No. 337.] Thursday, March 27, 1712. tiated himself both with Philip and his pupil, and became the second man at court, by call ing the king Peleus, the Prince Achilles, and himself Phoenix. It is no wonder if Alexander, Hor. Ep. 2. Lib. 1. 64. having been thus used not only to admire but to personate Achilles, should think it glorious to imitate him in this piece of cruelty and extravagance. The jockey trains the young and tender horse To carry this thought yet further, I shall I HAVE lately received a third letter from submit it to your consideration, whether, inthe gentleman who has already given the pub- stead of a theme or copy of verses, which are lic two essays upon education. As his thoughts the usual exercises, as they are called in the seems to be very just and new upon this sub-school phrase, it would not be more proper ject, I shall communicate them to the reader. 'SIR, that a boy should be tasked, once or twice a week, to write down his opinion of such per sons and things as occur to him by his reading; 'If I had not been hindered by some extra- that he should descant upon the actions of ordinary business, I should have sent you Turnus, or Æneas; show wherein they exsooner my further thoughts upon education. celled, or were defective; censure or approve You may please to remember, that in my last letter, I endeavoured to give the best reasons have been carried to a greater degree of perany particular action; observe how it might that could be urged in favour of a private or fection, and how it exceeded or fell short of public education. Upon the whole, it may another. He might at the same time mark perhaps be thought that I seemed rather in- what was moral in any speech, and how far clined to the latter, though at the same time it agreed with the character of the person I confessed that virtue, which ought to be our speaking. This exercise would soon strengthfirst and principal care, was more usually ac- en his judgment in what is blameable or praisquired in the former. worthy, and give him an early seasoning of morality. 'I intended, therefore, in this letter, to offer at methods, by which I conceive boys might be made to improve in virtue us they advance in letters. I know that in most of our public schools vice is punished and discouraged, whenever it is found out: but this is far from being sufficient, unless our youth are at the same time taught to form a right judgment of things, and to know what is properly virtue. 'Next to those examples which may be met with in books, I very much approve Horace's honourable characters of their contemporaries. way of setting before youth the infamous or That poet tells us, this was the method his father made use of to incline him to any particular virtue or give him an aversion to any particular vice. "If," says Horace, "my father advised me to live within bounds, and be conTo this end, whenever they read the lives tented with the fortune he should leave me ; and actions of such men as have been famous Do you not see,' says he,' the miserable conin their generation, it should not be thought dition of Burrus, and the son of Albus? Let enough to make them barely understand so the misfortunes of those two wretches teach many Greek or Latin sentences; but they you to avoid luxury and extravagance.' If he should be asked their opinion of such an action would inspire me with an abhorrence to deor saying, and obliged to give their reasons why bauchery, do not,' says he, 'make yourself they take it to be good or bad. By this means like Sectanus, when you may be happy in the they would insensibly arrive at proper notions enjoyment of lawful pleasures. How scandaof courage, temperance, honour, and justice.lous,' says he, is the character of Trebonius, "There must be great care taken how the who was lately caught in bed with another example of any particular person is recom- man's wife!"" To illustrate the force of this mended to them in gross; instead of which method, the poet adds, that as a headstrong pathey ought to be taught wherein such a man, tient who will not follow at first his physician's though great in some respects, was weak and prescriptions, grows orderly when he hears that faulty in others. For want of this caution, a the neighbours die all about him; so youth is boy is often so dazzled with the lustre of a often frightened from vice, by hearing the ill great character, that he confounds its beau-report it brings upon others. ties with its blemishes, and looks even upon 'Xenophon's schools of equity, in his Life the faulty part of it with an eye of admiration. of Cyrus the Great, are sufficiently famous. 'I have often wondered how Alexander, who He tells us. that the Persian children went to was naturally of a generous and merciful dis-school, and employed their time as diligently position, came to be guilty of so barbarous an in learning the principles of justice and soaction as that of dragging the governor of a briety, as the youth in other countries did to town after his chariot. I know this is gene-acquire the most difficult arts and sciences; rally ascribed to his passion for Homer, but I their governors spent most part of the day in lately met with a passage in Plutarch, which, hearing their mutual accusations one against if I am not very much mistaken, still gives us the other, whether for violence, cheating, slana clearer light into the motives of this action. der or ingratitude; and taught them how to Plutarch tells us, that Alexander in his youth give judgment against those who were found had a master named Lysimachus, who, thought to be any ways guilty of these crimes. I omit he was a man destitute of all politeness, ingra- the story of the long and short coat, for which Cyrus himself was punished, as a case equaly, tongues to the learned languages. Wherever known with any in Littleton. the former is omitted, I cannot help agreeing The method which Apuleius tells us the with Mr. Locke, that a man must have a very Indian Gymnosophists took to educate their strange value for words, when, preferring the disciples, is still more curious and remarkable. languages of the Greeks and Romans to that His words are as follow: "When their dinner which made them such brave men, he can is ready, before it is served up, the masters in-think it worth while to hazard the innocence quire of every particular scholar how he has and virtue of his son for a little Greek and employed his time since sun-rising: some of Latin. them answer, that, having been chosen as ar- As the subject of this essay is of the highest biters between two persons, they have com-importance, and what I do not remember to posed their differences, and made them friends; have yet seen treated by any author, I have some that they have been executing the orders sent you what occurred to me on it from my of their parents; and others, that they have own observation, or reading, and which you either found out something new by their own may either suppress or publish, as you think application, or learnt it from the instructions fit. of their fellows. But if there happens to be any one among them who cannot make it appear that he has employed the morning to advantage, he is immediately excluded from the company, and obliged to work while the rest are at dinner. 4 X. I am, Sir, 'Yours, &c.* No. 338.] Friday, March 28, 1712. Tam dispar sibi. Made up Hor. Sat. iii. Lib. 1. 18 of nought but inconsistencies. I FIND the tragedy of the Distrest Mother The author of the prois published to-day. 'It is not impossible, that from these several ways of producing virtue in the minds of boys, some general method might be invented. What I would endeavour to inculcate is, that our youth cannot be too soon taught the principles logue,t I suppose, pleads an old excuse I have of virtue, seeing the first impressions which read somewhere, of being dull with design ;' are made on the mind, are always the strong-and the gentleman who writ the epiloguet has, to my knowledge, so much of greater est. be more unwilling to pardon him, than any body, a practice which cannot have any ill consequence but from the abilities of the person who is guilty of it. 'The archbishop of Cambray makes Tele- moment to value himself upon, that he will machus say, that, though he was young in easily forgive me for publishing the excepyears, he was old in the art of knowing how tions made against gayety at the end of serious to keep both his own and his friends' secrets. entertainments in the following letter: I should "When my father," says the prince, "went to the siege of Troy, he took me on his knees, and, after having embraced and blessed me, as he was surrounded by the nobles of Ithaca, 'O my friends,' says he, into your hands I commit the education of my son: if ever you loved his father, show it in your care towards him; but, above all, do not omit to form him just, sincere and faithful in keeping a secret.' These words of my father," says Telemachus, "were continually repeated to me by his friends in his absence; who made no scruple of communicating to me their uneasiness to see my mother surrounded with lovers, and the measures they designed to take on that occasion." He adds, that he was so ravished at being thus treated like a man, and at the confidence reposed in him, that he never once abused it; nor could all the insinuations of his father's rivals ever get him to betray what was committed to him under the seal of secrecy. There is hardly any virtue which a lad might not thus learn by practice and example. 'I have heard of a good man, who used at certain times to give his scholars sixpence a-piece, that they might tell him the next day how they had employed it. The third part was always to be laid out in charity, and every boy was blamed, or commended, as he could make it appear he had chosen a fit object. 'In short, nothing is more wanting to our public schools, than that the masters of them shsuld use the same care in fashioning the manners of their scholars, as in forming their MR. SPECTATOR, 'I had the happiness the other night of sitting very near you, and your worthy friend Sir Roger, at the acting of the new tragedy, which you have, in a late paper or two, so justly recommended. I was highly pleased with the advantageous situation fortune had given me in placing me so near two gentlemen, from one of which I was sure to hear such reflections on the several incidents of the play as pure nature suggested, and from the other, such as flowed from the exactest art, and judgment: though I must confess that my curiosity led me so much to observe the knights, reflections, that I was not well at leisure to improve myself by yours. Nature, I found, played her part in the knight pretty well, till at the last concluding lines she entirely forsook him. You must know, sir, that it is always my custom, when I have been well entertained the facetious epilogue enters; not but that at a new tragedy, to make my retreat before those pieces are often very well written, but having paid down my half-crown, and made a fair purchase of as much of the pleasing melancholy as the poet's art can afford me, or my own nature admit of, I am willing to carry *By A. Philips, first published in 1712. Eustace Budge. some of it home with me: and cannot endure well voluntaries, a sort of music quite foreign to be at once tricked out of all,, though by the to the design of church-services, to the great wittiest dexterity in the world. However, I prejudice of well-disposed people. Those ́kept my seat the other night, in hopes of find- fingering gentlemen should be informed, that ing my own sentiments of this matter favour- they ought to suit their airs to the place and ed by your friend's; when, to my great sur- business, and that the musician is obliged to prise, I found the knight entering with equal keep to the text as much as the preacher. For pleasure into both parts, and as much satisfied want of this, I have found by experience a with Mrs. Oldfield's gayety as he had been be- great deal of mischief. When the preacher fore with Andromache's greatness. Whether has often, with great piety, and art enough, this were no more than an affect of the knight's handled his subject, and the judicious clerk has peculiar humanity, pleased to find at last, that, with the utmost diligence called out two staves after all the tragical doings, every thing was proper to the discourse, and I have found in safe and well, I do not know; but for my own myself and the rest of the pew, good thoughts part, I must confess I was so dissatisfied, that and dispositions, they have been, all in a moI was sorry the poet had saved Andromache, ment, dissipated by a merry jig from the or and could heartily have wished that he had gan loft. One knows not what further ill efleft her stone-dead upon the stage. For you fects the epilogues I have been speaking of cannot imagine, Mr. Spectator, the mischief may in time produce: but this I am credibly she was reserved to do me. I found my soul, informed of, that Paul Lorrain* has resolved during the action, gradually worked up to the upon a very sudden reformation in his tragihighest pitch, and felt the exalted passion cal dramas; and that, at the next monthly which all generous minds conceive at the sight performance, he designs, instead of a peniof virtue in distress. The impression, believe tential psalm, to dismiss his audience with an me, sir, was so strong upon me, that I am per-excellent new ballad of his own composing. suaded, if I had been let alone in it, I could, at Pray. sir, do what you can to put a stop to an extremity, have ventured to defend your-these growing evils, and you will very much self and Sir Roger against half a score of the oblige fiercest Mohocks; but the ludicrous epilogue in the close extinguished all my ardour, and made me look upon all such noble achievements as downright silly and romantic. What the rest "Your humble servant, 'PHYSIBULUS.' Ut his exordia primis Omnia, et ipse tener mundi concreverit orbis. Virg. Ecl. v. 33. He sung the secret seeds of nature's frame: Drydın. of the audience felt, I cannot so well tell. For No. 339.] Saturday, March 29, 1712. myself I must declare, that at the end of the play I found my soul uniform, and all of a piece; but at the end of the epilogue it was so jumbled together, and divided between jest and earnest, that, if you will forgive me an extravagant fancy, I will here set it down. I could not but fancy, if my soul had at that moment quitted my body, and descended to the poetical shades in the posture it was then in, what a strange figure it would have made among them. They would not have known what to have made of my motley spectre, half comic and half tragic, all over resembling a ridicu LONGINUS has observed, that there may be lous face that at the same time laughs on one a loftiness in sentiments where there is no passide and cries on the other. The only de- sion, and brings instances out of ancient aufence, I think, I ever heard made for this, as thors to support this his opinion. The pait seems to me the most unnatural tack of the thetic, as that great critic observes, may anicomic tail to the tragic head, is this, that the mate and inflame the sublime, but is not esminds of the audience must be refreshed, and sential to it. Accordingly, as he further regentlemen and ladies not sent away to their marks, we very often find that those who exown homes with too dismal and melancholy cel most in stirring up the passions very often thoughts about them: for who knows the con- want the talent of writing in the great and sequence of this? We are much obliged, in-sublime manner, and so on the contrary. deed, to the poets for the great tenderness Milton has shown himself a master in both they express for the safety of our persons, these ways of writing. The seventh book, and heartily thank them for it. But if that which we are now entering upon, is an inbe all, pray, good sir, assure them, that we stance of that sublime which is not mixed and are none of us like to come to any great worked up with passion. The author appears harm; and that, let them do their best, we in a kind of composed and sedate majesty; shall in all probability live out the length of and though the sentiments do not give so great our days, and frequent the theatres more than an emotion as those in the former book, they What makes me more desirous to have abound with as magnificent ideas. The sixth some information of this matter is, because book, like a troubled ocean, represents greatof an ill consequence or two attending it: for ness in confusion; the seventh affects the a great many of our church musicians being ever. related to the theatre, they have, in imitation *The ordinary of Newgate at this time. See the Tatof these epilogues, introduced, in their fare-ler, No. 63. imagination like the ocean in a calm, and (behold there came four chariots out from befills the mind of the reader, without produc-tween two mountains, and the mountains were. mountains of brass:' ing in it any thing like tumult or agitation. 'About his chariot numberless were pour'd The critic above-mentioned, among the rules which he lays down for succeeding in the sublime way of writing, proposes to his reader, that he should imitate the most celebrated authors who have gone before him, and have been engaged in works of the same nature; as in particular that, if he writes on poetical subjects, he should consider how Homer would have spoken on such an occasion. By this means one great genius often catches the flame from another, and writes in his spirit, without copying servilely after him. are a thousaud shining passages in Virgil, of God, and of these gates of heaven; and shail which have been lighted up by Homer. here only add, that Homer gives us the same Milton, though his own natural strength idea of the latter, as opening of themselves; of genius was capable of furnishing out a though he afterwards takes off from it, by tellperfect work, has doubtless very much rais-ing us, that the Hours first of all removed ed and enobled his conceptions by such an those prodigious heaps of clouds which lay as imitation as that which Longinus has recom- a barrier before them. mended. There I have before taken notice of these chariots I do not know any thing in the whole poem In this book which gives us an account of more sublime than the description which folthe six days' works, the poet received but lows, where the Messiah is represented at the very few assistances from heathen writers, head of his angels, as looking down into the who are strangers to the wonders of creation. chaos, calming its confusion, riding into the But as there are many glorious strokes of po- midst of it, and drawing the first outline of the etry upon this subject in holy writ, the author creation: has numberless allusions to them through the whole course of this book. The great critic I have before mentioned, though an heathen, has taken notice of the sublime manner in which the lawgiver of the Jews has described the creation in the first chapter of Genesis; and there are many other passages in Scripture which rise up to the same majesty, Milton where the subject is touched upon. has shown his judgment very remarkably, in making use of such of these as were proper for his poem, and in duly qualifying those strains of eastern poetry which were suited to readers whose imaginations were set to an higher pitch than those of colder climates. On heav'nly ground they stood, and from the shore Far into Chaos, and the world unborn; Adam's speech to the angel, wherein he desires an account of what had passed within the regions of nature before the creation, is very great and solemn. The following lines, in which he tells him, that the day is not too far spent for him to enter upon such a sub-ceived altogether in Homer's spirit, and is a ject, are exquisite in their kind: And the great light of day yet wants to run The thought of the golden compasses is con Let very noble incident in this wonderful descrip- The angel's encouraging our first parents squadrons, and her helmet that was sufficient in a modest pursuit after knowledge, with to cover an army drawn out of an hundred the causes which he assigns for the creation cities. The golden compasses, in the aboveof the world, are very just and beautiful. mentioned passage, appear a very natural inThe Messiah, by whom, as we are told instrument in the hand of him whom Plato Scripture, the heavens were made, goes forth somewhere calls the Divine Geometrician. As in the power of his Father, surrounded with poetry delights in clothing abstracted ideas in an host of angels, and clothed with such a allegories and sensible images, we find a magmajesty as becomes his entering upon a worknificent description of the creation, formed afwhich, according to our conceptions, appears ter the same manner, in one of the prophets, the utmost exertion of Omnipotence. What wherein he describes the Almighty Architectas a beautiful description has our author raised measuring the waters in the hollow of his hand, upon that hint in one of the prophets! And meting out the heavens with his span, compre hending the dust of the earth in a measure, the fifth and sixth days, in which he has drawn weighing the mountains in scales, and the hills out to our view the whole animal creation, in a balance. Another of them describing the from the reptile to the behemoth. As the lion Supreme Being in this great work of creation, and the leviathan are two of the noblest represents him as laying the foundations of productions in the world of living creatures, the earth, and stretching a line upon it; and, the reader will find a most exquisite spirit in another place, as garnishing the heavens, of poetry in the account which our author stretching out the north over the empty place, gives us of them. The sixth day concludes and hanging the earth upon nothing. This last noble thought Milton has expressed in the following verse: And earth self balanced on her centre hung. with the formation of man, upon which the angel takes occasion, as he did after the battle in heaven, to remind Adam of his obedience, which was the principal design of this visit. The beauties of description in this book lie The poet afterwards represents the Messiah so very thick, that it is impossible to enume- returning into heaven, and taking a survey of rate them in this paper. The poet has emhis great work. There is something inexpressibly sublime in this part of the poem, where ployed on them the whole energy of our tongue. The several great scenes of the the author describes the great period of time, creation rise up to view one after another, in filled with so many glorious circumstances; such a manner, that the reader seems pre-when the Messiah ascended up in triumph when the heavens and earth were finished; sent at this wonderful work, and to assist among the choirs of angels who are the specta- through the everlasting gates; when he looktors of it. How glorious is the conclusion of ed down with pleasure upon his new creathe first day! -Thus was the first day even and morn By the celestial choirs, when orient light We have the same elevation of thought in the third day, when the mountains were brought forth, and the deep was made: Immediately the mountains huge appear We have also the rising of the whole vegetable world, described in this day's work, which is filled, with all the graces that other poets have lavished on their description of the spring, and leads the reader's imagination into a theatre equally surprising and beautiful. The several glories of the heavens make their appearance on the fourth day : First in his east the glorious lamp was seen, His mirror, with full face borrowing her light One would wonder how the poet could be so concise in his description of the six days' works, as to comprehend them within the bounds of an episode, and, at the same time, so particular, as to give us a lively idea of them. This is still more remarkable in his account of tion; when every part of nature seemed to rejoice in its existence, when the morning-stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy. So even and morn accomplish'd the sixth day: Resounded, (thou rememberest, for thou heard'sty I cannot conclude this book upon the crea tion without mentioning a poem which has lately appeared under that title.* The work was undertaken with so good an intention, and is executed with so great a mastery, that it deserves to be looked upon as one of the most useful and noble productions in our English verse. The reader cannot but be pleased to find the depths of philosophy enlivened with all the charms of poetry, and to see so great a strength of reason, amidst so beautiful a redundancy of the imagination. The author has shown us that design in all the works of nature which necessarily leads us to the knowledge of its first cause. In short, he has illustrated, by numberless and incontestable instances, that divine wisdom which the son of Sirach has so nobly ascribed to the Supreme Being in his formation of the world, when he tells us, that He created her, and saw her, and numbered her, and poured her out upon all his works.' * By Sir Richard Blackmore. |