Against Sir Hugh Montgomery
So right his shaft he set,

The grey goose wing that was thereon
In his heart-blood was wet.

This fight did last from break of day

Till setting of the sun;

For when they rung the ev'ning bell
The battle scarce was done.'

Thus we see how the thoughts of this poem, which naturally arises from the subject, are always simple, and sometimes exquisitely noOne may observe, likewise, that in the cata-ble; that the language is often very sounding, logue of the slain, the author has followed the and that the whole is written with a true poetiexample of the great ancient poets, not only cal spirit. 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 Carrel, that from the field
One foot would never fly:

Sir Charles Murrel of Ratcliff too,

His sister's son was he;

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 show the natural cast of thought which appears in it, as the two last verses look almost like a translation of Virgil.

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.

C.

There is nothing ludicrous in the verse alluded to, as it stands in the original ballad:

'For Wetharryngton my harte is wo,
That ever he slayne shulde be;

For when both his legges wear hewyne in to,-
Yet he knul'd and fought on his kne.

The

No. 75.] Saturday, May 26, 1711. in he lives. What is opposite to the eternal rules of reason and good sense, must be exOmnis Aristippum decuit color, et status, et res. Hor. Lib. 1. Ep. 23. xvii. cluded from any place in the carriage of a well bred man. I did not, I confess, explain myAll fortune fitted Aristippus well.-Creech. self enough on this subject, when I called Ir was with some mortification that I suffer- Dorimant a clown, and made it an instance of ed the railery of a fine lady of my acquaint-it, that he called the orange wench, Double ance, for calling, in one of my papers,* Dori- Tripe: I should have shown, that humanity mant a clown. She was so unmerciful as to obliges a gentleman to give no part of humantake advantage of my invincible taciturnity, kind reproach, for what they, whom they reand on that occasion with great freedom to con-proach, may possibly have in common with sider the air, the height, the face, the gesture the most virtuous and worthy amongst us. of him, who could pretend to judge so arro-When a gentleman speaks coarsely, he has gantly of gallantry. She is full of motion, dressed himself clean to no purpose. janty and lively in her impertinence, and one clothing of our mind's certainly ought to be of those that commonly pass, among the igno-regarded before that of our bodies. To betray rant, for persons who have a great deal of hu-in a man's talk a corrupt imagination, is a mour. She had the play of Sir Fopling in her much greater offence against the conversation hand, and after she had said it was happy for of a gentleman, than any negligence of dress her there was not so charming a creature as imaginable. But this sense of the matter is Dorimant now living, she began with a theat-so far from being received among people even rical air and tone of voice to read, by way of of condition, that Vocifer passes for a fine triumph over me, some of his speeches. Tis gontleman. He is loud, haughty, gentle, soft, she! that lovely air, that easy shape, those lewd, and obsequious by turns, just as a little wanton eyes, and all those melting charms understanding and great impudence prompt about her mouth, which Medley spoke of, him at the present moment. He passes among I'll follow the lottery, and put in for a prize the silly part of our women for a man of wit, with my friend Bellair,' because he is generally in doubt. He contradicts with a shrug, and confutes with a certain sufficiency, in professing such and such a thing is above his capacity. What makes his character the pleasanter is, that he is a professed

In love the victors from the vanquish'd fly;
They fly that wound, and they pursue that die.'

Then turning over, the leaves, she reads alter-deluder of women; and because the empty nately, and speaks,

And you and Loveit to her cost shall find
I fathom all the depths of woman-kind.'

coxcomb has no regard to any thing that is of itself sacred and inviolable. I have heard an unmarried lady of fortune say, It is a pity so fine a gentleman as Vocifer is so great an atheOh the fine gentleman! But here, continues she, ist. The crowds of such inconsiderable creais the passage I admire most, where he begins tures, that infest all places of assembling, to tease Loveit, and mimick Sir Fopling, Oh, every reader will have in his eye from his the pretty satire, in his resolving to be a cox-own observation; but would it not be worth comb to please, since noise and nonsense have such powerful charms..

'1, that I may successful prove, Transform myself to what you love."

Then how like a man of the town, so wild
and gay is that!

The wise will find a diff'rence in our fate,
You wed a woman, I a good estate.'

considering what sort of figure a man who formed himself upon those principles among us, which are agreeable to the dietates of honour and religion, would make in the familiar and ordinary occurrences of life?

A

I hardly have observed any one fill his several duties of life better than Ignotus. All the under parts of his behaviour, and such as are exposed to common observation, have their rise in him from great and noble motives. firm and unshaken expectation of another life makes him become this; humanity and goodnature, fortified by the sense of virtue, has the same effect upon him, as the neglect of all goodness has upon many others. Being firmly established in all matters of importance, that certain inattention which makes men's actions look easy, appears in him with greater beauty: he is perfectly master of them. This temper of by a thorough contempt of little excellencies,

It would have been a very wild endeavour for a man of my temper to offer any opposition to so nimble a speaker as my fair enemy is; but her discourse gave me very many reflections, when I had left her company. Among others, I could not but consider with some at tention, the false impressions the generality (the fair-sex more especially) have of what should be intended, when they say a fine gentleman;' and could not help revolving that subject in my thoughts, and settling, as it mind leaves him under no necessity of studywere, an idea of that character in my own ing his air, and he has this peculiar distinction, imagination. that his negligence is unaffected.

No man ought to have the esteem of the rest considering this being as an uncertain one, and He that can work himself into a pleasure in of the world, for any actions which are disagreeable to those maxims which prevail, as the think to reap an advantage by its discontinustandards of behaviour, in the country, where-ance, in a fair way of doing all things with

Spect. No. 65.

a graceful unconcern, and a gentleman-like case. Such a one does not behold his life as a

short, transient, perplexing state, made up of such observations in the highest relish, he trifling pleasures and great anxieties; but ought to be placed in a post of direction, and sees it in quite another light; his griefs are have the dealings of their fortunes to them. momentary and his joys immortal. Reflec-I have therefore been wonderfully diverted tion upon death is not a gloomy and sad with some pieces of secret history, which an thought of resigning every thing that he de- antiquary, my very good friend, lent me as a lights in, but it is a short night followed by an curiosity. They are memoirs of the private endless day. What I would here contend for life of Pharamond of France. 'Pharamond,' is, that the more virtuous the man is, the near-says my author, was a prince of infinite huer he will naturally be to the character of gen-manity and generosity, and at the same time teel and agreeable. A man whose fortune is the most pleasant and facetious companion of plentiful, shows an ease in his countenance, his time. He had a peculiar taste in him, which and confidence in his behaviour, which he that would have been unlucky in any prince but is under wants and difficulties cannot assume. himself; he thought there could be no exquiIt is thus with the state of the mind; he that site pleasure in conversation, but among equals; governs his thoughts with the everlasting rules and would pleasantly bewail himself that he of reason and sense, must have something so always lived in a crowd, but was the only man inexpressibly graceful in his words and actions, in France that could never get into company. that every circumstance must become him. This turn of mind made him delight in midThe change of persons or things around him night rambles, attended only with one person does not alter his situation, but he looks disin-of his bed-chamber. He would in these exterested in the occurrences with which others cursions get acquainted with men (whose temare distracted, because the greatest purpose of his life is to maintain an indifference both to it and all its enjoyments. In a word, to be a fine gentleman, is to be a generous and a brave What can make a man so much in constant good humour, and shine, as we call it, than to be supported by what can never fail him, and to believe that whatever happens to him was the best thing that could possibly befal him, or else he on whom it depends, would not have permitted it to have befallen him at all! R.

man.

No. 76.]

Monday, May 28, 1711.

Ut tu fortunam, sic nos te, Celse, feremus.
Hor. Lib. i. Ep. viii. 17.
As you your fortune bear, we will bear you.

1

Creech.

per he had a mind to try) and recommend them privately to the particular observation of his first minister. He generally found himself neglected by his new acquaintance as soon as they had hopes of growing great; and used on such occasions to remark, that it was a great injustice to tax princes of forgetting themselves in their high fortunes, when there was so few that could with constancy bear the favour of their very creatures.' My author in these loose hints has one passage that gives us a very lively idea of the uncommon genius of Pharamond. He met with one man whom he had put to all the usual proofs he made of those he had a mind to know thoroughly, and found him for his purpose. In discourse with him one day, he gave him an opportunity of saying how much would satisfy all his wishes. The prince immediately revealed himself, doubled the sum, and spoke to him in this manner: Sir, you have twice what you desired, by the favour of THERE is nothing so common as to find a Pharamond; but look to it, that you are satisman whom in the general observation of his fied with it, for it is the last you shall ever recarriage you take to be of an uniform temper, ceive. I from this moment consider you as subject to such unaccountable starts of hu-mine; and to make you truly so, I give you mour and passion, that he is as much unlike ay royal word you shall never be greater or himself, and differs as much from the man you at first thought him, as any two distinct persons can differ from each other. This proceeds from the want of forming some law of life to ourselves, or fixing some notion of things in general, which may affect us in such a manner His majesty having thus well chosen and as to create proper habits both in our min s bought a friend and companion, he enjoyed aland bodies. The negligence of this, leaves us ternately all the pleasures of an agreeable exposed not only to an unbecoming levity in private man, and a great and powerful moour usual conversation, but also to the same narch. He gave himself, with his companion, instability in our friendships, interests, and the name of the merry tyrant; for he punished alliances. A man who is but a mere Spectator his courtiers for their insolence and folly, not of what passes around him, and not engaged by any act of public disfavour, but by humorin commerces of any consideration, is but an ously practising upon their imaginations. If ill judge of the secret motions of the heart of he observed a man untractable to his inferiors, man, and by what degrees it is actuated to he would find an opportunity to take some famake such visible alterations in the same per-vourable notice of him, and render him insupson: but at the same time, when a man is no portable. He knew all his own looks, words, way concerned in the effect of such inconsist- and actions, had their interpretations; and his encies, in the behaviour of men of the world, friend Monsieur Eucrate (for so he was called) the speculation must be in the utmost degree having a great soul without ambition, he could both diverting and instructive; yet to enjoy communicate all his thoughts to him, and fear

less than you are at present. Answer me not (concluded the prince smiling), but enjoy the fortune I have put you in, which is above my own condition; for you have hereafter nothing to hope or to fear.'

no artful use would be made of that freedom. | versation, and what the French call a reveur It was no small delight when they were in pri- and a distrait. A little before our club-time vate, to reflect upon all which had passed in last night, we were walking together in Sopublic. merset-gardens, where Will had picked up a Pharamond would often, to satisfy a vain small pebble of so odd a make, that he said he fool of power in his country, talk to him in a would present it to a friend of his, an eminent full court, and with one whisper make him des-virtuoso. After we had walked some time, I pise all his old friends and acquaintance. He made a full stop with my face towards the west, was come to that knowledge of men by long which Will knowing to be my usual method of observation, that he would profess altering the asking what's o'clock, in an afternoon, immewhole mass of blood in some tempers, by thrice diately pulled out his watch, and told me we speaking to them. As fortune was in his pow- had seven minutes good. We took a turn or er, he gave himself constant entertainment in two more, when to my great surprise, I saw managing the mere followers of it with the him squir away his watch a considerable way treatment they deserved. He would, by a skil-into the Thames, and with great sedateness in ful cast of his eye, and half a smile, make two his looks put up the pebble, he had before fellows who hated, embrace, and fall upon found, in his fob. As I have naturally an each other's necks with as much eagerness, as aversion to much speaking, and do not love to if they followed their real inclinations, and in- be the messenger of ill news, especially when tended to stifle one another. When he was in it comes too late to be useful, I left him to be high good humour, he would lay the scene convinced of his mistake in due time, and with Eucrate, and on a public night exercise continued my walk, reflecting on these little the passions of his whole court. He was pleas-absences and distractions in mankind, and reed to see an haughty beauty watch the looks solving to make them the subject of a future of the man she had long despised, from obser-speculation.

blemishes in the characters of men of excellent sense; and helped to keep up the reputation of that Latin proverb, which Mr. Dryden has translated in the following lines:

vation of his being taken notice of by Phara- I was the more confirmed in my design, mond; and the lover conceive higher hopes, when I considered that they were very often than to follow the woman he was dying for the day before. In a court, where men speak affection in the strongest terms, and dislike in the faintest, it was a comical mixture of incidents to see disguises thrown aside in one case, and increased on the other, according as favour 'Great wit to madness sure is near ally'd, And thin partitions do their bounds divide.* or disgrace attended the respective objects of men's approbation or disesteem. Pharamond, My reader does, I hope, perceive, that I in his mirth upon the meanness of mankind, distinguish a man who is absent, because he used to say, As he could take away a man's thinks of something else, from one who is abfive senses, he could give him an hundred. sent, because he thinks of nothing at all. The The man in disgrace shall immediately lose latter is too innocent a creature to be taken all his natural endowments, and he that finds notice of; but the distractions of the former favour have the attributes of an angel. He may, I believe, be generally accounted for would carry it so far as to say, It should from one of these reasons. not be only so in the opinion of the lower Either their minds are wholly fixed on some part of his court, but the men themselves particular science, which is often the case of shall think thus meanly or greatly of them-mathematicians and other learned men; or selves, as they are out, or in the good graces are wholly taken up with some violent pasof a court.' sion, such as anger, fear, or love, which ties A monarch, who had wit and humour like the mind to some distant object; or, lastly, Pharamond, must have pleasures which no these distractions proceed from a certain vivaman else can ever have an opportunity of en- city and fickleness in a man's temper, which joying. He gave fortune to none but those while it raises up infinite numbers of ideas in whom he knew could receive it without trans- the mind, is continually pushing it on, without port. He made a noble and generous use of allowing it to rest on any particular image. his observations, and did not regard his min- Nothing therefore is more unnatural than the isters as they were agreeable to himself, but thoughts and conceptions of such a man, which as they were useful to his kingdom. By this are seldom occasioned either by the company means, the king appeared in every officer of he is in, or any of those objects which are state; and no man had a participation of the power, who had not a similitude of the virtue of Pharamond.

R.

Non convivere licet, nec urbe totâ
Quisquam est tam propè tam proculque nobis.
Mart. Epig. 87. I. 1.
What correspondence can I hold with you,
Who are so near, and yet so distant too?
My friend Will Honeycomb is one of those
sort of men who are very often absent in con-

placed before him. While you fancy he is admiring a beautiful woman, it is an even wager that he is solving a proposition in Euclid; and while you may imagine he is reading the Paris Gazette, it is far from being impossible, that he is pulling down and rebuilding the front of his country-house.

At the same time that I am endeavouring to expose this weakness in others, I shall readily I confess that I once laboured under the same

* Nullum magnum ingenium sine mixtura dementiæ. Seneca De Tranquil. Anim. cap. xv.

infirmity myself. The method I took to con-court-gate he finds a coach, which taking for quer it was a firm resolution to learn something his own, he whips into it; and the coachman from whatever I was obliged to see or hear. drives off, not doubting but he carries his masThere is a way of thinking, if a man can at-ter. As soon as he stops, Menalcas throws tain to it, by which he may strike somewhat himself out of the coach, crosses the court, out of any thing. I can at present observe ascends the stair-case, and runs through all those starts of good sense, and struggles of un- the chambers with the greatest familiarity; improved reason in the conversation of a reposes himself on a couch, and fancies himclown, with as much satisfaction as the most self at home. The master of the house at shining periods of the most finished orator; last comes in; Menalcas rises to receive him, and can make a shift to command my attention and desires him to sit down; he talks, muses, at a puppet-show or an opera, as well as at and then talks again. The gentleman of the Hamlet or Othello. I always make one of the house is tired and amazed; Menalcas is no less company I am in; for though I say little my-so, but is every moment in hopes that his imperself, my attention to others, and those nods of tinent guest will at last end his tedious visit. approbation which I never bestow unmerited, Night comes on, when Menalcas is hardly unsufficiently show that I am among them. deceived. Whereas Will Honeycomb, though a fellow of good sense, is every day doing and saying an hundred things, which he afterwards confesses, with a well-bred frankness, were somewhat mal à propos, and undesigned.

"My

When he is playing at backgammon, he calls for a full glass of wine and water; it is his turn to throw, he has the box in one hand, and his glass in the other; and being extremely dry, and unwilling to lose time, he swallows I chanced the other day to go into a coffee- down both the dice, and at the same time house, where Will was standing in the midst of throws his wine into the tables. He writes a several auditors, whom he had gathered round letter, and flings the sand into the ink-bottle; him, and was giving them an account of the he writes a second, and mistakes the superperson and character of Moll Hinton. My ap- scription. A nobleman receives one of them, pearance before him just put him in mind of and upon opening it reads as follows: "I me, without making him reflect that I was ac- would have you, honest Jack, immediately tually present. So that keeping his eyes full upon the receipt of this, take in hay enough to upon me, to the great surprise of his audience, serve me the winter." His farmer receives he broke off his first harangue, and proceeded the other, and is amazed to see in it, thus:- Why now there's my friend,' mention- lord, I received your grace's commands, with ing me by my name,' he is a fellow that thinks an entire submission to -. If he is at an ena great deal, but never opens his mouth; I tertainment, you may see the pieces of bread warrant you he is now thrusting his short face continually multiplying round his plate. It is into some coffee-house about 'Change. I was true, the rest of the company want it as well his bail in the time of the Popish plot, when he as their knives and forks, which Menalcas does was taken up for a jesuit.' If he had looked not let them keep long. Sometimes in a mornon me a little longer, he had certainly described ing he puts his whole family in a hurry, and at me so particularly, without ever considering last goes out without being able to stay for his what led him into it, that the whole company must coach or dinner, and for that day you may see necessarily have found me out; for which rea- him in every part of the town, except the very son, remembering the old proverb, Out of place where he had appointed to be upon a sight out of mind,' I left the room; and upon business of importance. You would often take meeting him an hour afterwards, was asked him for every thing that he is not; for a fellow by him, with a great deal of good humour, in what part of the world I lived, that he had not seen me these three days.

quite stupid, for he hears nothing; for a fool, for he talks to himself, and has an hundred grimaces and motions with his head, which Monsieur Bruyere has given us the character are altogether involuntary; for a proud man, of an absent man with a great deal of humour, for he looks full upon you, and takes no notice which he has pushed to an agreeable extrava- of your saluting him. The truth of it is, his gance; with the heads of it I shall conclude eyes are open, but he makes no use of them, my present paper.

and neither sees you, nor any man, nor any Menalcas,' says that excellent author, thing else. He came once from his countrycomes down in a morning, opens his door to house, and his own footman undertook to rob go out, but shuts it again, because he per- him, and succeeded. They held a flambeau to ceives that he has his night-cap on; and ex- his throat, and bid him deliver his purse; he amining himself further, finds that he is but did so, and coming home told his friends he half-shaved, that he has stuck his sword on his had been robbed; they desired to know the parright side, that his stockings are about his ticulars, "Ask my servants," says Menaclas, heels, and that his shirt is over his breeches." for they were with me.'

When he is dressed, he goes to court, comes

into the drawing room, and walking bolt-up

right under a branch of candle-sticks, his wig No. 78.] Wednesday, May 30, 1711.

is caught up by one of them, and hangs dangling in the air. All the courtiers fall a laughing, but Menalcas laughs louder than any of them, and looks about for the person that is the jest of the company. Coming down to the

Cum talis sis, utinam noster esses!

X.

Could we but call so great a genius ours! THE following letters are so pleasant, that doubt not but the reader will be as much divert