has entangled all her neighbours." With fuch falfe colours have the eyes of Lewis been enchanted, from the debauchery of his early youth, to the fuperftition of his prefent old age. Hence it is, that he has the patience to have ftatues erected to his prowess, his valour, his fortitude; and in the foftneffes and luxury of a court to be applauded for magnanimity and enterprize in military atchievements. Peter Alexovitz of Ruffia, when he came to years of manhood, though he found himself emperor of a vast and numerous people, master of an endless territory, abfolute commander of the lives and fortunes of his fubjects, in the midst of this unbounded power and greatnefs turned his thoughts upon himfelf and people with forrow. Sordid ignorance and a brute manner of life this generous prince beheld and contemned from the light of his own genius. His judgment fuggefted this to him, and his courage prompted him to amend it. In order to this, he did not fend to the nation from whence the reft of the world has borrowed it's politenefs, but himself left his diadem to learn the true way to glory and honour, and application to ufeful arts, wherein to employ the laborious, the fimple, the honest part of his people. Mechanic employments and operations were very justly the first objects of his favour and obfervation. With this glorious intention he travelled into foreign nations in an obfcure manner, above receiving little honours where he fojourned, but pry. ing into what was of more confequence, their arts of peace and of war. By this means has this great prince laid the foundation of a great and lafting fame, by perfonal labour, perfonal knowledge, perfonal valour. It would be injury to any of antiquity to name them with him. Who, but himself, ever left a throne to learn to fit in it with more grace? Who ever thought himself mean in abfolute power, until he had learned to ufe it? If we confider this wonderful perfon, it is perplexity to know where to begin his encomium. Others may in a metaphorical or philofophic fenfe be faid to command themfelves, but this emperor is alfo literally under his own command. How generous and how good was his entering his own name as a private man in the army he railed, that none in it might expect to outrun the fteps with which he himself advanced ? By fuch measures this godlike prince learned to conquer, learned to ufe his conquests. How terrible has he appeared in battle, how gentle in victory? Shall then the bafe arts of the Frenchman be held polite, and the honeft labours of the Ruffian barbarous? No: barbarity is the ignorance of true honour, or placing any thing inftead of it. The unjust prince is ignoble and barbarous, the good prince only renowned and glorious. Though men may impose upon themfelves what they please by their corrupt imaginations, truth will ever keep it's ftation; and as glory is nothing else but the fhadow of virtue, it will certainly difappear at the departure of virtue. But how carefully ought the true notions of it to be preferved, and how induftrious fhould we be to encourage any impulfes towards it? The Weltminfter fchool-boy that faid the other day he could not fleep or play for the colours in the hall, ought to be free from receiving a blow for ever. But let us confider what is truly glorious according to the author I have today quoted in the front of my paper. ly, The perfection of glory, fays Talconfifts in these three particulars: That the people love us; that they have confidence in us; that being af⚫fected with a certain admiration to wards us, they think we deferve ho nour. This was spoken of greatnefs in a commonwealth; but if one were to form a notion of confummate glory under our conftitution, one must add to the above-mentioned felicities a certain neceffary inexistence, and difrelith of all the reft, without the prince's favour. He fhould, methinks, have riches, power, honour, command, glory; but riches, power, honour, command, and glory, fhould have no charms, but as accompanied with the affection of his prince. He fhould, methinks, be po pular because a favourite, and a favourite becaufe popular.' Were it not to make the character too imaginary, I would give him fovereignty over fome foreign territory, and make him esteem that an empty addition without the kind regards of his own prince. One may merely have an idea of a man thus compofed and circumftantiated, and if he were fo made for power without an incapacity incapacity of giving jealousy, he would be alfo glorious without poffibility of receiving difgrace. This humility and this importance must make his glory immortal. These thoughts are apt to draw me beyond the ufual length of this paper, but if I could fuppofe fuch rhapfodies could outlive the common fate of ordinary things, I would fay these sketches and faint images of glory were drawn in August 1711, when John Duke of Marlborough made that memorable march wherein he took the French lines without bloodshed. N° CXL. FRIDAY, AUGUST 10. ANIMUM NUNC HUC CELEREM, NUNC DIVIDIT ILLUC. THIS WAY AND THAT HE TURNS HIS ANXIOUS MIND. my reader, that T All thefe fellows who have money are WHEN acquaintney tetters not extremely faucy and cold; pray, Sir, tell MR. SPECTATOR, yet acknowledged, I believe he will own, them of it. I MR. SPECTATOR, Have loft so much time already, that I defire, upon the receipt hereof, you would fit down immediately and give me your answer. And I would know of you whether a pretender of mine really loves me. As well as I can I will defcribe his manners. When he fees me he is always talking of confancy, but vouchfafes to vifit me but once a fortnight, and then is always in hafte to be gone. When I am fick, I hear, he fays he is mightily concerned, but neither comes nor fends, because, as he tells his acquaintance with a figh, he does not care to let me know all the power I have over him, and how impoffible it is for him to live without me. When he leaves the town he writes once in fix weeks, defires to hear from me, complains of the torment of abfence, fpeaks of flames, tortures, languishings, and ecftafies. He has the cant of an impatient lover, but keeps the pace of a Jukewarm one, You know I must not go fafter than he does, and to move at this rate is as tedious as counting a great clock. But you are to know he is rich, and my mother fays, as he is flow he is fure; he will love me long, if he love me little: but I appeal to you whether he loves at all. Your neglected humble fervant, LYDIA NOVELL. I Have been delighted with nothing more through the whole courfe of your writings than the fubftantial account you lately gave of Wit, and I could with you would take fome other opportunity to exprefs further the corrupt tatte the age is run into; which I am chiefly apt to attribute to the prevalency of a few popular authors, whose merit in fome refpects has given a fanction to their faults in others. Thus the imitators of Milton feem to place all the excellency of that fort of writing either in the uncouth or antique words, or fomething else which was highly vicious, though pardonable, in that great man. The admirers of what we call point, or turn, look upon it as the particular happiness to which Cowley, Ovid, and others, owe their reputation, and therefore imitate them only in fuch inftances; what is juft, proper, and natural, does not feem to be the question with them, but by what means a quaint antithefis may be brought about, how one word may be made to look two ways, and what will be the confequence of a forced allufion. Now, though fuch authors appear to me to resemble those who make themfelves fine, instead of being well-drefled, or graceful; yet the mifchief is, that thefe beauties in them, which I call blemishes, are thought to proceed from luxuriance of fancy, and overflowing of good fenfe: in one word, they have the character of being witty; but if you would acquaint the world they are not witty at all, you would, LAST night as I was walking in the Park, I met a couple of friends; Pr'ythee, Jack,' fays one of them, let " us go drink a glass of wine, for I am fit for nothing elfe.' This put me upon reflecting on the many mifcarriages which happen in converfations over wine, when men go to the bottle to remove fuch humours as it only ftirs up and awakens. This I could not attribute more to any thing than to the humour of putting company upon others which men do not like themselves. Pray, Sir, declare in your papers, that he who is a troublefome companion to himself, will not be an agreeable one to others. Let people reafon themselves into good-humour, before they impose themfelves upon their friends. Pray, Sir, be as eloquent as you can upon this fubject, and do human life fo much good, as to argue powerfully, that it is not every one that can fwallow who is fit to drink a glass of wine. SIR, Your most humble fervant. I This morning caft my eye upon your paper concerning the expence of time. You are very obliging to the women, especially those who are not young and paft gallantry, by touching fo gently upon gaming: therefore I hope you do not think it wrong to employ a little leifure time in that diverfion; but I fhould be glad to hear you say something upon the behaviour of fome of the female gamefters. I have obferved ladies, who in all other refpects are gentle, good-humoured, and the very pinks of good-breeding; who as foon as the ombre-table is called for, and fet down to their bufinefs, are immediately tranfmigrated into the verieft wafps in nature. and win their money; but am out of You must know I keep my temper, countenance to take it, it makes them fo very uneafy. Be pleafed, dear Sir, to inftruct them to lofe with a better grace, and you will oblige your's, RACHEL BASTO. MR. SPECTATOR, YOUR kindness to Eleonora, in one of your papers, has given me encouragement to do myfelf the honour of writing to you. The great regard you have fo often expreffed for the inftruction and improvement of our fex, will, I hope, in your own opinion, fufficiently excufe me from making any apology for the impertinence of this letter. The great defire I have to embellish my mind with fome of thofe graces which you fay are fo becoming, and which you asfert reading helps us to, has made me uneafy until I am put in a capacity of attaining them: this, Sir, I fhall never think myself in, until you shall be plea fed to recommend fome author or authors to my perufal. I thought indeed, when I first caft my eye on Eleonora's letter, that I fhould have had no occafion for réquefting it of you; but to my very great concern, I found on the perufal of that Spectator, I was entirely difappointed, and am as much at a lofs how to make use of my time for that end as ever. Pray, Sir, oblige me at leaft with one scene, as you were pleased to entertain Eleonora with your prologue. I write to you not only my own fentiments, but alfo thofe of feveral others of my acquaintance, who are as little pleased with the ordinary manner of fpending one's time as myfelf: and if a fervent defire after knowledge, and a great fense of our prefent ignorance, may be thought a good prefage and earnest of improvement, improvement, you may look upon your time you fhall bestow in anfwering this request not thrown away to no purpose. And I cannot but add, that unless you have a particular and more than ordinary regard for Eleonora, I have a better title to your favour than the; fince I do not content myself with tea-table reading of your papers, but it is my entertainment very often when alone in my clofet. To fhew you I am capable of improvement, and hate flattery, I acknowledge I do not like fome of your Ν papers; but even there I am readier to call in queftion my own fhallow underftanding than Mr. Spectator's profound judgment. I am, Sir, your already, and in hopes of being more your, obliged fervant, PARTHENIA. This laft letter is written with fo urgent and ferious an air, that I cannot but think it incumbent upon me to comply with her commands, which I fhall do very suddenly. No CXLL SATURDAY, AUGUST 11. OMNIS MIGRAVIT AB AURE VOLUPTAS HOR. EP. I. L 2. v. 187. PLEASURE NO MORE ARISES FROM THE EAR. IN the prefent emptines of the town. I have feveral applications from the lower parts of the players, to admit fuffering to pass for acting. They in very obliging terms defire me to let a fall on the ground, a stumble, or a good flap on the back, be reckoned a jelt. These gambols I fhall tolerate for a season, because I hope the evil cannot continue longer than until the people of condition and tafte return to town. The method, fome time ago, was to entertain that part of the audience, who have no faculty above eye-fight, with ropedancers and tumblers; which was a way difcreet enough, because it prevented confufion, and diftinguifhed fuch as could fhew all the poftures which the body is capable of, from those who were to reprefent all the paffions to which the mind is fubject. But though this was prudently fettled, corporeal and intellectual actors ought to be kept at a ftill wider diftance than to appear on the fame ftage at all: for which reafon I muft propofe fome methods for the improvement of the bear-garden, by difmiffing all bodily actors to that quarter. In cafes of greater moment, where men appear in public, the confequence and importance of the thing can bear them out. And though a pleader or preacher is hoarfe or aukward, the weight of the matter commands refpect and attention; but in the theatrical fpeaking, if the performer is not exactly proper and graceful, he is utterly ridiculous. In T cafes where there is little elfe ex pected, but the pleasure of the ears and eyes, the leaft diminution of that pleafure is the highest offence. In acting, barely to perform the part is not commendable, but to be the least out is contemptible. To avoid these difficulties and delicacies, I am informed, that while I was out of town, the actors have flown in the air, and played fuch pranks, and run fuch hazards, that none but the fervants of the fire-office, tilers and mafons, could have been able to perform the like. The author of the fol lowing letter, it seems, has been of the audience at one of these entertainments, and has accordingly complained to me upon it; but I think he has been to the utmost degree fevere against what is exceptionable in the play he mentions, without dwelling fo much as he might have done on the author's most excellent talent of humour. The pleafant pictures he has drawn of life, fhould have been more kindly mentioned, at the fame time that he banishes his witches, who are too dull devils to be attacked with fo much warmth. MR. SPECTATOR, UPON a report that Moll White had followed you to town, and was to act a part in the Lancashire-witches, I went last week to fee that play. It was my fortune to fit next to a country juf tice of the peace, a neighbour, as he faid, of Sir Roger's, who pretended to 2 M fhew fhew her to us in one of the dances. There was witchcraft enough in the entertainment almost to incline me to believe him; Ben Johnson was almoft lamed; young Bullock narrowly saved his neck; the audience was aftonished; and an old acquaintance of mine, a perfon of worth, whom I would have bowed to in the pit, at two yards dif. tance did not know me. If you were what the country people reported you, a white witch, I could have wifhed you had been there to have exorcifed that rabble of broomsticks, with which we were haunted for above three hours. I could have allowed them to fet Clod in the tree, to have scared the sportsmen, plagued the justice, and employed honeft Teague with his holy water. This was the proper ufe of them in comedy, if the author had stopped here; but I cannot conceive what relation the facrifice of the black lamb, and the ceremonies of their worship to the devil, have to the bufinefs of mirth and humour. * The gentleman who writ this play, and has drawn fome characters in it very justly, appears to have been milled inf his witchcraft by an unwary following the inimitable Shakespeare. The ancantations in Macbeth have à folemnizy admirably adapted to the occafion of that tragedy, and fill the mind with a fuitable horror; befides that the witches are a part of the flory itfelf, as we find it very particularly related in Hector Boetius, from whom he feems to have Taken it. This therefore is a proper machine where the bufinefs is dark, horrid, and bloody; but is extremely foreign from the affair of Comedy. Subjects of this kind, which are in themfelves difagreeable, can at no time become entertaining, but by paffing through an imagination like Shakepeare's to form them; for which reafon Mr.Dryden would not allow even Beanmont and Fletcher capable of imitating him. But Shakespeare's magic could not copy'd be, Within that circle none durf walk but he. I fhould not, however, have troubled you with thefe remarks, it there were not fomething elfs in this comedy, which wants to be exorcifed more than the witches: I mean the freedom of fome paffages, which I fhould have overlooked, if I had not obferved that those jetts can raife the loudeft mirth, though they are painful to right fenfe, and an outrage upon modefty. We must attribute fuch liberties to the taste of that age, but indeed by fuch reprefentations a poet facrifices the best part of his audience to the worft; and, as one would think, neglects the boxes, to write to the orange-wenches. I must not conclude until I have taken notice of the moral with which this comedy ends. The two young ladies having given a notable example of outwitting thofe who had a right in the difpofal of them, and marrying without confent of parents; one of the injured parties, who is eafily reconciled, winds up all with this remark -Defign whate'er we will, There is a fate which over-rules us ftill. We are to fuppofe that the gallants are men of merit, but if they had been rakes the excufe might have ferved as well. Hans Carvel's wife was of the fame principle, but has expreffed it with a delicacy, which thews fhe is not serious in her excufe, but in a fort of humorous philofophy turns off the thought of her guilt, and fays That if weak women go aftray, This, no doubt, is a full reparation, and difimiffes the audience with very edifying impreffions. Thele things fall under a province you have partly pursued already, and therefore demand your animadverfion, for the regulating fo noble an entertainment as that of the frage. It were to be withed that all who write for it hereafter would raile their genius, by the ambition of pleating people of the beft understanding; and leave others who fhew nothing of the human fpecics but rifibility, to feek their divertion at the bear-garden, or fame other privileged place, where reafon and good-manners have no right to disturb them. AUGUST 8, 1711. T I am, Sc. N° CXLII. |