estate was acquired, now much it was beholden to a marriage for the present circumstances of it: after all he could see nothing but a common man in his person, his breeding, or understanding. Thus, Mr. Spectator, this impertinent humour of diminishing every one who is produced in conversation to their advantage, runs through the world; and I am, I confess, so fearful of the force of ill tongues, that I have begged of all those who are my well-wishers never to commend me, for it will but bring my frailties into examination; and I had rather be unobserved, than conspicuous for disputed perfections. I am confident a thousand young people, who would have been ornaments to society, have, from fear of scandal, never dared to exert themselves in the polite arts of life. Their lives have passed away in an odious rusticity in spite of great advantages of person, genius, and fortune. There is a vicious terror of being blamed in some wellinclined people, and a wicked pleasure in suppressing them in others; both which I recommend to your spectatorial wisdom to animadvert upon; and if you can be successful in it, I need not say how much you will deserve of the town; but new toasts will owe to you their beauty, and new wits their fame. I am, sir, your most obedient humble servant, 'MARY.' T. No. 349.] Thursday, April 10, 1712. -Quos ille timorum Maximus haud urget lethi metus: inde ruendi To spare that life which must so soon return.-Rowe I AM very much pleased with a consolatory letter of Phalaris, to one who had lost a son that was a young man of great merit. The thought with which he comforts the afflicted father is, to the best of my memory as follows:-That he should consider death had set a kind seal upon his son's character, and placed him out of the reach of vice and infamy: that, while he lived, he was still within the possibility of falling away from virtue, and losing the fame of which he was possessed. Death only closes a man's reputation, and determines it as good or bad. pronounced vicious or virtuous before the conclusion of it. It was upon this consideration that Epaminondas, being asked whether Chabrias Iphicrates, or he himself, deserved most to be esteemed? You must first see us die,' saith he, before that question can be answered.' As there is not a more melancholy consideration to a good man than his being obnoxious to such a change, so there is nothing more glorious than to keep up an uniformity in his actions, and preserve the beauty of his character to the last. The end of a man's life is often compared to the winding up of a well-written play, where the principal persons still act in character, whatever the fate is which they undergo. There is scarce a great person in the Grecian or Roman history, whose death has not been remarked upon by some writer or other, and censured or applauded according to the genius or principles of the person who has descanted on it. Monsieur de St. Evremond is very particular in setting forth the constancy and courage of Petronius Arbiter during his last moments, and thinks he discovers in them a greater firmness of mind and resolution than in the death of Seneca, Cato, or Socrates. There is no question but this polite author's affectation of appearing singular in his remarks, and making discoveries which had escaped the observations of others, threw him into this course of reflection. It was Petronius's merit that he died in the same gaiety of temper, in which he lived; but as his life was altogether loose and dissolute, the indifference which he showed at the close of it is to be looked upon as a piece of natural carelessness and levity, rather than fortitude. The resolution of Socrates proconsciousness of a well-spent life, and the ceeded from very different motives, the prospect of a happy eternity. If the ingenious author above-mentioned was so pleased with gaiety of humour in a dying man, he might have found a much nobler instance of it in our countryman Sir Thomas More. This great and learned man was famous for enlivening his ordinary discourses with wit and pleasantry; and as Erasmus tells him in an epistle dedicatory, acted in all parts of life like a second Democritus. He died upon a point of religion, and is respected as a martyr by that side for which he suffered. That innocent mirth, which This, among other motives, may be one had been so conspicuous in his life, did not reason why we are naturally averse to the forsake him to the last. He maintained launching out into a man's praise till his the same cheerfulness of heart upon the head is laid in the dust. Whilst he is ca- scaffold which he used to show at his table; pable of changing, we may be forced to and upon laying his head on the block, retract our opinion. He may forfeit the gave instances of that good humour with esteem we have conceived of him, and some which he had always entertained his friends time or other appear to us under a different in the most ordinary occurrences. light from what he does at present. In death was of a piece with his life. There short, as the life of any man cannot be call- was nothing in it new, forced, or affected ed happy, or unhappy, so neither can it be ! He did not look upon the severing his head His 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. 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 In te omnis domus inclinata recumbit. youths you see about this town, who are No. $51.] Saturday, April 12, 1712. Virg. En. xii. 2. He was equally disappointed, and had not spirit enough to consider, that one case would be laudable, and the other criminal. Malice, rancour, hatred, vengeance, are what tear the breasts of mean men in fight; but fame, glory, conquests, desire of opportunities to pardon and oblige their opposers, are what glow in the minds of the gallant.' The captain ended his discourse with a specimen of his book-learning; and gave us to understand that he had read a French author on the subject of justness in point of gallantry. I love,' said Mr. Sentry a critic who mixes the rules of life with annotations upon writers. My author,' added he, in his discourse upon epic poems, takes occasion to speak of the same quality of courage drawn in the two different characters of Turnus and Eneas. 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 Eneas, conduct and success prove Æneas more valiant than Turnus,. T. The story of Eneas, on which Virgil founded his poem, was likewise very bare of circumstances, and by that means afforded 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 Eneas, it may not perhaps be amiss to examine it in this light, so far as regards my present purpose. Whoever looks into the abridgment above-mentioned, will find that the character of Eneas is filled with piety to the gods, and a superstitious observation of prodigies, oracles, and predictions. Virgil has not only preserved his character in the person of Eneas, but has given a place in his poem to those particu lar prophecies which he found recorded of him in history and tradition. The poet took the matters of fact as they came down to him, and circumstanced them after his own manner, to make them appear the more natural, agreeable, or surprising. Ibe lieve very many readers have been shocked at that ludicrous prophecy which one of the harpies pronounces to the Trojans in the third book; namely, that before they had 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 Eneas, 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 dents, than any other in the whole poem. company said merrily, 'We are eating our Satan's traversing the globe, and still keeptables.' They immediately took the hint, ing within the shadow of the night, as fearsays the historian, and concluded the pro-ing to be discovered by the angel of the phecy to be fulfilled. As Virgil did not sun, who had before detected him, is one think it proper to omit so material a parti- of those beautiful imaginations with which cular in the history of Æneas, it may be he introduces this his second series of adworth while to consider with how much ventures. Having examined the nature of judgment he has qualified it, and taken off every creature, and found out one which every thing that might have appeared im- was the most proper for his purpose, he proper for a passage in a heroic poem. The again returns to Paradise; and to avoid disprophetess who foretells it is a hungry covery, sinks by night with a river that harpy, as the person who discovers it is ran under the garden, and rises up again young Ascanius: 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, introduces 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 parents. This description has something in it very poetical and surprising: ⚫ 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 Æneid, 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. So saying, through each thicket dank or dry, The author afterwards gives us a description of the morning which is wonderfully suitable to a divine poem, and peculiar to that first season of nature. He represents 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 adoration: Now when a sacred light began to dawn 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 consideration, as I look upon the disposition and contrivance of the fable to be the principal beauty of the ninth book, which has more story in it, and is fuller of inci kind so finely describes in the eighth book, and which is inserted in my last Saturday's paper, shows itself here in many fine instances: as in those fond regards he casts towards Eve at her parting from him: Her long with ardent look his eye pursu'd it, are conceived with a wonderful imagination, and described in very natural senti ments. When Dido, in the fourth Æneid, yielded In his impatience and amusement during to that fatal temptation which ruined her, her absence: Some cursed fraud Of enemy hath beguil'd thee, yet unknown, How can I live without thee? how forego The beginning of this speech, and the preparation to it, are animated with the same spirit as the conclusion, which I have here quoted. Virgil tells us the earth trembled, the hea- So saying, her rash hand in evil hour, 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 As all nature suffered by the guilt of our consternation are wonderfully imagined, not first parents, these symptoms of trouble and only as prodigies, but as marks of her sympathizing in the fall of man. The several wiles which are put in prac-eaten the forbidden fruit, is an exact copy Adam's converse with Eve, after having tice by the tempter, when he found Eve se- of that between Jupiter and Juno in the fourparated from her husband, the many pleas- teenth Iliad. Juno there approaches Jupiing images of nature which are intermixed ter with the girdle which she had received in this part of the story, with its gradual and from Venus: upon which he tells her, that regular progress to the fatal catastrophe, she appeared more charming and desirable are so very remarkable, that it would be than she had ever done before, even when superfluous to point out their respective their loves were at the highest. The poet summit of Mount Ida, which produced unafterwards describes them as reposing on a der them a bed of flowers, the lotus, the crocus, and the hyacinth; and concludes his description with their falling asleep. 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 unctious 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 lowing passage in Milton, which begins with For never did thy beauty since the day So said he, and forbore not glance or toy And hyacinth. Earth's freshest softest lap. 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 |
