upon them. The last piece that I met with upon this occasion, gave me a most exquisite pleasure. My reader will think I am not serious, when I acquaint him, that the piece I am going to speak of was the old ballad of the Two Children in the Wood, which is one of the darling songs of the common people, and has been the delight of most Englishmen in some part of their age. 1 This song is a plain simple copy of nature, destitute of all the helps and ornaments of art. The tale of it is a pretty tragical story, and pleases for no other reason but because it is a copy of nature. There is even a despicable simplicity in the verse; and yet, because the sentiments appear genuine and unaffected, they are able to move the mind of the most polite reader with inward meltings of humanity and compassion. The incidents grow out of the subject, and are such as are the most proper to excite pity; for which reason the whole narration has something in it very moving, notwithstanding the author of it (whoever he was) has delivered it in such an abject phrase and poorness of expression, that the quoting any part of it would look like a design of turning it into ridicule. But though the language is mean, the thoughts, as I have before said, from one end to the other are natural, and therefore cannot fail to please those who are not judges of language, or those who, notwithstanding they are judges of language, have a true and unprejudiced taste of nature. The condition, speech, and behaviour, of the dying parents, with the age, innocence, and distress of the children, are set forth in such tender circumstances, that it is impossible for a realer of common humanity not to be affected with them. As for the circumstance of the Robin-red-breast, it is indeed a little poetical ornament; and to shew the genius of the author amidst 1 V. Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, v. 3, B. ii. No. 18.-G. all his simplicity, it is just the same kind of fiction which one of the greatest of the Latin poets has made use of upon a parallel occasion; I mean that passage in Horace, where he describes himself when he was a child, fallen asleep in a desert wood, and covered with leaves by the turtles that took pity on him.' Me fabulosæ Vulture in Appulo, Altricis extra limen Apuliæ, Ludo fatigatumque somno Fronde novâ puerum palumbes Texere HOR. 1. iii. Od. 4. In lofty Vulture's rising grounds, Without my nurse Apulia's bounds, When young and tir'd with sport and play, CREECH. I have heard that the late Lord Dorset, who had the greatest wit tempered with the greatest candour, and was one of the finest critics, as well as the best poets, of his age, had a numerous collection of old English ballads, and took a particular pleasure in the reading of them. I can affirm the same of Mr. Dryden; and 1 No burial this pretty pair Of any man receives, Did cover them with leaves. Ut. sup. v. 125, &c. A stanza which Gray probably had in his mind when he wrote the exquisite lines which in a moment of unpardonable hypercriticism, he rejected from his elegy. There scattered oft, the earliest of the year, And more directly still, Collins, in his 'Dirge in Cymbeline': The Red-breast oft, at evening hours, Shall kindly lend his little aid, With hoary moss and gathered flowers, To deck the ground where thou art laid.'—G. know several of the most refined writers of our present age who are of the same humour. I might likewise refer my reader to Moliere's thoughts on this subject, as he has expressed them in the character of the Misanthrope;' but those only who are endowed with a true greatness of soul and genius, can divest themselves of the little images of ridicule, and admire nature in her simplicity and nakedness. As for the little conceited wits of the age, who can only shew their judgment by finding fault, they cannot be supposed to admire these productions which have nothing to recommend them but the beauties of nature, when they do not know how to relish even those compositions that, with all the beauties of nature have also the additional advantages of art.2 L No. 86. FRIDAY, JUNE 8. Heu quam difficile est crimen non prodere vultu ! OVID. Met. xi. 447. How in the looks does conscious guilt appear! ADDISON. THERE are several arts which all men are in some measure masters of, without having been at the pains of learning them. Every one that speaks or reasons, is a grammarian and a logician, though he may be wholly unacquainted with the rules of gram mar or logic, as they are delivered in books and systems. In the same manner, every one is in some degree a master of that 'Le méchant goût du siècle en cela me fait peur; Qu' ne vieille chanson que je m'en vais vous dire. MIS. Acte 1. sc. 2.-G. 2 V. Introduction-Remarks on Addison's signature in the Spec tator.-G. art which is generally distinguished by the name of physiognomy; and naturally forms to himself the character or fortune of a stranger," from the features and lineaments of his face. We are no sooner presented to any one we never saw before, but we are immediately struck with the idea of a proud, a reserved, an affable, or a good-natured man; and upon our first going into a company of strangers, our benevolence or aversion, awe or contempt, rises naturally towards several particular persons, before we have heard them speak a single word, or so much as know who they are. Every passion gives a particular cast to the countenance, and is apt to discover itself in some feature or other. I have seen an eye curse for half an hour together, and an eye-brow call a man scoundrel. Nothing is more common than for lovers to complain, resent, languish, despair, and die, in dumb show. For my own part, I am so apt to frame a notion of every man's humour or circumstances by his looks, that I have sometimes employed myself from Charing-Cross to the Royal-Exchange in drawing the characters of those who have passed by me. When I see a man with a sour rivelled face, I cannot forbear pitying his wife; and when I meet with an open ingenuous countenance, think on the happiness of his friends, his family, and relations. I cannot recollect the author of a famous saying to a stranger who stood silent in his company, 'Speak, that I may see thee.' i But, with submission, I think we may be better known by our looks than by our words, and that a man's speech is much more 1 Socrates-Loquere ut te videam. Socratis vox ad adolescentem: Apul. Flor. 1. pr.-C. & A man cannot be said to "form to himself the character or fortune" of another, but an idea of the character or fortune. He says below, more properly, "to frame a notion of," &c.-H. Think. It should either be, "thinking" in reference to "cannot forbear," in the former part of this sentence, or else, "I think.”—H. easily disguised than his countenance. 1 In this case, however, I think the air of the whole face is much more expressive than the lines of it: the truth of it is, the air is generally nothing else but the inward disposition of the mind made visible. Those who have established physiognomy into an art, and laid down rules of judging men's tempers by their faces, have regarded the features much more than the air. pretty epigram on this subject. Martial has a Crine ruber, niger ore, brevis pede, lumine læsus; Ep. liv. 12. Thy beard and head are of a different die; With all these tokens of a knave compleat Should'st thou be honest, thou'rt a dev'lish cheat. I have seen a very ingenious author on this subject, who founds his speculations on the supposition, that as a man hath in the mould of his face a remote likeness to that of an ox, a sheep, a lion, an hog, or any other creature, he hath the same resemblance in the frame of his mind, and is subject to those passions which are predominant in the creature that appears in his countenance. Accordingly he gives the prints of several faces that are of a different mould, and by a little overcharging the likeness, discovers the figures of these several kinds of brutal faces in human features. I remember in the life of the famous Prince 1 'The true use of speech is not so much to express our wants as to conceal them.' Goldsmith's Bee, No. 3. (Works, vol. i. p. 51, Putnam's ed.) The most recent form in which I remember to have seen this thought, is in one of the numberless witticisms attributed to Talleyrand.—G. 2 J. B. Della Porta, born at Naples 1540, died 1615: founder of the Academy of the Secreti: discoverer of the camera obscura; author of va rious scientific works, besides fourteen comedies, two tragedies, and a tragi comedy. The work here referred to, was published in 1586, under the title of De humana physiognomia.—G. VOL. V.-11 |