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Dryden, and raised upon the same founda- | estate left him, which he said was welcome tion:

In the first rank of these did Zimri stand:
A man so various, that he seem'd to be
Not one, but all mankind's epitome.
Stiff in opinion, always in the wrong;
Was every thing by starts, and nothing long;
But, in the course of one revolving moon.
Was chemist, fiddler, statesman, and buffoon!
Then all for women, painting, rhyming, drinking,
Besides ten thousand freaks that dy'd in thinking.
Blest madman, who could every hour employ,
With something new to wish, or to enjoy

C.

to him upon no other account, but as he hoped it would remove all difficulties that lay in the way to our mutual happiness. You may well suppose, sir, with how much joy I received this letter, which was followed by several others filled with those expressions of love and joy, which I verily believe nobody felt more sincerely, nor knew better how to describe, than the gentleman I am speaking of. But, sir, how shall I be able to tell it you! By the last week's post I received a letter from an in

No. 163.] Thursday, September 6, 1711.timate friend of this unhappy gentleman,

-Si quid ego adjuero, curamve levasso
Que nune te coquit, et versat sib pectore fixa.
Ecquid erit pretii ?
Enn, apud Tullium.
Say, will you thank me if I bring you rest.
And ease the torture of your troubled breast?

INQUIRIES after happiness, and rules for attaining it, are not so necessary and useful to mankind as the arts of consolation, and supporting one's self under affliction. The utmost we can hope for in this world is contentment; if we aim at any thing higher, we shall meet with nothing but grief and disappointment. A man should direct all his studies and endeavours at making himself easy now and happy hereafter.

acquainting me, that as he had just settled his affairs, and was preparing for his journey, he fell sick of a fever and died. It is impossible to express to you the distress I am in upon this occasion. I can only have recourse to my devctions: and to the reading of good books for my consolation; and as I always take a particular delight in these frequent advices and admonitions which you give the public, it would be a very great piece of charity in you to lend me your assistance in this conjuncture. If after the reading of this letter you find yourself in a humour, rather to rally and ridicule, than to comfort me, I desire you would throw it into the fire, and think no The truth of it is, if all the happiness that more of it; but if you are touched with my is dispersed through the whole race of misfortune, which is greater than I know mankind in this world were drawn toge-how to bear, your counsels may very much ther, and put into the possession of any sin-support, and will infinitely oblige, the afgle man, it would not make a very happy being. Though on the contrary, if the miseries of the whole species were fixed in a single person, they would make a very miserable cne.

flicted

LEONORA.'

A disappointment in love is more hard to get over than any other: the passion itself so softens and subdues the heart, that it I am engaged in this subject by the fol-disables it from struggling or bearing up lowing letter, which, though subscribed by a fictitious name, I have reason to believe is not imaginary.

against the woes and distresses which befall it. The mind meets with other misfortunes in her whole strength; she stands collected within herself, and sustains the shock with all the force which is natural to her; but a heart in love has its foundation sapped, and immediately sinks under the weight of accidents that are disagreeable to its favourite passion.

MR. SPECTATOR,-I am one of your disciples, and endeavour to live up to your rules, which I hope will incline you to pity my condition. I shall open it to you in a very few words. About three years since, a gentleman, whom, I am sure, you yourself would have approved, made his ad- In afflictions men generally draw their dresses to me. He had every thing to re-consolations out of books of morality, which commend him but an estate, so that my indeed are of great use to fortify and friends, who all of them applauded his strengthen the mind against the impresperson, would not for the sake of both of us sions of sorrow. Monsieur St. Evremont, favour his passion. For my own part, I who does not approve of this method, reresigned myself up entirely to the direction comniends authors who are apt to stir up of those who knew the world much better mirth in the mind of readers, and fancies than myself, but still lived in hopes that Don Quixote can give more relief to a some juncture or other would make me heavy heart than Plutarch or Seneca, as it happy in the man, whom, in my heart, I is much easier to divert grief than to conprefered to all the world; being determined quer it. This doubtless may have its effects if I could not have him, to have nobody on some tempers. I should rather have else. About three months ago I received a recourse to authors of a quite contrary kind, letter from him, acquainting me, that by that give us instances of calamities and the death of an uncle he had a considerable misfortunes, and show human nature in its greatest distresses.

"Absalom and Ahithophel." It is perhaps unneces

sary to observe, that the character of Zimri is that of heavy, we shall find some consolation in the If the afflictions we groan under be very society of as great sufferers as ourselves,

George Villiers, duke of Buckingham, author of the ·Rehearsal "

especially when we find our companions|nary wit and beauty, but very unhappy in men of virtue and merit. If our afflictions a father, who having arrived at great riches are light, we shall be comforted by the by his own industry, took delight in nocomparison we make between ourselves thing but his money. Theodosius* was the and our fellow-sufferers. A loss at sea, a younger son of a decayed family, of great fit of sickness, or the death of a friend, are parts and learning, improved by a genteel such trifles, when we consider whole king-and virtuous education. When he was in doms laid in ashes, families put to the sword, wretches shut up in dungeons, and the like calamities of mankind, that we are out of countenance for our own weakness, if we sink under such little strokes of fortune. Let the disconsolate Leonora consider, that at the very time in which she languishes for the loss of her deceased lover, there are persons in several parts of the world just perishing in a shipwreck; others crying out for mercy in the terrors of a death-bed repentance; others lying under the tortures of an infamous execution, or the like dreadful calamities; and she will find her sorrows vanish at the appearance of those which are so much greater and more astonishing.

the twentieth year of his age he became acquainted with Constantia, who had not then passed her fifteenth. As he lived but a few miles distant from her father's house, he had frequent opportunities of seeing her, and by the advantages of a good person and a pleasing conversation, made such an impression on her heart as it was impossible for time to efface. He was himself no less smitten with Constantia. A long acquaintance made them still discover new beauties in each other, and by degrees raised in them that mutual passion which had an influence on their following lives. It unfortunately happened, that in the midst of this intercourse of love and friendship between Theodosius and Constantia, there I would further propose to the considera-broke out an irreparable quarrel between tion of my afflicted disciple, that possibly their parents, the one valuing himself too what she now looks upon as the greatest much upon his birth, and the other upon misfortune, is not really such in itself. For his possessions. The father of Constantia my own part, I question not but our souls was so incensed at the father of Theodoin a separate state will lock back on their sius, that he contracted an unreasonable lives in quite another view than what they aversion towards his son, insomuch that he had of them in the body; and that what forbade him his house, and charged his they now consider as misfortunes and dis-daughter, upon her duty, never to see him appointments, will very often appear to have been escapes and blessings.

The mind that hath any cast towards devotion, naturally flies to it in its afilic

tions.

When I was in France I heard a very remarkable story of two lovers, which I shall relate at length in my to-morrow's paper, not only because the circumstances of it are extraordinary, but because it may serve as an illustration to all that can be said on this last head, and show the power of religion in abating that particular anguish which seems to lie so heavy on Leonora. The story was told me by a priest, as I travelled with him in a stage-coach. I shall give it my reader, as well as I can remember, in his own words, after having premised, that if consolations may be drawn from a wrong religion and a misguided devotion, they cannot but flow much more naturally from those which are founded upon reason and established in good sense. L.

No. 164.] Friday, September 7, 1711.
Пlla. Quis et me, inquit, miseram, et te perdidit, Orpheu?
Jamque vale: feror ingenti circumdata nocte,
Invalidasque tibi tendens, heu! non tua, palmas.
Virg. Georg, iv. 494.

Then thus the bride: What fury seiz'd on thee,
Unhappy man! to lose thyself and me?
And now farewell! involv'd in shades of night,
For ever I am ravish'd from thy sight:

In vain I reach my feeble hands to join

In sweet embraces, ah! no longer thine. Dryden.

more. In the mean time, to break off all communication between the two lovers, who he knew entertained secret hopes of some favourable opportunity that should bring them together, he found out a young gentleman of a good fortune and an agreeable person, whom he pitched upon as a husband for his daughter. He soon concerted this affair so well, that he told Constantia it was his design to marry her to such a gentleman, and that her wedding should be celebrated on such a day. Constantia, who was overawed with the authority of her father, and unable to object any thing against so advantageous a match, received the proposal with a profound silence, which her father commended in her, as the most decent manner of a virgin's giving her consent to an overture of that kind. The noise of this intended marriage soon reached Theodosius, who, after a long tumult of passions, which naturally rise in a lover's heart on such an occasion, writ the following letter to Constantia.

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CONSTANTIA was a woman of extraordi- I founded upon this

paper.

was this holy man to whom Constantia had determined to apply herself in confession, though neither she nor any other, besides the prior of the convent, knew any thing of his name or family. The gay, the amiable Theodosius, had now taken upon him the name of Father Francis, and was so far concealed in a long beard, a shaven head, and a religious habit, that it was impossible to discover the man of the world in the venerable conventual.

in the world, but forget that there was ever inquire after Constantia; whom he looked such a man in it as THEODOSIUS.' upon as given away to his rival upon the day on which, according to common fame, This letter was conveyed to Constantia their marriage was to have been solemnthat very evening, who fainted at the read-ized. Having in his youth made a good ing of it; and the next morning she was progress in learning, that he might dedimuch more alarmed by two or three mes-cate himself more entirely to religion, he sengers, that came to her father's house, entered into holy orders, and in a few years one after another, to inquire if they had became renowned for his sanctity of life, heard any thing of Theodosius, who, it and those pious sentiments which he inseems, had left his chamber about mid-spired into all who conversed with him. It night, and could no where be found. The deep melancholy which had hung upon his mind some time before, made them apprehend the worst that could befal him. Constantia, who knew that nothing but the report of her marriage could have driven him to such extremities, was not to be comforted. She now accused herself of having so tamely given an ear to the proposal of a husband, and looked upon the new lover as the murderer of Theodosius. In short, she resolved to suffer the utmost As he was one morning shut up in his effects of her father's displeasure, rather confessional, Constantia kneeling by him than comply with a marriage which ap- opened the state of her scul to him; and peared to her so full of guilt and horror. after having given him the history of a life The father seeing himself entirely rid of full of innocence, she burst out into tears, Theodosius, and likely to keep a considera- and entered upon that part of her story in ble portion in his family, was not very much which he himself had so great a share. concerned at the obstinate refusal of his | My behaviour,' says she, 'has I fear been daughter; and did not find it very difficult the death of a man who had no other fault to excuse himself upon that account to his but that of loving me too much. Heaven intended son-in-law, who had all along re- only knows how dear he was to me whilst garded this alliance rather as a marriage he lived, and how bitter the remembrance of convenience than of love. Constantia of him has been to me since his death.” had now no relief but in her devotions and She here paused, and lifted up her eyes that exercises of religion, to which her afflic- streamed with tears, towards the father; tions had so entirely subjected her mind, who was so moved with the sense of her that after some years had abated the vio-sorrows, that he could only command his lence of her sorrows, and settled her thoughts in a kind of tranquillity, she resolved to pass the remainder of her days in a convent. Her father was not displeased with a resolution which would save money in his family, and readily complied with his daughter's intentions. Accordingly in the twenty-fifth year of her age, while her beauty was yet in all its height and bloom, he carried her to a neighbouring city, in order to look out a sisterhood of nuns among whom to place his daughter. There was in this place a father of a convent who was very much renowned for his piety and exemplary life; and as it is usual in the Romish church for those who are under any great affliction, or trouble of mind, to apply themselves to the most eminent confessors for pardon and consolation, our beautiful votary took the opportunity of confessing herself to this celebrated father.

We must now return to Theodosius, who, the very morning that the above-mentioned inquiries had been made after him, arrived at a religious house in the city where now Constantia resided; and desiring that secrecy and concealment of the fathers of the convent, which is very usual upon any extraordinary occasion, he made himself one of the order, with a private vow never to

voice, which was broke with sighs and sobbings, so far as to bid her proceed. She followed his directions, and in a flood of tears poured out her heart before him. The father could not forbear weeping aloud, insomuch that in the agonies of his grief the seat shook under him. Constantia, who thought the good man was thus moved by his compassion towards her, and by the horror of her guilt, proceeded with the utmost contrition to acquaint him with that vow of virginity in which she was going to engage herself, as the proper atonement for her sins, and the only sacrifice she could make to the memory of Theodosius. The father, who by this time had pretty well composed himself, burst out again in tears upon hearing that name to which he had been so long disused, and upon receiving this instance of unparalleled fidelity from one whom he thought had several years since given herself up to the possession of another. Amidst the interruptions of his sorrow, seeing his penitent overwhelmed with grief, he was only able to bid her from time to time be comforted-to tell her that her sins were forgiven her-that her guilt was not so great as she apprehended—that she should not suffer herself to be afflicted above measure. After which he recovered

himself enough to give her the absolution | where she resided; and are often read to in form; directing her at the same time to the young religious, in order to inspire repair to him again the next day, that he them with good resolutions and sentiments might encourage her in the pious resolu- of virtue. It so happened, that after Contions she had taken, and give her suitable stantia had lived about ten years in the exhortations for her behaviour in it. Con- cloister, a violent fever broke out in the stantia retired, and the next morning re- place, which swept away great multitudes, newed her applications. Theodosius having and among others Theodosius. Upon his manned his soul with proper thoughts and death-bed he sent his benediction in a very reflections, exerted himself on this occasion moving manner to Constantia, who at that in the best manner he could to animate his time was so far gone in the same fatal dispenitent in the course of life she was enter- temper, that she lay delirious. Upon the ing upon, and wear out of her mind those interval which generally precedes death in groundless fears and apprehensions which sicknesses of this nature, the abbess, finding had taken possession of it; concluding with that the physicians had given her over, told a promise to her, that he would from time her that Theodosius was just gone before to time continue his admonitions when she her, and that he had sent her his benedicshould have taken upon her the holy veil. tion in his last moments. Constantia reThe rules of our respective orders,' says ceived it with pleasure. 'And now,' says he, will not permit that I should see you, she, if I do not ask any thing improper, but you may assure yourself not only of let me be buried by Theodosius. My vow having a place in my prayers, but of re-reaches no farther than the grave; what I ceiving such frequent instructions as I can ask is, I hope, no violation of it.'- -She convey to you by letters. Go on cheerfully died soon after, and was interred according in the glorious course you have undertaken, to her request. and you will quickly find such a peace and satisfaction in your mind, which is not in the power of the world to give.'

Constantia's heart was so elevated with the discourse of Father Francis, that the very next day she entered upon her vow. As soon as the solemnities of her reception were over; she retired, as it is usual, with the abbess into her own apartment.

Their tombs are still to be seen, with a short Latin inscription over them to the following purpose:

'Here lie the bodies of Father Francis and Sister Constance. They were lovely in their lives, and in their deaths they were not divided.' C.

-Si forte necesse est,

The abbess had been informed the night No. 165.] Saturday, September 8, 1711. before of all that had passed between her noviciate and Father Francis; from whom she now delivered to her the following letter:

'As the first fruits of those joys and consolations which you may expect from the life you are now engaged in, I must acquaint you that Theodosius, whose death sits so heavy upon your thoughts, is still alive; and that the father to whom you have confessed yourself, was once that Theodosius whom you so much lament. The love which we have had for one another will make us more happy in its disappointment than it could have done in its success. Providence has disposed of us for our advantage, though not according to our wishes. Consider your Theodosius still as dead, but assure yourself of one who will not cease to pray for you, in Father

'FRANCIS.'

Constantia saw that the hand-writing agreed with the contents of the letter; and upon reflecting on the voice of the person, the behaviour, and above all the extreme sorrow of the father during her confession, she discovered Theodosius in every particular. After having wept with tears of joy, It is enough,' says she, Theodosius is still in being: I shall live with comfort and die in peace."

The letters which the father sent her afterwards are yet extant in the nunnery

Fingere cinctutis non exaudita Cethegis,
Continget: dabiturque licentia sumpta pudenter.
Hor. Ars Poet. v. 48.

-If you would unheard of things express,
Invent new words; we can indulge a muse,
Until the license rise to an abuse.

Creech.

I HAVE often wished that as in our con

stitution there are several persons whose business it is to watch over our laws, our liberties, and commerce, certain men might be set apart as superintendents of our lancoin from passing among us; and in parguage, to hinder any words of a foreign ticular to prohibit any French phrases from becoming current in this kingdom when those of our own stamp are altogether as valuable. The present war has so adulterated our tongue with strange words, that it would be impossible for one of our greatgrandfathers to know what his posterity have been doing, were he to read their exploits in a modern newspaper. Our warriors are very industrious in propagating the French language, at the same time that they are so gloriously successful in beating down their power. Our soldiers are men of strong heads for action, and perform such feats as they are not able to express. They want words in their own tongue to tell us what it is they achieve, and therefore send us over accounts of their performances in a jargon of phrases, which they learn among their conquered enemies.

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ever felt since it was a nation, I mean the year of Blenheim, I had the copy of a letter sent me out of the country, which was written from a young gentleman in the army to his father, a man of good estate and plain sense. As the letter was very modishly chequered with this modern military eloquence, I shall present my reader with a copy of it.

They ought however to be provided with when our country was delivered from the secretaries, and assisted by our foreign mi- greatest fears and apprehensions, and raised nisters, to tell their story for them in plain to the greatest height of gladness it had English, and to let us know in our mothertongue what it is our brave countrymen are about. The French would indeed be in the right to publish the news of the present war in English phrases, and make their campaigns unintelligible. Their people might flatter themselves that things are not so bad as they really are, were they thus palliated with foreign terms, and thrown into shades and obscurity; but the English cannot be too clear in their narrative of those actions, which have raised their country to a higher pitch of glory than it ever yet arrived at, and which will be still the more admired the better they are explained.

For my part, by that time a siege is carried on two or three days, I am altogether lost and bewildered in it, and meet with so many inexplicable difficulties, that I scarce through several "defiles," in one of which know which side has the better of it, until they met with a party of French that had I am informed by the Tower-guns that the been "marauding," and made them all place is surrendered. I do indeed make prisoners at discretion. The day after a some allowances for this part of the war; which he would communicate to none but drum arrived at our camp, with a message fortifications have been foreign inventions, the general; he was followed by a trumpet, and upon that account abounding in foreign who they say behaved himself very saucily, terms. But when we have won battles with a message from the Duke of Bavaria. which may be described in our own lan- The next morning our army being divided guage, why are our papers filled with so into two "corps," made a movement tomany unintelligible exploits, and the French wards the enemy. You will hear in the obliged to lend us a part of their tongue be public prints how we treated them, with fore we can know how they are conquered? the other circumstances of that glorious They must be made accessary to their own day. I had the good fortune to be in that disgrace, as the Britons were formerly so artificially wrought in the curtain of the Several French battalions, which some say regiment that pushed the "gens d'armes." Roman theatre, that they seemed to draw it up, in order to give the spectators an op- of resistance; but it only proved a were a "corps de reserve," made a show portunity of seeing their own defeat cele-conade," for upon our preparing to fill up "gasbrated upon the stage; for so Mr. Dryden a little "fosse" in order to attack them, has translated that verse in Virgil: they beat the "chamade," and sent us a "carte blanche." Their "commandant," with a great many other general officers, and troops without number, are made prisoners of war, and will, I believe, give you a visit in England, the "cartel" not being yet settled. Not questioning but these particulars will be very welcome to you, I congratulate you upon them, and am your most dutiful son,' &c.

Which interwoven Britons seem to raise, And show the triumph that their shame displays. The histories of all our former wars are transmitted to us in our vernacular idiom, to use the phrase of a great modern critic. I do not find in any of our chronicles, that Edward the Third ever reconnoitred the enemy, though he often discovered the pos- The father of the young gentleman upon ture of the French, and as often vanquished the perusal of the letter found it contained them in battle. The Black Prince passed great news, but could not guess what it was. many a river without the help of pontoons, He immediately communicated it to the and filled a ditch with faggots as success- curate of the parish, who upon the reading fully as the generals of our times do it with of it, being vexed to see any thing he could fascines. Our commanders lose half their not understand, fell into a kind of a passion, praise, and our people half their joy, by and told him, that his son had sent him a means of those hard words and dark ex- letter that was neither fish, flesh, nor good pressions in which our newspapers do so red-herring. I wish,' says he, the cap much abound. I have seen many a prudent tain may be "compos mentis," he talks of citizen, after having read every article, in- a saucy trumpet, and a drum that carries quire of his next neighbour what news the messages; then who is this "carte blanche?" mail had brought. He must either banter us, or he is out of his senses." The father, who always looked upon the curate as a learned man, began to fret inwardly at his son's usage, and pro

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