fool what he abounds in. The wise man is happy and shedding their blood for them. Some of them, But however unreasonable and absurd this pas. sion for admiration may appear in such a creature as man, it is not wholly to be discouraged; since it often produces very good effects, not only as it restrains him from doing any thing which is mean I must here observe, that those idolaters who and contemptible, but as it pushes him to actions devote themselves to the Idols 1 am here speaking which are great and glorious. The principle may of, differ very much from all other kind of idolabe defective or faulty, but the consequences it pro-ters. For as others fall out because they worship duces are so good, that for the benefit of mankind different Idols, these idolaters quarrel because they it ought not to be extinguished. worship the same. 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 the two sexes, I believe we shall find this principle of ac-business and ambition of the other is to multiply tion stronger in women than in men. adorers. This humour of an Idol is prettily de The intention, therefore, of the Idol is quite contrary to the wishes of the idolaters; as the one desires to confine the Idol to himself, the whole 1 The passion for praise, which is so very vehe-scribed in a tale of Chaucer. He represents one ment in the fair sex, produces excellent effects in of them sitting at a table with three of her votaries women of sense, who desire to be admired for that about her, who are all of them courting her faonly which deserves admiration: and I think we may vour, and paying their adorations. She smiled observe, without a compliment to them, that many upon one, drank to another, and trod upon the of them do not only live in a more uniform course other's foot which was under the table. Now which of virtue, but with an infinitely greater regard to of these three, says the old bard, do you think was their honour, than what we find in the generality [the favourite? In troth, says he, not one of all the of our own sex. How many instances have we of three. chastity, fidelity, devotion? How many ladies dis- The behaviour of this old Idol in Chaucer puts tinguish themselves by the education of their chil-me in mind of the beautiful Clarinda, one of the dren, care of their families, and love of their hus-greatest Idols among the moderns. She is worbands, which are the great qualities and achieve-shipped once a week by candle-light, in the midst ments of womankind! as the making of war, the of a large congregation, generally called an assemcarrying on of traffic, the administration of jus- bly. Some of the gayest youths in the nation entice, are those by which men grow famous, and get deavour to plant themselves in her eye, while she themselves a name. sits in form with multitudes of tapers burning about But as this passion for admiration, when it works her. To encourage the zeal of her idolaters, she according to reason, improves the beautiful part of bestows a mark of her favour upon every one of our species in every thing that is laudable; so no-them, before they go out of her presence. She thing is more destructive to them when it is go-asks a question of one, tells a story to another, verned by vanity and folly. What I have there- glances an ogle upon a third, takes a pinch of snuff fore here to say, only regards the vain part of the from the fourth, lets her fan drop by accident to sex, whom, for certain reasons, which the reader give the fifth an occasion of taking it up. In will hereafter see at large, 1 shall distinguish short every one goes away satisfied with his sucby the name of Idols. An Idol is wholly taken cess, and encouraged to renew his devotions on the up in the adorning of her person. You see in same canonical hour that day sevennight. every posture of her body, air of her face, and An Idol may be undeified by many accidental motion of her head, that it is her business and em-causes. Marriage in particular is a kind of counployment to gain adorers. For this reason your ter-apotheosis, or a deification inverted. When a idols appear in all public places and assemblies, man becomes familiar with his goddess, she quickin order to seduce men to their worship, The ly sinks into a woman. playhouse is very frequently filled with Idols; several of them are carried in procession every evening about the ring, and several of them set up their worship even in churches. They are to be accosted in the language proper to the Deity. Life and death are in their power: joys of heaven, and pains of hell, are at their disposal: paradise is in their arms, and eternity in every moment that you are present with them. Raptures, I must return to the moral of this paper, and detransports, and ecstacies, are the rewards which sire my fair readers to give a proper direction to they confer: sighs, and tears, prayers and broken their passion for being admired; in order to which, hearts, are the offerings which are paid to them they must endeavour to make themselves the ob Their smiles make men happy; their frowns drive jects of a reasonable and lasting admiration. This them to despair. I shall only add under this head, is not to be hoped for, from beauty, or dress, or that Ovid's book of the Art of Love is a kind of fashion, but from those inward ornaments which heathen ritual, which contains all the forms of wor-are not to be defaced by time or sickness, and ship which are made use of to an Idol. which appear most amiable to those who are most acquainted with them. Old age is likewise a great decayer of your Idol. The truth of it is, there is not a more unhappy being than a superannuated Idol, especially when she has contracted such airs and behaviour as are only graceful when her worshippers are about her. Considering, therefore, that in these and many other cases the woman generally outlives the Idol, ADDISON. C. It would be as difficult a task to reckon up these different kinds of Idols, as Milton's was to number those that were known in Canaan, and the lands adjoining. Most of them are worshipped, like Moloch, in fires and flames. Some of them, like Baal, love to see their votaries cut and slashed, No 74. FRIDAY, MAY 25, 1711. Pendent opera interrupia VIRG. En. iv. 88. 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 warmed 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 Lase 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 The child may rue that is unborn This way of considering the misfortunes which this attle would bring upon posterity, not only on those ho were born immediately after the battle, and ost their fathers in it, but on those also who peshed in future battles which took their rise from bis quarrel of the two earls, is wonderfully beauJul, and conformable to the way of thinking mong the ancient poets. *Audiet pugnas vitio parentum Rara juventus. Is my last Monday's paper I gave some general instances of those beautiful strokes which please the reader in the old song of Chevy-Chase; 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 Eneid; not that I would infer from thence, that the poet (whoever he was) proposed The country of the Scotch warriors, described in to himself any imitation of those passages, but that these two last verses, has a fine romantic situation, he was directed to them in general by the same and affords a couple of smooth words for verse. If kind of poetical genius, and by the same copyings the reader compares the foregoing six lines of the after nature. how much they are written in the spirit of Virgil ; song with the following Latin verses, he will see HOR. 1 Od. Posterity, thinn'd by their father's crimes, Shall read with grief the story of their times.' 23. 'The stout Earl of Northumberland No. 70. "The hounds ran swiftly through the woods And with their cries the hills and dales "Vocat ingenti clamore Citharon, 'Citharon loudly calls me to my way; 'Lo, yonder doth Earl Douglas come, 'All men of pleasant Tividale, Adversi campo apparent, hastasque reductis En. xi. 605. vii. 682, 712. Advancing in a line, they couch their spears- DRYDEN. But to proceed: "With that there came an arrow keen That can be more sounding and poetical, or re. ts, than the following stanzas? unknown hand in the midst of a parley. 89 Thus, while he spake, unmindful of defence, N But of all the descriptive parts of this song, there, viour of those women who had lost their husbands are none more beautiful than the four following on this fatal day? stanzas, which have a great force and spirit in them, and are filled with very natural circumstances. The thought in the third stanza was never touched by any other poet, and is such an one as would have shined in Homer or in Virgil: "So thus did both these nobles die, 'He had a bow bent in his hand, Against Sir Hugh Montgomery This fight did last from break of day One may observe, likewise, that in the catalogue of the slain, the author has followed the example of the great ancient poets, not only in giving a long list of the dead, but by diversifying it with little characters of particular persons. And with Earl Douglas there was slain Sir Charles Carrel, that from the field 'Sir Charles Murrel of Ratcliff too, Sir David Lamb, so well esteem'd, The familiar sound in these names destroys the majesty of the description; for this reason I do not mention this part of the poem but to show the natural cast of thought which appears in it, as the two last verses look almost like a translation of Virgil. Cadit et Ripheus justissimus unus Then Ripheus fell in the unequal fight, Just of his word, observant of the right: Heav'n thought not so." CREECH. IT is with some mortification that I suffered the raillery of a fine lady of my acquaintance, for calling, in one of my papers, Dorimant a clown. She was so unmerciful as to take advantage of my invincible taciturnity, and on that occasion with great freedom to consider the air, the height, the face, the gesture, of him who could pretend to judge so arrogantly of gallantry. She is full of motion, janty and lively in her impertinence, and one of those that commonly pass, among the ignorant, for persons who have a great deal of humour. She had the play of Sir Fopling in her hand, and Wither-after she had said it was happy for her there was not so charming a creature as Dorimant now liv. DRYDEN. • In the catalogue of the English who fell, DRYDEN. What can be more natural, or more moving, than the circumstances in which he describes the beha 'Next day did many widows come They wash'd their wounds in brinish tears, 'Their bodies bath'd in purple blood, Thus we see how the thoughts of this poem, which If this song had been written in the Gothic man- ADDISON. C. N° 75. SATURDAY, MAY 26, 1711. Omnis Aristippum decuit color, et status, et res. · HOR, 1 Ep. xvii. 23. 'In love the victors from the vanquish'd fly; Then turning over the leaves, she reads alternately, And you and Loveit to her cost shall find Ch the fine gentleman! But here, continues she, I Transform myself to what you love." * No. 65. Then how like a man of the town, so wild and gay beauty: by a thorough contempt of little excel is that! lencies, he is perfectly master of them. This temper of mind leaves him under no necessity of studying his air, and he has this peculiar distinction, that his negligence is unaffected. considering this being as an uncertain one, and He that can work himself into a pleasure in think to reap an advantage by its discontinuance, is in a fair way of doing all things with a graceful unconcern, and a gentleman-like ease. Such a one does not behold his life as a short, transient, perplexing state, made up of trifling pleasures and great anxieties; but sees it in quite another light; It would have been a very wild endeavour for a man of my temper to offer any opposition to so nimble a speaker as my fair enemy is; but her discourse gave me very many reflections, when I had left her company. Among others, I could not but consider with some attention, the false impressions the generality (the fair sex more especially) have of what should be intended, when they say a fine gentleman; and could not help revolving his griefs are momentary, and his joys immortal. that subject in my thoughts, and settling, as it were, Reflection upon death is not a gloomy and sad an idea of that character in my own imagination. thought of resigning every thing that he delights No man ought to have the esteem of the rest of in, but it is a short night followed by an endless the world, for any actions which are disagreeable day. What I would here contend for is, that the to those maxims which prevail, as the standards of more virtuous the man is, the nearer he will natu behaviour in the country wherein he lives. What rally be to the character of genteel and agreeable. is opposite to the eternal rules of reason and good A man whose fortune is plentiful, shows an ease sense must be excluded from any place in the car in his countenance, and confidence in his behariage of a well-bred man. I did not, I confess, viour, which he that is under wants and difficulties explain myself enough on this subject, when I cannot assume. It is thus with the state of the called Dorimant a clown, and made it an instance mind; he that governs his thoughts with the everof it, that he called the orange-wench Double lasting rules of reason and sense, must have someTripe: I should have shown, that humanity obliges thing so inexpressibly graceful in his words and a gentleman to give no part of humankind re-actions, that every circumstance must become him. proach, for what they, whom they reproach, may The change of persons or things around him does possibly have in common with the most virtuous not at all alter his situation, but he looks disinand worthy amongst us. When a gentleman speaks terested in the occurrences with which others are coarsely, he has dressed himself clean to no pur- distracted, because the greatest purpose of his life pose. The clothing of our minds certainly ought is to maintain an indifference both to it and all its to be regarded before that of our bodies. To be-enjoyments. In a word, to be a fine gentleman, tray in a man's talk a corrupt imagination, is a is to be a generous and a brave man. much greater offence against the conversation of make a man so much in constant good humour, What can gentlemen, than any negligence of dress imagin- and shine, as we call it, as to be supported by able. But this sense of the matter is so far from what can never fail him, and to believe that whatbeing received among people even of condition, ever happens to him was the best thing that could that Vocifer passes for a fine gentleman. He is possibly befal him, or else He on whom it depends, loud, haughty, gentle, soft, lewd, and obsequious would not have permitted it to have befallen him by turns, just as a little understanding and great at all! impudence prompt him at the present moment. He passes among the silly part of our women for a man of wit, because he is generally in doubt. He contradicts with a shrug, and confutes with a certain sufficiency, in professing such and such a thing is above his capacity. What makes his character the pleasanter is, that he is a professed deluder of women; and because the empty coxcomb has no regard to any thing that is of itself sacred and inviolable, I have heard an unmarried lady of fortune'say, It is pity so fine a gentleman as Vocifer THERE is nothing so common as to find a man 15 so great an atheist. The crowds of such incon- whom in the general observation of his carriage siderable creatures, that infest all places of assem- you take to be of an uniform temper, subject to bling, every reader will have in his eye from his such unaccountable starts of humour and passion, own observation; but would it not be worth con- that he is as much unlike himself, and differs as sidering what sort of a figure a man who formed much from the man you at first thought him, as himself upon those principles among us, which are any two distinct persons can differ from each other. agreeable to the dictates of honour and religion, This proceeds from the want of forming some law would make in the familiar and ordinary occur of life to ourselves, or fixing some notion of things in general, which may affect us in such STEELE. R. rences of life? manner I hardly have observed any one fill his several as to create proper habits both in our minds and uties of life better than Ignotus. All the under bodies. The negligence of this, leaves us exposed parts of his behaviour, and such as are exposed to not only to an unbecoming levity in our usual concommon observation, have their rise in him from versation, but also to the same instability in our Ereat and noble motives. A firm and unshaken friendships, interests, and alliances. A man who Expectation of another life makes him become is but a mere Spectator of what passes around him, this; humanity and good-nature, fortified by the and not engaged in commerces of any considerathe neglect of all goodness has upon many others. the heart of man, and by what degrees it is actusense of virtue, has the same effect upon him, as tion, is but an ill judge of the secret motiens of Being firmly established in all matters of import-ated to make such visible alterations in the same actions look easy, appears in him with greater way concerned in the effect of such inconsistencies. actions at certain inattention which makes men's person: but at the same time, when a man is no 'The wise will find a difference in our fate, N° 76. MONDAY, MAY 28, 1711. Ut tu fortunam, sic nos te, Celse feremus. in the behaviour of men of the world, the specula-friends, and acquaintance. He was come to that STEELE. N° 77. TUESDAY, MAY 29, 1711. Non convivere licet, nec urbe tota What correspondence can I hold with you, His majesty having thus well chosen and bought a friend and companion, he enjoyed alternately all the pleasures of an agreeable private man, and a great and powerful monarch. He gave himself, with his companion, the name of the Merry Tyrant; for he punished his courtiers for their insolence and folly, not by any act of public disfa vour, but by humorously practising upon their imaginations. If he observed a man untractable to My friend Will Honeycomb is one of those sort of wh his inferiors, he would find an opportunity to take A little before our club-time last night, we were some favourable notice of him, and render him walking together in Somerset-garden, where Will insupportable. He knew all his own looks, words, had picked up a small pebble of so odd a make : and actions had their interpretations; and his friend that he said he would present it to a friend of his, Monsieur Eucrate (for so he was called) having a an eminent virtuoso. After we had walked some great soul without ambition, he could communicate time, I made a full stop with my face towards the all his thoughts to him, and fear no artful use would west, which Will knowing to be my usual method be made of that freedom. It was no small de- of asking what's o'clock, in an afternoon, immelight when they were in private, to reflect upon diately pulled out his watch, and told me we had all which had passed in public. seven minutes good. We took a turn or two more, Pharamond would often, to satisfy a vain fool when to my great surprise, I saw him squir away of power in his country, talk to him in a full court, and with one whisper make him despise all his old See Nos. 84 and 97. The me xl |