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from his body as a circumstance that ought to produce any change in the disposition of his mind; and as he died under a fixed and settled hope of immortality, he thought any unusual degree of sorrow and concern improper on such an occasion, as had nothing in it which could deject or terrify him.

There is no great danger of imitation from this example. Men's natural fears will be a sufficient guard against it. I shall only observe, that what was philosophy in this extraordinary man, would be phrensy in one who does not resemble him as well in the cheerfulness of his temper as in the sanctity of his life and manners.

I shall conclude this paper with the instance of a person who seems to me to have shown more intrepidity and greatness of soul in his dying moments than what we meet with among any of the most celebrated Greeks and Romans. I met with this instance in the History of the Revolutions in Portugal, written by the abbot de Vortot.

When Don Sebastian, king of Portugal, had invaded the territories of Muli Moluc, emperor of Morocco, in order to dethrone him, and set the crown upon the head of his nephew, Moluc was wearing away with a distemper which he himself knew was incurable. However, he prepared for the reception of so formidable an enemy. He was, indeed, so far spent with his sickness, that he did not expect to live out the whole day when the last decisive battle was given; but knowing the fatal consequences that would happen to his children and people, in case he should die before he put an end to that war, he commanded his principal officers, that if he died during the engagement, they should conceal his death from the army, and that they should ride up to the litter in which his corpse was carried, under pretence of receiving orders from him as usual. Before the battle began, he was carried, through all the ranks of his army in an open litter, as they stood drawn up in array, encouraging them to fight valiantly in defence of their religion and country. Finding afterwards the battle to go against him, though he was very near his last agonies, he threw himself out of his litter, rallied his army, and led them on to the charge: which afterwards ended in a complete victory on the side of the Moors. He had no sooner brought his men to the engagement, but, finding himself utterly spent, he was again replaced in his litter, where, laying his finger on his mouth, to enjoin secrecy to his officers who stood about him, he died in a few moments after in that posture.

L.

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That elevation of mind which is displayed in dangers, if it wants justice, and fights for its own conveniency, is vicious.

CAPTAIN SENTRY was last night at a club, and produced a letter from Ipswich, which his correspondent desired him to communicate to his friend the Spectator. It contained an account of an engagement between a French privateer, commanded by one Dominic Pottiere, and a little vessel of that place laden with corn, the master whereof, as I remember, was one Goodwin. The Englishman defended himself with incredible bravery, and beat off the French, after having been boarded three or four times. The enemy still came on with great fury, and hoped by his number of men to carry the prize; till at last the Englishman, finding himself sink apace, and ready to perish, struck: but the effect which this singular gallantry had upon the captain of the privateer was no other than an unmanly desire of vengeance for the loss he had sustained in his several attacks. He told the Ipswich man in a speaking trumpet, that he would not take him aboard, and that he stayed to see him sink. The Englishman at the same time observed a disorder in the vessel, which he rightly judged to proceed from the disdain which the ship's crew had of their captain's inhumanity. With this hope he went into his boat, and approached the enemy. He was taken in by the sailors in spite of their commander: but though they received him against his command, they treated him, when he was in the ship, in the manner he directed. Pottiere caused his men to hold Goodwin, while he beat him with a stick, till he fainted with loss of blood and rage of heart; after which he ordered him into irons, without allowing him any food, but such as one or two of the men stole to him under peril of the like usage: and having kept him several days overwhelmed with the misery of stench, hunger, and soreness, he brought him into Calais. The governor of the place was soon acquainted with all that had passed, dismissed Pottiere from his charge with ignominy, and gave Goodwin all the relief which a man of honour would bestow upon an enemy barbarously treated, to recover the imputation of cruelty upon his prince and country.

When Mr. Sentry had read his letter, full of many other circumstances which aggravate the barbarity, he fell into a sort of criticism upon magnanimity and courage, and argued that they were inseparable; and that courage, without regard to justice and humanity, was no other than the fierceness of a wild beast. 'A good and truly bold spirit,' continued he, is ever actuated by reason, and a sense of honour and duty. The affectation of such a spirit exerts itself in an impudent aspect, an overbearing confidence, and a certain negligence of giving offence. This is visible in all the cocking

youths you see about this town, who are | No. 351.] Saturday, April 12, 1712.

noisy in assemblies, unawed by the presence of wise and virtuous men; in a word, insensible of all the honours and decencies of human life. A shameless fellow takes advantage of merit clothed with modesty and magnanimity, and, in the eyes of little people, appears sprightly and agreeable: while the man of resolution and true gallantry is overlooked and disregarded, if not despised. There is a propriety in all things; and I believe what you scholars call just and sublime, in opposition to turgid and bombast_expression, may give you an idea of what I mean, when I say modesty is the certain indication of a great spirit, and impudence the affectation of it. He that writes with judgment, and never rises into improper warmths, manifests the true force of genius; in like manner, he who is quiet and equal in his behaviour is supported in that deportment by what we may call true courage. Alas! it is not so easy a thing to be a brave man as the unthinking part of mankind imagine. To dare is not all there is in it. The privateer we were just now talking of had boldness enough to attack his enemy, but not greatness of mind enough to admire the same quality exerted by that enemy in defending himself. Thus his base and little mind was wholly taken up in the sordid regard to the prize of which he failed, and the damage done to his own vessel; and therefore he used an honest man, who defended his own from him, in the manner as he would a thief that should rob him.

In te omnis domus inclinata recumbit.

Virg. Æn. xii. 59. On thee the fortunes of our house depend. If we look into the three great heroi poems which have appeared in the world we may observe that they are built upon very slight foundations. Homer lived near 300 years after the Trojan war; and, as the writing of history was not then in use among the Greeks, we may very well suppose that the tradition of Achilles and Ulysses had brought down but very few particulars to his knowledge; though there is no question but he has wrought into his two poems such of their remarkable adventures as were stil talked of among his contemporaries.

The story of Eneas, on which Virgil founded his poem, was likewise very bare of circumstances, and by that means af forded him an opportunity of embellishing it with fiction, and giving a full range to his own invention. We find, however, that he has interwoven, in the course of his fable, the principal particulars, which were generally believed among the Romans, of Eneas's voyage and settlement in Italy.

The reader may find an abridgment of the whole story, as collected out of the ancient historians, and as it was received among the Romans, in Dionysius Halicarnassus.

Since none of the critics have considered Virgil's fable with relation to this history of Æneas, it may not perhaps be amiss to examine it in this light, so far as regards 'He was equally disappointed, and had my present purpose. Whoever looks into not spirit enough to consider, that one case the abridgment above-mentioned, will find would be laudable, and the other criminal. that the character of Æneas is filled with Malice, rancour, hatred, vengeance, are piety to the gods, and a superstitious obwhat tear the breasts of mean men in fight; servation of prodigies, oracles, and predicbut fame, glory, conquests, desire of oppor- tions. Virgil has not only preserved his tunities to pardon and oblige their opposers, character in the person of Æneas, but has are what glow in the minds of the gallant.' given a place in his poem to those particuThe captain ended his discourse with a lar prophecies which he found recorded of specimen of his book-learning; and gave us him in history and tradition. The poet to understand that he had read a French took the matters of fact as they came down author on the subject of justness in point of to him, and circumstanced them after his gallantry. I love,' said Mr. Sentry a own manner, to make them appear the critic who mixes the rules of life with anno- more natural, agreeable, or surprising. Ibetations upon writers. My author,' added lieve very many readers have been shocked he, in his discourse upon epic poems, at that ludicrous prophecy which one of the takes occasion to speak of the same quality harpies pronounces to the Trojans in the of courage drawn in the two different cha-third book; namely, that before they had racters of Turnus and Æneas. He makes courage the chief and greatest ornament of Turnus; but in Æneas there are many others which outshine it; among the rest that of piety. Turnus is, therefore, all along painted by the poet full of ostentation, his language haughty and vain-glorious, as placing his honour in the manifestation of his valour; Æneas speaks little, is slow to action, and shows only a sort of defensive courage. If equipage and address make Turnus appear more courageous than Aneas, conduct and success prove Æneas T.

more valiant than Turnus.

built their intended city they should be reduced by hunger to eat their very tables. But, when they hear that this was one of the circumstances that had been transmitted to the Romans in the history of Æneas, they will think the poet did very well in taking notice of it. The historian above-mentioned acquaints us, that a prophetess had foretold Eneas, that he should take his voyage westward, till his companions should eat their tables; and that accordingly, upon his landing in Italy, as they were eating their flesh upon cakes of bread for want of other conveniences, they afterwards fed on the

cakes themselves: upon which one of the company said merrily, 'We are eating our tables.' They immediately took the hint, says the historian, and concluded the prophecy to be fulfilled. As Virgil did not think it proper to omit so material a particular in the history of Æneas, it may be worth while to consider with how much judgment he has qualified it, and taken off every thing that might have appeared improper for a passage in a heroic poem. The prophetess who foretells it is a hungry harpy, as the person who discovers it is young Ascanius:

'Heus etiam mensas consumimus, inquit Iulus!" En. vii. 116.

'See we devour the plates on which we fed!'

Dryden.

Such an observation, which is beautiful in the mouth of a boy, would have been ridiculous from any other of the company. I am apt to think that the changing of the Trojan fleet into water-nymphs, which is the most violent machine in the whole Eneid, and has given offence to several critics, may be accounted for the same way. Virgil himself, before he begins that relation, premises, that what he was going to tell appeared incredible, but that it was justified by tradition. What further confirms me that this change of the fleet was a celebrated circumstance in the history of Æneas, is, that Ovid has given a place to the same metamorphosis in his account of the heathen mythology.

None of the critics I have met with have considered the fable of the Æneid in this light, and taken notice how the tradition on which it was founded authorizes those parts in it which appear most exceptionable. I hope the length of this reflection will not make it unacceptable to the curious part of my readers.

dents, than any other in the whole poem.
Satan's traversing the globe, and still keep-
ing within the shadow of the night, as fear-
ing to be discovered by the angel of the
sun, who had before detected him, is one
of those beautiful imaginations with which
he introduces this his second series of ad-
ventures. Having examined the nature of
every creature, and found out one which
was the most proper for his purpose, he
again returns to Paradise; and to avoid dis-
covery, sinks by night with a river that
ran under the garden, and rises up again
through a fountain that issued from it by
the tree of life. The poet, who, as we
have before taken notice, speaks as little
as possible in his own person, and, after the
example of Homer, fills every part of his
work with manners and characters, intro-
duces a soliloquy of this infernal agent,
who was thus restless in the destruction of
man. He is then described as gliding
through the garden, under the resemblance
of a mist, in order to find out the creature
in which he designed to tempt our first pa-
rents. This description has something in it
very poetical and surprising:

So saying, through each thicket dank or dry,
Like a black mist low creeping, he held on
His midnight search, where soonest he might find
The serpent: him fast sleeping soon he found,
In labyrinth of many a round self-roll'd

His head the midst, well stor'd with subtil wiles.

The author afterwards gives us a de-
scription of the morning which is wonder-
fully suitable to a divine poem, and peculiar
to that first season of nature.
He repre-
sents the earth before it was cursed, as a
great altar, breathing out its incense from
all parts, and sending up a pleasant savour
to the nostrils of its Creator; to which he
adds a noble idea of Adam and Eve, as
offering their morning worship, and filling
up the universal concert of praise and ado-
ration:

Now when a sacred light began to dawn
In Eden on the humid flowers, that breath'd
Their morning incense; when all things that breathe
From th' earth's great altar send up silent praise
To the Creator, and his nostrils fill

With grateful smell; forth came the human pair,
And join' their vocal worship to the choir
Of creatures wanting voice.-

The history which was the basis of Milton's poem is still shorter than either that of the Iliad or Æneid. The poet has likewise taken care to insert every circumstance of it in the body of his fable. The ninth book, which we are here to consider, is raised upon that brief account in scripture, wherein we are told that the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field; that he tempted the woman to eat of the The dispute which follows between our forbidden fruit; that she was overcome by two first parents is represented with great this temptation, and that Adam followed art. It proceeds from a difference of judgher example. From these few particulars ment, not of passion, and is managed with Milton has formed one of the most entertain- reason, not with heat. It is such a dispute ing fables that invention ever produced. as we may suppose might have happened He has disposed of these several circum-in Paradise, had man continued happy and stances among so many agreeable and na- innocent. There is a great delicacy in tural fictions of his own, that his whole the moralities which are interspersed in story looks only like a comment upon sacred Adam's discourse, and which the most orwrit, or rather seems to be a full and com- dinary reader cannot but take notice of. plete relation of what the other is only an That force of love which the father of manepitome. I have insisted the longer on this kind so finely describes in the eighth book, consideration, as I look upon the disposi- and which is inserted in my last Saturday's tion and contrivance of the fable to be the paper, shows itself here in many fine inprincipal beauty of the ninth book, which stances: as in those fond regards he casts tohas more story in it, and is füller of inci-wards Eve at her parting from him:

Her long with ardent look his eye pursu'd
Delighted, but desiring more her stay,
Oft he to her his charge of quick return
Repeated; she to him as oft engaged
To be return'd by noon amid the bow'r.

it, are conceived with a wonderful imagination, and described in very natural sentiments.

When Dido, in the fourth Æneid, yielded

In his impatience and amusement during to that fatal temptation which ruined her,

her absence:

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-Some cursed fraud

Of enemy hath beguil'd thee, yet unknown,
And me with thee hath ruin'd; for with thee
Certain my resolution is to die:
How can I live without thee? how forego
Thy sweet converse and love so dearly join'd
To live again in these wild woods forlorn ?
Should God create another Eve, and I
Another rib afford, yet loss of thee
Would never from my heart; no, no! I feel
The link of nature draw me: flesh of flesh,
Bone of my bone thou art, and from thy state
Mine never shall be parted, bliss or woe.

The beginning of this speech, and the preparation to it, are animated with the same spirit as the conclusion, which I have here quoted.

The several wiles which are put in practice by the tempter, when he found Eve separated from her husband, the many pleasing images of nature which are intermixed in this part of the story, with its gradual and regular progress to the fatal catastrophe, are so very remarkable, that it would be superfluous to point out their respective

beauties.

I have avoided mentioning any particular similitudes in my remarks on this great work, because I have given a general account of them in my paper on the first book. There is one, however, in this part of the poem which I shall here quote, as it is not only very beautiful, but the closest of any in the whole poem; I mean that where the serpent is described as rolling forward in all his pride, animated by the evil spirit, and conducting Eve to her destruction, while Adam was at too great a distance from her to give her his assistance. These several

particulars are all of them wrought into the following similitude:

-Hope elevates, and joy

Brightens his crest; as when a wandering fire
Compact of unetious vapour, which the night
Condenses, and the cold environs round,
Kindled through agitation to a flame,
(Which oft, they say, some evil spirit attends)
Hovering and blazing with delusive light,
Misleads th' amaz'd night-wanderer from his way
To bogs and mires, and oft through pond or pool,
There swallow'd up and lost from succour far.

The secret intoxication of pleasure, with all those transient flushings of guilt and joy, which the poet represents in our first parents upon their eating the forbidden fruit, to those flaggings of spirit, damps of sorrow, and mutual accusations which succeed

Virgil tells us the earth trembled, the heavens were filled with flashes of lightning, and the nymphs howled upon the mountain tops. Milton, in the same poetical spirit, has described all nature as disturbed upon Eve's eating the forbidden fruit.

So saying, her rash hand in evil hour,

Forth reaching to the fruit, she pluck'd, she eat,
Earth felt the wound, and Nature, from her seat
Sighing, through all her works gave signs of woe
That all was lost.-

Upon Adam's falling into the same guilt, the whole creation appears a second time in convulsions.

-He scrupled not to eat

Against his better knowledge; not deceiv'd
But fondly overcome with female charm,
Earth trembled from her entrails, as again
In pangs, and Nature gave a second groan;
Sky lower'd, and, muttering thunder, some sad drops
Wept at completing of the mortal sin.

As all nature suffered by the guilt of our first parents, these symptoms of trouble and consternation are wonderfully imagined, not only as prodigies, but as marks of her sympathizing in the fall of man.

Adam's converse with Eve, after having eaten the forbidden fruit, is an exact copy of that between Jupiter and Juno in the fourteenth Iliad. Juno there approaches Jupiter with the girdle which she had received from Venus: upon which he tells her, that she appeared more charming and desirable than she had ever done before, even when their loves were at the highest. The poet afterwards describes them as reposing on a summit of Mount Ida, which produced under them a bed of flowers, the lotus, the Crocus, and the hyacinth; and concludes his description with their falling asleep.

Let the reader compare this with the following passage in Milton, which begins with Adam's speech to Eve:

'For never did thy beauty since the day
I saw thee first and wedded thee, adorn'd,
With all perfections, so inflame my sense
With ardour to enjoy thee, fairer now
Than ever, bounty of this virtuous tree.'

So said he, and forbore not glance or toy
Of amorous intent, well understood
Of Eve, whose eye darted contagious fire.
Her hand he seiz'd, and to a shady bank,
Thick overhead with verdant roof embower'd,
He led her nothing loth; flowers were the couch,
Pansies, and violets, and asphodel,

And hyacinth, Earth's freshest softest lap.
There they their fill of love and love's disport
Took largely, of their mutual guilt the seal,
The solace of their sin, till dewy sleep
Oppress'd them.

As no poet seems ever to have studied Homer more, or to have more resembled him in the greatness of genius, than Milton, I think I should have given but a very imperfect account of its beauties, if I had not observed the most remarkable passages which look like parallels in these two great authors. I might, in the course of these

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If we be made for honesty, either it is solely to be sought, or certainly to be estimated much more highly than all other things.

WILL HONEYCOMB was complaining to me yesterday, that the conversation of the town is so altered of late years, that a fine gentleman is at a loss for matter to start discourse, as well as unable to fall in with the talk he generally meets with. Will takes notice, that there is now an evil under the sun which he supposes to be entirely new, because not mentioned by any satirist, or moralist, in any age. 'Men,' said he, 'grow knaves sooner than they ever did since the creation of the world before.' If you read the tragedies of the last age, you find the artful men, and persons of intrigue, are advanced very far in years, and beyond the pleasures and sallies of youth; but now Will observes, that the young have taken in the vices of the aged, and you shall have a man of five-and-twenty, crafty, false, and intriguing, not ashamed to over-reach, cozen, and beguile. My friend adds, that till about the latter end of king Charles's reign there was not a rascal of any eminence under forty. In the places of resort for conversation, you now hear nothing but what relates to improving men's fortunes, without regard to the methods towards it. This is so fashionable, that young men form themselves upon a certain neglect of every thing that is candid, simple, and worthy of true esteem; and affect being yet worse than they are, by acknowledging, in their general turn of mind and discourse, that they have not any remaining value for true honour and honesty; preferring the capacity of being artful to gain their ends, to the merit of despising those ends when they come in competition with their honesty. All this is due to the very silly pride that generally prevails of being valued for the ability of carrying their point; in a word, from the opinion that shallow and inexperienced people entertain of the short lived force of cunning. But I shall, before I enter upon the various faces which folly covered with artifice, puts on to impose upon the unthinking, produce a great authority for asserting

that nothing but truth and ingenuity has any lasting good effect, even upon a man's fortune and interest.

If

'Truth and reality have all the advantages of appearance, and many more. the show of any thing be good for any thing, I am sure sincerity is better; for why does any man dissemble, or seem to be that which he is not, but because he thinks it good to have such a quality as he pretends to? for to counterfeit and dissemble is to put on the appearance of some real excellency. Now the best way in the world for a man to seem to be any thing, is really to be what he would seem to be. Besides, that it is many times as troublesome to make good the pretence of a good quality, as to have it; and if a man have it not, it is ten to one but he is discovered to want it, and then all his pains and labour to seem to have it is lost. There is something unnatural in painting, which a skilful eye will easily discern from native beauty and complexion.

It is hard to personate and act a part long; for where truth is not at the bottom, nature will always be endeavouring to return, and will peep out and betray herself one time or other. Therefore, if any man think it convenient to seem good, let him be so indeed, and then his goodness will appear to every body's satisfaction; so that upon all accounts sincerity is true wisdom. Particularly as to the affairs of this world, integrity has many advantages over all the fine and artificial ways of dissimulation and deceit; it is much the plainer and easier, much the safer and more secure way of dealing in the world: it has less of trouble and difficulty, of entanglement and perplexity, of danger and hazard in it: it is the shortest and nearest way to our end, carrying us thither in a straight line, and will hold out and last longest. The arts of deceit and cunning do continually grow weaker and less effectual and serviceable to them that use them; whereas integrity gains strength by use, and the more and longer any man practiseth it, the greater service it does him, by confirming his reputation, and encouraging those with whom he hath to do to repose the greatest trust and confidence in him, which is an unspeakable advantage in the business and affairs of life.

'Truth is always consistent with itself, and needs nothing to help it out; it is always near at hand, and sits upon our lips, and is ready to drop out before we are aware; whereas a lie is troublesome, and sets a man's invention upon the rack, and one trick needs a great many more to make it good. It is like building upon a false foundation, which constantly stands in need of props to shore it up, and proves at last more chargeable than to have raised a substantial building at first upon a true and solid foundation; for sincerity is firm and substantial, and there is nothing hollow and unsound in it; and, because it is plain and

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