himself enough to give her the absolution | where she resided; and are often read to in form; directing her at the same time to the young religious, in order to inspire repair to him again the next day, that he them with good resolutions and sentiments might encourage her in the pious resolu- of virtue. It so happened, that after Contions she had taken, and give her suitable stantia had lived about ten years in the exhortations for her behaviour in it. Con- cloister, a violent fever broke out in the stantia retired, and the next morning re- place, which swept away great multitudes, newed her applications. Theodosius having and among others Theodosius. Upon his manned his soul with proper thoughts and death-bed he sent his benediction in a very reflections, exerted himself on this occasion moving manner to Constantia, who at that in the best manner he could to animate his time was so far gone in the same fatal dispenitent in the course of life she was enter- temper, that she lay delirious. Upon the ing upon, and wear out of her mind those interval which generally precedes death in groundless fears and apprehensions which sicknesses of this nature, the abbess, finding had taken possession of it; concluding with that the physicians had given her over, told a promise to her, that he would from time her that Theodosius was just gone before to time continue his admonitions when she her, and that he had sent her his benedic-. should have taken upon her the holy veil. tion in his last moments. Constantia reThe rules of our respective orders,' says ceived it with pleasure. And now,' says he, will not permit that I should see you, she, if I do not ask any thing improper, but you may assure yourself not only of let me be buried by Theodosius. My vow having a place in my prayers, but of re-reaches no farther than the grave; what I ceiving such frequent instructions as I can ask is, I hope, no violation of it." -She convey to you by letters. Go on cheerfully died soon after, and was interred according in the glorious course you have undertaken, to her request. and you will quickly find such a peace and satisfaction in your mind, which is not in the power of the world to give.' Constantia's heart was so elevated with the discourse of Father Francis, that the very next day she entered upon her vow. As soon as the solemnities of her reception were over; she retired, as it is usual, with the abbess into her own apartment. Their tombs are still to be seen, with a short Latin inscription over them to the following purpose: "Here lie the bodies of Father Francis and Sister Constance. They were lovely in their lives, and in their deaths they were not divided.' C. -Si forte necesse est, The abbess had been informed the night No. 165.] Saturday, September 8, 1711. before of all that had passed between her noviciate and Father Francis; from whom she now delivered to her the following letter: Fingere cinctutis non exaudita Cethegis, -If you would unheard of things express, Creech. I HAVE often wished that as in our con stitution there are several persons whose business it is to watch over our laws, our liberties, and commerce, certain men might be set apart as superintendents of our lan As the first fruits of those joys and consolations which you may expect from the life you are now engaged in, I must acquaint you that Theodosius, whose death sits so heavy upon your thoughts, is still alive; and that the father to whom you have confessed yourself, was once that Theodosius whom you so much lament. The love which we have had for one an-guage, to hinder any words of a foreign other will make us more happy in its disappointment than it could have done in its success. Providence has disposed of us for our advantage, though not according to our wishes. Consider your Theodosius still as dead, but assure yourself of one who will not cease to pray for you, in Father 'FRANCIS.' Constantia saw that the hand-writing agreed with the contents of the letter; and upon reflecting on the voice of the person, the behaviour, and above all the extreme sorrow of the father during her confession, she discovered Theodosius in every particular. After having wept with tears of joy, 'It is enough,' says she, Theodosius is still in being: I shall live with comfort and die in peace.' The letters which the father sent her afterwards are yet extant in the nunnery ticular to prohibit any French phrases from coin from passing among us; and in parthose of our own stamp are altogether as becoming current in this kingdom when rated our tongue with strange words, that valuable. The present war has so adulteit would be impossible for one of our greatgrandfathers to know what his posterity have been doing, were he to read their exploits in a modern newspaper. Our warriors are very industrious in propagating the French language, at the same time that they are so gloriously successful in beating down their power. Our soldiers are men of strong heads for action, and perform such feats as they are not able to express. They want words in their own tongue to tell us what it is they achieve, and therefore send us over accounts of their performances in a jargon of phrases, which they learn among their conquered enemies. They ought however to be provided with secretaries, and assisted by our foreign ministers, to tell their story for them in plain English, and to let us know in our mothertongue what it is our brave countrymen are about. The French would indeed be in the right to publish the news of the present war in English phrases, and make their campaigns unintelligible. Their people might flatter themselves that things are not so bad as they really are, were they thus palliated with foreign terms, and thrown into shades and obscurity; but the English cannot be too clear in their narrative of those actions, which have raised their country to a higher pitch of glory than it ever yet arrived at, and which will be still the more admired the better they are explained. For my part, by that time a siege is carried on two or three days, I am altogether lost and bewildered in it, and meet with so many inexplicable difficulties, that I scarce know which side has the better of it, until I am informed by the Tower-guns that the place is surrendered. I do indeed make some allowances for this part of the war; fortifications have been foreign inventions, and upon that account abounding in foreign terms. But when we have won battles which may be described in our own language, why are our papers filled with so many unintelligible exploits, and the French obliged to lend us a part of their tongue before we can know how they are conquered? They must be made accessary to their own disgrace, as the Britons were formerly so artificially wrought in the curtain of the Roman theatre, that they seemed to draw it up, in order to give the spectators an opportunity of seeing their own defeat celebrated upon the stage; for so Mr. Dryden has translated that verse in Virgil: Purpurea intexti tollunt aulæa Britanni. Georg. iii. 25. Which interwoven Britons seem to raise, when our country was delivered from the greatest fears and apprehensions, and raised to the greatest height of gladness it had ever felt since it was a nation, I mean the year of Blenheim, I had the copy of a letter sent me out of the country, which was written from a young gentleman in the army to his father, a man of good estate and plain sense. As the letter was very modishly chequered with this modern military eloquence, I shall present my reader with a copy of it. and Bavarian armies they took post behind SIR,-Upon the junction of the French a great morass which they thought impracticable. Our general the next day sent a party of horse to "reconnoitre" them of an hour's distance from the army, who from a little "hauteur," at about a quarter returned again to the camp unobserved through several "defiles," in one of which they met with a party of French that had been "marauding,' and made them all drum arrived at our camp, with a message prisoners at discretion. The day after a which he would communicate to none but the general; he was followed by a trumpet, who they say behaved himself very saucily, The next morning our army being divided with a message from the Duke of Bavaria. into two "corps," made a movement towards the enemy. You will hear in the the other circumstances of that glorious public prints how we treated them, with day. I had the good fortune to be in that Several French battalions, which some say regiment that pushed the " gens d'armes. were a "corps de reserve," made a show of resistance; but it only proved a "" gasconade," for upon our preparing to fill up a little "fosse" in order to attack them, they beat the "chamade," and sent us a "carte blanche." Their "commandant," with a great many other general officers, and troops without number, are made prisoners of war, and will, I believe, give you a visit. in England, the "cartel" not being yet settled. Not questioning but these particulars will be very welcome to you, I congratulate you upon them, and am your most dutiful son,' &c. The histories of all our former wars are transmitted to us in our vernacular idiom, to use the phrase of a great modern critic.* I do not find in any of our chronicles, that Edward the Third ever reconnoitred the enemy, though he often discovered the pos- The father of the young gentleman upon ture of the French, and as often vanquished the perusal of the letter found it contained them in battle. The Black Prince passed great news, but could not guess what it was. many a river without the help of pontoons, He immediately communicated it to the and filled a ditch with faggots as success- curate of the parish, who upon the reading fully as the generals of our times do it with of it, being vexed to see any thing he could fascines. Our commanders lose half their not understand, fell into a kind of a passion, praise, and our people half their joy, by and told him, that his son had sent him a means of those hard words and dark ex-letter that was neither fish, flesh, nor good pressions in which our newspapers do so red-herring. I wish,' says he, 'the capmuch abound. I have seen many a prudent tain may be "compos mentis," he talks of citizen, after having read every article, in- a saucy trumpet, and a drum that carries quire of his next neighbour what news the messages; then who is this "carte blanche?" mail had brought. He must either banter us, or he is out of his senses. The father, who always looked upon the curate as a learned man, began to fret inwardly at his son's usage, and pro I remember, in that remarkable year * Dr. Richard Bentley. ducing a letter which he had written to him an advantage above all the great masters, about three posts before, You see here,' is this, that they can multiply their origisays he, when he writes for money he nals: or rather can make copies of their knows how to speak intelligibly enough; works, to what number they please, which there is no man in England can express shall be as valuable as the originals themhimself clearer, when he wants a new fur-selves. This gives a great author something niture for his horse.' In short the old man like a prospect of cternity, but at the same 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 L. only writ like other men. No. 166.] Monday, September 10, 1711. -Which nor dreads the rage Of tempests, fire, or war, or wasting age. Welsted. 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. 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 great invention of these latter ages may last as long as the sun and moon, and perish only in the general wreck of nature. Thus Cowley in his poem on the Resurrection, mentioning the destruction of the universe, has those admirable lines: 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 propagating 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 illwill 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. I have seen some Roman Catholic authors who tell us, that vicious writers continue in Purgatory so long as the influence of their writings continues upon posterity: 'for purgatory,' say they, is nothing else but a cleansing us of our sins, which cannot be And all th' harmonious worlds on high, said to be done away, so long as they conAnd Virgil's sacred work shall die. tinue to operate, and corrupt mankind. There is no other method of fixing those The vicious author,' say they, 'sins after thoughts which arise and disappear in the death, and so long as he continues to sin, mind of man, and transmitting them to the so long must he expect to be punished.' last periods of time; no other method of Though the Roman Catholic notion of purgiving a permanency to our ideas, and pre-gatory be indeed very ridiculous, one canserving the knowledge of any particular person, when his body is mixed with the common mass of matter, and his soul retired into the world of spirits. Books are the legacies that a great genius leaves to mankind, which are delivered down from generation to generation, as presents to the posterity of those who are yet unborn. Now all the wide extended sky, All other arts of perpetuating our ideas continue but a short time. Statues can last but a few thousands of years, edifices fewer, and colours still fewer than edifices. Michael Angelo, Fontana, and Raphael, will hereafter be what Phidias, Vitruvius, and Apelles are at present, the names of great statuaries, architects, and painters, whose works are lost. The several arts are expressed in mouldering materials. Nature sinks under them and is not able to support the ideas which are imprest upon it. The circumstance which gives authors not but think that if the soul after death has any knowledge of what passes in this world, that of an immoral writer would receive much more regret from the sense of corrupting, than satisfaction from the thought of pleasing his surviving admirers. To take off from the severity of this speculation, I shall conclude this paper with a story of an atheistical author, who at a time when he lay dangerously sick, and had desired the assistance of a neighbouring curate, confessed to him with great contrition, that nothing sat more heavy at his heart than the sense of his having seduced the age by his writings, and that their evil influence was likely to continue even after his death. The curate upon farther examination finding the penitent in the utmost 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 writings would continue to do mischief when his body was laid in ashes. The curate, finding no other way of comforting him, told him that he did well in being afflicted for the evil design with which he published his book; but that he ought to be very thankful that there was no danger of its doing any hurt: that his cause was so very bad, and his arguments so weak, that he did not apprehend any ill effects of it: in short, that he might rest satisfied his book could do no more mischief after his death, than it had done whilst he was living. To which he added, for his farther satisfaction, that he did not believe any besides his particular friends and acquaintance had ever been at the pains of reading it, or that any body after his death would ever inquire after it. The dying man had still so much the frailty of an author in him, as to be cut to the heart with these consolations; and, without answering the good man, asked his friends about him (with a peevishness that is natural to a sick person) where they had picked up such a blockhead? And whether they thought him a proper person to attend one in his condition? The curate finding that the author did not expect to be dealt with as a real and sincere penitent, but as a penitent of importance, after a short admonition withdrew; not questioning but he should be again sent for if the sickness grew desperate. The author however recovered, and has since written two or three other tracts with the same spirit, and, very luckily for his poor soul, with the same success.* C. Him the damnn'd doctor and his friends immur'd; They bled, they cupp'd, they purg'd, in short, they cur'd; Whereat the gentleman began to stare My friends! he cry'd, 'pox take ye for your care! THE unhappy force of an imagination unguided by the check of reason and judgment, was the subject of a former speculation. My reader may remember that he has seen in one of my papers a complaint of an unfortunate gentleman, who was unable to contain himself (when any ordinary matter was laid before him,) from adding a few circumstances to enliven plain narrative. That correspondent was a person of too warm a complexion to be satisfied with things merely as they stood in nature, and therefore formed incidents which should have happened to have pleased him in the story. The same ungoverned fancy which pushed that correspondent on, in spite of himself, to relate public and notorious falsehoods, makes the author of the following letter do the same in private; one is a prating, the other a silent, liar. There is little pursued in the errors of either of these worthies, but mere present amusement: but the folly of him who lets his fancy place him in distant scenes untroubled and uninterrupted, is very much preferable to that of him who is ever forcing a belief, and defending his untruths with new inventions. But I shall hasten to let this liar in soliloquy, who calls himself a castle-builder, describe himself with the same unreservedness as formerly appeared in my correspondent above-mentioned. If a man were to be serious on this subject, he might give very grave admonitions to those who are following any thing in this life, on which they think to place their hearts, and tell them that they are really castle-builders. Fame, glory, wealth, honour, have in the No. 167.] Tuesday, September 11, 1711. prospect pleasing illusions; but they who --Fuit haud ignobilis Argis, Qui se credebat miros audire tragœdos, Posset qui rupem et puteum vitare patentem, IMITATED. There lived 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. 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. 'Sept. 6, 1711. 'MR. SPECTATOR,-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 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 his obliged humble servant, VITRUVIUS,' groves have started into being by the pow- but all architects who display their skill in erful feat of a warm fancy. A castle- the thin element. Such a favour would builder is even just what he pleases, and as such I have grasped imaginary sceptres, and delivered uncontrollable edicts, from a 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 Ver T. sailles; and I would have you take notice, I No. 168.] Wednesday, Sept. 12, 1711, I am -Pectus præceptis format amicis. Hor. Lib. 2. Ep. i. 128. Forms the soft bosom with the gentlest art.-Pope. Ir would be arrogance to neglect the application of my correspondents so far, as not 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. am not only able to vanquish a people already cowed' and accustomed to flight, but I could, Almanzor-like,* drive the British general from 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 ceased to burn, and agues to shake the human fabric. When an eloquent fit has been upon me, an apt gesture and proper ca'MR. SPECTATOR,-I send you this to dence has animated each sentence, and gaz for treating on which you deserve public congratulate your late choice of a subject, ing crowds have found their passions worked thanks, I mean that on those licensed ty up into rage, or soothed into a calm. short, and not very well made; yet upon arm them of their rods, you will certainly rants the school-masters. If you can dissight of a fine woman, I have stretched into have your old age reverenced by all the a proper stature, and killed with a good air and mien. These are the gay phantoms young gentlemen of Great Britain who are that dance before my waking eyes, and You may boast that the incomparably wise now between seven and seventeen years, compose my day-dreams. I should be the most contented happy man alive, were the Quintilian and you are of one mind in this chimerical happiness which springs from particular. Si cui est (says he,) mens tam the paintings of fancy less fleeting and tran-is etiam ad plagas, ut pessima quæque manilliberalis ut objurgatione non corrigatur, sitory. But, alas! it is with grief of mind I tell you, the least breath of wind has often demolished my magnificent edifices, swept away my groves, and left no more trace of them than if they had never been. My exchequer has sunk and vanished by a rap on my door, the salutation of a friend has cost me a whole continent, and in the same moment I have been pulled by the sleeve, my crown has fallen from my head. The ill consequence of these reveries is inconceivably great, seeing the loss of imaginary possessions makes impressions of real woe. Besides, bad economy is visible and apparent in builders of invisible mansions. My tenants' advertisements of ruins and dilapidations often cast a damp on my spirits, even in the instant when the sun, in all its splendour, gilds my eastern palaces. Add to this the pensive drudgery in building, and constant grasping aerial trowels, dis tracts and shatters the mind, and the fond builder of Babels is often cursed with an incoherent diversity and confusion of thoughts I do not know to whom I can more pro perly apply myself for relief from this fantastical evil, than to yourself; whom I earn estly implore to accommodate me with a method how to settle my head and cool my brain-pan. A dissertation on castle-building may not only be serviceable to myself, * Almanzor is a furious character in Dryden's Conquest of Granada. cipia, durabitur;" i. e. "If any child be of so disingenuous a nature, as not to stand corrected by reproof, he, like the very worst of themselves." And afterwards," Pudet dislaves, will be hardened even against blows cædendi jure abutantur;" i. e. "I blush to cere in quæ probra nefandi homines isto say how shamefully those wicked men abuse of correction." the power school, of which the master was a WelchI was bred myself, sir, in a very great man, but certainly descended from a Spanish family, as plainly appeared from his temper as well as his name. I leave you to judge what sort of a school-master a Welchman ingrafted on a Spaniard would make. So very dreadful had he made himself to me that although it is above twenty years since I felt his heavy hand, yet still once a month at least I dream of him, so mind. It is a sign he has fully terrified me strong an impression did he make on my waking, who still continues to haunt me sleeping. the business of the school was what I did And yet I may say without vanity, that without great difficulty; and I was not remaster's severity, that once a month, or markably unlucky; and yet such was the oftener, I suffered as much as would have |