If we consider this wonderful person, it is perplexity to know where to begin his encomium. Others may, in a metaphorical or philosophical sense, be said to command themselves, but this emperor is also literally under his own command. How generous and how good was his entering his own name as a private man in the army he raised, that none in it might expect to outrun the steps with which he himself advanced! By such measures this godlike prince learned to conquer, learned to use his conquests. How terrible has he appeared in battle, how gentle in victory! Shall then the base arts of the Frenchman be held polite, and the honest labours of the Russian barbarous? No: barbarity is the ignorance of true honour, or placing any thing instead of it. The unjust prince is ignoble and barbarous, the good prince only renowned and glorious. young monarch's heart was by such con- grace? Who ever thought himself mean versation easily deluded into a fondness for in absolute power, till he had learned to vain-glory, and upon these unjust princi- use it? ples to form or fall in with suitable projects of invasion, rapine, murder, and all the guilts that attend war when it is unjust. At the same time this tyranny was laid, sciences and arts were encouraged in the most generous manner, as if men of higher faculties were to be bribed to permit the massacre of the rest of the world. Every superstructure which the court of France built upon their first designs, which were in themselves vicious, was suitable to its false foundation. The ostentation of riches, the vanity of equipage, shame of poverty, and ignorance of modesty, were the common arts of life: the generous love of one woman was changed into gallantry for all the sex, and friendship among men turned into commerce of interest, or mere professions. While these were the rules of life, perjuries in the prince, and a general corruption of manners in the subject, were the snares in which France has entangled all her neighbours.' With such false colours have the eyes of Lewis been enchanted, from the debauchery of his early youth, to the superstition of his present old age. Hence it is, that he has the patience to have statues erected to his prowess, his valour, his fortitude, and in the softness and luxury of a court to be applauded for magnanimity and enterprise in military achievements. Peter Alexovitz of Russia, when he came to years of manhood, though he found himself emperor of a vast and numerous people, master of an endless territory, absolute commander of the lives and fortunes of his subjects, in the midst of this unbounded power and greatness, turned his thoughts upon himself and people with sorrow. Sordid ignorance and a brute manner of life, this generous prince beheld and contemned, from the light of his own genius. His judgment suggested this to him, and his courage prompted him to amend it. In order to this, he did not send to the nation from whence the rest of the world has borrowed its politeness, but himself left his diadem to learn the true way to glory and honour, and application to useful arts, wherein to employ the laborious, the simple, the honest part of his people. Mechanic employments and operations were very justly the first objects of his favour and observation. With this glorious intention he travelled into foreign nations in an obscure manner, above receiving little honours where he sojourned, but prying into what was of more consequence, their arts of peace and of war. By this means has this great prince laid the foundation of a great and lasting fame, by personal labour, personal knowledge, personal valour. It would be injury to any of antiquity to name them with him. Who, but himself, ever left a throne to learn to sit in it with more Though men may impose upon themselves what they please by their corrupt imaginations, truth will ever keep its station; and as glory is nothing else but the shadow of virtue, it will certainly disappear at the departure of virtue. But how carefully ought the true notions of it to be preserved, and how industrious should we be to encourage any impulses towards it! The Westminster school-boy that said the other day he could not sleep or play for the colours in the hall,* ought to be free from receiving a blow for ever. But let us consider what is truly glorious according to the author I have to-day quoted in the front of my paper. The perfection of glory, says Tully, consists in these three particulars; That the people love us; that they have confidence in us; that being affected with a certain admiration towards us, they think we deserve honour.' This was spoken of greatness in a commonwealth. But if one were to form a notion of consummate glory under our constitution, one must add to the above-mentioned felicities a certain necessary in existence, and disrelish of all the rest, without the prince's favour. He should, methinks, have riches, power, honour, command, and glory; but riches, power, honour, command, and glory, should have no charms, but as accompanied with the affection of his prince. He should, methinks, be popular because a favourite, and a favourite because popular. Were it not to make the character too imaginary, I would give him sovereignty over some foreign territory, and make him esteem that an empty addition without the kind regards of his own prince. One may merely have an idea of a man thus com *The colours taken by the Duke of Marlborough at after having been carried in procession through the Blenheim, in 1704, were fixed up in Westminster-hall city. posed and circumstantiated, and if he were so made for power without a capacity of giving jealousy, he would be also glorious without the possibility of receiving disgrace. This humility and this importance must make his glory immortal. These thoughts are apt to draw me beyond the usual length of this paper; but if I could suppose such rhapsodies could outlive the common fate of ordinary things, I would say these sketches and faint images of glory were drawn in August, 1711, when John Duke of Marlborough made that memorable march wherein he took the French lines without bloodshed. No. 140.] Friday, August 10, 1711. T. wish you would take some other opportunity to express further the corrupt taste the age has run into; which I am chiefly apt to attribute to the prevalency of a few popular authors, whose merit in some respects has given a sanction to their faults in others. Thus the imitators of Milton seem to place all the excellency of that sort of writing either in the uncouth or antique words, or something else which was highly vicious, though pardonable in that great man. The admirers of what we call point, or turn, look upon it as the particular happiness to which Cowley, Ovid, and others, owe their reputation, and therefore endeavour to imitate them only in such instances. What is just, proper, and natural, does not seem to be the question with them, but by what means a quaint antithesis may be brought about, how one word may be made to look two ways, and what will be the consequence of a forced allusion. Now though such authors appear to me to resemble those who make themselves fine, instead of being well-dressed, or graceful; yet the mischief is, that these beauties in them, which I call blemishes, are thought to proceed from luxuriance of fancy, and overread-flowing of good sense. In one word, they have the character of being too witty: but if you would acquaint the world they are not witty at all, you would, among many others, oblige, sir, your most benevolent reader, R. D.' -Animum curis nunc huc, nunc dividit illuc. This way and that the anxious mind is torn. WHEN I acquaint my reader, that I have many other letters not yet acknowledged, I believe he will own, what I have a mind he should believe, that I have no small charge upon me, but am a person of some consequence in this world. I shall therefore employ the present hour only in ing petitions in the order as follows. 'MR. SPECTATOR,-I have lost so much time already, that I desire, upon the receipt hereof, you will sit down immediately and give me your answer. And I would know of you whether a pretender of mine really loves me. As well as I can I will describe his manners. When he sees me 'BETTY SAUNTER.' Pray, sir, direct thus, "To the kind Querist," and leave it at Mr. Lillie's, for I do not care to be known in the thing at all. I am, sir, again, your humble servant.' 'SIR,-I am a young woman, and reckoned pretty; therefore you will pardon me that I trouble you to decide a wager beis always talking of constancy, but vouch-tween me and a cousin of mine, who is alsafes to visit me but once a fortnight, and ways contradicting one because he underthen he is always in haste to be gone. with a single or a double p? I am, sir, stands Latin: pray, sir, is Dimple spelt When I am sick, I hear he says he is mightily concerned, but neither comes nor sends, your very humble servant, because, as he tells his acquaintance with a sigh, he does not care to let me know all the power I have over him, and how impossible it is for him to live without me. When he leaves the town he writes once in six weeks, desires to hear from me, complains of the torment of absence, speaks you there are several of your papers I do of flames, tortures, languishings, and ecsta-not much like. You are often so nice, there sies. He has the cant of an impatient lover, is no enduring you; and so learned, there is no but keeps the pace of a lukewarm one. understanding you. What have you to do You know I must not go faster than he with our petticoats? Your humble servant, does, and to move at this rate is as tedious as counting a great clock. But you are to know he is rich, and my mother says, as he is slow he is sure; he will love me long if he love me little: but I appeal to you whether he loves at all. Your neglected humble servant, LYDIA NOVELL.' 'MR. SPECTATOR,-I must needs tell 'PARTHENOPE.' 'MR. SPECTATOR,-Last night, as I was walking in the Park, I met a couple of friends. "Pr'ythee, Jack," says one of them, "let us go drink a glass of wine, for I am fit for nothing else." This put me upon reflecting on the many miscarriages which happen in conversations over wine, when men go to the bottle to remove such humours as it only stirs up and awakens. This I could not attribute more to any thing than to the humour of putting company upon others which men do not like themselves. Pray, sir, declare in your papers, that he who is a troublesome com- | sent ignorance, may be thought a good panion to himself, will not be an agreeable presage and earnest of improvement, you one to others. Let people reason them- may look upon your time you shall bestow selves into good humour, before they im- in answering this request not thrown away pose themselves upon their friends. Pray, to no purpose. And I cannot but add, sir, be as eloquent as you can upon this that unless you have a particular and more subject, and do human life so much good, than ordinary regard for Leonora, I have as to argue powerfully, that it is not every a better title to your favour than she: since one that can swallow who is fit to drink I do not content myself with tea-table reada glass of wine. Your most humble ser- ing of your papers, but it is my entertainvant.' ment very often when alone in my closet. and hate flattery, I acknowledge I do not To show you I am capable of improvement, like some of your papers; but even there I am readier to call in question my own shallow understanding than Mr. Spectator's profound judgment. I am sir, your already (and in hopes of being more your) obliged PARTHENIA.' 'SIR,I this morning cast my eye upon your paper concerning the expence of time. You are very obliging to the women, especially those who are not young and past gallantry, by touching so gently upon gaming: therefore I hope you do not think it wrong to employ a little leisure time in that diversion; but I should be glad to hear you say something upon the behaviour of some of the female gamesters. servant, This last letter is written with so urgent and serious an air, that I cannot but think it incumbent upon me to comply with her commands, which I shall do very suddenly. T. 'I have observed ladies, who in all other respects are gentle, good-humoured, and the very pinks of good-breeding; who as soon as the ombre-table is called for and sit down to their business, are immediately transmigrated into the veriest wasps in No. 141.] Saturday, August 11, 1711. nature. You must know I keep my temper, and win their money; but am out of countenance to take it, it makes them so very uneasy. Be pleased, dear sir, to instruct them to lose with a better grace, and you will oblige, Yours, RACHEL BASTO.' IN the present emptiness of the town, I have several applications from the lower part of the players, to admit suffering to MR. SPECTATOR,-Your kindness to pass for acting. They in very obliging Leonora, in one of your papers, has given terms desire me to let a fall on the ground, me encouragement to do myself the honour a stumble, or a good slap on the back, be of writing to you. The great regard you reckoned a jest. These gambols I shall have so often expressed for the instruction tolerate for a season, because I hope the and improvement of our sex will I hope, in evil cannot continue longer than until the your own opinion, sufficiently excuse me people of condition and taste return to from making any apology for the imperti- town. The method some time ago, was to nence of this letter. The great desire I entertain that part of the audience, who have to embellish my mind with some of have no faculty above eye-sight, with ropethose graces which you say are so becom-dancers and tumblers; which was a way ing, and which you assert reading helps us to, has made me uneasy until I am put in a capacity of attaining them. This, sir, I shall never think myself in, until you shall be pleased to recommend some author or authors to my perusal. discreet enough, because it prevented confusion, and distinguished such as could show all the postures which the body is capable of, from those who were to represent all the passions to which the mind is subject. But though this was prudently 'I thought, indeed, when I first cast my settled, corporeal and intellectual actors eye on Leonora's letter, that I should have ought to be kept at a still wider distance had no occasion for requesting it of you; than to appear on the same stage at all: but, to my very great concern, I found on for which reason I must propose some the perusal of that Spectator, I was en-methods for the improvement of the beartirely disappointed, and am as much at a garden, by dismissing all bodily actors to loss how to make use of my time for that that quarter. end as ever. Pray, sir, oblige me at least In cases of greater moment, where men with one scene, as you were pleased to en-appear in public, the consequence and imtertain Leonora with your prologue. I portance of the thing can bear them out. write to you not only my own sentiments, | And though a pleader or preacher is hoarse but also those of several others of my ac- or awkward, the weight of their matter quaintance, who are as little pleased with commands respect and attention; but in the ordinary manner of spending one's time as myself; and if a fervent desire after knowledge, and a great sense of our pre theatrical speaking, if the performer is not exactly proper and graceful, he is utterly ridiculous. In cases where there is little else expected, but the pleasure of the ears | occasion of that tragedy, and fill the mind and eyes, the least diminution of that plea- with a suitable horror; besides that the sure is the highest offence. In acting, witches are a part of the story itself, as we barely to perform the part is not com- find it very particularly related in Hector mendable, but to be the least out is con- Boetius, from whom he seems to have taken temptible. To avoid these difficulties and it. This therefore is a proper machine, delicacies, I am informed, that while I was out of town, the actors have flown into the air, and played such pranks, and run such hazards, that none but the servants of the fire-office, tilers, and masons, could have been able to perform the like.* The author of the following letter, it seems, has been of the audience at one of these entertainments, and has accordingly complained to me upon it; but I think he has been to the utmost degree severe against what is exceptionable in the play he mentions, without dwelling so much as he might have done on the author's most excellent talent of humour. The pleasant pictures he has drawn of life should have been more kindly mentioned, at the same time that he banishes his witches, who are too dull devils to be at tacked with so much warmth. 'MR. SPECTATOR,-Upon a report that Moll White had followed you to town, and was to act a part in the Lancashire Witches, I went last week to see that play. It was my fortune to sit next to a country justice of the peace, a neighbour (as he said) of Sir Roger's, who pretended to show her to us in one of the dances. There was witchcraft enough in the entertainment almost to incline me to believe him; Ben Johnson was almost lame; young Bullock† narrowly saved his neck; the audience was astonished, and an old acquaintance of mine, a person of worth, whom I would have bowed to in the pit, at two yards' distance did not know me. 'If you were what the country-people reported you, a white witch, I could have wished you had been there to have exorcised that rabble of broomsticks, with which we were haunted for above three hours. I could have allowed them to set Clod in the tree, to have scared the sportsmen, plagued the justice, and emploved honest Teague with his holy water. This was the proper use of them in comedy, if the author had stopped here; but I cannot conceive what relation the sacrifice of the black lamb, and the ceremonies of their worship to the devil, have to the business of mirth and humour. where the business is dark, horrid, and bloody; but is extremely foreign from the affair of comedy. Subjects of this kind, which are in themselves disagreeable, can at no time become entertaining, but by passing through an imagination like Shakspeare's to form them; for which reason Mr. Dryden would not allow even Beaumont and Fletcher capable of imitating him. "But Shakspeare's magic could not copied be: Within that circle none durst walk but he." 'I should not, however, have troubled you with these remarks, if there were not something else in this comedy, which wants to be exorcised more than the witches: I mean the freedom of some passages, which I should have overlooked, if I had not observed that those jests can raise the loudest mirth, though they are painful to right sense, and an outrage upon modesty. "We must attribute such liberties to the taste of that age: but indeed by such representations a poet sacrifices the best part of his audience to the worst; and, as one would think, neglects the boxes, to write to the orange-wenches. 'I must not conclude till I have taken notice of the moral with which this comedy ends. The two young ladies having given a notable example of out-witting those who had a right in the disposal of them, and marrying without consent of parents, one of the injured parties, who is easily reconciled, winds up all with this remark, -Design whate'er we will, 'We are to suppose that the gallants are men of merit, but if they had been rakes, the excuse might have served as well. Hans Carvel's wife was of the same principle, but has expressed it with a delicacy which shows she is not serious in her excuse, but in a sort of humorous philosophy turns off the thought of her guilt, and says, "That if weak women go astray, Their stars are more in fault than they." "This no doubt is a full reparation, and dismisses the audience with very edifying impressions. 'The gentleman who writ this play, and has drawn some characters in it very justly, appears to have been misled in his witch-have partly pursued already, and therefore These things fall under a province you craft by an unwary following the inimitable Shakspeare. The incantations in Macbeth have a solemnity admirably adapted to the *Alluding to Shadwell's comedy of the Lancashire Witches, which being considered a party play, had a good run at this time. It was advertised for the very night in which this Number is dated. The names of two actors then upon the stage. Different incidents in the play of the Lancashire Witches. demands your animadversion, for the reguthe stage. It were to be wished, that all lating so noble an entertainment as that of who write for it hereafter would raise their genius by the ambition of pleasing people of the best understanding; and leave others, who show nothing of the human species but § The concluding distich of Shadwell's play. No. 142.] Monday, August 13, 1711. Irrupta tenet copula- Hor. Lib. 1. Od. xiii. 33. THE following letters being genuine, and the images of a worthy passion, I am willing to give the old lady's admonition to myself, and the representation of her own happiness, a place in my writings. 'August 9, 1711. is all my attention broken! my books are blank paper, and my friends intruders. I have no hope of quiet but from your pity. To grant it would make more for your triumph. To give pain is the tyranny, to make happy the true empire of beauty. If you would consider aright, you would find an agreeable change in dismissing the attendance of a slave, to receive the complaisance of a companion. I bear the former in hopes of the latter condition. As I live in chains without murmuring at the power which inflicts them, so I could enjoy freedom without forgetting the mercy that gave it. I am, Madam, your most devoted, most obedient servant. ""* 66 Though I made him no declarations in his favour, you see he had hopes of me when he writ this in the month following. 'MR. SPECTATOR,-I am now in the sixty-seventh year of my age, and read you 'September 3, 1671. with approbation; but methinks you do not "MADAM,-Before the light this morning strike at the root of the greatest evil in life, dawned upon the earth, I awaked, and lay which is the false notion of gallantry in love. in expectation of its return, not that it could It is, and has long been, upon a very ill give any new sense of joy to me, but as I foot; but I who have been a wife forty hoped it would bless you with its cheerful years, and was bred up in a way that has face, after a quiet which I wished you last made me ever since very happy, see night. If my prayers are heard, the day through the folly of it. In a word, sir, appeared with all the influence of a merciful when I was a young woman, all who Creator upon your person and actions. Let avoided the vices of the age were very others, my lovely charmer, talk of a blind carefully educated, and all fantastical ob- being that disposes their hearts, I contemn I have not a jects were turned out of our sight. The their low images of love. tapestry-hangings, with the great and ve- thought which relates to you, that I cannerable simplicity of the scripture stories, not with confidence beseech the All-seeing had better effects than now the loves of Power to bless me in. May he direct you Venus and Adonis, or Bacchus and Ariadne, in all your steps, and reward your innoin your fine present prints. The gentle-cence, your sanctity of manners, your pruman I am married to, made love to me in rapture, but it was the rapture of a Christian and a man of honour, not a romantic hero or a whining coxcomb. This put our life upon a right basis. To give you an idea of our regard one to another, I enclose to you several of his letters writ forty years ago, when my lover; and one writ the other day, after so many years cohabitation. Your servant, ANDROMACHE.' "August 7, 1671. "MADAM,-If my vigilance, and ten thousand wishes for your welfare and repose, could have any force, you last night slept in security, and had every good angel in your attendance. To have my thoughts ever fixed on you, to live in constant fear of every accident to which human life is liable, and to send up my hourly prayers to avert them from you: I say, madam, thus to think, and thus to suffer, is what I do for her who is in pain at my approach, and calls all my tender sorrow impertinence. You are now before my eyes, my eyes that are ready to flow with tenderness, but cannot give relief to my gushing heart, that dictates what I am now saying, and yearns to tell you all its achings. How art thou, oh my soul, stolen from thyself! how dent youth, and becoming piety, with the *This and the following letters in this Number are all genuine, having been written by Sir Richard Steele, to Miss Scurlock, afterwards Lady Steele.-See Steele's Letters, Vol. II. |