These therefore he could only mark down, like imperfect coastings in maps, on supposed points of land, to be furthe: discovered and ascertained by the industry ir Isaac Newton. + He was born in 1445, and died in 1520.

"It is impossible to attend to such instances as these without being raised into a contemplation on