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in adoration! It is indeed a thought too big for the mind of man, and rather to be entertained in the secrecy of devotion, and in the silence of the soul, than to be expressed by words. The Supreme Being has not given us powers of faculties sufficient to extol and magnify such unutterable goodness.

'It is however some comfort to us, that we shall be always doing what we shall be never able to do, and that a work which cannot be finished will however be the work of an eternity.

Mr. Tickell, Dr. Birch, Dr. Johnson, and all his biographers, take notice of Addison's original design of entering into holy orders; it is therefore very probable, that this paper, and many others of the same serious nature, were written in some shape or other long before these publications in the Spectator, &c.

No. 591. WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 1714.

-Tenerorum lusor amorum.

OVID Trist. 3 El. iii. 73.

Love the soft subject of his sportive muse.

I HAVE just received a letter from a gentleman who tells me he has observed, with no small concern, that my papers have of late been very barren in relation to love; a subject which, when agreeably handled, can scarce fail of being well received by both sexes.

If my invention therefore should be almost exhausted on this head, he offers to serve under me in the quality of a love-casuist: for which place he conceives himself to be thoroughly qualified, having made this passion his principal study, and observed

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it in all its different shapes and appearances, from the fifteenth to the forty-fifth year of his age.

He assures me with an air of confidence, which I hope proceeds from his real abilities, that he does not doubt of giving judgment to the satisfaction of the parties concerned on the most nice and intricate cases which can happen in an amour; as,

How great the contraction of the fingers must be before it amounts to a squeeze by the hand.

What can be properly termed an absolute denial from a maid, and what from a widow.

What advances a lover may presume to make, after having received a pat upon his shoulder from his mistress's fan.

Whether a lady, at the first interview, may allow an humble servant to kiss her hand.

How far it may be permitted to caress the maid in order to succeed with the mistress.

What constructions a man may put upon a smile, and in what cases a frown goes for nothing.

On what occasions a sheepish look may do service, &c.

As a farther proof of his skill, he also sent me several maxims in love, which he assures me are the result of a long and profound reflection, some of which I think myself obliged to communicate to the public, not remembering to have seen them before in any author.

'There are more calamities in the world arising from love than from hatred.

'Love is the daughter of Idleness, but the mother of Disquietude.

'Men of grave natures, says sir Francis Bacon, are the most constant; for the same reason men should be more constant than women.

'The gay part of mankind is most amorous, the serious most loving.

'A coquette often loses her reputation while she preserves her virtue.

A prude often preserves her reputation when she has lost her virtue.

'Love refines a man's behaviour, but makes a woman's ridiculous.

'Love is generally accompanied with good-will in the young, interest in the middle-aged, and a passion too gross to name in the old.

The endeavours to revive a decaying passion generally extinguish the remains of it.

'A woman who from being a slattern becomes over-neat, or from being over-neat becomes a slattern, is most certainly in love.'

I shall make use of this gentleman's skill as I see occasion; and, since I am got upon the subject of love, shall conclude this paper with a copy of verses which were lately sent me by an unknown hand, as I look upon them to be above the ordinary run of

sonneteers.

The author tells me they were written in one of his despairing fits; and I find entertains some hope that his mistress may pity such a passion as he has described, before she knows that she is herself Corinna.

'Conceal, fond man, conceal the mighty smart,
Nor tell Corinna she has fir'd thy heart.
In vain would'st thou complain, in vain pretend
To ask a pity which she must not lend.
She's too much thy superior to comply,
And too, too fair to let thy passion die.
Languish in secret, and with dumb surprise
Drink the resistless glances of her eyes.
At awful distance entertain thy grief,
Be still in pain, but never ask relief.

Ne'er tempt her scorn of thy consuming state,
Be any way undone, but fly her hate.

Thou must submit to see thy charmer bless
Some happier youth that shall admire her less;
Who in that lovely form, that heav'nly mind,
Shall miss ten thousand beauties thou could'st find.
Who with low fancy shall approach her charms,
While, half enjoy'd, she sinks into his arms.
She knows not, must not know, thy nobler fire,
Whom she, and whom the muses do inspire;
Her image only shall thy breast employ,
And fill thy captive soul with shades of joy;
Direct thy dreams by night, thy thoughts by day,
And never, never from thy bosom stray.'

d

No. 592. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 1714.

-Studium sine divite vena,

Art without a vein.

HOR. Ars Poot. 409.

ROSCOMMON.

I LOOK upon the playhouse as a world within itself. They have lately furnished the middle region of it with a new set of meteors, in order to give the sublime to many modern tragedies. I was there last winter at the first rehearsal of the new thunder,

a The author of these verses was Gilbert, the second brother of Eustace Budgell, esq. See Shiells' Lives of English Poets, &c., vol. v. p. 15.

The father of these two gentlemen was Gilbert Budgell, D. D., their mother Mary was only daughter of Dr. William Gulston, Bishop of Bristol, whose sister Jane married Dean Addison, and was the mother of Mr. Joseph Addison. This paper, No. 591, might be written by Mr. G. Budgell, or his brother Eustace, for it is said that this whale volume was published by him and his kinsman Addison, without the concurrence of Steele. E. Budgell's papers, up to No. 555, of the Spect. are lettered X, as he is said to have marked his linen; and in the Guardian they are distinguished by an asterisk.

Apparently an allusion to Mr. Dennis's new and improved method of making thunder; at whom several oblique strokes in this paper seem

which is much more deep and sonorous than any hitherto made use of. They have a Salmoneus behind the scenes, who plays it off with great success. Their lightnings are made to flash more briskly than heretofore; their clouds are also better furbelowed, and more voluminous; not to mention a violent storm locked up in a great chest that is designed for the tempest. They are also provided with above a dozen showers of snow, which, as I am informed, are the plays of many unsuccessful poets artificially cut and shredded for that use. Mr. Rymer's Edgar is to fall in snow at the next acting of King Lear, in order to heighten, or rather to alleviate, the distress of that unfortunate prince; and to serve by way of decoration to a piece which that great critic has written against.

I do not indeed wonder that the actors should be such professed enemies to those among our nation who are commonly known by the name of critics, since it is a rule among these gentlemen to fall upon a play, not because it is ill written, but because it takes. Several of them lay it down as a maxim, that whatever dramatic performance has a long run must of necessity be good for nothing: as though the first precept in poetry were 'not to please.' Whether this rule holds good or not, I shall leave to the determination of those who are better judges than myself; if it does, I am sure it tends very much to the honour of those gentlemen who have established it; few of their pieces having been disgraced by a run of three days, and most of them being so exquisitely written, that the town

to have been aimed. See Tat. with notes, vol. v. p. 374; additional notes, &c. and vol. i. p. 406, notes.

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