cafe of very many is, that they are taken into fuch hands without any the leaft fufpicion, previous temptation, or admonition to what place they are going. The last week I went to an inn in the city to inquire for fome provifions which were fent by a waggon out of the country; and as I waited in one of the boxes till the chamberlain had looked over his parcel, I heard an old and a young voice repeating the questions and refponfes of the church-catechism. I thought it no breach of good-manners to peep at a crevice, and look in at people fo well employed; but who fhould I fee there but the most artful procurefs in the town, examining a molt beautiful country-girl, who had come up in the fame waggon with my things- Whether the was well educated, could forbear play⚫ing the wanton with fervants and idle ⚫ fellows, of which this town,' fays fhe, is too full:' at the fame time, whether the knew enough of breeding, as that if a 'squire or gentleman, or one that was her betters, fhould give her a civil falute, the fhould curtefy and be humble neverthelefs. Her innocent Forfooth's, Yes's, And't please you's, and She would do her endeavour, moved the good old lady to take her out of the hands of a country bumkin her brother, and hire her for her own maid. I staid till I faw them all marched out to take coach; the brother loaded with a great cheefe, he prevailed upon her to take for her civilities to his fifter. This poor creature's fate is not far off that of her's whom I fpoke off above, and it is not to be doubted, but after fhe has been long enough a prey to luft, fhe will be delivered over to famine. The ironical commendation of the industry and charity of thefe antiquated ladies, thefe directors of fin, after they can no longer commit it, makes up the beauty of the inimitable dedication to the Plain Dealer, and is a mafter-piece of raillery on this vice. But to understand all the purlieus of this game the better, and to illuftrate this fubject in future discourses, I muit venture myself, with my friend Will, into the haunts of beauty and gallantry; from pampered vice in the habitations of the wealthy, to diftressed indigent wickedness expelled the harbours of the brothel. N° CCLXVII. SATURDAY, JANUARY 5. CEDITE ROMANI SCRIPTORES, CEDITE GRAII. PROPERT. EL. XXXIV. LIB. 2. VER. 65. GIVE PLACE, YE ROMAN, AND YE GRECIAN WITS. T THERE is nothing in nature fork- which is perfect or imperfect, according fome as general difcourfes, efpecially when they turn chiefly upon words. For this reafon I fhall wave the difcuffion of that point which was started fome years fince, whether Milton's Paradife Loft may be called an heroic poem? Those who will not give it that title, may call it, if they pleafe, a divine poem. It will be fufficient to it's perfection, if it has in it all the beauties of the highest kind of poetry; and as for those who alledge it is not an heroic poem, they advance no more to the diminution of it, than if they should fay Adam is not Æneas, nor Eve Helen. I fhall therefore examine it by the rules of epic poetry, and fee whether it falls fhort of the Iliad or Æneid, in the beauties which are effential to that kind of writing. The first thing to be confidered in an epic poem, is the fable, as the action which it relates is more or lefs fo. This action fhould have three qualifications in it. Firft, it fhould be but one action. Secondly, it should be an entire action; and, thirdly, it should be a great action. To confider the action of the Iliad, neid, and Paradife Loft, in thefe three feveral lights. Homer, to preferve the unity of his action, haftens into the midst of things, as Horace has obferved: had he gone up to Leda's egg, or begun much later even at the rape of Helen, or the invefting of Troy, it is manifeft that the ftory of the poem would have been a series of feveral actions. He therefore opens his poem with the difcord of his princes, and artfully interweaves, in the feveral fucceeding parts of it, an account of every thing material which relates to them, and had paffed before that fatal diffen3 T fion. fion. After the fame manner Æneas makes his first appearance in the Tyrrhene feas, and within the fight of Italy, because the action propofed to be celebrated was that of his fettling himself in Latium. But because it was neceflary for the reader to know what had happened to him in the taking of Troy, and in the preceding parts of his voyage, Virgil makes his hero relate it by way of episode in the second and third books of the Æneid. The contents of both which books come before thofe of the first book in the thread of the ftory, though for preferving of this unity of action they follow them in the difpofition of the poem. Milton, in imitation of thefe two great poets, opens his Paradife Loft, with an infernal council plotting the fall of man, which is the action he propofed to celebrate; and as for those great actions, which preceded in point of time, the battle of the angels, and the creation of the world, which would have intirely deftroyed the unity of his principal action, had he related them in the fame order they happened, he caft them into the fifth, fixth, and feventh books, by way of epifode to this noble poem. Ariftotle himself allows, that Homer has nothing to boast of as to the unity of his fable, though at the fame time that great critic and philofopher endea Yours to palliate this imperfection in the Greek poet by imputing it in fome meafure to the very nature of an epic poem. Some have been of opinion, that the neid alfo labours in this particular, and has pifodes which may be looked upon as excrefcences rather than as parts of the action. On the contrary, the poem, which we have now under our consideration, hath no other epifodes than fuch as naturally arife from the fubject, and yet is filled with fuch a multitude of attonithing incidents, that it gives us at the fame time a pleafure of the greatest variety, and of the greateft implicity; uniform in it's nature, though diverfified in the execution. I must obferve also, that as Virgil, in the poem which was defigned to celebrate the original of the Roman empire, has defcribed the birth of it's great rival, the Carthaginian commonwealth: Milton, with the like art in his poem on the fall of man, has related the fall of thofe angels who are his profeffed enemies. Belides the many other beauties in fuch an epifode, it's running parallel with the great action of the poem hinders it from breaking the unity to much as another epifode would have done, that had not fo great an affinity with the principal fubject. In short, this is the fame kind of beauty which the critics admire in the Spanish Friar, or the Double Difcovery, where the two different plots look like counterparts and copies of one another. The fecond qualification required in the action of an epic poem, is, that it fhould be an entire action: an action is entire when it is complete in all it's parts; or, as Ariftotle defcribes it, when it confifts of a beginning, a middle, and an end. Nothing fhould go before it, be intermixed with it, or follow after it, that is not related to it. As on the contrary, no fingle step fhould be omitted in that juft and regular procefs which it muit be fuppofed to take from it's original to it's confummation. Thus we fee the anger of Achilles in it's birth, it's continuance and effects; and Æneas's fettlement in Italy, carried on through all the oppofitions in his way to it both by fea and land. The action in Milton excels, I think, both the former in this particular: we fee it contrived in hell, executed upon earth, and punished by Heaven. The parts of it are told in the most diftinct manner, and grow out of one another in the most natural me thod. The third qualification of an epic poem is it's greatnefs. The anger of Achilles was of fuch confequence, that it embroiled the kings of Greece, deftroyed the heroes of Troy, and engaged all the gods in factions. Æneas's lettlement in Italy produced the Cæfars, and gave birth to the Roman empire. Milton's fubject was ftill greater than either of the former; it does not determine the fate of fingle perfons or nations, but of a whole fpecies. The united powers of hell are joined together for the deftruction of mankind, which they effected in part, and would have completed, had not Omnipotence itself interpofed. The principal actors are man in his greatest perfection, and woman in her higheft beauty. Their enemies are the fallen angels: the Meffiah their friend, and the Almighty their protector. In fhort, every thing that is great in the whole circle of being, whe ther within the verge of nature, or out of of it, has a proper part affigned it in this noble poem. In poetry, as in architecture, not only the whole, but the principal members, and every part of them, fhould be great. I will not prefume to fay, that the book of games in the Æneid, or that in the Iliad, are not of this nature, nor to reprehend Virgil's fimile of the top, and many other of the fame kind in the Iliad, as liable to any cenfure in this particular; but I think we may fay, without derogating from those wonderful performances, that there is an unqueftionable magnificence in every part of Paradife Loft, and indeed a much greater than could have been formed upon any pagan fyftem. But Ariftotle, by the greatness of the action, does not only mean that it should be great in it's nature, but alfo in it's duration, or in other words, that it fhould have a due length in it, as well as what we properly call greatnefs. The juft measure of this kind of magnitude he explains by the following fimilitude. An animal, no bigger than a mite, cannot appear perfect to the eye, becaufe the fight takes it in at once, and has only a confufed idea of the whole, and not a diftinct idea of all it's parts; if on the contrary you should suppose an animal of ten thousand furlongs in length, the eye would be fo filled with a fingle part of it, that it could not give the mind an idea of the whole. What thefe animals are to the eye, a very fhort or a very long action would be to the memory. The firft would be, as it were, loft and swallowed up by it, and the other difficult to be contained in it. Homer and Virgil have fhewn their principal art in this particular; the action of the Iliad, and that of the Eneid, were in themselves exceeding fhort, but are fo beautifully extended and diverfified by the invention of epifodes, and the machinery of gods, with the like poetical ornaments, that they make up an agreeable story, fufficient to employ the memory without overcharging it. Milton's action is enriched with fuch a variety of circumftances, that I have taken as much pleafure in reading the contents of his books, as in the beft invented story I ever met with. It is poffible, that the traditions, on which the Iliad and Æneid were built, had more circumstances in them than the hiftory of the Fall of Man, as it is related in Scripture. Befides, it was easier for Homer and Virgil to dafh the truth with fiction, as they were in no danger of offending the religion of their country by it. But as for Milton, he had not only a very few circumftances upon which to raise his poem, but was also liged to proceed with the greatest caution in every thing that he added out of his own invention. And, indeed, notwithstanding all the restraints he was under, he has filled his ftory with fo many furprifing incidents, which bear fo clofe an analogy with what is delivered in holy writ, that it is capable of pleafing the most delicate reader, without giving offence to the moft fcrupulous. The modern critics have collected from feveral hints in the Iliad and Æneid the space of time which is taken up by the action of each of thofe poems; but as a great part of Milton's story was tranfa&ted in regions that lie out of the reach of the fun and the fphere of day, it is impoffible to gratify the reader with fuch a calculation, which indeed would be more curious than inftructive; none of the critics, either ancient or modern, having laid down rules to circumfcribe the action of an epic poem with any determined number of years, days, or hours, This piece of criticifm on Milton's Paradife Loft thall be carried on in the following Saturday's papers. N° CCLXVIII. MONDAY, JANUARY 7. L MINUS APTUS ACUTIS NARIBUS HORUM HOMINUM HOR. SAT. III. LIB. I. VER. 29. HE CANNOT BEAR THE RAILLERY OF THE AGE. СКЕЕСНО IT is not that I think I have been towards it: I am of opinion that I ought at prefent I wholly forbear any attempt plain letters of my correfpondents in the 3 T2 artlets artless dress in which they haftily fend them, that the reader may fee I am not accufer and judge myself, but that the indictment is properly and fairly laid, before I proceed against the criminal. MR. SPECTATOR, AS you are Spectator-General, I apply myself to you in the following cafe, viz. I do not wear a fword, but I often divert myself at the theatre, where I frequently fee a fet of fellows pull plain people, by way of humour and frolic, by the nofe, upon frivolous or no occafions. A friend of mine the other night applauded what a graceful exit Mr. Wilks made; one of these nofewringers overhearing him, pinched him by the nofe. I was in the pit the other night, when it was very much crouded, a gentleman learing upon me, and very heavily, I very civilly requefted him to remove his hand; for which he pulled me by the nofe. I would not refent it in fo public a place, because I was unwilling to create a disturbance; but have fince reflected upon it as a thing that is unmanly and disingenuous, renders the nofe-puller odious, and makes the perfon pulled by the nofe look little and contemptible. This grievance I humhly request you will endeavour to redrefs. I am your admirer, &c. Y MR. SPECTATOR, JAMES EASY. OUR difcourfe of the 29th of December on love and marriage is of fo ufeful a kind, that I cannot forbear adding my thoughts to your's on that fubject. Methinks it is a misfortune, that the marriage ftate, which in it's own nature is adapted to give us the compleateft happinefs this life is capable of, fhould be fo uncomfortable a one to fo many as it daily proves. But the mifchief generally proceeds from the anwife choice people make for themfelves, and an expectation of happiness from things not capable of giving it. Nothing but the good qualities of the perfon beloved can be a foundation for a love of judgment and difcretion; and whoever expect happiness from any thing but virtue, wifdom, good humour, and a fimilitude of manners, will find themselves widely mistaken. But how few are there who feck after thefe things, and do not rather make riches their chief not their only aim? How rare is it for man, when he engages himself in the thoughts of marriage, to place his hopes of having in fuch a woman a constant agreeable companion? one who will divide his cares and double his joys? who will manage that share of his eftate he entrufts to her conduct with prudence and frugality, govern his house with economy and difcretion, and be an ornanient to himself and family? Where fhall we find the man who looks out for one who places her chief happiness in the practice of virtue, and makes her duty her continual pleasure? No, men rather feek for money as the complement of all their defires; and regardless of what kind of wives they take, they think riches will be a minifter to all kind of pleafures, and enable them to keep miftreffes, horses, hounds, to drink, feast, and game with their companions, pay their debts contracted by former extravagancies, or fome fuch vile and unworthy end; and indulge themselves in pleafures which are a fhame and scandal to human nature. Now as for the wo men; how few of them are there who place the happiness of their marriage in the having a wife and virtuous friend? One who will be faithful and just to all, and conftant and loving to them? who with care and diligence will look after and improve the eftate, and without grudging allow whatever is prudent and convenient? rather, how few are there who do not place their happiness in outfhining others in pomp and show? and that do not think within themfelves, when they have married fuch a rich perfon, that none of their acquaintance fhall appear fo fine in their equipage, fo adorned in their perfons, or fo magnificent in their furniture, as themselves? Thus their heads are filled with vain ideas; and I heartily wish I could fav that equipage and how were not the chief good of fo many women as I fear it is. After this manner do both fexes deceive themselves, and bring reflections and difgrace upon the most happy and most honourable state of life; whereas if they would but correct their depraved tafte, moderate their ambition, and place their happiness upon proper objects, we fhould not find felicity in the marriage ftate fuch a wonder in the world as it now is. Sir, if you think these thoughts worth inferting among your own, be pleased to to give them a better dress, and let them país abroad; and you will oblige your admirer, MR. SPECTATOR, A. B. ASI was this day walking in the ftreet, there happened to pafs by on the other fide of the way a beauty, whofe charms were so attracting, that it drew my eyes wholly on that fide, infomuch that I neglected my own way, and chanced to run my nofe directly against a poft; which the lady no fooner perceived, but fell out into a fit of laughter, though at the fame time he was fenfible that herself was the caufe of my misfortune, which in my opinion was the greater aggravation of her crime. I being bufy wiping off the blood which trickled down my face, had not time to acquaint her with her barbarity, as alfo with my refolution, viz. never to look out of my way for one of her fex more: therefore, that your humble fervant may be revenged, he defires you to infert this in one of your next papers, which he hopes will be a warning to all the reft of the women-gazers, as well as to poor ANTHONY GAPE. MR. SPECTATOR, Defire to know in your next, if the merry game of the Parfon has loft his cloke,' is not mightily in vogue amongst the fine ladies this Christmas; because I fee they wear hoods of all colours, which I fuppofe is for that purpofe: if it is, and you think it proper, will carry fome of thofe hoods with me to our ladies in Yorkshire; because they enjoined me to bring them something from London that was very new. If you can tell any thing in which I can I I SINCE you appear inclined to be a friend to the diftreffed, I beg you would affift me in an affair under which I have fuffered very much. The reigning toaft of this place is Patetia; I have purfued her with the utmost diligence this twelvemonth, and find nothing ftands in my way but one who flatters her more than I can. Pride is her favourite paffion; therefore if you will be fo far my friend as to make a favourable mention of me in one of your papers, I believe I fhould not fail in my addrefles. The scholars ftand in rows, as they did to be fure in your time, at her pew-door; and she has all the devotion paid to her by a crowd of youths who are unacquainted with the fex, and have inexperience added to their passion : however, if it fucceeds according to my vows, you will make me the happiest man in the world, and the most obliged amongst all your humble fervants. N° CCLXIX. TUESDAY, JANUARY 8. -EVO RARISSIMA NOSTRO OVID. ARS AM. LIB. I. VER.241. AND BRINGS OUR OLD SIMPLICITY AGAIN. Was this morning furprised with a great knocking at the door, when my landlady's daughter came up to me, and told me, that there was a man below defired to fpeak with me. Upon my afking her who it was, fhe told me it was a very grave elderly person, but that she did not know his name, Iim DRYDEN. T mediately went down to him, and found him to be the coachman of my worthy friend Sir Roger de Coverley. He told me that his mafter came to town laft night, and would be glad to take a turn with me in Gray's-Inn walks. As I was wondering in myfelf what had brought Sir Roger to town, not having lately |