Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB

No. 320.] Friday, March 7, 1711-12.
-non pronuba Juno,

Non Hymenæus adest, non illi gratia lecto:
Eumenides stravere torum-

Ovid. Met. Lib. 6. 428.

Nor Hymen, nor the Graces here preside,
Nor Juno to befriend the blooming bride;
But fiends with fun'ral brands the process led,
And furies waited at the genial bed-Crozal.

riages have as constant and regular a correspondence as the funeral-men have with vintners and apothecaries. All bachelors are under their immediate inspection: and my friend produced to me a report given in to their board, wherein an old uncle of mine, who came to town with me, and myself, were inserted, and we stood thus: the uncle smoky, rotten, poor; the nephew raw, but no fool; sound at present, very rich. My information did not end here; but my friend's advices are so good, that he could show me a copy of the letter sent to the young lady who is to have me; which I enclose to you:

"MADAM-This is to let you know that you are to be married to a beau that comes the Park. You cannot but know a virgin fop; out on Thursday, six in the evening. Be at they have a mind to look saucy, but are out of countenance. The board has denied him to several good families. I wish you joy. "CORINNA.'

MR. SPECTATOR, -You have given many hints in your papers to the disadvantage of persons of your own sex, who lay plots upon women. Among other hard words you have published the term "Male Coquettes," and have been very severe upon such as give themselves the liberty of a little dalliance of heart, and playing fast and loose between love and indifference, until perhaps an easy young girl is reduced to sighs, dreams, and tears, and languishes away her life for a careless coxcomb, who looks astonished, and wonders at such an effect from what in him was all but common civility. Thus you have treated the men who are irresolute in marriage; but if What makes my correspondent's case you design to be impartial, pray be so honest the more deplorable is, that, as I find by as to print the information I now give you the report from my censor of marriages, of a certain set of women who never coquet the friend he speaks of is employed by the for the matter, but, with a high hand, inquisition to take him in, as the phrase marry whom they please to whom they is. After all that is told him, he has inforplease. As for my part, I should not have mation only of one woman that is laid for concerned myself with them, but that I him, and that the wrong one; for the lady understand that I am pitched upon by them commissioners have devoted him to another to be married, against my will, to one I than the person against whom they have never saw in my life. It has been my mis- employed their agent his friend to alarm fortune, sir, very innocently, to rejoice in a him. The plot is laid so well about this plentiful fortune, of which I am master, to young gentleman, that he has no friend to bespeak a fine chariot, to give directions retire to, no place to appear in, or part of for two or three handsome snuff-boxes, and the kingdom to fly into, but he must fall as many suits of fine clothes; but before any into the notice, and be subject to the power of these were ready I heard reports of my of the inquisition. They have their emissabeing to be married to two or three differ-ries and substitutes in all parts of this united ent young women. Upon my taking notice kingdom. The first step they usually take, of it to a young gentleman who is often in is to find from a correspondence, by their my company, he told me smiling, I was in messengers and whisperers, with some dothe inquisition. You may believe I was not mestic of the bachelor, (who is to be hunted a little startled at what he meant, and into the toils they have laid for him,) what more so, when he asked me if I had be- are his manners, his familiarities, his good spoke any thing of late that was fine. I qualities, or vices; not as the good in him told him several; upon which he produced is a recommendation, or the ill a diminua description of my person, from the trades- tion, but as they affect to contribute to the men whom I had employed, and told me main inquiry, what estate he has in him. that they had certainly informed against When this point is well reported to the me. Mr. Spectator, whatever the world board, they can take in a wild roaring foxmay think of me, I am more coxcomb than hunter, as easily as a soft, gentle young fop fool, and I grew very inquisitive upon this of the town. The way is to make all places head, not a little pleased with the novelty. uneasy to him, but the scenes in which they My friend told me, there were a certain set have allotted him to act. His brother huntsof women of fashion, whereof the number men, bottle companions, his fraternity of of six made a committee, who sat thrice a fops, shall be brought into the conspiracy week, under the title of "The Inquisition against him. Then this matter is not laid on Maids and Bachelors." It seems, when-in so barefaced a manner before him as to ever there comes such an unthinking gay thing as myself to town, he must want all manner of necessaries, or be put into the inquisition by the first tradesman he employs. They have constant intelligence with cane-shops, perfumers, toy-men, coachmakers, and china-houses. From these several places these undertakers for mar

have it intimated, Mrs. Such-a-one would make him a very proper wife; but by the force of their correspondence, they shall make it (as Mr. Waller said of the marriage of the dwarfs,) as impracticable to have any woman besides her they design him, as it would have been in Adam to have refused Eve. The man named by

the commission for Mrs. Such-a-one shall neither be in fashion, nor dare ever appear in company, should he attempt to evade their determination.

by the arguments of Mr. Slack, out of the senseless stupidity that has so long possessed me. And to demonstrate that penitence accompanies my confessions, and constancy my resolutions, I have locked my door for a year, and desire you would let my companions know I am not within. I am with great respect, sir, your most obedient servant,

T.

'N. B.'

day at a neighbouring coffee-house, where we have what I may call a lazy club. We generally come in night-gowns, with our stockings about our heels, and sometimes The female sex wholly govern domestic but one on. Our salutation at entrance is a life; and by this means, when they think yawn and a stretch, and then without more fit, they can sow dissensions between the ceremony we take our place at the lollingdearest friends, nay, make father and son table, where our discourse is, what I fear irreconcilable enemies, in spite of all the you would not read out, therefore shall not ties of gratitude on one part, and the duty insert. But I assure you, sir, I heartily of protection to be paid on the other. The lament this loss of time, and am now reladies of the inquisition understand this per-solved, (if possible, with double diligence,) fectly well; and where love is not a motive to retrieve it, being effectually awakened to a man's choosing one whom they allot, they can with very much art insinuate stories to the disadvantage of his honesty or courage, until the creature is too much dispirited to bear up against a general ill reception, which he every where meets with, and in due time falls into their appointed wedlock for shelter. I have a long letter bearing date the fourth instant, which gives me a large account of the policies of this court; and find there is now before them a very refractory person who has escaped all their machinations for two No. 321.] Saturday, March 8, 1711-12. years last past; but they have prevented two successive matches which were of his own inclination; the one by a report that his mistress was to be married, and the very day appointed, wedding-clothes bought, and all things ready for her being given to another; the second time by insinuating to all his mistress's friends and acquaintance, that he had been false to several other women, and the like. The poor man is now reduced to profess he designs to lead a single life; but the inquisition give out to all his acquaintance, that nothing is intended but the gentleman's own welfare and happiWhen this is urged, he talks still more humbly, and protests he aims only at a life without pain or reproach; pleasure, honour, and riches, are things for which he has no taste. But notwithstanding all this, and what else he may defend himself with, as that the lady is too old or too young, of a suitable humour, or the quite contrary, and that it is impossible they can ever do other than wrangle from June to January, every body tells him all this is spleen, and he must have a wife; while all the members of the inquisition are unanimous in a certain woman for him, and they think they altogether are better able to judge than he, or any other private person whatsoever.

ness.

Nec satis est pulchra esse poemata, dulcia sunto. Hor. Ars Poet. v. 99. Tis not enough a poem's finely writ; It must affect and captivate the soul.—Roscommon. THOSE who know how many volumes have been written on the poems of Homer and Virgil will easily pardon the length of my discourse upon Milton. The Paradise Lost is looked upon by the best judges, as the greatest production, or at least the noblest work of genius in our language, and therefore deserves to be set before an English reader in its full beauty. For this reason, though I have endeavoured to give a general idea of its graces and imperfections in my first six papers, I thought myself obliged to bestow one upon every book in particular. The first three books I have already despatched, and am now entering upon the fourth. I need not acquaint my reader that there are multitudes of beauties in this great author, especially in the descriptive parts of this poem, which I have not touched upon; it being my inten tion to point out those only which appear to me the most exquisite, or those which are not so obvious to ordinary readers. Every one that has read the critics who have written upon the Odyssey, the Iliad, and the Eneid, knows very well, that 'Temple, March 3, 1711. though they agree in their opinions of the 'SIR,-Your speculation this day on the great beauties in those poems, they have subject of idleness has employed me ever nevertheless each of them discovered sevesince I read it, in sorrowful reflections on ral master-strokes, which have escaped the my having loitered away the term (or rather observation of the rest. In the same manthe vacation) of ten years in this place, and ner, I question not but any writer, who shall unhappily suffered a good chamber and treat of this subject after me may find seve study to lie idle as long. My books (except ral beauties in Milton, which I have not those I have taken to sleep upon,) have taken notice of. I must likewise observe, been totally neglected, and my Lord Coke that as the greatest masters of critical learn and other venerable authors were never so ing differ among one another, as to some slighted in their lives. I spend most of the particular points in an epic poem, I have

not bound myself scrupulously to the rules | forth into a speech that is softened with which any one of them has laid down upon several transient touches of remorse and that art, but have taken the liberty some- self-accusation: but at length he confirms times to join with one, and sometimes with himself in impenitence, and in his design another, and sometimes to differ from all of of drawing man into his own state of guilt them, when I have thought that the reason and misery. This conflict of passions is of the thing was on my side. raised with a great deal of art, as the opening of his speech to the sun is very bold and noble:

'O thou, that with surpassing glory crown'd,
Look'st from thy sole dominion like the god
Of this new world; at whose sight all the stars
Hide their diminish'd heads; to thee I call.
But with no friendly voice; and add thy name,
O sun! to tell thee how I hate thy beams,
That bring to my remembrance from what state
I fell, how glorious once above thy sphere.'

We may conclude the beauties of the fourth book under three heads. In the first are those pictures of still-life, which we meet with in the description of Eden, Paradise, Adam's bower, &c. In the next are the machines, which comprehend the speeches and behaviour of the good and bad angels. In the last is the conduct of Adam and Eve, who are the principal actors in the poem. In the description of Paradise, the poet This speech is, I think, the finest that is has observed Aristotle's rule of lavishing ascribed to Satan in the whole poem. The all the ornaments of diction on the weak evil spirit afterwards proceeds to make his unactive parts of the fable, which are not discoveries concerning cur first parents, supported by the beauty of sentiments and and to learn after what manner they may characters. Accordingly the reader may be best attacked. His bounding over the observe, that the expressions are more walls of Paradise: his sitting in the shape florid and elaborate in these descriptions, of a cormorant upon the tree of life, which than in most other parts of the poem. I stood in the centre of it, and overtopped all must further add, that though the draw- the other trees of the garden; his alighting ings of gardens, rivers, rainbows, and the among the herd of animals, which are so like dead pieces of nature, are justly cen-beautifully represented as playing about sured in an heroic poem, when they run out into an unnecessary length-the description of Paradise would have been faulty, had not the poet been very particular in it, not only as it is the scene of the principal action, but as it is requisite to give us an idea of that happiness from which our first parents fell. The plan of it is wonderfully beautiful, and formed upon the short sketch which we have of it in holy writ. Milton's exuberance of imagination has poured forth such a redundancy of ornaments on this seat of happiness and innocence, that it would be endless to point out each par-shape of vultures. ticular.

I must not quit this head without further observing, that there is scarce a speech of Adam or Eve in the whole poem, wherein the sentiments and allusions are not taken from this their delightful habitation. The reader, during their whole course of action always finds himself in the walks of Paradise. In short, as the critics have remarked, that in those poems wherein shepherds are the actors, the thoughts ought always to take a tincture from the woods, fields, and rivers; so we may observe, that our first parents seldom lose sight of their happy station in any thing they speak or do; and, if the reader will give me leave to use the expression, that their thoughts are always *paradisaical.'

Adam and Eve; together with his transforming himself into different shapes, in order to hear their conversation; are circumstances that give an agreeable surprise to the reader, and are devised with great art, to connect that series of adventures in which the poet has engaged this artificer of fraud.

The thought of Satan's transformation into a cormorant, and placing himself on the tree of life, seems raised upon that passage in the Iliad, where two deities are described as perching on the top of an oak in the

His planting himself at the ear of Eve under the form of a toad, in order to produce vain dreams and imaginations, is a circumstance of the same nature; as his starting up in his own form is wonderfully fine, both in the literal description, and in the moral which is concealed under it. His answer upon his being discovered, and demanded to give an account of himself, is conformable to the pride and intrepidity of of his character:

Know ye not, then,' said Satan, fill'd with scorn,
Know ye not me! Ye knew me once no mate
For you, there sitting where you durst not soar:
Not to know me argues yourselves unknown,
The lowest of your throng———.'

Zephon's rebuke, with the influence it had on Satan, is exquisitely graceful and We are in the next place to consider the moral. Satan is afterwards led away to machines of the fourth book. Satan being Gabriel, the chief of the guardian angels, now within the prospect of Eden, and look-who kept watch in Paradise. His disdainful ing round upon the glories of the creation, behaviour on this occasion is so remarkable is filled with sentiments different from those a beauty, that the most ordinary reader which he discovered whilst he was in hell. cannot but take notice of it. Gabriel's disThe place inspires him with thoughts more covering his approach at a distance is drawn adapted to it. He reflects upon the happy with great strength and liveliness of imagi condition from whence he fell, and breaks nation:

* O friends. I hear the tread of nimble feet
Hasting this way, and now by glimpse discern
Ithuriel and Zephon through the shade.
And with them comes a third of regal port,
But faded splendour wan; who by his gait
And fierce demeanour seems the prince of Hell:
Not likely to part hence without contest;
Stand firm, for in his look defiance low`rs.'

The conference between Gabriel and Satan abounds with sentiments proper for the occasion, and suitable to the persons of the two speakers. Satan clothing himself with terror when he prepares for the combat is truly sublime, and at least equal to Homer's description of Discord, celebrated by Longinus, or to that of Fame in Virgil, who are both represented with their feet standing upon the earth, and their heads reaching above the clouds:

While thus he spake, th' angelic squadron bright
Turn'd fiery red, sharp'ning in mooned horns
Their phalanx, and began to hem him round
With ported spears. &c.

-On th' other side Satan alarm'd,
Collecting all his might, dilated stood
Like Teneriffe, or Atlas, unremoved:

His stature reach'd the sky, and on his crest
Sat Horror plum`d.——

I must here take notice, that Milton is every where full of hints, and sometimes literal translations, taken from the greatest of the Greek and Latin poets. But this I may reserve for a discourse by itself, because I would not break the thread of these speculations, that are designed for English readers, with such reflections as would be of no use but to the learned.

I must, however, observe in this place, that the breaking off the combat between Gabriel and Satan, by the hanging out of the golden scales in heaven, is a refinement upon Homer's thought, who tells us, that before the battle between Hector and Achilles, Jupiter weighed the event of it in a pair of scales. The reader may see the whole passage in the 22d Iliad.

Virgil, before the last decisive combat describes Jupiter in the same manner, as weighing the fates of Turnus and Eneas. Milton, though he fetched this beautiful circumstance from the Iliad and Eneid, does not only insert it as a poetical embellishment, like the author's above-mentioned, but makes an artful use of it for the proper carrying on of his fable, and for the breaking off the combat between the two warriors, who were upon the point of engaging. To this we may further add, that Milton is the more justified in this passage, as we find the same noble allegory in holy writ, where a wicked prince, some few hours before he was assaulted and slain, is said to have been weighed in the scales, and to have been found wanting.'

I must here take notice, under the head of the machines, that Uriel's gliding down to the earth upon a sun-beam, with the poet's device to make him descend, as well in his return to the sun as in his coming from it, is a prettiness that might have been admired in a little fanciful poet, but seems

below the genius of Milton. The descrip-
tion of the host of armed angels walking
their nightly round in Paradise is of another
spirit:

So saying on he led his radiant files,
Dazzling the moon;

as that account of the hymns which our
first parents used to hear them sing in these
their midnight walks is altogether divine,
and inexpressibly amusing to the imagina-
tion.

We are in the last place, to consider the
parts which Adam and Eve act in the fourth
book. The description of them, as they first
appeared to Satan, is exquisitely drawn, and
sufficient to make the fallen angel gaze upon
them with all that astonishment, and those
emotions of envy in which he is represented:
Two of far nobler shape, erect and tall,
God-like erect, with native honour clad
In naked majesty, seem'd lords of all;
And worthy seem'd; for in their looks divine
The image of their glorious maker shone,
Truth, wisdom, sanctitude severe and pure;
Severe, but in true filial freedom plac'd:
For contemplation be and valour form'd.
For softness she and sweet attractive grace;
He for God only, she for God in him.
His fair large front, and eye sublime declar'd
Absolute rule; and hyacinthine locks
Round from his parted forelock manly hung
Clust ring, but not beneath his shoulders broad.
She, as a veil, down to her slender waist
Her unadorned golden tresses wore
Dishevell'd, but in wanton ringlets wav'd.
So pass'd they naked on, nor shunn'd the sight
Of God or angels, for they thought no ill:
So hand in hand they pass'd. the loveliest pair
That ever since in love's embraces inet.

There is a fine spirit of poetry in the lines which follow, wherein they are described as sitting on a bed of flowers by the side of a fountain, amidst a mixed assembly of animals.

The speeches of these two first lovers now equally from passion and sincerity. The professions they make to one another are full of warmth; but at the same time founded on truth. In a word they are the gallantries of Paradise:

-When Adam first of men

*Sole partner and sole part of all these joys,
Dearer thyself than all:

But let us ever praise Him, an extol
His bounty, following our delightful task,

To prune these growing plants, and tend these flow`rs
Which were it toilsome, yet with thee were sweet'
To whom thus Eve reply'd. O thou, for whom
And from whom I was form'd, flesh of thy flesh,
And without whom am to no end, my guide
And head, what thou hast said is just and right.
For we to him indeed all praises owe
And daily thanks; I chiefly, who enjoy
So far the happier lot, enjoying thee.
Pre-eminent by so much ouis, while thou
Like consort to thyself canst no where find. &c.

The remaining part of Eve's speech, in which she gives an account of herself upon her first creation, and the manner in which she was brought to Adam, is, I think, as beautiful a passage as any in Milton, or perhaps in any other poet whatsoever. These passages are all worked off with so much art, that they are capable of pleasing the most delicate reader, without offending the most severe.

That day I of remember, when from sleep,' &c.

A poet of less judgment and invention | is a very good one, if it be true:' but as for than this great author, would have found the following relation, I should be glad were it very difficult to have filled these tender I sure it were false. It is told with such parts of the poem with sentiments proper simplicity, and there are so many artless for a state of innocence; to have described touches of distress in it, that I fear it comes the warmth of love, and the professions of too much from the heart. it, without artifice or hyperbole; to have made the man speak the most endearing 'MR. SPECTATOR,-Some years ago it things without descending from his natural happened that I lived in the same house dignity, and the woman receiving them with a young gentleman of merit, with without departing from the modesty of her whose good qualities I was so much taken,, character: in a word, to adjust the pre- as to make it my endeavour to show as rogatives of wisdom and beauty, and make many as I was able in myself. Familiar each appear to the other in its proper force converse improved general civilities into and loveliness. This mutual subordination an unfeigned passion on both sides. He of the two sexes is wonderfully kept up in watched an opportunity to declare himself the whole poem, as particularly in the to me; and I, who could not expect a man speech of Eve I have before mentioned, of so great an estate as his, received his adand upon the conclusion of it in the follow-dresses in such terms, as gave him no reaing lines:

So spake our general mother, and with eyes
Of conjugal attraction unreprov'd,
And meek surrender, half embracing lean'd
On our first father; half her swelling breast
Naked met his, under the flowing gold
Of her loose tresses hid; he in delight
Both of her beauty and submissive charms
Smil'd with superior love.-

The poet adds, that the devil turned away with envy at the sight of so much happiness.

son to believe I was displeased with them, though I did nothing to make him think me more easy than was decent. His father was a very hard worldly man, and proud; so that there was no reason to believe he would easily be brought to think there was any thing in any woman's person, or character, that could balance the disadvantage of an unequal fortune. In the mean time the son continued his application to me, and omitted no occasion of demonstrating the most disinterested passion imaginable to me; and in plain direct terms offered to marry me privately, and keep it so till he should be so happy as to gain his father's approbation, or become possessed of his estate. I passionately loved him, and you will believe I did not deny such a one what was my interest also to grant. However, I I shall close my reflections upon this was not so young as not to take the precaubook with observing the masterly transition of carrying with me a faithful servant, tion which the poet makes to their evening worship in the following lines:

We have another view of our first parents in their evening discourses, which is full of pleasing images and sentiments suitable to their condition and characters. The speech of Eve in particular, is dressed up in such a soft and natural turn of words and sentiments, as cannot be sufficiently admired.

Thus at their shady lodge arriv'd, both stood,
Both turn'd, and under open sky ador'd

The God that made both sky, air, earth, and heav'n,
Which they beheld, the moon's resplendent globe,
And starry pole: Thou also mad'st the night,
Maker omnipotent, and thou the day,' &c.
Most of the modern heroic poets have
imitated the ancients, in beginning a speech
without premising that the person said thus
or thus; but as it is easy to imitate the an-
cients in the omission of two or three words,
it requires judgment to do it in such a man-
ner as they shall not be missed, and that
the speech may begin naturally without
them. There is a fine instance of this kind
out of Homer, in the twenty-third chapter
of Longinus.
32

L.

[blocks in formation]

who had been also my mother's maid, to be present at the ceremony. When that was over, I demanded a certificate to be signed by the minister, my husband, and the servant I just now spoke of. After our nuptials, we conversed together very familiarly in the same house; but the restraints we were generally under, and the interviews we had being stolen and interrupted, made our behaviour to each other have rather the impatient fondness which is visible in lovers, than the regular and gratified affection, which is to be observed in man and wife. This observation made the father very anxious for his son, and press him to a match he had in his eye for him. To reand conceal the secret of our marriage, lieve my husband from this importunity,

which I had reason to know would not be long in my power in town, it was resolved that I should retire into a remote place in the country, and converse under feigned names by letter. We long continued this way of commerce; and I with my needle, a few books, and reading over and over my husband's letters, passed my time in_a resigned expectation of better days. Be pleased to take notice, that within four months after I left my husband I was deli

« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »