above that which I call the gothic manner in wri. ting, than this, that the first pleases all kinds of palates, and the latter only fuch as have formed to themselves a wrong artificial taste upon little fanciful authors and writers of epigrams. Homer, Virgil, or Milton, so far as the language of their poems is understood, will please a reader of plain common sense, who would neither relish nor comprehend an epigram of Martial, or a poem of Cowley; fo, on the contrary, an ordinary fong or ballad that is the delight of the common people, cannot fail to please all such readers as are not unqualified for the entertainment by their affectation or ignorance; and the reason is plain, because the fame paintings of nature which recommend it to the most ordinary reader, will appear beautiful to the most refined.

The old song of Chevy-Chase is the favourite ballad of the common people of England; and Ben Jonson used to say he had rather have been the author of it than of all his works. Sir Philip Sidney, in his discourse of poetry, speaks of it in the following words: 'I never heard the old fong

of Piercy and Douglas, that I found not my ' heart more moved than with a trumpet: and yet it is fung by fome blind crowder with no rougher voice than rude stile; which being fo evil apparelled in the dust and cobweb of that uncivil age, what would it work trimmed in the gorgeous eloquence of Pindar? For my own part I am so professed an admirer of this antiquated fong, that I shall give my reader a critique upon it, without any further apology for so doing.

The greatest modern critics have laid it down as a rule, that an hereie poem should be founded upon some important precept of morality, adapted to the constitution of the country in which the poet writes. Homer and Virgil have formed their plans in this view, As Greece was a collection of many governments, who suffered very much among themselves, and gave the Persian emperor, who was their common enemy, many advantages over them by their mutual jealoufies and animofities, Homer, in order to establish among them an union, which was so necessary for their safety, grounds his poem upon the discords of the several Grecian princes who were engaged in a confederacy against an Afiatic prince, and the several advantages which the enemy gained by such their difcords. At the time the poem we are now treating of was written, the dissentions of the barons, who were then so many petty princes, ran very high, whether they quarrelled among themselves, or with their neighbours, and produced unspeakable calamities to the country: the poet, to deter men from such unnatural contentions, describes a bloody battle and dreadful scene of death, occafioned by the mutual feuds which reigned in the families of an English and Scotch nobleman, That he designed this for the inftruction of his poem, we may learn from his four last lines, in which, after the example of the modern tragedians, he draws from it a precept for the benefit of his readers.

God fave the king, and bless the land
'In plenty, joy, and peace;
And grant henceforth that foul debate
''Twixt noblemen may ceafe.'

of Greece; and for this reason Valerius Fluccas and Statius, who were both Romans, might be justly derided for having chofen the expedition of the Golden Fleece, and the Wars of Thebes, for the fubjects of their epic writings.

The next point observed by the greatest heroic poets, hath been to celebrate persons and actions which do honour to their country: thus Virgil's、 hero was the founderof Rome; Homer's a prince

The poet before us has not only found out an hero in his own country, but raises the reputation of it by several beautiful incidents. The English are the first who take the field, and the last who quit it. The English bring only fifteen hundred to the battle; the Scotch, two thousand. The English keep the field with fifty-three; the Scotch retire with fifty-five: all the rest on each fide being slain in battle. But the most remarkable circumstance of this kind, is the different manner in which the Scotch and English kings receive the news of this fight, and of the great mens deaths who commanded in it.

This news was brought to Edinburgh,
Where Scotland's king did reign,
That brave earl Douglas fuddenly
Was with an arrow flain.

'O heavy news, king James did say;
'Scotland can witness be,
'I have not any captain more

'Of fuch account as he.

'Like tidings to King Henry came
'Within as short a space,
That Piercy of Northumberland

Was flain in Chevy-Chase.

Now God be with him, faid our king,
'Sith 'twill no better be,
'I trust I have within my realm
Five hundred as good as he.

Yet shall not Scot nor Scotland say
But I will vengeance take,
And be revenged on them all

For brave lord Piercy's fake.
This vow full well the king perform'd
'After on Humble-down,
In one day fifty knights were flain,
'With lords of great renown.

And of the rest of fsmall account

Did many thousands die, &c.'

At the same time that our poet shews a laudable
partiality to his countrymen, he represents the
Scots after a manner not unbecoming so bold and
brave a people.

Earl Douglas on a milk-white steed,
Most like a baron bold,
Rode foremost of the company,

Whose armour shone like gold."

His sentiments and actions are every way fuitable
to an hero. One of us two, says he, must die: I
am an earl as well as yourself, so that you can
have no pretence for refusing the combat: how-
ever, says he, 'tis pity, and indeed would be a
fin, that so many innocent men should perish for
our fakes; rather let you and I end our quarrel
in single fight.

'Ere thus I will out-braved be,
'One of us two shall die;

I know thee well, an earl thou art,
Lord Piercy, so am I.-

But trust me, Piercy, pity it were,
And great offerce, to kill
Any of these our harmless men,
For they have done no ill,

Let

• Let thou and I the battle try,
And fet our men afide;
Accurst he he, Lord Piercy faid,
By whom this is deny'd.

When these brave men had diftinguished themselves in the battle, and in fingle combat with each other, in the midit of a generous parley, full of heroic fentiments, the Scotch earl falls; and with his dying words encourages his men to revenge his death, reprefenting to them, as the most better circumftance of it, that his rival faw him

fali.

• With that there came an arrow keen Out of an English bow,

• Which struck earl Douglas to the heart
A deep and deadly blow.

Who never spoke more words than these,
Fight on my merry men all,
For why, my life is at an end,
Lord Piercy fees my fail.'

Merry Men in the language of those times, is no
more than a chearful word for companions and
fellow-foldiers. A passage in the eleventh book
of Virgil's Æneids is very much to be admired,
where Camila in her last agonies, instead of
weeping over the wound the had received, as one
might have expected from a warrior of her fex,
c nûders only, like the hero of whom we are now
fpeaking, how the battle thould be continued after

her death..

O Christ! my very heart doth bleed
'With forrow for thy fake;
For fure a more renowned knight
'Mifchance did never take.'

That beautiful line, Taking the dead man by the
hand, will put the reader in mind of Æneas's be-
haviour towards Lausus, whom he himself had
flain as he came to the refcus of his aged father.
At verò ut vultum vidit morientis, & ora,
Ora modis Anchifiades pallentia miris;
Ingemuit, miforans graviter, dextramque tetendit.
ÆN. X. 822.

The pious prince beheld young Lausus dead;
He griev'd, he wept; then grasp'd his hand and
faid, &c.
DRYDEN.

I shall take another opportunity to confider the other parts of this old fong.

THE intire conquest of our passions is fo diffiT cult a work, that they who defpair of it should think of a less difficult task, and only attempt to regulate them. But there is a third thing which may contribute not only to the ease, but also to the pleasure of our life; and that is refining our pations to a greater elegance, than we receive them from nature. When the passion is love, this work is performed in innocent, though rude and uncultivated minds, by the mere force and dignity of the object. There are forms which naturally create respect in the beholders, and at > once inflame and chastise the imagination. Such an impression as this gives an immediate ambition to deserve, in order to please. This caufe and effect are beautifully described by Mr. Dryden in the fable of Cimon and Iphigenia. After he has reprefented Cimon so stupid, that

'He whistled as he went, for want of thought'

he mastes him fall into the following scene, and shews its influence upon him so excellently, that it appears as natural as wonderful.

It happen'd on a fummer's holiday That to the greenwood-shade he took his way; His quarter-taff, which he cou'd ne'er forfake, 'Hung half before, and half behind his back. 'He trudg'd along unknowing what he fought, 'And whistied as he went, for want of thought. By chance conducted, or by thirst constrain'd, The deep recesses of the grove he gain'd; Where in a plan, defended by the wood, Crept thro' the matted grafs a crystal flood, By which an alabaster fountain stood: 'And on the margin of the fount was laid, '(Attended by her slaves) a sleeping maid, Like Dian, and her nymphs, when, tir'd with sport,

To rest by cool Eurotas they refort:

Earl Fiercy's lamentation over his enemy is ge- The dame herself the goddess well express'd,

nerous, beautiful, and paGonate; I must only
caution the reader not to let the fimpliciry of the
ftile, w' ich one may well pardon in so old a po-
et, prejudice him against the greatness of the
thought.

Then leaving life, earl Piercy took
''The dead man by the hand.
And faid, earl Douglas, for thy life
Would I had lost my land.

'Not more diftinguish'd by her purple vest,
Than by the charming features of her face,
And ev'n in lumber a fuperior grace:
Here comely limbs compos'd with decent

care,

Her body shaded with a flight cymarr;
Her bofom to the view was only bare:

}

The

The fanning wind upon her bosom blows,
To meet the fanning wind the bofom rose:
The fanning wind and purling streams con-

tinue her repofe.

}

The fool of nature stood with stupid eyes
And gaping mouth, that testify'd furprize,
'Fix'd on her face, nor could remove his fight,
New as he was to love, and novice in delight:
Long mute he stood, and leaning on his staff,
His wonder witness'd with an idiot laugh;
Then would have spoke, but by his glimm'ring

< fenfe

First found his want of words, and fear'd of

'fence:

Doubted for what he was he should be known,
By his clown-accent, and his country tone.

But lest this fine description should be excepted againft, as the creation of that great mafter, Mr. Dryden, and not an account of what has really ever happened in the world; I shall give you, verbatim, the epiftle of an enamoured footman in the country to his mistress. Their furnames shall be inferted, because their paffion demands a greater respect than is due to their quality. James is fer

'marry her, fat in the arbour most part of last night. O! dear Betty, must the nightingales fing to those who marry for money, and not to 'us true lovers! Oh my dear Betty, that we 'could meet this night where we ufed to do in the 'wood!

'Now, my dear, if I may not have the bieffing 'of kiffing your sweet'lips, I beg I may have the happiness of kiffing your fair hand, with a few 'lines from your dear self, presented by whom you please or think fit. I believe, if time would permit me, I could write all day; but the time being short, and paper little, no more from your 'never-failing lover till death,

James

Poor James! fince his time and paper was fo

short; I, that have more than I can use well of both, will put the fentiments of his kind letter, the ftile of which feems to be confused w th foraps he had got in hearing and reading what he did not understand, into what he meant to express,

Dear Creature,

AN you then neglect him who has forgot all his recreations and enjoyments to pine away

C vant in a great family, and Elizabeth waits upon his life in thinking of you? When I do fo, you the daughter of one as numerous, some miles off of her lover. James before he beheld Betty, was vain of his strength, a rough wrestler and quarrelfome cudgel-player; Betty a public dancer at may-poles, a romp at stool-ball: he always fol. lowing idle women, she playing among the peafants: he a country bully, she a country coquette. But love has made her conftantly in her mistress's chamber, where the young lady gratifies a fecret paffion of her own, by making Betty talk of James; and James is become a conftant waiter near his master's apartment, in reading, as well. as he can, romances. I cannot learn who Molly is, who it feems walked ten miles to carry the angry message, which gave occafion to what follows:

To ELIZABETH-

May 14, 1711.

'My Dear Betty,
Emember your bleeding lover, who lies
at the wounds Cupid made with

Reang
the arrows he borrowed at the eyes of Venus,

which is your sweet person.

Nay more, with the token you fent me for <my love and service offered to your sweet perfon; • which was your base respects to my ill condi. tions; when alas! there is no ill conditions in me, but quite contrary! all love and purity, especially to your sweet perfon; but all this I take as a jeft.

'But the fad and dismal news which Molly brought me ftruck me to the heart, which was, ' it seems, and is, your ill conditions for my love and respects to you.

For the told me, if I came forty times to you, 'you would not speak with me, which words I am 'sure is a great grief to me.

'Now, my dear, if I may not be permitted to 'your sweet company, and to have the happiness ' of speaking with your sweet person, I beg the 'favour of you to accept of this my fecret mind ' and thoughts, which hath so long lodged in my breast; the which if you do not accept, I believe ' will go nigh to break my heart.

For indeed, my dear, I love you above all the beauties I ever faw in all my life. 'The young gentleman, and my master's daughter, the Londoner that is come down to

3

appear more amiable to me than Venus does in the most beautiful description that ever was made of her. All this kindness you return with an accufation, that I do not love you: but the contrary is so manifeft, that I cannot think you in earnost. But the certainty given me in your mesiage by Molly, that you do not love me, is what robs me of all comfort. She says you will not fee me: if you can have so much cruelty, at least write to me, that I may kiss the impression made by your fair hand. I love you above all things, and, in my condition, what you look upon with indifference is to me the most exquifite pleasure or pain. Our young lady, and a fine gentleman from London, who are to marry for mercenary ends, walk about our gardens, and hear the voice of evening nightingales, as if for fashion fake they courted those folitudes, because they have heard lovers do

fo. Oh Betty! could I hear those rivulets murmur, and birds fing while you stood near me, how

little fenfible should I be that we are both fervants,

that there is any thing on earth above us, Oh! I
itfec
could write to you as long as I love you, till death

AVING already given my reader an account of feveral extraordinary clubs, both ancient and modern, I did not design to have troubled him with any more narratives of this nature; but I have lately received information of a club which

I can call neither ancient nor modern, that I dare fay will be no less surprising to my reader than it was to myself; for which reason I shall communicate it to the public as one of the greatest curiosities in its kind.

A friend of mine complaining of a tradefman who is related to him, after having represented him as a very idle worthless fellow, who neglected his family, and spent most of his time over a bottle, told me, to conclude his character, that he was a member of the everlasting Club. So very odd a title raifed my curiofity to inquire into the nature of a club that had fuch a founding name; upon which my friend gave me the following ac

count.

T

HE Everlasting Club confifts of an hundred members, who divide the whole twentyfour hours among them in such a manner, that the club fits day and night from one end of the year to another; no party prefuming to rise till they are relieved by those who are in course to fucceed them. By this means a member of the Everlasting Club never wants company; for tho he is not upon duty himself, he is fure to find some who are; fo that if he be disposed to take a whet, a nooning, an evening's draught, or a bottle after midnight, he goes to the club, and finds a knot of friends to his mind.

It is a maxim in this club, that the steward never dies; foras they succeed one another by way of rotation, no man is to quit the great elbowchair which stands at the upper end of the table, 'till his successor is in a readiness to fill it; infomuch that there has not been a Sede vacante in the memory of man.

always kept in, focus perennis efto, las well for the convenience of lighting their pipes, as to cure the dampnefs of the club-room. They have an old woman in the nature of a vestal, whose business it is to cherish and perpetuate the fire which burns from generation to generation, and has feen the glass-house fires in and out above an hundred times.

The Everlasting Club treats all other clubs with an eye of contempt, and talks even of the Kit-Cat and October as of a couple of upstarts. Their ordinary difcourse, as much as I have been able to learn of it, turns altogether upon fuch adventures as have passed in their own afsembly; of members who have taken the glass in their turns for a week together, without stirring out of the club; of others who have not missed their morning's draught for twenty years together: fometimes they speak in raptures of a run of ale in king Charles's reign; and sometimes reflect with afto. nishment upon games at whift, which have been miraculously recovered by members of the society, when in all human probability the cafe was desperate.

They delight in several old catches, which they fing at all hours, to encourage one another to moisten their clay, and grow immortal by drinking; with many other edifying exhortations of the like nature.

There are four general clubs held in a year, at which times they fill up vacancies, appoint waiters, confirm the old fire-maker, or elect a new one, settle contributions for coals, pipes, tobacco, and other neceffaries.

The senior member has out-lived the whole club twice over, and has been drunk with the grandfathers of some of the present sitting members.

O Dea certè !

C

VIRG. Æn. i. 332.

O Goddess! for no less you feem.

This club was instituted towards the end, or, as fome of them fay, about the middle, of the civil wars, and continued without interruption till the time of the Great Fire, which burnt them out, and dispersed them for feveral weeks. The steward at No. 73. THURSDAY, MAY 24. that time maintained his poft till he had like to have been blown up with a neighbouring house, which was demolished in order to stop the fire; and would rot leave the chair at last, till he had emptied all the bottles upon the table, and re ceived repeated directions from the club to withdraw himself. This steward is frequently talked of in the club, and looked upon by every member of it as a greater man than the famous captain mentioned in my lord Clarendon, who was burnt in his ship because he would not quit it without orders. It is faid that towards the close of 1700, being the great year of jubilee, the club had it under confideration whether they should break up or continue their feffion; but after many speeches and debates, it was at length agreed to fit out the other century. This resolution passed in a general club nomine contradicente.

Having given this short account of the institution and continuation of the Everlasting Club, I should here endeavour to say something of the manners and characters of its feveral members, which I shall do according to the best lights I have received in this matter.

It appears by their books in general, that, since their first inftitution, they have smoked fifty tun of tobacco, drank thirty thousand butts of ale, one thousand hogsheads of red port, two hundred barrels of brandy, and a kiiderkin of small-beer. There had been likewise a great confumption of cards. It is alfo faid, that they observe the law in ben Jonfon's club, which orders the fire to be

TT is very strange to confider, that a creature ☑ like man, who is sensible of fo many weak. nesses and imperfections, should be actuated by a love of fame: that vice and ignorance, imperfection and misery, should contend for praife, and endeavour as much as poffible to make themselves objects of admiration.

But notwithstanding man's essential perfection is but very little, his comparative perfection may be very confiderable. If he looks upon himself in an abstracted light, he has not much to boast of; but if he confiders himself with regard to others, he may find occafion of glorying, if not in his own virtues, at least in the absence of another's imperfections. This gives a different turn to the reflexions of the wife man and the fool. The first endeavours to shine in himself, and the last to outshine others. The first is humbled by the fenfe of his own infirmities, the last is lifted up by the discovery of those which he observes in other men. The wife man confiders what he wants, and the fool what he abounds in. The wife man is happy when he gains his own approbation, and the fool when he recommends himself to the applause of those about him.

But however unreasonable and abfurd this pafsion for admiration may appear in fuch a creature as man, it is not wholly to be discouraged; fince