With that there came an arrow keeu Out of an English bow, Which struck Earl Douglas to the heart A deep and deadly blow.' Eneas was wounded after the same manner by an unknown Thus while he spake, unmindful of defence, But of all the descriptive parts of this song, there are none more beautiful than the four following stanzas, which have a great force and spirit in them, and are filled with very natural circumstances. The thought in the third stanza was never touched by any other poet, and is such an one as would have shined in Homer or in Virgil. So thus did both these nobles die, He had a bow bent in his hand, An arrow of a cloth-yard long Against Sir Hugh Montgomery So right his shaft he set, The gray-goose wing, that was thereon, In his heart-blood was wet. 1 Here, the modern poet, has improved upon his original, both in incident and expression.-G. This fight did last from break of day Till setting of the sun; For when they rung the evening bell, The battle scarce was done. One may observe likewise, that in the catalogue of the slam, the author has followed the example of the greatest ancient poets, not only in giving a long list of the dead, but by diversifying it with little characters of particular persons. And with Earl Douglas there was slain Sir Hugh Montgomery; Sir Charles Carrell, that from the field Sir Charles Murrel of Ratcliff too, Sir David Lamb, so well esteem'd, Yet saved could not be. The familiar sound in these names destroys the majesty of the description for this reason I do not mention this part of the poem but to shew the natural cast of thought which appears in it, as the two last verses look almost like a translation of Virgil. In the catalogue of the English who fell, Witherington's behaviour is in the same manner particularized very artfully, as the reader is prepared for it by that account which is given of him in the beginning of the battle; though I am satisfied your little buffoon readers (who have seen that passage ridiculed in Hudi bras) will not be able to take the beauty of it: for which reason I dare not so much as quote it.' Then stept a gallant squire forth, Who said, I would not have it told, That e'er my captain fought on foot, We meet with the same heroic sentiment in Virgil. Non pudet, O Rutuli, cunctis pro talibus unam Æn. 12, v. 229. For shame, Rutulians, can you bear the sight Our courage colder, or our numbers less? DRYDEN. What can be more natural, or more moving, than the circumst n. ces in which he describes the behaviour of those women who ad lost their husbands on this fatal day? Next day did many widows come," They wash'd their wounds in brinish tears, But all would not prevail. 'A sufficient proof if others were wanting that Addison had never seen the original poem, which has no traces of the ludicrous idea of the rifaci mento. For Wertharyngton my hearte was wo, That ever he slayne shulde be; For when both his leggis wear hewyne in to, Yet he knyled and fought on hys kne.-G. 2 If Addison had had the old poem before him, he would have been still more struck with this beautiful passage. So on the morrowe the mayde them byears Off byrch and hasell so 'gray'; Many wedous with wepyng tears Cam to fach ther makys a-way.-G. Their bodies, bath'd in purple blood, They bore with them away: They kiss'd them dead a thousand times When they were clad in clay. Thus we see how the thoughts of this poem, which naturally arise from the subject, are always simple, and sometimes exquisitely noble; that the language is often very sounding, and that the whole is written with a true poetical spirit. If this song had been written in the Gothic manner, which is the delight of all our little wits, whether writers or readers, it would not have hit the taste of so many ages, and have pleased the readers, of all ranks and conditions. I shall only beg pardon for such a profusion of Latin quotations: which I should not have made use of, but that I feared my own judgment would have looked too singular on such a subject, had not I supported it by the practice and authority of Virgil.a C. No. 81. SATURDAY, JUNE 2. Qualis ubi audito venantum murmure tigris STATIUS, Theb. ii. 128. As when the tigress hears the hunter's din, ABOUT the middle of last winter, I went to see an opera at the theatre in the Haymarket, where I could not but take notice of two parties of very fine women, that had placed themselves in a It may be proper to observe, once for all, that Mr. Addison's critical papers discover his own good taste; and are calculated to improve that of his reader; but otherwise have no great merit. He rarely makes a wrong judgment of the passages he quotes, but does not tell us on what grounds (or at least in too general terms) that judgment was, or ought to have been founded.--H. VOL V-10* poxes, and seemed drawn up in a kind of battle 1 against another. After a short survey of them, I d they were patched differently; the faces, on one hand, being spotted on the right side of the forehead, and those upon the other on the left: I quickly perceived that they cast hostile glances upon one another; and that their patches were placed in these different situations, as party signals to distinguish friends from foes. In the middle boxes, between these two opposite bodies, were several ladies who patched indifferently on both sides of their faces, and seemed to sit there with no other intention but to see the opera. Upon inquiry, I found that the body of Amazons on my right hand were Whigs, and those on my left Tories: and that those who had placed themselves in the middle boxes were a neutral party, whose faces had not yet declared themselves. These last, however, as I afterwards found, diminished daily, and took their party with one side or the other insomuch that I observed in several of them, the patches, which were before dispersed equally, are now all gone over to the Whig or the Tory side of the face. The censorious say, that the men whose hearts are aimed at, are very often the occasions that one part of the face is thus dishonoured, and lies under a kind of disgrace, while the other is so much set off and adorned by the owner; and that the patches turn to the right or to the left, according to the principles of the man who is most in favour. But whatever may be the motives of a few fantastical coquettes, who do not patch for the public good so much as for their own private advantage, it is certain, that there are several women of honour who patch out of principle, and with an eye to the in 1 1 Whoever recollects with what violence the spirit of party raged in the latter end of Queen Anne's reign, will not be surprised that it should infect the ladies, or show itself in the instances so pleasantly indicated in this paper-C. |