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Tum sic expirans Accam ex æqualibus unam
Alloquitur; fida ante alias quæ sola Camillæ.
Quicum partiri curas; atque hæc ita fatur:
Hactenus, Acca soror, potui: nunc vulnus acerbum
Conficit, et tenebris nigrescunt omnia circum:
Effuge, et hæc Turno mandata novissima perfer;
Succedat pugnæ, Trojanosque arceat urbe :
En. xi. 820.
Jamque vale.-

ceived, as one might have expected from a attempt to regulate them. But there is a third warrior of her sex, considers only (like the thing which may contribute not only to the hero of whom we are now speaking) how the ease, but also to the pleasure of our life; and that is refining our passions to a greater elebattle should be continued after her death: we receive them from nature. gance than When the passion is love, this work is performed in innocent, though rude and uncultivated minds, by the mere force and dignity of the object. There are forms which naturally create respect in the beholders, and at once inflame and chastise the imagination. Such an impression as this gives an immediate ambition to deserve, in order to please. This cause and effect are beautifully described by Mr. Dryden in the fable of Cymon and Iphigenia. After he has represented Cymon so stupid, that

A gathering mist o'er clouds her cheerful eyes;
And from her cheeks the rosy colour flies,
Then turns to her, whom, of her female train,
She trusted most, and thus she speaks with pain;'"
Acca, 'tis past! he swims before my sight,
Inexorable death; and claims his right.
Bear my last words to Turnus; fly with speed,
And bid him timely to my charge succeed,'
Repel the Trojans, and the town relieve:
Farewell.

Dryden.

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"He whistled as he went for want of thought;"

he makes him fall into the following scene, and shows its influence upon him so excellently, that it appears as natural as wonder

ful:

'It happen'd on a summer's holiday,
That to the greenwood-shade he took his way;
His quarter-staff, which he could ne'er forsake,
Hung half before, and half behind his back.
He trudg'd along, unknowing what he sought,
And whistled as he went for want of thought.

'By chance conducted, or by thirst constrain'd,
The deep recesses of the grove he gain'd;
Where in a plain, defended by the wood,
Crept through the matted grass a crystal flood,
By which an alabaster fountain stood:
And on the margin of the fount was laid
(Attended by her slaves) a sleeping maid,
Like Dian and her nymphs, when tir'd with sport,
To rest by cool Eurotas they resort:
The dame herself the goddess well express'd,
Not more distinguish'd by her purple vest,
Than by the charming features of her face.
And e'en in slumber a superior grace:
Her comely limbs compos'd with decent care,
Her body shaded with a slight cymar;
Her bosom to the view was only bare:
The fanning wind upon her bosom blows;
To meet the fanning wind her bosom rose;
The fanning wind and purling streams continue her
repose.

The fool of nature stood with stupid eyes,
And gaping mouth, that testify'd surprise;
Fix'd on her face, nor could remove his sight,
New as he was to love, and novice in delight:
Long mute he stood, and leaning on his staff,
His wonder witness'd with an idiot laugh;.
Then would have spoke, but by his glimm'ring sense
First found his want of words, and fear'd offence:
Doubted for what he was he should be known,
By his clown-accent, and his country-tone.'

But lest this fine description should be excepted against, as the creation of that great master Mr. Dryden, and not on account of what has really ever happened in the world, I shall give you verbatim, the epistle of an enamoured footman in the country to his mistress. Their sirnames shall not be inserted, because their passions demand a greater respect than is due to their quality. James is servant in a great family, and Elizabeth waits upon the daughter of one as numerous, some miles off her lover. James, before he beheld Betty, was vain of his strength, a rough wrestler, and quarrelsome cudgel-player; Betty a public dancer at may-poles, a romp at stoolball: he always following idle women, she

playing among the peasants: he a country Poor James! since his time and paper were bully, she a country coquette. But love has so short, I that have more than I can use well made her constantly in her mistress's cham- of both, will put the sentiments of this kind ber, where the young lady gratifies a secret letter (the style of which seems to be confused passion of her own, by making Betty talk of with scraps he had got in hearing and reading James; and James is become a constant wai- what he did not understand) into what he ter near his master's apartment, in reading, meant to express. as well as he can, romances. I cannot learn who Molly is, who it seems walked ten miles to carry the angry message, which gave occasion to what follows:

· MY DEAR BETTY, May 14, 1711. 'Remember your bleeding lover, who lies bleeding at the wounds Cupid made with the arrows he borrowed at the eyes of Venus, which is your sweet person.

DEAR CREATURE,

Can you then neglect him who has forgot all his recreations and enjoyments to pine away his life in thinking of you? When I do so, you appear more amiable to me than Venus does in the most beautiful description that ever was made of her. All this kindness you return with an accusation, that I do not love you: but the contrary is so manifest, that I cannot think you Nay more, with the token you sent me for in earnest. But the certainty given me in your my love and service offered to your sweet message by Molly, that you do not love me, is person; which was your base respects to my what robs me of all comfort. She says you ill conditions; when, alas! there is no ill con-will not see me: if you can have so much cruditions in me, but quite contrary; all love and elty, at least write to me, that I may kiss the purity, especially to your sweet person; but impression made by your fair hand. all this I take as a jest.

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'But the sad and dismal news which Molly brought me struck me to the heart, which was, it seems, and is, your ill conditions for my love and respects to you.

I love

you above all things, and, in my condition, what you look upon with indifference is to me the most exquisite pleasure or pain. Our young lady and a fine gentleman from London, who are to marry for mercenary ends, walk about 'For she told me, if I came forty times to our gardens, and hear the voice of evening you, you would not speak with me, which nightingales, as if for fashion sake they courted words I am sure is a great grief to me. those solitudes, because they have heard lovers

Now, my dear, if I may not be permitted do so. Oh, Betty! could I hear those rivulets to your sweet company, and to have the hap-murmur, and birds sing, while you stood near piness of speaking with your sweet person, I me, how little sensible should I be that we are beg the favour of you to accept of this my se- both servants, that there is any thing on earth cret mind and thoughts, which hath so long above us! Oh! I could write to you as long as lodged in my breast, the which if you do not love you, till death itself. accept, I believe will go nigh to break my heart.

For indeed, my dear, I love you above all the beauties I ever saw in all my life.

The young gentleman, and my master's daughter, the Londoner that is come down to marry her, sat in the arbour most part of last night. Oh, dear Betty, must the nightingales sing to those who marry for money, and not to us true lovers! Oh, my dear Betty, that we could meet this night where we used to do in the wood!'

I

'JAMES.'

N. B. By the words ill conditions, James means, in a woman coquetry, in a man inconR. stancy.

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Th' immortal line in sure succession reigns,
The fortune of the family remains,
And grandsires grandsons the long list contains.
Dryden.

'Now, my dear, if I may not have the blessing of kissing your sweet lips, I beg I may have the happiness of kissing your fair HAVING already given my reader an account hand, with a few lines from your dear self, of several extraordinary clubs both ancient and presented by whom you please or think modern, I did not design to have troubled him fit. I believe, if time would permit me, I with any more narratives of this nature; but I could write all day; but the time being short, have lately received information of a club which and paper little, no more from your never-I can call neither ancient nor modern, that I failing lover till death,

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dare say will be no less surprising to my reader than it was to myself; for which reason I shall communicate it to the public as one of the greatest curiosities in its kind.

The writer of this loving epistle was James Hirst, a servant to the Hon. Edward Wortley, esq. In delivering A friend of mine complaining of a tradesman a number of letters to his master, he gave him, by mis-who is related to him, after having represented take, this which he had just written to his sweetheart, and him as a very idle worthless fellow, who ne in its stead kept one of his master's. James soon discover

ed the error he had committed, and returned to rectify it, James at length succeeded in convincing Betty that he but it was too late: the letter to Betty was the first which had no "ill conditions," and obtained her consent to marmet Mr. Wortley's eye, and he had indulged his curiosity ry him; the marriage, however, was unfortunately prein reading the pathetic effusion of his love-lorn footman. James begged to have it returned: "No, James," said his master, "You shall be a great man; and this letter must appear in the Spectator."

vented by her sudden death; and James, who seems to have been a good sort of soul, soon after married her sister. This sister was, most probably, the Molly who trudg ed so many miles to carry the angry message.

glected his family, and spent most of his time in (focus perennis esto) as well for the conveover a bottle, told me, to conclude his character, nience of lighting their pipes, or to cure the that he was a member of the Everlasting Club. dampness of the club-room. They have an old So very odd a title raised my curiosity to in- woman in the nature of a vestal, whose business quire into the nature of a club that had such it is to cherish and perpetuate the fire which a sounding name; upon which my friend gave burns from generation to generation, and has me the following account: seen the glass-house fires in and out above an hundred times.

The Everlasting Club consists of a hundred members, who divide the whole twenty-four The Everlasting Club treats all other clubs hours among them in such a manner, that the with an eye of contempt, and talks even of the club sits day and night from one end of the Kit-Cat and October as of a couple of upstarts. year to another; no party presuming to rise Their ordinary, discourse, (as much as I have till they are relieved by those who are in course been able to learn of it) turns altogether upon to succeed them. By this means a member of such adventures as have passed in their own the Everlasting Club never wants company; assembly; of members who have taken the for though he is not upon duty himself, he is glass in their turns for a week together, withsure to find some who are so that if he be out stirring out of the club; of others who disposed to take a whet, a nooning, an even-have smoked an hundred pipes at a sitting; of ing's draught, or a bottle after midnight, he others, who have not missed their morning's goes to the club, and finds a knot of friends draught for twenty years together. Sometimes to his mind. they speak in raptures of a run of ale in king It is a maxim this club, that the steward Charles's reign; and sometimes reflect with never dies; for as they succeed one another astonishment upon games at whist, which have by way of rotation, no man is to quit the great been miraculously recovered by members of elbow-chair which stands at the upper end of the society, when in all human probability the the table, till his successor is in readiness to fill case was desperate. it: insomuch that there has not been a sede vacante in the memory of man.

int

They delight in several old catches, which they sing at all hours, to encourage one another to moisten their clay, and grow immortal by drinking; with many other edifying exhortations of the like nature.

This club was instituted towards the end (or as some of them say, about the middle) of the civil wars, and continued without interruption till the time of the great fire,* which burnt them out, and dispersed them for several weeks. The steward at that time maintained his post till he had like to have been blown up with a neighbouring house, (which was demolished in order to stop the fire;) and would not leave the chair at last, till he had emptied all the bottles upon the table, and received repeated directions from the Clubto withdraw himself. This steward members. is frequently talked of in the club, and looked upon by every member of it as a greater man, than No. 73.] Thursday, May 24, 1711. the famous captain mentioned in my lord Clarendon, who was burnt in his ship because he would not quit it without orders. It is said, that towards the close of 1700, being the great year of jubilee, the club had it under consideration whether they should break up or continue their session; but after many speeches and debates, it was at length agreed to sit out the other century. This resolution passed in a general club nemine contradicente.

There are four general clubs held in a year, at which times they fill up vacancies, appoint waiters, confirm the old fire-maker, or elect a new one, settle contributions for coals, pipes, tobacco, and other necessaries.

The senior member has outlived the whole club twice over, and has been drunk with the grandfathers of some of the present sitting

Having given this short account of the institution and continuation of the Everlasting Club, I should here endeavour to say something of the manners and characters of its several members, which I shall do according to the best lights I have received in this matter.

O Dea certè!

C.

Virg. Æn. i. 328.

O goddess! for no less you seem.

Ir is very strange to consider, that a creaturé like man, who is sensible of so many weaknesses and imperfections, should be actuated by a love of fame: that vice and ignor ance, imperfection and misery, should contend for praise, and endeavour as much as possible to make themselves objects of admiration.

But notwithstanding man's essential perfection is but very little, his comparative perfection may be very considerable. If he looks upon himself in an abstracted light, he has not much to boast of; but if he considers himself It appears by their books in general, that, with regard to others, he may find occasion of since their first institution, they have smoked glorying, if not in his own virtues, at least in fifty tons of tobacco, drank thirty thousand the absence of another's imperfections. This butts of ale, one thousand hogsheads of red gives a different turn to the reflections of the port, two hundred barrels of brandy, and a wise man and the fool. The first endeavours to kilderkin of small beer. There has been like-shine in himself, and the last to outshine others. wise a great consumption of cards. It is also The first is humbled by the sense of his own insaid, that they observe the law in Bon Jonson's firmities, the last is lifted up by the discovery of club, which orders the fire to be always kept those which he observes in other men. The wise man considers what he wants, and the fool See the Leges Convivales of this club, in Lang-what he abounds in. The wise man is happy baine's Lives of English Poets, &c. Art. Ben Jonson. when he gains his own approbation, and the

* Anno 1666.

fool when he recommends himself to the applause of those about him.

It would be as difficult a task to reckon up these different kinds of idols, as Milton's was But however unreasonable and absurd this to number those that were known in Canaan, passion for admiration may appear in such a and the lands adjoining. Most of them are creature as man, it is not wholly to be discou-worshipped like Molach in fires and flames. raged; since it often produces very good effects, not only as it restrains him from doing any thing which is mean and contemptible, but as it pushes him to actions which are great and glorious. The principle may be defective or faulty, but the consequences it produces are so good, that for the benefit of mankind, it ought not to be extinguished.

Some of them, like Baal, love to see their votaries cut and slashed, and shedding their blood for them. Some of them, like the idol in the Apocrypha, must have treats and collations prepared for them every night. It has indeed been known, that some of them have been used by their incensed worshippers like the Chinese idols, who are whipped and scourged when they refuse to comply with the prayers that are of fered to them.

It is observed by Cicero, that men of the greatest and the most shining parts are the most actuated by ambition; and if we look into I must here observe, that those idolaters who the two sexes, I believe we shall find this prin- devote themselves to the idols I am here speakciple of action stronger in women than in men.ing of, differ very much from all other kinds The passion for praise, which is so very ve- of idolaters. For as others fall ont because hement in the fair-sex, produces excellent ef- they worship different idols, these idolaters fects in women of sense, who desire to be ad-quarrel because they worship the same. mired for that only which deserves admiration; The intention therefore of the idol is quite and I think we may observe, without a compli- contrary to the wishes of the idolater; as the ment to them, that many of them do not only one desires to confine the idol to himself, the live in a more uniform course of virtue, but whole business and ambition of the other is to with an infinitely greater regard to their hon- multiply adorers. This humour of an idol is our, than what we find in the generality of our prettily described in a tale of Chaucer. He own sex. How many instances have we of represents one of them sitting at a table with chastity, fidelity, devotion! How many ladies three of her votaries about her, who are all of distinguish themselves by the education of their them courting her favour, and paying their children, care of their families, and love of their adorations. She smiled upon one, drank to husbands, which are the great qualities and another, and trod upon the other's foot which achievements of womankind! as the making of was under the table. Now which of these war, the carrying on of traffic, the administra- three, says the old bard, do you think was tion of justice, are those by which men grow the favourite? In troth, says he, not one of famous, and get themselves a name. all the three.

But as this passion for admiration, when it The behaviour of this old idol in Chaucer, works according to reason, improves the beau-puts me in mind of the beautiful Clarinda, one tiful part of our species in every thing that is of the greatest idols among the moderns. She laudable; so nothing is more destructive to is worshipped once a week by candle-light, in them when it is governed by vanity and folly. the midst of a large congregation, generally What I have therefore here to say, only regards called an assembly. Some of the gayest youths the vain part of the sex, whom for certain rea-in the nation endeavour to plant themselves in sons, which the reader will hereafter see at her eye, while she sits in form with multitudes large, I shall distinguish by the name of idols. of tapers burning about her. To encourage An idol is wholly taken up in the adoring of the zeal of her idolaters, she bestows a mark her person. You see in every posture of her of her favour upon every one of them, before body, air of her face, and motion of her head, they go out of her presence. She asks a questhat it is her business and employment to gain tion of one, tells a story to another, glances an adorers. For this reason your idols appear in ogle upon a third, takes a pinch of suuff from all public places and assemblies, in order to the fourth, lets her fan drop by accident to seduce men to their worship. The playhouse give the fifth an occasion of taking it up. In is very frequently filled with idols; several of short, every one goes away satisfied with his them are carried in procession every evening success, and encouraged to renew his devoabout the ring, and several of them set up their tions on the same canonical hour that day worship even in churches. They are to be ac-sevennight.

costed in the language proper to the deity. An idol may be undeified by many accidental Life and death are in their power: joys of hea- causes. Marriage in particular is a kind of ven and pains of hell, are at their disposal; counter-apotheosis, or a deification inverted.— paradise is in their arms, and eternity in every When a man becomes familiar with his godmoment that you are present with them. Rap-dess, she quickly sinks into a woman. tures, transports, and ecstacies are the rewards. Old age is likewise a great decayer of your which they confer: sighs and tears, prayers idol. The truth of it is, there is not a more and broken hearts, are the offerings which are unhappy being than a superanuated idol, espepaid to them. Their smiles make men happy; cially when she has contracted such airs and their frowns drive them to despair. I shall on-behaviour as are only graceful when her worly add under this head, that Ovid's book of the shippers are about her. Art of Love is a kind of heathen ritual, which contains all the forms of worship which are made use of to an idol.

VOL. I.

Considering therefore that in these and many other cases the woman generally outlives the idol, I must return to the moral of this pa

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The works unfinish'd and neglected lie.

In my last Monday's paper I gave some general instances of those beautiful strokes which please the reader in the old song of ChevyChase; I shall here, according to my promise, be more particular, and show that the sentiments in that ballad are extremely natural and poetical, and full of the majestic simplicity which we admire in the greatest of the ancient poets: for which reason I shall quote several passages of it, in which the thought is altogether the same with what we meet in several passages of the Æneid; not that I would infer from thence that the poet (whoever he was) proposed to himself any intimation of those passages, but that he was directed to them in general by the same kind of poetical genius, and by the same copyings after nature.

Had this old song been filled with epigrammatical turns and points of wit, it might perhaps have pleased the wrong taste of some readers; but it would never have become the delight of the common people, nor have warm: ed the heart of Sir Philip Sidney like the sound of a trumpet; it is only nature that can have this effect, and please those tastes which are the most unprejudiced, or the most refined. I must however beg leave to dissent from so great an authority as that of Sir Philip Sidney, in the judgment which he has passed as to the rude style and evil apparel of this antiquated song; for there are several parts in it where not only the thought but the language is majestic, and the numbers sonorous; at least the apparel is much more gorgeous than many of the poets made use of in Queen Elizabeth's time, as the reader will see in several of the following quotations.

What can be greater than either the thought or the expression in that stanza,

To drive the deer with hound and horn
Earl Percy took his way;

The child may rue that is unborn
The hunting of that day!'

This way of considering the misfortunes which

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Citharon loudly calls me to my way;
Thy hounds, Taygetus, open, and pursue the prey:
High Epidaurus urges on my speed,

Fam'd for his hills, and for his horses' breed:
From hills and dales the cheerful cries rebound;
For Echo hunts along and propagates the sound.
Dryden.

'Lo, yonder doth Earl Douglas come,
His men in armour bright;
Full twenty hundred Scottish spears,
All marching in our sight.

'All men of pleasant Tividale,

Fast by the river Tweed,' &c.

The country of the Scotch warriors, described in these two last verses, has a fine romantic situation, and affords a couple of smooth words for verse. If the reader compares the foregoing six lines of the song with the following Latin verses, he will see how much they are written in the spirit of Virgil:

Adversi campo apparent, hastasque reductis
Protendunt longè dextris; et spicula vibrant :-
Quique altum Præneste viri, quique arva Gabine
Junonis, gelidumque Anienem, et roscida rivis
Hernica saxa colunt :-qui rosea rura Velini,
Qui Tetricæ horrentes rupes, montemque Severum,
Casperiamque colunt, Forulosque, et flumen Himelle:
Qui Tiberim Fabarimque bibunt.-

En. xi. 605-vii, 682, 712.

Advancing in a line, they couch their spears-
Præneste sends a chosen band,

With those who plow Saturnia's Gabine land:
Besides the succours which cold Anien yields;
The rocks of Hernicus-besides a band,
That followed from Velinum's dewy land-
And mountaineers that from Sevérus came:
And from the craggy cliffs of Tetrica;
And those where yellow Tiber takes his way,
And where Himella's wanton waters play :
Casperia sends her arms, with those that lie
By Fabaris, and fruitful Foruli.

'Earl Douglas on a milk-white steed,
Most like a baron bold,
Rode foremost of the company,
Whose armour shone like gold.'

this battle would bring upon posterity, not on- But to proceed :
ly on those who were born immediately after
the battle, and lost their fathers in it, but on
those also who perished in future battles
which took their rise from this quarrel of the
two earls, is wonderfully beautiful, and con-
formable to the way of thinking among the an-
cient poets!

Dryden,

Turnus ut antevolans tardum præcesserat agmen, &c.
Vidisti, quo Turnus equo, quibus ibat in armis
Aureus

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