As there was a very remarkable silence has prevailed from generation to generaand stillness in the audience during the tion, which gray hairs and tyrannical custom whole action, it was natural for them to continue to support: hope your spectatotake the opportunity of the intervals be- rial authority will give a seasonable check tween the acts to express their opinion of to the spread of the infection; I mean old the players, and of their respective parts. men's overbearing the strongest sense of Sir Roger, hearing a cluster of them praise their juniors by the mere force of seniority; Orestes, struck in with them, and told so that, for a young man in the bloom of them, that he thought his friend Pylades life, and vigour of age, to give a reasonable was a very sensible man. As they were contradiction to his elders, is esteemed an afterwards applauding Pyrus, Sir Roger unpardonable insolence, and regarded as put in a second time. And let me tell reversing the decrees of nature. I am a you,' says he, though he speaks but little, young man, I confess; yet I honour the gray I like the old fellow in whiskers as well as head as much as any one; however, when, any of them.' Captain Sentry, seeing two in company with old men, I hear them or three wags who sat near us, lean with an speak obscurely, or reason preposterously, attentive ear towards Sir Roger, and fear- (into which absurdities, prejudice, pride, or ing lest they should smoke the knight, interest, will sometimes throw the wisest,) plucked him by the elbow, and whispered I count it no crime to rectify their reaSomething in his ear, that lasted till the sonings, unless conscience must truckle to opening of the fifth act. The knight was ceremony, and truth fall a sacrifice to comwonderfully attentive to the account which plaisance. The strongest arguments are Orestes gives of Pyrrhus's death, and at enervated, and the brightest evidence disapthe conclusion of it, told me it was such a pears, before those tremendous reasonings bloody piece of work that he was glad it and dazzling discoveries of venerable old was not done upon the stage. Seeing after- age. "You are young, giddy-headed felwards Orestes in his raving fit, he grew lows; you have not yet had experience of the more than ordinarily serious, and took oc- world." Thus we young folks find our amcasion to moralize (in his way,) upon anbition cramped, and our laziness indulged; evil conscience, adding, that Orestes, in his since while young we have little room to madness, looked as if he saw something. display ourselves; and, when old, the weakAs we were the first that came into the ness of nature must pass for strength of house, so we were the last that went out of sense, and we hope that hoary heads will it; being resolved to have a clear passage raise us above the attacks of contradicfor our old friend, whom we did not care to tion. Now, sir, as you would enliven our venture among the jostling of the crowd. activity in the pursuit of learning, take our Sir Roger went out fully satisfied with his case into consideration; and, with a gloss on entertainment, and we guarded him to his brave Elihu's sentiments, assert the rights lodging in the same manner that we brought of youth, and prevent the pernicious enhim to the playhouse; being highly pleased croachments of age. The generous reasonfor my own part, not only with the per-ings of that gallant youth would adorn formance of the excellent piece which had been presented, but with the satisfaction which it had given to the old man. L. your paper; and I beg you would insert them, not doubting but that they will give good entertainment to the most intelligent of your readers. "So these three men ceased to answer No. 336.] Wednesday, March 26, 1711-12. Job, because he was righteous in his own eyes. Then was kindled the wrath of Elihu, the son of Barachel the Buzite, of the kindred of Ram: against Job was his wrath kindled, because he justified himself rather than God. Also against his three friends was his wrath kindled, because they had found no answer, and yet had condemned Job. Now Elihu had waited till Job had spoken, because they were elder than he. When Elihu saw there was no answer in the mouth of these three men, then his wrath was kindled. And Elihu, the son of Barachel the Buzite, answered and said, I am young, and ye are very old; wherefore I was afraid and durst not show you mine opinion. I said, days should speak, and multitude of years should teach wisdom. But there is a spirit in man, and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth them understanding. Great men are not always wise: neither do the aged understand judgment. Therefore I said, Hearken to me, I also will show mine opinion. Behold; I waited for your words; I gave ear to your reasons, whilst you searched out what to say. Yea, I attended unto you: and behold there was none of you that convinced Job, or that answered his words: lest you should say, We have found out wisdom: God thrusteth him down, not man. Now he hath not directed his words against me: neither will I answer him with your speeches. They were amazed: they answered no more; they left off speaking. When I had waited (for they spake not, but stood still and answered no more,) I said, I will answer also my part, I also will show mine opinion. For I am full of matter, the spirit within me constraineth me. Behold, my belly is as wine which hath no vent, it is ready to burst like new bottles. I will speak that I may be refreshed: I will open my lips and answer. Let me not, I pray you, accept any man's person, neither let me give flattering titles unto man. For I know not to give flattering titles: in so doing my Maker would soon take me away. the better for it. Lord, what signifies one T. No. 337.] Thursday, March 27, 1712. Ire viam quam monstrat eques Hor. Ep. 2. Lib. 1. 64. I HAVE lately received a third letter from the gentleman who has already given the public two essays upon education. As his thoughts seem to be very just and new upon this subject, I shall communicate them to the reader. 'MR. SPECTATOR,-I have formerly read with great satisfaction your paper about idols, and the behaviour of gentlemen in those coffee-houses where women officiate; and impatiently waited to see you take India and China shops into consideration: but since you have passed us over in silence, either that you have not as yet thought us worth your notice, or that the 'SIR,-If I had not been hindered by grievances we lie under have escaped your some extraordinary business, I should have discerning eye, I must make my complaints sent you sooner my further thoughts upon to you, and am encouraged to do it because education. You may please to remember, you seem a little at leisure at this present that in my last letter, I endeavoured to give writing. I am, dear sir, one of the top the best reasons that could be urged in China-women about town; and though I favour of a private or public education. say it, keep as good things and receive as Upon the whole, it may perhaps be thought fine company as any over this end of the that I seemed rather inclined to the latter, town, let the other be who she will. In though at the same time I confessed that short, I am in a fair way to be easy, were virtue, which ought to be our first and prinit not for a club of female rakes, who, under cipal care, was more usually acquired in pretence of taking their innocent rambles, the former. forsooth, and diverting the spleen, seldom fail to plague me twice or thrice a day, to cheapen tea, or buy a skreen. What else should they mean? as they often repeat it. These rakes are your idle ladies of fashion, 'I know that in most of our public schools who, having nothing to do, employ them-vice is punished and discouraged, whenever selves in tumbling over my ware. One of it is found out: but this is far from being these no-customers (for by the way they sufficient, unless our youth are at the same seldom or never buy any thing,) calls for a time taught to form a right judgment of set of tea-dishes, another for a bason, a third things, and to know what is properly virtue. for my best green tea, and even to the punch- To this end, whenever they read the bowl, there's scarce a piece in my shop but lives and actions of such men as have been must be displaced, and the whole agree- famous in their generation, it should not be able architecture disordered, so that I can thought enough to make them barely uncompare them to nothing but to the night-derstand so many Greek or Latin sentences; goblins that take a pleasure to overturn the disposition of plates and dishes in the kitchens of your housewifery maids. Well, after all this racket and clatter, this is too dear, that is their aversion; another thing is charming, but not wanted; the ladies are cured of the spleen, but I am not a shilling I intended, therefore, in this letter, to offer at methods, by which I conceive boys might be made to improve in virtue as they advance in letters. but they should be asked their opinion of such an action or saying, and obliged to give their reasons why they take it to be good or bad. By this means they would insensibly arrive at proper notions of courage, temperance, honour, and justice. "There must be great care taken how the example of any particular person is recommended to them in gross; instead of which they ought to be taught wherein such a man, though great in some respects, was weak and faulty in others. For want of this caution, a boy is often so dazzled with the lustre of a great character, that he confounds its beauties with its blemishes, and looks even upon the faulty part of it with an eye of admiration. I have often wondered how Alexander, who was naturally of a generous and merciful disposition, came to be guilty of so barbarous an action as that of dragging the governor of a town after his chariot. I know this is generally ascribed to his passion for Homer, but I lately met with a passage in Plutarch, which, if I am not very much mistaken, still gives us a clearer light into the motives of this action. Plutarch tells us, that Alexander in his youth had a master named Lysimachus, who, though he was a man destitute of all politeness, ingratiated himself both with Philip and his pupil, and became the second man at court, by calling the king Peleus, the Prince Achilles, and himself Phoenix. It is no wonder if Alexander, having been thus used not only to admire but to personate Achilles, should think it glorious to imitate him in this piece of cruelty and extravagance. he would inspire me with an abhorrence of debauchery, 'Do not,' says he, 'make yourself like Sectanus, when you may be happy in the enjoyment of lawful pleasures. How scandalous,' says he, 'is the character of Trebonius, who was lately caught in bed with another man's wife!" To illustrate the force of this method, the poet adds, that as a headstrong patient who will not follow at first his physician's prescriptions, grows orderly when he hears that the neighbours die all about him; so youth is often frightened from vice, by hearing the ill report it brings upon others. Xenophon's schools of equity, in his Life of Cyrus the Great, are sufficiently famous. He tells us, that the Persian children went to school, and employed their time as diligently in learning the principles of justice and sobriety, as the youth in other countries did to acquire the most difficult arts and sciences; their governors spent most part of the day in hearing their mutual accusations one against the other, whether for violence, cheating, slander, or ingratitude; and taught them how to give judgment against those who were found to be any ways guilty of these crimes. I omit the story of the long and short coat, for which Cyrus himself was punished, as a case equally known with any in Littleton. The method which Apuleius tells us the To carry this thought yet further, I Indian Gymnosophists took to educate their shall submit it to your consideration, whe- disciples, is still more curious and remarkther, instead of a theme or copy of verses, able. His words are as follow: "When which are the usual exercises, as they are their dinner is ready, before it is served called in the school phrase, it would not be up, the masters inquire of every particular more proper that a boy should be tasked, scholar how he has employed his time since once or twice a week, to write down his sun-rising: some of them answer, that, opinion of such persons and things as occur having been chosen as arbiters between two to him by his reading; that he should des- persons, they have composed their differcant upon the actions of Turnus, or Æneas; ences, and made them friends; some that show wherein they excelled, or were de- they have been executing the orders of fective; censure or approve any particular their parents; and others, that they have action; observe how it might have been either found out something new by their carried to a greater degree of perfection, own application, or learnt it from the inand how it exceeded or fell short of an-structions of their fellows. But if there other. He might at the same time mark what was moral in any speech, and how far it agreed with the character of the person speaking. This exercise would soon strengthen his judgment in what is blameable or praiseworthy, and give him an early seasoning of morality. 'Next to those examples which may be met with in books, I very much approve Horace's way of setting before youth the infamous or honourable characters of their contemporaries. That poet tells us, this was the method his father made use of to incline him to any particular virtue, or give him an aversion to any particular vice. "If," says Horace, “my father advised me to live within bounds, and be contented with the fortune he should leave me; 'Do you not see,' says he, 'the miserable condition of Burrus, and the son of Albus? Let the misfortunes of those two wretches teach you to avoid luxury and extravagance.' If happens to be any one among them who cannot make it appear that he has employed the morning to advantage, he is immediately excluded from the company, and obliged to work while the rest are at dinner." 'It is not impossible, that from these several ways of producing virtue in the minds of boys, some general method might be invented. What I would endeavour to inculcate is, that our youth cannot be too soon taught the principles of virtue, seeing the first impressions which are made on the mind, are always the strongest. The archbishop of Cambray makes. Telemachus say, that, though he was young in years, he was old in the art of knowing how to keep both his own and his friends secrets. "When my father, says the prince, "went to the siege of Troy, he took me on his knees, and, after having embraced and blessed me, as he was sur self upon, that he will easily forgive me for publishing the exceptions made against gaiety at the end of serious entertainments in the following letter: I should be more unwilling to pardon him, than any body, a practice which cannot have any ill consequence but from the abilities of the person who is guilty of it. rounded by the nobles of Ithaca, O my friends,' says he, into your hands I commit the education of my son: if ever you loved his father, show it in your care towards him; but, above all, do not omit to form him just, sincere, and faithful in keeping a secret.' These words of my father," says Telemachus, were continually repeated to me by his friends in his absence; who made no scruple of communicating to 'MR. SPECTATOR,-I had the happiness me their uneasiness to see my mother sur-the other night of sitting very near you, and rounded with lovers, and the measures they your worthy friend Sir Roger, at the acting designed to take on that occasion." He of the new tragedy, which you have, in a adds, that he was so ravished at being thus treated like a man, and at the confidence reposed in him, that he never once abused it; nor could all the insinuations of his father's rivals ever get him to betray what was committed to him under the seal of secrecy. late paper or two, so justly recommended. I was highly pleased with the advantageous situation fortune had given me in placing me so near two gentlemen, from one of which I was sure to hear such reflections on the several incidents of the play, as pure nature suggested, and from the other, such There is hardly any virtue which a lad as flowed from the exactest art and judg might not thus learn by practice and ex-ment: though I must confess that my cuample. I have heard of a good man, who used at certain times to give his scholars sixpence a-piece, that they might tell him the next day how they had employed it. The third part was always to be laid out in charity, and every boy was blamed, or commended, as he could make it appear he had chosen a fit object. riosity led me so much to observe the knight's reflections, that I was not well at leisure to improve myself by yours. Nature, I found, played her part in the knight pretty well, till at the last concluding lines she entirely forsook him. You must know, sir, that it is always my custom, when I have been well entertained at a new tragedy, to make my retreat before the facetious epilogue enters; not but that those pieces are often very well written, but having paid down my half-crown, and made a fair purchase of as much of the pleasing melancholy as the poet's art can afford me, or my own nature admit of, I am willing to carry some of it home with me: and cannot endure to be at once tricked out of all, though by the wittiest dexterity in the world. However, I kept my seat the other night in hopes of finding my own sentiments of the matter favoured by your friends; when, to my great surprise, I found the knight entering with As the subject of this essay is of the equal pleasure into both parts, and as much highest importance, and what I do not re- satisfied with Mrs. Oldfield's gaiety as he member to have yet seen treated by any had been before with Andromache's greatauthor, I have sent you what occurred to ness. Whether this were no more than an me on it from my own observation, or read-effect of the knight's peculiar humanity, ing, and which you may either suppress or publish, as you think fit. I am, sir, yours, In short, nothing is more wanting to our public schools, than that the masters of them should use the same care in fashioning the manners of their scholars, as in forming their tongues to the learned languages. Wherever the former is omitted, I cannot help agreeing with Mr. Locke, that a man must have a very strange value for words, when, preferring the languages of the Greeks and Romans to that which made them such brave men, he can think it worth while to hazard the innocence and virtue of his son for a little Greek and Latin. &c.' No. 338.] Friday, March 28, 1712. -Nil fuit unquam X. Tam dispar sibi. pleased to find at last, that, after all the tragical doings, every thing was safe and well, I do not know; but for my own part, I must confess, I was so dissatisfied, that I was sorry the poet had saved Andromache, and could heartily have wished that he had left her stone-dead upon the stage. For you cannot imagine, Mr. Spectator, the mischief she was reserved to do me. I found my soul, during the action, gradually worked up to the highest pitch, and felt the exalted passion which all generous minds conceive at the sight of virtue in distress. The impression, believe me, sir, was so strong upon me, that I am persuaded, if I had been let alone in it, I could, at an extremity, have ventured to defend yourself and Sir Roger against half a score of the fiercest Mohocks; but the ludicrous epilogue in the close extinguished all my ardour, and made -Ut his exordia primis Omnia, et ipse tener mundi concreverit orbis, Virg. Ecl. v. 33. He sung the secret seeds of nature's frame: How seas, and earth, and air, and active flame, Fell through the, mighty void, and in their fall Were blindly gather'd in this goodly ball. The tender soil then stiff ning by degrees, Shut from the bounded earth the bounding seas, The earth and ocean various forms disclose, And a new sun to the new world arose.-Dryden. LONGINUS has observed that there may be a loftiness in sentiments where there is no passion, and brings instances out of ancient authors to support this his opinion. The pathetic, as that great critic observes, may animate and inflame the sublime, but is not essential to it. Accordingly, as he further remarks, we very often find that those who excel most in stirring up the passions very often want the talent of writing in the great and sublime manner, and so on the contrary. Milton has shown himself a master in both these ways of writing. The seventh book, which we are now entering upon, is an instance of that sublime which is not mixed and worked up with passion. The author appears in a kind of composed and sedate majesty; and though the sentiments do not give so great an emotion as those in the former book, they abound with as magnificent ideas. sixth book, like a troubled ocean, represents greatness in confusion; the seventh affects the imagination like the ocean in a calm, and fills the mind of the reader, without producing in it any thing like tumult or agitation. me look upon all such noble achievements | signs, instead of a penitential psalm, to disas downright silly and romantic. What the miss his audience with an excellent new rest of the audience felt, I cannot so well ballad of his own composing. Pray, sir, do tell. For myself I must declare, that at the what you can to put a stop to these growing end of the play I found my soul uniform, evils, and you will very much oblige your and all of a piece; but at the end of the humble servant, epilogue it was so jumbled together, and 'PHYSIBULUS.” divided between jest and earnest, that, if you will forgive me an extravagant fancy, I will here set it down. I could not but No. 339.] Saturday, March 29, 1712. fancy, if my soul had at that moment quitted my body, and descended to the poetical shades in the posture it was then in, what a strange figure it would have made among them. They would not have known what to have made of my motley spectre, half comic and half tragic, all over resembling a ridiculous face that at the same time laughs on one side and cries on the other. The only defence, I think, I have ever heard made for this, as it seems to me the most unnatural tack of the comic tail to the tragic head, is this, that the minds of the audience must be refreshed, and gentlemen and ladies not sent away to their own homes with too dismal and melancholy thoughts about them: for who knows the consequence of this? We are much obliged, indeed, to the poets, for the great tenderness they express for the safety of our persons, and heartily thank them for it. But if that be all, pray, good sir, assure them, that we are none of us like to come to any great harm; and that, let them do their best, we shall in all proba bility live out the length of our days, and frequent the theatres more than ever. What makes me more desirous to have some information of this matter is, because of an ill consequence or two attending it: for a great many of our church musicians being related to the theatre, they have, in imitation of these epilogues, introduced, in their farewell voluntaries, a sort of music quite foreign to the design of church-services, to the great prejudice of well-disposed people. Those fingering gentlemen should be informed, that they ought to suit their airs to the place and business, and that the musician is obliged to keep to the text as much as the preacher. For want of this, I have found by experience a great deal of mischief. When the preacher has often, with great piety, and art enough, handled his subject, and the judicions clerk has with the utmost diligence culled out two staves proper to the discourse, and I have found in myself and the rest of the pew, good thoughts and dispositions, they have been, all in a moment, dissipated by a merry jig from the organ-loft. One knows not what further ill effects the epilogues I have been speaking of may in time produce: but this I am credibly informed of, that Paul Lor-lighted up by Homer. rain* has resolved upon a very sudden reformation in his tragical dramas; and that, at the next monthly performance, he de The The critic above-mentioned, among the rules which he lays down for succeeding in the sublime way of writing, proposes to his reader, that he should imitate the most celebrated authors who have gone before him, and have been engaged in works of the same nature; as in particular that, if he writes on poetical subjects, he should consider how Homer would have spoken on such an occasion. By this means one great genius often catches the flame from another, and writes in his spirit, without copying servilely after him. There are a thousand shining passages in Virgil, which have been Milton, though his own natural strength of genius was capable of furnishing out a perfect work, has doubtless very much raised and ennobled his conceptions by such an imitation as that which Longinus has recommended. |