and where a vast concourse, out of the most How different from this manner of edupolite nations could not but furnish the cation is that which prevails in our own young gentleman with a multitude of great country! where nothing is more usual than examples and accidents that might insensi- to see forty or fifty boys of several ages, bly have instructed him in his designed tempers, and inclinations, ranged together studies. He placed him under the care of in the same class, employed upon the same Cratippus, who was one of the greatest authors, and enjoined the same tasks! philosophers of the age, and, as if all the Whatever their natural genius may be, books which were at that time written had they are all to be made poets, historians, not been sufficient for his use, he composed and orators alike. They are all obliged to others on purpose for him: notwithstand have the same capacity, to bring in the ing all this, history informs us that Marcus same tale of verse, and to furnish out the proved a mere blockhead, and that nature, same portion of prose. Every boy is bound (who it seems was even with the son for to have as good a memory as the captain her prodigality to the father) rendered him of the form. To be brief, instead of adaptincapable of improving by all the rules of ing studies to the particular genius of a eloquence, the precepts of philosophy, his youth, we expect from the young man, own endeavours, and the most refined con- that he should adapt his genius to his stuversation in Athens. This author, there- dies. This, I must confess, is not so much fore, proposes, that there should be certain to be imputed to the instructor, as to the triers or examiners appointed by the state, parent, who will never be brought to beto inspect the genius of every particular lieve, that his son is not capable of perboy, and to allot him the part that is most forming as much as his neighbour's, and suitable to his natural talents.

that he may not make him whatever he • Plato in one of his dialogues tells us that has a mind to. Socrates, who was the son of a midwife, • If the present age is more laudable than used to say, that as his mother, though she those which have gone before it in any sinwas very skilful in her profession, could not gle particular, it is in that generous care deliver a woman unless she was first with which several well-disposed persons have child, so neither could he himself raise taken in the education of poor children; knowledge out of a mind where nature had and as in these charity-schools there is no not planted it.

place left for the overweaning fondness of • Accordingly the method this philoso- a parent, the directors of them would make pher took, of instrụcting his scholars by them beneficial to the public, if they conseveral interrogatories or questions, was sidered the precept which I have been thus only helping the birth, and bringing their long inculcating. They might easily, by own thoughts to light.

well examining the parts of those under The Spanish doctor above-mentioned, their inspection, make a just distribution as his speculations grew more refined, as- of them into proper classes and divisions, serts that every kind of wit has a particular and allot to them this or that particular science, corresponding to it, and in which study, as their genius qualifies them for alone it can be truly excellent. As to those professions, trades, handicrafts, or service geniuses, which may seem to have an equal by sea or land. aptitude for several things, he regards them

How is this kind of regulation wanting as so many. unfinished pieces of nature in the three great professions! wrought off in haste.

Dr. South, complaining of persons who • There are indeed but very few to whom took upon them holy orders, though altonature has been so unkind, that they are gether unqualified for the sacred function, not capable of shining in some science or says somewhere, that many a man runs his other. There is a certain bias towards know- head against a pulpit, who might have done ledge in every mind, which may be strength- his country excellent service at the ploughened and improved by proper applications. tail.

“The story of Clavius is very well known. In like manner many a lawyer, who He was entered in a college of Jesuits, and makes but an indifferent figure at the bar, after having been tried at several parts of might have made a very elegant waterman, learning, was upon the point of being dis- and have shined at the Temple stairs, though missed, as a hopeless blockhead, until one he can get no business in the house. of the fathers took it into his head to make • I have known a corn-cutter, who with a an essay of his parts in geometry, which it right education would have been an excelseems hit his genius so luckily, that he after- lent physician. wards became one of the greatest mathema- •To descend lower, are not our streets ticians of the age.* It is commonly thought filled with sagacious draymen, and politithat the sagacity of these fathers in dis- cians in liveries? We have several tailors covering the talent of a young student, has of six foot high, and meet with many a not a little contributed to the figure which broad pair of shoulders that are thrown their order has made in the world. away upon a barber, when perhaps at the

same time we see a pigmy porter reeling * Clavius died at Rome in 1612, aged 75; his works under a burden, who might have managed are comprised in five volumes in folio.

a needle with much dexterity, or have

Hor. Od. 5. Lib. ii. ver. 15.

snapped his fingers with great ease to him- , for I am an ugly fellow, of great wit and self, and advantage to the public.

sagacity. My father was a hale country •The Spartans, though they acted with squire, my mother a witty beauty of no the spirit which I am here speaking of, fortune. The match was made by consent carried it much farther than what I pro- of my mother's parents against her own, pose. Among them it was not lawful for and I am the child of the rape on the wedthe father himself to bring up his children ding night; so that I am as healthy and as after his own fancy. As soon as they were homely as my father, but as sprightly and seven years old, they were all listed in se- agreeable as my mother. It would be of veral companies, and disciplined by the great ease to you, if you would use me unpublic. The old men were spectators of der you, that matches might be better their performances, who often raised quar-regulated for the future, and we might rels among them, and set them at strife have no more children of squabbles. I shall with one another, that by those early dis- not reveal all my pretensions until I receive coveries they might see how their several your answer: and I am, sir, your most talents lay, and, without any regard to their humble servant, quality, disposed of them accordingly, for

•MULES PALFREY.' the service of the commonwealth. By this means Sparta soon became the mis

MR. SPECTATOR, I am one of those tress of Greece, and famous through the unfortunate men within the city-walls, who whole world for her civil and military dis-am married to a woman of quality,

but her cipline.

temper is something different from that of If you think this letter deserves a place thoughts are spent in keeping up to the

Lady Anvil. My lady's whole time and among your speculations, I may perhapsmode both in apparel and furniture. All trouble you with some other thoughts on the goods in my house have been changed the same subject. I am, &c.' X.

three times in seven years. I have had seven children by her: and by our mar

riage-articles she was to have her apartNo. 308.] Friday, February 22, 1711-12. ment new furnished as often as she lay-in. -Jam proterva

Nothing in our house is useful but that Fronte petet Lalage maritum.

which is fashionable; my pewter holds out

generally half a year, my plate a full -Lalage will soon proclaim

twelve-month; chairs are not fit to sit in Her love, nor blush to own her flame.-Creech.

that were made two years since, nor beds *MR. SPECTATOR,- I give you this trou- fit for any thing but to sleep in, that have ble in order to propose myself to you as an stood up above that time. My dear is of assistant in the weighty cares which you opinion that an old-fashioned grate conhave thought fit to undergo for the public sumes coals, but gives no heat. If she good. I am a very great lover of women, drinks out of glasses of the last year she that is to say, honestly; and as it is natural cannot distinguish wine from small beer. to study what one likes, I have industriously Oh, dear sir, you may guess all the rest. applied myself to understand them. The

'Yours. present circumstance relating to them is, P. S. I could bear even all this, if I that I think there wants under you, as were not obliged also to eat fashionably. I Spectator, a person to be distinguished and have a plain stomach, and have a constant vested in the power and quality of a censor loathing of whatever comes to my own on marriages. I lodge at the Temple, and table; for which reason I dine at the chopknow, by seeing women come hither, and house three days in a week; where the afterwards observing them conducted by good company wonders they never see you their counsel to judges' chambers, that of late. I am sure, by your unprejudiced disthere is a custom, in case of making con- courses, you love broth better than soup.' veyance of a wife's estate, that she is carried to a judge's apartment, and left alone

• Will's, Feb. 19. with him, to be examined in private, • MR. SPECTATOR,-You may believe whether she has not been frightened or you are a person as much talked of as any sweetened by her spouse into the act she is man in town. I am one of your best friends going to do, or whether it is of her own free- in this house, and have laid a wager you will. Now if this be a method founded are so candid a man, and so honest a fellow, upon reason and equity, why should there that you will print this letter, though it is not be also a proper officer for examining in recommendation of a new paper called such as are entered into the state of matri- The Historian. I have read it carefully, mony, whether they are forced by parents and find it written with skill, good sense, on one side, or moved by interest only on modesty, and fire. You must allow the the other, to come together, and bring forth town is kinder to you than you deserve; such awkward heirs as are the product and I doubt not but you have so much sense of half love and constrained compliances of the world's change of humour, and inThere is nobody, though I say it myself, stability of all human things, as to underwould be fitter for this office than I am: stand, that the only way to preserve favour is to communicate it to others with good, No. 309.] Saturday, February 23, 1711-12. nature and judgment. You are so generally Di, quibus imperium est animarum, umbræque silentes, read, that what you speak of will be read. Et Chaos, et Phlegethon, loca nocte silentia late: This with men of sense and taste, is all that sit mihi fas audita loqui! sit numine vestro is wanting to recommend The Historian. Pandere res alta terra et caligine mersus.

Virg. Æn. vi. ver. 264. I am, sir, your daily advocate, *READER GENTLE.'

Ye realms, yet unreveal'd to human sight,
Ye gods, who rule the regions of the night,

Ye gliding ghosts, permit me to relate I was very much surprised this morning The mystic wonders of your silent state. Dryden. that any one should find out my lodging, and know it so well, as to come directly to

I HAVE before observed in general, that my closet door, and knock at it, to give me

the persons whom Milton introduces into the following letter. When I came out I his poem always discover such sentiments opened it, and saw, by a very strong pair

and behaviour'as are in a peculiar manner of shoes, and a warm coat the bearer had conformable to their respective characters on, that he walked all the way to bring it Every circumstance in their speeches and me, though dated from York. My misfor-actions is with great justice and delicacy tune is that I cannot talk, and I found the adapted to the persons who speak and act. messenger had so much of me, that he As the poet very much excels in this concould think better than speak. He had, I sistency of his characters, I shall beg leave observed, a polite discerning, hid under a book in this light. That superior great

to consider several passages of the second shrewd rusticity. He delivered the paper with a Yorkshire tone and a town leer.

ness and mock-majesty, which is ascribed

to the prince of the fallen angels, is admi*MR. SPECTATOR.—The privilege you rably preserved in the beginning of this have indulged John Trot has proved of book. His opening and closing the debate; very bad consequence to our illustrious as

his taking on himself that great enterprise, sembly, which besides the many excellent at the thought of which, the whole infernal maxims it is founded upon, is remarkable assembly trembled; his encountering the for the extraordinary decorum always ob- hideous phantom who guarded the gates of served in it. One instance of which is that hell, and appeared to him in all his terrors; the carders (who are always of the first are instances of that proud and daring mind quality) never begin to play until the which could not brook submission, even to French dances are finished, and the coun- Omnipotence! try dances begin: but John Trot, having

now Satan was now at hand, and from his seat got your commission in his pocket, (which

The monster moving onward came as fast

With horrid strides, hell trembled as he strade, every one here has a profound respect for)

Th' undaunted fiend what this might be admir'd, has the assurance to set up for a minuet- Admir'd, not fear'd. dancer. Not only so, but he has brought down upon us the whole body of the Trots, haviour discovers itself in the several ad

The same boldness and intrepidity of bewhich are very numerous, with their aux-ventures which he meets with, during his iliaries the hobblers and the skippers, by passage through the regions of unformed which means the time is so much wasted, matter, and particularly in his address to that, unless we break all rules of govern- those tremendous powers who are described ment, it must redound to the utter subver- as presiding over it. sion of the brag-table, the discreet mem

The part of Moloch is likewise, in all its bers of which value time as Fribble's wife circumstances, full of that fire and fury does her pin-money. We are pretty well which distinguish this spirit from the rest assured that your indulgence to Trot was of the fallen angels. He is described in the only in relation to country-dances; how- first book as besmeared with the blood of ever, we have deferred issuing an order of human sacrifices, and delighted with the council upon the premises, hoping to get tears of parents, and the cries of children. you to join with us, that Trot, nor any of In the second book he is marked out as the his clan, presume for the future to dance fiercest spirit that fought in heaven: and if any but country dances, unless a hornpipe we consider the figure which he makes in upon a festival day. If you will do this you the sixth book, where the battle of the will oblige a great many ladies, and parti- angels is described, we find it every way cularly your most humble servant,

answerable to the same furious, enraged · ELIZ. SWEEPSTAKES.

character: York, Feb. 16.'

-Where the might of Gabriel fought,

And with fierce ensigns pierc'd the deep array I never meant any other than that Mr. Of Moloch, furious king, who him defy'd, Trot should confine himself to country

And at his chariot-wheels to drag him bound,

Threaten'd, nor from the Holy One of heaven dances. And I further direct that he shall

Refrain'd his tongue blasphemous: but anon take out none but his own relations accord- Down cloven to the waist, with shatter'd arms ing to their nearness of blood, but any

And uncouth pain fled bellowing. gentlewoman may take out him.

It may be worth while to observe, that • THE SPECTATOR. Milton has represented this violent impetu•London, Feb. 21.'

T. Jous spirit, who is hurried on by such pre

cipitate passions, as the first that rises in And with the majesty of darkness round that assembly to give his opinion upon their

Covers his throne; from whence deep thunders roar,

Mustering their rage, and heav'n resembles hell! present posture of affairs. Accordingly, he

As he our darkness, cannot we his light declares himself abruptly for war, and ap- Imitate when we please? This desert soil pears incensed at his companions for losing

Wants not her hidden lustre, gems and gold;

Nor want we skill or art, from whence to raise so much time as even to deliberate upon it. Magnificence; and what can heav'n show more? All his sentiments are rash, audacious, and desperate. Such is that of arming them

Beelzebub, who is reckoned the second selves with their tortures, and turning their in dignity that fell, and is, in the first book, punishments upon him who inflicted them: the second that awakens out of the trance,

and confers with Satan upon the situation -No, let us rather choose, Armd with hell flames and fury, all at once

of their affairs, maintains his rank in the O'er heav'n's high tow'rs to force resistless way,

book now before us. There is a wonderful Turning our tortures into horrid arms

majesty described in his rising up to speak. Against the tort'rer; when to meet the noise of his almighty engine he shall hear

He acts as a kind of moderator between Infernal thunder, and for lightning see

the two opposite parties, and proposes a Black fire and horror shot with equal rage

third undertaking, which the whole assemAmong his angels: and his throne itself Mix'd with Tartarian sulphur, and strange fire,

bly gives into. The motion he makes of His own invented torments.

detaching one of their body in search of a His preferring annihilation to shame or vised by Satan, and cursorily proposed by

new world is grounded upon a project demisery is also highly suitable to his charac- him in the following lines of the first book: ter; as the comfort he draws from their disturbing the peace of heaven, that if it Space may produce new worlds, whereof so rife be not victory it is revenge, is a sentiment

There went a fame in heav'n, that he ere long

Intended to create, and therein plant trualy diabolical, and becoming the bitter- A generation, whom his choice regard ness of this implacable spirit.

Should favour equal to the sons of heav'n; Belial is described in the first book as

Thither, if but to pry, shall be perhaps

Our first eruption, thither or elsewhere: the idol of the lewd and luxurious. He is For this infernal pit shall never hold in the second book, pursuant to that de

Celestial spirits in bondage, nor th' abyss scription, characterized as timorous and

Long under darkness cover. But these thoughts

Full counsel must mature: slothful; and if we look into the sixth book, we find him celebrated in the battle of an- It is on this project that Beelzebub grounds gels for nothing but that scoffing speech his proposal : which he makes to Satan, on their sup

-What if we find posed advantage over the enemy. As his Some easier enterprise? There is a place, appearance is uniform, and of a piece in (If ancient and prophetic fame in heav'n these three several views, we find his senti

Err not,) another world, the happy seat

Of some new race call'd man, about this time ments in the infernal assembly every way To be created like to us, though less conformable to his character. Such are In pow'r and excellence, but favour'd more his apprehensions of a second battle, his

or him who rules above; so was his will

Pronounc'd among the gods, and by an oath, horrors of annihilation, his preferring to be That shook heav'n's whole circumference, confirm'd. miserable, rather than 'not to be.' I need not observe, that the contrast of thought in

The reader may observe how just it was, this speech, and that which precedes it, not to omit in the first book the project gives an agreeable variety to the debate.

upon

which the whole poem turns; as also Mammon's character is so fully drawn in that the prince of the fallen angels was the the first book, that the poet adds nothing only proper person to give it birth, and that toit in the second. We were before told, that the next to him in dignity was the fittest to he was the first who taught mankind to

second and support it. ransack the earth for gold

and silver, and

There is besides, I think, something wonthat he was the architect of Pandæmonium, derfully beautiful, and very apt to affect the or the infernal palace, where the evil spirits reader's imagination, in this ancient prowere to meet in council. His speech in phecy or report in heaven, concerning the this book is every way suitable to so de- creation of man. Nothing could more show praved a character. How proper is that

the dignity of the species, than this tradireflection of their being unable to taste the tion which ran of them before their existhappiness of heaven, were they actually ence. They are represented to have been there, in the mouth of one, who, while he the talk of heaven before they were created. was in heaven, is said to have had his mind Virgil, in compliment to the Roman comdazzled with the outward pomps

and glories monwealth, makes the herves of it appear of the place, and to have been more intent in their

state of pre-existence; but Milton on the riches of the pavement than on the does a far greater honour to mankind in beatific vision. I shall also leave the reader general, as he gives us a glimpse of them to judge how agreeable the following senti- even before they are in being. ments are to the same character:

The rising of this great assembly is de

The diversions of the fallen angels, with this quotation. He will likewise observe the particular account of their place of how naturally the three persons concerned habitation, are described with great preg- in this allegory are tempted by one comnancy of thought, and copiousness of in- mon interest to enter into a confederacy tovention. The diversions are every way gether, and how properly Sin is made the suitable to beings who had nothing left portress of hell, and the only being that can them but strength and knowledge misap- open the gates to that world of tortures. plied. Such are their contentions at the The descriptive part of this allegory is race and in feats of arms, with their enter- likewise very strong, and full of sublime tainment in the following lines:

ideas. The figure of Death, the regal Others with vast Typhæan rage more fell

crown upon his head, his menace of Satan, Rend up both rocks and hills, and ride the air

his advancing to the combat, the outcry at In whirlwind, hell scarce holds the wild uproar.

his birth, are circumstances too noble to be Their music is employed in celebrating to this king of terrors. I need not mention

past over in silence, and extremely suitable their own criminal exploits, and their dis- the justness of thought which is observed course in sounding

the unfathomable depths in the generation of these several symboof fate, free-will, and foreknowledge. The several circumstances in the de- the first revolt of Satan, that Death ap

lical persons; that Sin was produced upon scription of hell are finely imagined; as the four rivers which disgorge themselves into peared soon after he was cast into heil,

and that the terrors of conscience were conthe sea of fire, the extremes of cold and ceived

at the gate of this place of torments. heat, and the river of oblivion. The mon. The description of the gates is very strous animals produced in that infernal world are represented by a single line, Poetical, as the opening of them is full of which gives us a more horrid idea of them

Milton's spirit: than a much longer description would have

-On a sudden open fly done:

With impetuous recoil and jarring sound

Th'infernal doors, and on their hinges grate
-Nature breeds,

Harsh thunder, that the lowest bottom shook Perverse, all monstrous, all prodigious things,

Of Erebus. She open'd, but to shut Abominable, inutterable, and worse

Excell'd her pow'r;

the gates wide open stood, Than fables yet have feign'd, or fear conceiv'd,

That with extended wings a banner'd host Gorgons and hydras, and chimeras dire.

Under spread ensigns marching might pass through

With horse and chariots rank'd in loose array: This episode of the fallen spirits and their So wide they stood, and like a furnace mouth place of habitation, comes in very happily

Cast forth redounding smoke and ruddy flame. to unbend the mind of the reader from its In Satan's voyage through the chaos there attention to the debate. An ordinary poet are several imaginary persons described, would indeed have spun out so many cir- | as residing in that immense waste of matcumstances to a great length, and by that ter. This may perhaps be conformable to means have weakened, instead of illustrated the taste of those critics who are pleased the principal fable.

with nothing in ‘a poet which has not life The flight of Satan to the gates of hell is and manners ascribed to it; but for my own finely imaged.

part, I am pleased most with those passaI have already declared my opinion of ges in this description which carry in them a the allegory concerning Sin and Death, greater measure of probability, and are such which is, however, a very finished piece as might possibly have happened. Of this in its kind, when it is not considered as kind is his first mounting in the smoke that a part of an epic poem. The genealogy rises from the infernal pit, his falling into a of the several persons is contrived with cloud of nitre, and the like combustible great delicacy. Sin is the daughter of Satan, materials, that by their explosion still hurand Death the offspring of Sin. The in- ried him forward in his voyage; his springcestuous mixture between Sin and Death ing upward like

a pyramid of fire, with his produces those monsters and hell-hounds laborious passage through that confusion of which from time to time enter into their elements which the poet calls mother, and tear the bowels of her who

The womb of nature, and perhaps her grave. gave them birth. These are the terrors of an evil con- chaos from the utmost verge of the crea

The glimmering light which shot into the science, and the proper fruits of Sin, which Death. "This last beautiful moral is, I think, fully beautiful

and poetical. naturally rise from the apprehensions of tion, with the distant discovery of the earth

that hung close by the moon, are wonder

L. clearly intimated in the speech of Sin, where, complaining of this her dreadful issue, she adds: Before mine eyes in opposition sits

No. 310.] Monday, February 25, 1711-12. Grim Death, my son and foe, who sets them on,

Connubio jungam stabili-
And me his parent would full soon devour,
For want of other prey, but that he knows

Virg. En. i. 77. His end with mine involv'd.

I'll tie the indissoluble marriage-knot. I need not mention to the reader the •MR. SPECTATOR-I am a certain young beautiful circumstance in the last part of woman that love a certain young man very