If I do not take care to obviate some of which has passed through the hands of one my witty readers, they will be apt to tell of the most accurate, learned, and judicious me, that my paper, after it is thus printed writers this age has produced. The beauty and published, is still beneficial to the pub- of the paper, of the character, and of the lic on several occasions. I must confess I several cuts with which this noble work is have lighted my pipe with my own works illustrated, makes it the finest book that I for this twelvemonth past. My landlady have ever seen; and is a true instance of often sends up her little daughter to desire the English genius, which, though it does some of my old Spectators, and has fre- not come the first into any art, generally quently told me, that the paper they are carries it to greater heights than any other printed on is the best in the world to wrap country in the world. I am particularly spices in.

They likewise made a good glad that this author comes from a British foundation for a mutton pie, as I have printing-house in so great a magnificence, more than once experienced, and were as he is the first who has given us any very much sought for last Christmas by tolerable account of our country. the whole neighbourhood.

My illiterate readers, if any such there It is pleasant enough to consider the are, will be surprised to hear me talk of changes that a linen fragment undergoes learning as the glory of a nation, and of by passing through the several hands above printing as an art that gains a reputation to mentioned. The finest pieces of Holland, a people among whom it flourishes. When when worn to tatters, assume a new men's thoughts are taken up with avarice whiteness more beautiful than the first, and ambition, they cannot look upon any and often return in the shape of letters to thing as great or valuable which does not their native country. A lady's shift may bring with it an extraordinary power or be metamorphosed into billets-doux, and interest to the person who is concerned in come into her possession a second time. A it

. But as I shall never sink this paper so beau may peruse his cravat after it is worn far as to engage with Goths and Vandals, I out, with greater pleasure and advantage shall only regard such kind of reasoners than ever he did in a glass. In a word, a with that pity which is due to so deplorable piece of cloth, after having officiated for a degree of stupidity and ignorance. L. some years as a towel or a napkin, may by this means be raised from a dunghill, and become the most valuable piece of furni- No. 368.] Friday, May 2, 1712. ture in a prince's cabinet. The politest nations of Europe have en

Lugere ubi esset aliquis in lucem editus, deavoured to vie with one another for the Humanæ vitæ varia reputantes mala: reputation of the finest printing. Absolute At qui labores morte finisset graves, governments, as well as republics, have

Omnes amicos laude et lætitia exequi. encouraged an art which seems to be the

Eurip. apud Tull noblest and most beneficial that ever was in

When first an infant draws the vital air,

Officious grief should welcome him to care : vented among the sons of men. The present But joy should life's concluding scene attend, king of France, in his pursuits after glory, And mirth be kept to grace a dying friend. has particularly distinguished himself by the promoting of this useful art, insomuch of news from the natural world, as others

As the Spectator is, in a kind, a paper that several books have been printed in the Louvre at his own expense, upon which he are from the busy and politic part of mansets so great a value that he considers them kind, I shall translate the following letter, as the noblest presents he can make to fo- this town from Paris, which gives us the

written to an eminent French gentleman in reign princes and ambassadors. If we look exit of a heroine who is a pattern of painto the commonwealths of Holland and tience and generosity. Venice, we shall find that in this particular they have made themselves the envy of the

•Paris, April 18, 1712. greatest monarchies. Elzevir and Aldus are “SIR,-It is so many years since you left more frequently mentioned than any pen- your native country, that I am to tell you sioner of the one or doge of the other. the characters of your nearest relations as

The several presses which are now in much as if you were an utter stranger to England, and the great encouragement them. The occasion of this is to give you which has been given to learning for some an account of the death of Madam de Vil. years last past, has made our own nation lacerfe, whose departure out of this life I as glorious upon this account as for its late know not whether a man of your philotriumphs and conquests. The new edition sophy will call unfortunate or not, since it which is given us of Cæsar's Commenta- was attended with some circumstances as ries* has already been taken notice of in much to be desired as to be lamented. She foreign gazettes, and is a work that does was her whole life happy in an uninterhonour to the English press. It is no won- rupted health, and was always honoured der that an edition should be very correct for an evenness of temper and greatness of

mind. On the 10th instant that lady was * A most magnificent edition of Cæsar's Commenta. taken with an indisposition which confined ries published about this time, by Dr. Samuel Clarke. her to her chamber, but was such as was

-Nos decebat

too slight to make her take a sick bed, • While this excellent woman spoke these and yet too grievous to admit of any satis- words, Festeau looked as if he received a faction in being out of it. It is notoriously condemnation to die, instead of a pension known, that some years ago Monsieur Fes- for his life. Madame de Villacerfe lived teau, one of the most considerable surgeons till eight of the clock the next night; and in Paris, was desperately in love with this though she must have laboured under the lady: Her quality placed her above any most exquisite torments, she possessed her application to her on the account of his mind with so wonderful a patience, that passion: but as a woman always has some one may rather say she ceased to breathe, regard to the person whom she believes to than she died at that hour. You, who had be her real admirer, she now took it into not the happiness to be personally known her head (upon advice of her physicians to this lady, have nothing but to rejoice in to lose some of her blood) to send for Mon- the honour you had of being related to so sieur Festeau on that occasion. I hap- great merit; but we, who have lost her conpened to be there at that time, and my versation, cannot so easily resign our own near relation gave me the privilege to be happiness by reflection upon hers. I am, present. As soon as her arm was stripped sir, your affectionate kinsman, and most bare, and he began to press it, in order to obedient humble servant, raise the vein, his colour changed, and I ob

PAUL REGNAUD.' served him seized with a sudden tremor, which made me take the liberty to speak There hardly can be a greater instance of it to my cousin with some apprehen- of a heroic mind than the unprejudiced sion. She smiled, and said, she knew manner in which this lady weighed this M. Festeau had no inclination to do her in- misfortune. The regard of life could not jury: He seemed to recover himself, and, make her overlook the contrition of the unsmiling also, proceeded in his work.' Im- happy man, whose more than ordinary conmediately after the operation, he cried out, cern for her was all his guilt. It would that he was the most unfortunate of all men, certainly be of singular use to human sofor that he had opened an artery instead ciety to have an exact account of this lady's of a vein. It is as impossible to express ordinary conduct, which was crowned by so the artist's distraction as the patient's com- uncommon magnanimity. Such greatness posure. I will not dwell on little circum- was not to be acquired in the last article; stance but go on to inform you, that nor is it to be doubted but it was a constant within three days' time it was thought ne- practice of all that is praiseworthy, which cessary to take off her arm. She was so made her capable of beholding death, not far from using Festeau as it would be as the dissolution, but consummation of her natural for one of a lower spirit to treat life.

T. him, that she would not let him be absent from any consultation about her present condition; and, after having been about a No. 369.] Saturday, May 3, 1712. quarter of an hour alone, she bid the surgeons, of whom poor Festeau was one, go Segnius irritant animos demissa per aures, on in their work. I know not how to give Quam que sunt oculis subjecta fidelibus. you the terms of art, but there appeared such symptoms after the amputation of her What we hear moves less than what we see. arm, that it was visible she could not live four-and-twenty hours. Her behaviour was Milton, after having represented in so magnanimous throughout the whole vision the history of mankind to the first affair, that I was particularly curious in great period of nature, despatches the retaking notice of what past as her fate ap- maining part of it in narration. He has proached nearer and nearer, and took notes devised a very handsome reason for the of what she said to all about her, particu- angel's proceeding with Adam after this larly word for word what she spoke to M. manner; though doubtless the true reason Festeau, which was as follows:

was the difficulty which the poet would “Sir, you give me inexpressible sorrow have found to have shadowed out so mixed for the anguish with which I see you over- and complicated a story in visible objects. whelmed. I am removed to all intents I could wish, however, that the author had and purposes from the interests of human done it, whatever pains it might have cost life, therefore I am to begin to think like him. To give my opinion freely, I think one wholly unconcerned in it. I do not that the exhibiting part of the history of consider you as one by whose error I have mankind in vision, and part in narrative, is lost my life; no, you are my benefactor, as as if a history-painter should put in colours you have hastened my entrance into a happy I one half of his subject, and write down the immortality. This is my sense of this acci- , remaining part of it. If Milton's poem dent: but the world in which you live may flags any where, it is in this narration, have thoughts of it to your disadvantage: 1 where in some places the author has been have therefore taken care to provide for you so attentive to his divinity that he has in my will, and have placed you above what neglected his poetry. The narration, howyou have to fear from their ill-nature.” ever, rises very happily on several occa

Hor. Ars Poct. v. 180.

Roscommon.

sions, where the subject is capable of The poet has very finely represented the poetical ornaments, as particularly in the joy and gladness of heart which arises in confusion which he describes among the Adam upon his discovery of the Messiah. builders of Babel, and in his short sketch As he sees his day at a distance through of the plagues of Egypt. The storm of types and shadows, he rejoices in it; but hail and fire, with the darkness that over- when he finds the redemption of man comspread the land for three days, are de- pleted, and Paradise again renewed, he scribed with great strength. The beautiful breaks forth in rapture and transport: passage which follows is raised upon noble

O goodness infinite! goodness immense! hints in Scripture:

That all this good of evil shall produce,' &c.
-Thus with ten wounds

I have hinted in my sixth paper on MilThe river dragon tam'd, at length submits

ton, that a heroic poem, according to the To let his sojourners depart; and of Humbles his stubborn heart, but still, as ice,

opinion of the best critics, ought to end More harden'd after thaw: till in his rage

happily, and leave the mind of the reader, Pursuing whom he late dismiss'd, the sea

after having conducted it through many Swallows him with his host; but then lets man As on dry land between two crystal walls,

doubts and fears, sorrows and disquietudes, Aw'd by the rod of Moses so to stand

in a state of tranquillity and satisfaction. Divided

Milton's fable, which had so many other The river dragon is an allusion to the qualifications to recommend it, was deficrocodile, which inhabits the Nile, from cient in this particular. It is here therefore whence Égypt derives her plenty. This that the poet has shown a most exquisite allusion is taken from that sublime passage judgment, as well as the finest invention, in Ezekiel: "Thus saith the Lord God, by finding out a method to supply this Behold I am against thee, Pharaoh, king natural defect in his subject. Accordingly of Egypt, the great dragon that lieth in the he leaves the adversary of mankind, in the midst of his rivers, which hath said, My last view which he gives of him, under the river is mine own, and I have made it for lowest state of mortification and disappointmyself.' Milton has given us another very ment. We see him chewing ashes, gronoble and poetical image in the same de- velling in the dust, and loaden with superscription, which is copied almost word for numerary pains and torments. On the word out of the history of Moses!

contrary, our two first parents are com

forted by dreams and visions, cheered with • All night he will pursue, but his approach Darkness defends between till morning watch

promises of salvation, and in a manner Then through the fiery pillar and the cloud

raised to a greater happiness than that God looking forth will trouble all his host,

which they had forfeited. In short, Satan And craze their chariot wheels: when by command Moses once more his potent rod extends

is represented miserable in the height of Over the sea : the sea his rod obeys :

his triumphs, and Adam triumphant in the

height of misery. And overwhelm their war

Milton's poem ends very nobly. The last As the principal design of this episode speeches of Adam and the archangel are was to give Adam an idea of the holy per- full of moral and instructive sentiments. son who was to reinstate human nature in The sleep that fell upon Eve, and the effects that happiness and perfection from which it had in quieting the disorders of her mind, it had fallen, the poet confines himself to produces the same kind of consolation in the the line of Abraham, from whence the reader, who cannot peruse the last beautiful Messiah was to descend. The angel is speech, which is ascribed to the mother of described as seeing the patriarch actually mankind, without a secret pleasure and travelling towards the land of promise, satisfaction: which gives a particular liveliness to this Whence thou return'st, and whither went'st, I know: part of the narration:

For God is also in sleep, and dreams advise,

Which he hath sent propitious, some great good I see him, but thou canst not, with what faith Presaging, since with sorrow and heart's distress He leaves his gods, his friends, his native soil,

Wearied I fell asleep; but now lead on; Ur of Chaldea, passing now the ford

In me is no delay: with thee to go, To Haran; after him a cumbrous train

Is to stay here, without thee here to stay,
Of herds, and flocks, and numérous servitude ;

Is to go hence unwilling: thou to me
Not wand'ring poor, but trusting all his wealth Art all things under heav'n, all places thon,
With God, who call'd him in a land unknown.

Who for my wilful crime art banish d hence,
Canaan he now attains: I see his tents

This farther consolation yet secure Pitch'd about Sechem, and the neighbouring plain I carry hence; though all by me is lost, or Moreh; there by promise he receives

Such favour I unworthy am vouchsafd, Gift to his progeny of all that land;

By me the promis'd seed shall all restore.' From Hamath northward to the desert south: (Things by their names I call, though yet unnam'd.)'

The following lines, which conclude the

poem, rise in a most glorious blaze of poetiAs Virgil's vision in the sixth Æneid cal images and expressions. probably gave Milton the hint of this whole Heliodorus in the Æthiopics acquaints episode, the last line is a translation of that us, that the motion of the gods differs from verse where Anchises mentions the names that of mortals, as the former do not stir of places, which they were to bear here- their feet, nor proceed step by step, but after:

slide over the surface of the earth by an Hæc tum nomina erunt, nunc sunt sine nomine terræ. / uniform swimming of the whole body. The

On their embattled ranks the waves return

-

reader may observe with how poetical a no means think, with the last-mentioned description Milton has attributed the same French author, that an epic writer first of kind of motion to the angels who were to all pitches upon a certain moral, as the take possession of Paradise:

ground-work and foundation of his poem, So spake our mother Eve; and Adam heard

and afterwards finds out a story to it; I am Well pleas'd, but answer'd not; for now too nigh however of opinion, that no just heroic Th' archangel stood; and from the other hill To their fix'd station, all in bright array

poem ever was or can be made, from The cherubim descended ; on the ground

whence one great moral may not be deGliding meteorous, as evening mist

duced. That which reigns in Milton is the Ris'n from a river, o'er the marish glides,

most universal and most useful that can be And gathers ground fast at the lab'rer's heel Homeward returning. High in front advanc'd imagined. It is, in short, this, that obeThe brandish'd sword of God before them blaz'd dience to the will of God makes men happy, Fierce as a comet

and that disobedience makes them misera. The author helped his invention in the ble. This is visibly the moral of the prin following

passage, by reflecting on the be- cipal fable, which turns upon Adam and haviour of the angel, who in holy writ has Eve, who continued in Paradise while they the conduct of Lot and his family. The kept the command that was given them, circumstances drawn from that relation are and were driven out of it as soon as they had very gracefully made use of on this occasion: transgressed. This is likewise the moral of In either hand the hast'ning angel caught

the principal episode, which shows us how Our ling'ring parents, and to th' eastern gate an innumerable multitude of angels fell Led them direct; and down the cliff as fast from their disobedience. Besides this great To the subjected plain; then disappear'd,

moral, which may be looked upon as the They looking back, &c.

soul of the fable, there are an infinity of The scene which our first parents are under-morals which are to be drawn from surprised with, upon their looking back on the several parts of the poem, and which Paradise, wonderfully strikes the reader's make this work more useful and instrucimagination, as nothing can be more natural tive than any other poem in any language. than the tears they shed on that occasion: Those who have criticised on the Odys

They looking back, all th' eastern side beheld sey, the Iliad, and Æneid, have taken a Of Paradise, so late their happy seat,

great deal of pains to fix the number of Wav'd over by that flaming brand, the gate

months and days contained in the action of With dreadful faces throng'd and fiery arms: Some natural tears they dropp'd but wip'd them soon; each of these poems. If any one thinks it The world was all before them, where to choose worth his while to examine this particular Their place of rest, and Providence their guide.

in Milton, he will find, that from Adam's If I might presume to offer at the smallest first appearance in the fourth book, to his alteration in this divine work, I should think expulsion from Paradise in the twelfth, the the poem would end better with the pas- author reckons ten days. As for that part sage here quoted, than with the two verses of the action which is described in the which follow:

three first books, as it does not pass within They hand in hand, with wand'ring steps and slow

the regions of nature, I have before obThrough Eden took their solitary way.

served that it is not subject to any calcula

tions of time. These two verses, though they have their beauty, fall very much below the foregoing work which does an honour to the English

I have now finished my observations on a pass

ge, and renew in the mind of the reader nation. I have taken a general view of it that anguish which was pretty well laid by under these four heads—the fable, the chathat consideration:

racters, the sentiments, and the language, The world was all before them, where to choose

and made each of them the subject of a Their place of rest, and Providence their guide.

particular paper. I have in the next place The number of books in Paradise Lost is spoke of the censures which our author equal to those of the Æneid. Our author, may incur under cach of these heads, in his first edition, had divided his poem which I have confined to two papers, into ten books, but afterwards broke the though I might have enlarged the number seventh and the eleventh each of them into if I had been disposed to dwell on so untwo different books, by the help of some grateful a subject. I believe, however, that small additions. This second division was the severest reader will not find any little made with great judgment, as any one may fault in heroic poetry, which this author see who will be at the pains of examining has fallen into, that does not come under it. It was not done for the sake of such a one of those heads among which I have chimerical beauty as that of resembling distributed his several blemishes. After Virgil in this particular, but for the more having thus treated at large of Paradise just and regular disposition of this great Lost, I could not think it sufficient to have work.

celebrated this poem in the whole without Those who have read Bossu, and many descending to particulars. I have thereof the critics who have written since his fore bestowed a paper upon each book, time, will not pardon me if I do not find and endeavoured not only to prove that the out the particular moral_which is incul- poem is beautiful in general, but to point cated in Paradise Lost. Though I can by lout its particular beauties; and to deter

mine wherein they consist, I have endea- | terests of true piety and religion, is a player voured to show how some passages are with a still greater imputation of guilt, in beautiful by being sublime, others by being proportion to his depreciating a character soft, others by being natural; which of them more sacred. Consider all the different are recommended by the passion, which pursuits and employments of men, and you by the moral, which by the sentiment, and will find half their actions tend to nothing which by the expression. I have likewise else but disguise and imposture; and all endeavoured to show how the genius of the that is done which proceeds not from a poet shines by a happy invention, a distant man's very self, is the action of a player. allusion, or a judicious imitation; how he For this reason it is that I make so frequent has copied or improved Homer or Virgil, mention of the stage. It is with me a matter and raises his own imaginations by the use of the highest consideration, what parts which he has made of several poetical pas- are well or ill performed, what passions or sages in Scripture. I might have inserted sentiments are indulged or cultivated, and also several passages in Tasso, which our consequently what manners and customs author has imitated: but, as I do not look are transfused from the stage to the world, upon Tasso to be a sufficient voucher, I which reciprocally imitate each other. would not perplex my reader with such As the writers of epic poems introduce quotations as might do more honour to the shadowy persons, and represent vices and Italian than to the English poet. In short, virtues under the character of men and I have endeavoured to particularize those women; so I, who am a Spectator in the innumerable kinds of beauty which it would world, may perhaps sometimes make use be tedious to recapitulate, but which are of the names of the actors of the stage, to essential to poetry, and which may be met represent or admonish those who transact with in the works of this great author. Had affairs in the world. When I am comI thought, at my first engaging in this design, mending Wilks for representing the tenthat it would have led me to so great a derness of a husband and a father in Maclength, I believe I should never have en- beth, the contrition of a reformed prodigal tered upon it; but the kind reception which in Harry the Fourth, the winning emptiness it has met with among those whose judg- of a young man of good-nature and wealth ment I have a value for, as well as the in The Trip to the Jubilee, the officiousuncommon demands which my bookseller ness of an artful servant in the Fox; when tells me have been made for these particu- thus I celebrate Wilks, I talk to all the lar discourses, give me no reason to repent world who are engaged in any of those cirof the pains I have been at in composing cumstances. If I were to speak of merit them.

L. neglected, misapplied, or misunderstood,

might I not say Estcourt has a great capa

city? But it is not the interest of others who No. 370.] Monday, May 5, 1712.

bear a figure on the stage, that his talents

were understood; it is their business to imTotus mundus agit histrionem.

pose upon him what cannot become him,

or keep out of his hands any thing in which And all the men and women merely players. he would shine. Were one to raise a sus

Shakspeare.

picion of himself in a man who passes upon Many of my fair readers, as well as very the world for a fine thing, in order to alarm gay and well-received persons of the other him, one might say, If Lord Foppington sex, are extremely perplexed at the Latin was not on the stage (Cibber acts the false sentences at the head of my speculations. pretensions to a genteel behaviour so very I do not know whether I ought not to in- justly,) he would have in the generality of dulge them with translations of each of mankind more that would admire than dethem: however, I have to-day taken down ride him. When we come to characters from the top of the stage in Drury-lane, a directly comical, it is not to be imagined bit of Latin, which often stands in their what effect a well-regulated stage would view, and signifies, that “The whole world have upon men's manners. The craft of acts the player.' It is certain that if we an usurer, the absurdity of a rich fool, look all around us, and behold the different the awkward roughness of a fellow of half employments of mankind, you hardly see courage, the ungraceful mirth of a creature one who is not, as the player is, in an of half wit, might for ever be put out of assumed character. The lawyer, who is countenance by proper parts for Dogget. vehement and loud in a cause wherein he Johnson, by acting Corbacchio the other knows he has not the truth of the question night, must have given all who saw him a on his side, is a player as to the personated thorough detestation of aged avarice. The part, but incomparably meaner than he as petulancy of a peevish old fellow, who loves to the prostitution of himself for hire; be- and hates he knows not why, is very excelcause the pleader's falsehood introduces lently performed by the ingenious Mr. Wilinjustice: the player feigns for no other end liam Penkethman, in the Fop's Fortune; but to divert or instruct you. The divine, where, in the character of Don Choleric whose passions transport him to say any Snap Shorto de Testy, he answers no questhing with any view but promoting the in- tions but to those whom he likes, and wants

-All the world's a stage,