and in a flood of tears poured out her heart much lament. The love which we have had for before him. The father could not forbear one another will make us more happy in its weeping aloud, insomuch that in the agonies disappointment than it could have done in its Con- success. Providence has disposed of us for our of his grief the seat shook under him. stantia, who thought the good man was thus advantage, though not according to our wishes. moved by his compassion towards her, and by Consider your Theodocia still as dead, but asthe horror of her guilt, proceeded with the sure yourself of one who will not cease to pray 'FRANCIS.' utmost contrition to acquaint him with that for you in father vow of virginity in which she was going to Constantia saw that the hand writing agreed engage herself, as the proper atonement for her sins, and the only sacrifice she could make with the contents of the letter; and upon reto the memory of Theodosius. The father, flecting on the voice of the person, the behawho by this time had pretty well composed viour, and above all the extreme sorrow of the himself, burst out again in tears upon hearing father during her confession, she discovered that name to which he had been so long dis-Theodosius in every particular. After having used, and upon receiving this instance of un-wept with tears of joy, 'It is enough,' says paralleled fidelity from one whom he thought she, Theodosius is still in being: I shall live had several years since given herself up to the with comfort and die in peace.' possession of another. Amidst the interrupThe letters which the father sent her aftertions of his sorrow, seeing his penitent over-wards are yet extant in the nunnery where she whelmed with grief, he was only able to bid her resided; and are often read to the young refrom time to time be comforted-to tell her ligious, in order to inspire them with good that her sins were forgiven her-that her guilt resolutions and sentiments of virtue. It so hapwas not so great as she apprehended-that she pened, that after Constantia had lived about should not suffer herself to be afflicted above ten years in the cloister, a violent fever broke measure. After which he recovered himself out in the place, which swept away great mulenough to give her the absolution in form; titudes, and among others Theodosius. Upon directing her at the same time to repair to his death-bed he sent his benediction in a very him again the next day, that he might en- moving manner to Constantia, who at that courage her in the pious resolutions she had time was so far gone in the same fatal distemtaken, and give her suitable exhortations for per, that she lay delirious. Upon the interval her behaviour in it. Constantia retired, and which generally precedes death in sicknesses of the next morning renewed her applications. this nature, the abbess, finding that the phyTheodosius having manned his soul with pro- sicians had given her over, told her that Theoper thoughts and reflections, exerted himself dosius was just gone before her, and that he on this occasion in the best manner he could had sent her his benediction in his last moments. to animate his penitent in the course of life Constantia received it with pleasure. 'And she was entering upon, and wear out of her now,' says she, if I do not ask any thing immind those groundless fears and apprehensions proper, let me be buried by Theodosius. My which had taken possession of it; concluding vow reaches no farther than the grave; what with a promise to her, that he would from I ask is, I hope, no violation of it.'time to time continue his admonitions when soon after, and was interred according to her she should have taken upon her the holy veil. request. The rules of our respective orders,' says he, 'will not permit that I should see you, but you may assure yourself not only of having 'Here lie the bodies of father Francis and a place in my prayers, but of receiving such frequent instructions as I can convey to you sister Constance. They were lovely in their by letters. Go on cheerfully in the glorious lives, and in their deaths they were not divided. course you have undertaken, and you will quickly find such a peace and satisfaction in your mind, which it 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. The abbess had been informed the night before of all that had passed between her noviciate and father Francis; from whom she now delivered to her the following letter; -She died Their tombs are still to be seen, with a short Latin inscription over them to the following purpose: No. 165.] Saturday, September 8, 1711. C. I HAVE often wished that as in our constitution there are several persons whose business 'As the first fruits of those joys and conso-it is to watch over our laws, our liberties, and lations which you may expect from the life commerce, certain men might be set apart you are now engaged in, I must acquaint you as superintendants of our language, to hinder that Theodosius, whose death sits so heavy any words of a foreign coin from passing among upon your thoughts, is still alive; and that us; and in particular to prohibit any French the father to whom you have confessed your-phrases from becoming current in this kingdom self, was once that Theodosius whom you so when those of our own stamp are altogether their praise, and our people half their joy, by means of those hard words and dark expressions in which our newspapers do so much abound. I have seen many a prudent citizen, after having read every article, enquire of his next neighbour what news the mail had brought. as valuable. The present war has so adulter- and as often vanquished them in battle. The ated our tongue with strange words, that it Black Prince passed many a river without the would be impossible for one of our great grand-help of pontoons, and filled a ditch with fagfathers to know what his posterity have been gots as successfully as the general of our times doing, were he to read their exploits in a mo- do it with fascines. Our commanders lose half dern newspaper. Our warriors are very industrious in propagating the French languages, 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 there- I remember, in that remarkable year when fore send us over accounts of their perform- our country was delivered from the greatest ances in a jargon of phrases, which they learn fears and apprehensions, and raised to the among their conquered enemies. They ought greatest height of gladness it had ever felt however to be provided with secretaries, and since it was a nation, I mean the year of assisted by our foreign ministers, to tell their Blenheim, I had the copy of a letter sent me story for them in plain English, and to let us out of the country, which was written from a know in our mother-tongue 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 Upon the junction of the French and Bashades and obscurity; but the English cannot varian armies they took post behind a great be too clear in their narrative of those actions, morass which they thought impracticable. which have raised their country to a higher Our general the next day sent a party of pitch of glory than it ever yet arrived at, and which will be still the more admired the better they are explained. 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. SIR, horse to "reconnoitre" them from a little "hauteur," at about a quarter of an hour's distance from the army, who returned again For my part, by that time a siege is carried to the camp unobserved through several "deon two or three days, I am altogether lost and files," in one of which they met with a party bewildered in it, and meet with so many inex- of French that had been "marauding," and plicable difficulties, that I scarce know which made them all prisoners at discretion. The side has the better of it, until I am informed day after a drum arrived at our camp, with a by the tower-guns that the place is surren- message which he would communicate to none dered. I do indeed make some allowance for but the general; he was followed by a trumpet, this part of the war, fortifications have been who they say behaved himself very saucily, foreign inventions, and upon that account with a message from the Duke of Bavaria. The abounding in foreign terms. But when we next morning our army being divided into two have won battles which may be described in "corps," made a movement towards the eneour own language, why are our papers filled my. You will hear in the public prints how we with so many unintelligible exploits, and the treated them, with the other circumstances of French obliged to lend us a part of their tongue that glorious day. I had the good fortune to before we can know how they are conquered? be in that regiment that pushed the " gens They must be made accessary to their own dis- d'armes." Several French battalions, which grace, as the Britons were formerly so artifi- some say were a corps de reserve, made cially wrought in the curtain of the Roman a show of resistance; but it only proved a theatre, that they seemed to draw it up in "gasconade," for upon our preparing to fill order to give the spectators an opportunity of up a little "fosse" in order to attack them, seeing their own defeat celebrated upon the they beat the "chamade," and sent us a stage; for so Mr. Dryden has translated that carte blanche." Their "commandant," verse in Virgil: 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 The histories of all our former wars are son &c.' transmitted to us in our vernacular idiom, to The father of the young gentleman upon use the phrase of a great modern critic.* I do the perusal of the letter found it contained not find in any of our chronicles, that Edward great news, but could not guess what it was. the Third ever reconnoitred the enemy, though He immediately communicated it to the curate he often discovered the posture of the French, of the parish, who upon the reading of it, be Purpurea intexti tollunt aulæa Britanni. Which interwoven Britons seem to raise, Dr. Richard Bentley. ing vexed to see any thing he could not understand, fell into a kind of a passion, and told The circumstance which gives authors an him, that his son had sent him a letter that what Phidias, Vitruvius, and Apelles are at was neither fish, flesh, nor good red-herring. present, the names of great statuaries, archi'I wish,' says he, the captain may be "com-tects, and painters, whose works are lost. The pos mentis," he talks of a saucy trumpet, several arts are expressed in mouldering mateand a drum that carries messages; then who rials. Nature sinks under them and is not is this "carte blanche ?" He must either ban- able to support the ideas which are imprest ter us, or he is out of his senses.' The father, upon it. who always looked upon the curate as a learned man, began to fret inwardly at his son's advantage above all the great masters, is this, usage, and producing a letter which he had that they can multiply their originals: or rawritten to him about three posts before, 'You ther can make copies of their works, to what see here," says he, 'when he writes for money he knows how to speak intelligibly enough; there is no man in England can express himself clearer, when he wants a new furniture for his horse.' In short, the old man was so puzzled upon the point, that it might have fared ill with his son, had he not seen all the prints about three days after filled with the same terms of art, and that Charles only writ like other men. L. Ovid. Met. xv. 871. which nor dreads the rage Of tempests, fire, or war, or wasting age. ARISTOTLE tells us that the world is a copy or transcript of those ideas which are in the mind of the first Being, and that those ideas which are in the mind of man, are a transcript of the world. To this we may add, that words are the transcript of those ideas which are in the mind of man, and that writing or printing are the transcript of words. Now all the wide extended sky, number they please, which shall be as valuable as the originals themselves. This gives a great author something like a prospect of eternity, but at the same time deprives him of those other advantages which artists meet with. The artist finds greater returns in profit, as the author in fame. What an inestimable price would a Virgil or a Homer, a Cicero or an Aristotle bear, were their works like a statue, a building, or a picture, to be confined only in one place, and made the property of a single person! If writings are thus durable, and may pass from age to age throughout the whole course of time, how careful should an author be of committing any thing to print that may corrupt posterity, and poison the minds of men with vice and error! Writers of great talents, who employ their parts in propogating immorality, and seasoning vicious sentiments with wit and humour are to be looked upon as the pests of society, and the enemies of mankind. They leave books behind them (as it is said of those who die in distempers which breed an ill-will towards their own species) to scatter infection and destroy their posterity. They act the counterparts of a Confucius or a Socrates; and seem to have been sent into the world to deprave human nature, and sink it into the condition of brutality. As the Supreme Being has expressed, and as it were printed his ideas in the creation, men express their ideas in books, which by this I have seen some Roman-catholic authors great invention of these latter ages may last who tell us, that vicious writers continue in as long as the sun and moon, and perish only purgatory so long as the influence of their in the general wreck of nature. Thus Cowley writings continues upon posterity: for purin his poem on the Resurrection, mentioning gatory,' say they, 'is nothing else but a cleansthe destruction of the universe, has those ad- ing us of our sins, which cannot be said to be mirable lines: done away, so long as they continue to operate, and corrupt mankind. The vicious author,' say they,sins after death, and so long as he continues to sin, so long must he expect to be punished.' Though the Roman-catholic notion There is no other method of fixing those of purgatory be indeed very ridiculous, one thoughts which arise and disappear in the cannot but think that if the soul after death mind of man, and transmitting them to the has any knowledge of what passes in this last periods of time; no other method of giv-world, that of an immortal writer would reing a permanency to our ideas, and preserving ceive much more regret from the sense of the knowledge of any particular person, when corrupting, than satisfaction from the thought his body is mixed with the common mass of of pleasing his surviving admirers. matter, and his soul retired into the world of To take off from the severity of this specu And all th' harmonious worlds on high, spirits. Books are the legacies that a great lation, I shall conclude this paper with a story genius leaves to mankind, which are delivered of an atheistical author, who at a time when he down from generation to generation, as pre-lay dangerously sick, and had desired the assents to the posterity of those who are yet sistance of a neighbouring curate, confessed to unborn. him with great contrition, that nothing sat All other arts of perpetuating our ideas con- more heavy at his heart than the sense of his tinue but a short time. Statues can last but having seduced the age by his writings, and a few thousands of years, edifices fewer, and that their evil influence was likely to continue colours still fewer than edifices. Michael An-even after his death. The curate upon farther gelo, Fontana, and Raphael, will hereafter be examination finding the penitent in the ut Not quite a madman, though a pasty fell, 'My friends!' he cry'd, pox take ye for your care! most agonies of despair, and being himself a man of learning, told him, that he hoped his case was not so desperate as he apprehended, since he found that he was so very sensible of his fault, and so sincerely repented of it. The penitent still urged the evil tendency of his book to subvert all religion, and the little ground of hope there could be for one whose THE unhappy force of an imagination unwritings would continue to do mischief when guided by the check of reason and judgment, his body was laid in ashes. The curate, find- was the subject of a former speculation. My ing no other way of comforting him, told him reader may remember that he has seen in one that he did well in being afflicted for the evil of my papers a complaint of an unfortunate design with which he published his book; but gentleman, who was unable to contain himself that he ought to be very thankful that there was (when any ordinary matter was laid before no danger of its doing any hurt: that his cause him) from adding a few circumstances to enwas, so very bad, and his arguments so weak, liven plain narrative. That correspondent was that he did not apprehend any ill effects of it: a person of too warm a complexion to be sain short, that he might rest satisfied his book tisfied with things merely as they stood in nacould do no more mischief after his death, ture, and therefore formed incidents which than it had done whilst he was living. To should have happened to have pleased him in which he added, for his farther satisfaction, the story. The same ungoverned fancy which that he did not believe any besides his parti-pushed that correspondent on, in spite of himcular friends and acquaintance had ever been seif, to relate public and notorious falsehoods, at the pains of reading it, or that any body makes the author of the following letter do after his death would ever inquire after it. the same in private; one is a prating, the other The dying man had still so much the frailty of a silent, liar. an author in him, as to be cut to the heart with There is little pursued in the errors of either these consolations; and, without answering of these worthies, but mere present amusethe good man, asked his friends about him ment: but the folly of him who lets his fancy (with a peevishness that is natural to a sick place him in distant scenes untroubled and unperson) where they had picked up such a interrupted, is very much preferable to that of blockhead? And whether they thought him a him who is ever forcing a belief, and defending proper person to attend one in his condition? his untruths with new inventions. But I shall The curate finding that the author did not ex-hasten to let this liar in soliloquy, who calls pect to be dealt with as a real and sincere pe- himself a castle-builder, describe himself with nitent, but as a penitent of importance, after the same unreservedness as formerly appeared a short admonition withdrew; not questioning in my correspondent above-mentioned. If a but he should be again sent for if the sickness man were to be serious on this subject, he grew desperate. The author however reco-might give very grave admonitions to those vered, and has since written two or three other who are, following any thing in this life, on tracts with the same spirit, and very luckily for his poor soul, with the same success.* No. 167.] Tuesday, September 11, 1711. Fuit haud ignobilis Argis, C. Qui se credebat miros audire tragœdos, IMITATED. Thero liv'd in Primo Georgii (they record) This was probably Mr. John Toland, author of the life of Milton, whose deistical writings had exposed him to the repeated attacks of the Tatler. There appears to be another blow aimed at him in No. 234. VOL. 1. which they think to place their hearts, and tell them that they are really castle-builders. Fame glory, wealth, honour, have in the prospect pleasing illusions; but they who come to possess any of them will find they are ingredients towards happiness, to be regarded only in the second place: and that when they are valued in the first degree they are as disappointing as any of the phantoms in the following letter. MR. SPECTATOR, Sept. 6, 1711. 'I am a fellow of a very odd frame of mind, as you will find by the sequel; and think myself fool enough to deserve a place in your paper. I am unhappily far gone in building, and am one of that species of men who are properly denominated castle-builders, who scorn to be beholden to the earth for a foundation, or dig in the bowels of it for materials, but erect their structures in the most unstable of elements, the air; fancy alone laying the line, marking the extent, and shaping the model. It would be difficult to enumerate what august palaces and stately porticos have grown under my forming imagination, or what verdant meadows and shady groves have started into being by the powerful feat of a warm fancy. A castle-builder is even just what he pleases, and as such I have grasped imaginary sceptres, 28 Pectus præceptis format amicis. Hor. Lib. 2. Ep. i. 128. Forms the soft besom with the gentlest art. and delivered uncontrollable edicts, from a No. 168.] Wednesday, Sept. 12, 1711. throne to which conquered nations yielded obeisance. I have made I know not how many inroads into France, and ravaged the very heart of that kingdom; I have dined in the Louvre, and drank champaign at Versailles; and I would have you take notice, I am not only able to vanquish a people already cowIt would be arrogance to neglect the applied' and accustomed to flight, but I could, Al- cation of my correspondents so far, as not manzor-like.* drive the British general from sometimes to insert their animadversions upon my paper; that of this day shall be therefore wholly composed of the hints which they have sent me. MR. SPECTATOR, the field, were I less a protestant, or had ever been affronted by the confederates. There is no art or profession, whose most celebrated masters I have not eclipsed. Wherever I have afforded my salutary presence, fevers have I send you this to congratulate your late ceased to burn, and agues to shake the human choice of a subject, for treating on which you fabric. When an eloquent fit has been upon deserve public thanks, I mean that on those me, an apt gesture and proper cadence has licensed tyrants the school-masters. If you animated each sentence, and gazing crowds can disarm them of their rods, you will cerhave found their passions worked up into rage, tainly have your old age reverenced by all the or soothed into a calm. I am short, and not very well made; yet upon sight of a fine wo-between seven and seventeen years. young gentlemen of Great Britain who are now You may man, I have stretched into a proper stature, boast that the incomparably wise Quintilian and killed with a good air and mien. These and you are of one mind in this particular. are the gay phantoms that dance before my Si cui est (says he) means tam iliberalis ut waking eyes, and compose my day-dreams. I should be the most contented happy man alive, ut pessima quæque mancipia, durabitur:" i. e. objurgatione non corrigatur, is etiam ad plagas, were the chimerical happiness which springs from the paintings of fancy less fleeting and as not to stand corrected by reproof, he, like "If any child be of so disingenuous a nature, transitory. But alas! it is with grief of mind the very worst of slaves, will be hardened I tell you, the least breath of wind has often even against blows themselves." And afterdemolished my magnificent edifices, swept wards," Pudet dicere in ga probra nefandi away my groves, and left no more trace of homines isto cædendi jure abutantur;" i. e. "I them than if they had never been. My ex-blush to say how shamefully those wicked men chequer has sunk and vanished by a rap on abuse the power of correction." my door, the salutation of a friend has cost me a whole continent, and in the same moment I ing. I was bred myself, sir, in a very great have been pulled by the sleeve, my crown has school,* of which the master was a Welshman, but certainly descended from a Spanish famifallen from my head. The ill consequence of ly, as plainly appeared from his temper as these reveries is inconceivably great, seeing well as his name. I leave you to judge what the loss of imaginary possessions makes im- sort of a school-master a Welshman ingrafted pressions of real woe. Besides, bad economy on a Spaniard would make. is visible and apparent in builders of invisible had he made himself to me, that although it is So very dreadful mansions. My tenants' advertisements of above twenty years since I felt his heavy hand, ruins and dilapidations often cast a damp on yet still once a month at least I dream of him, my spirits, even in the instant when the sun, so strong an impression did he make on my in all its splendour, gilds my eastern palaces. mind. It is a sign he has fully terrified me Add to this the pensive drudgery in building, waking, who still continues to haunt me sleepand constant grasping aërial trowels, distracts and shatters the mind, and the fond builder of Babels is often cursed with an incoherent diver-business of the school was what I did without And yet I may say without vanity, that the sity and confusion of thoughts. I do not know to whom I can more properly apply myself for relief from this fantastical evil, than to your self; whom I earnestly implore to accomodate me with a method how to settle my head and cool my brain-pan. A dissertation on castlebuilding may not only be serviceable to my self, but all architects, who display their skill in the thin element. Such a favour would oblige me to make my next soliloquy not contain the praises of my dear self, but of the Spectator, who shall, by complying with this, make me great difficulty; and I was not remarkably unty, that once a month, or oftener, I suffered as lucky; and yet such was the master's severimuch as would have satisfied the law of the land for a petty larceny. 'Many a white and tender hand, which the fond mother had passionately kissed a thousand and a thousand times, have I seen whipped until it was covered with blood; perhaps for smiling, or for going a yard and a half out of a gate, or for writing an o for an A, or an a for ano. These were our great faults! Many a brave and noble spirit has been there broken; others have run from thence and were * Eton. t Dr. Charles Roderick, master of Etom-school, and afterwards provost of King's-college, Cambridge. |