NO. 591. WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 1714.

Tenerorum lusor amorum.

OVID. Trist. Eleg. 3. 1. iii. ver. 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 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 mis

tress'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 has 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 great 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 overneat, 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.*

NO. 592. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 1714.

Studium sine divite vena.

Art without a vein.

HOR. Ars Poet. ver. 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, which is much more

* These verses were written by Gilbert, second brother of Eustace Budgell

+ Mr. Dennis's new and approved method of making thunder. Dennis had contrived this thunder for the advantage of his trage. dy of Appius and Virginia; the players highly approved of it, and it is the same that is used at the present day. Notwithstanding the effect of this thunder, however, the play was coldly received, and laid aside. Some nights after, Dennis being in the pit at the representation of Macbeth, and hearing the thunder inade use of, arose from his seat in a violent passion, exclaiming with an oath, that that was his thunder. "See, (said he) how these rascals use me: they will not let my play run, and yet they steal my thunder."

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 would never give them more than one night's hearing.

I have a great esteem for a true critic, such as Aristotle and Longinus among the Greeks; Horace and Quintilian among the Romans; Boileau and Dacier among the French. But it is our misfortune, that some, who set up for professed critics among us, are so stupid, that they do not know how to put ten words together with elegance or common propriety; and withal so illiterate, that they have no taste of the learned languages, and therefore criticise upon old authors only at second hand. They judge of them by what others have written, and not by any notions they have of the authors themselves. The words unity, action, sentiment, and diction, pronounced with an air of authority, give them a figure among unlearned readers, who are apt to believe they are very deep, because they are unintelligible. The ancient critics are full of the praises of their contemporaries; they discover beauties which escaped the observation of the vulgar, and very often find out reasons for palliating and excusing such little slips and over-sights as were committed in the writings of eminent authors. On the contrary, most of the smatterers in criticism, who appear among us, make it their business to vilify and depreciate every new production that gains applause, to descry imaginary blemishes, and to prove, by far-fetched arguments, that what pass for beauties in any celebrated piece are faults and errors. In short, the writings of these critics, compared with those of the ancients, are like the works of the sophists compared with those of the old philosophers.

Envy and cavil are the natural fruits of laziness and ignorance; which was probably the reason that, in the heathen mythology, Momus is said to be the son of Nox and Somnus, of darkness and sleep. Idle men, who have not been at the pains to accomplish or distinguish themselves, are very apt to detract from others; as ignorant men are very subject to deery those beauties in a celebrated work which they have not eyes to discover. Many of our sons of Momus, who dignify themselves by the name of critics, are the genuine descendants of these two illustrious ancestors. They are often led into those numerous absurdities in which they daily instruct the people, by not considering that, first, there is sometimes a greater judgment shewn in deviating from the rules of art than in adhering to them; and, 2dly, that there is more beauty in the works of a great genius, who is ignorant of all the rules of art, than in the works of a little genius, who not only knows but scrupulously observes them.

First, we may often take notice of men who are perfectly acquainted with all the rules of good writing, and notwithstanding choose to depart from them on extraordinary occasions. I could give instances out of all the tragic writers of antiquity who have shewn their judgment in this particular; and purposely receded from an established rule of the drama, when it has made way for a much higher beauty than the observation of such a rule would have been. Those who have surveyed the noblest pieces of architecture and statuary, both ancient and modern, know very well that there are frequent deviations from art in the works of the greatest masters, which