་

'with her as well as myfelf: But I will tell you all, as 'faft as the alternate interruptions of love and anger ' will give me leave. There is a most agreeable young woman in the world whom I am paffionately in love with, and from whom I have for fome space of time ' received as great marks of favour as were fit for her to give, or me to defire. The fuccefsful progrefs of 'the affair of all others the most effential towards a 'man's happiness gave a new life and spirit not only to my behaviour and difcourfe, but also a certain grace to all my actions in the commerce of life in all things though never fo remote from love. You know the predominant paffion fpreads itself through all a man's tranfactions, and exalts or depreffes him according to the nature of fuch paffion. But alas! I have not yet begun my ftory, and what is making fentences and obfervations when a man is pleading for his life? To begin then: This lady has correfponded with me ' under the names of love, the my Belinda, I her Cleanthes. Though I am thus well got into the account of my affair, I cannot keep in the thread of it so much as to give you the character of Mrs. Jane, whom I 'will not hide under a borrowed name; but let you know that this creature has been fince I knew her very handfome, (though I will not allow her even the has been for the future) and during the time of her bloom and beauty was fo great a tyrant to her lovers, fo over-valued herself, and under rated all her pretenders, that they have deserted her to a man; and the knows no comfort but that common one to all in her 'condition, the pleasure of interrupting the amours of others. It is impoffible but you must have feen feveral of thefe volunteers in malice, who pass their whole time in the most laborious way of life in getting intelligence, running from place to place with new whifpers, without reaping any other benefit but the hopes of making others as unhappy as themfelves. Mrs. Jane happened to be at a place where I, with many others well acquainted with my paffion for Belinda, paffed a Christmas-evening. There was among the reft a young lady, fo free in mirth, so amiable in a juft referve that accompanied it; I wrong her to call

་

་

་

' it a reserve, but there appeared in her a mirth or chear. fulness which was not a forbearance of more immoderate joy, but the natural appearance of all which 'could flow from a mind poffeffed of an habit of innocence and purity. I must have utterly forgot Belinda to have taken no notice of one who was growing up to the fame womanly virtues which shine to perfection in her, had I not diftinguished one who feemed to promife to the world the fame life and conduct with 'my faithful and lovely Belinda. When the company broke up, the fine young thing permitted me to take care of her home. Mrs. Jane faw my particular re gard to her, and was informed of my attending her 'to her father's houfe. She came early to Belinda the 'next morning, and afked her if Mrs. Such a-one had been with her? No. If Mr. Such-a-one's Lady? No. Nor 'your coufin Such-a-one? No. Lord, fays Mrs. Jane, what is the friendship of women? -Nay, they may well laugh at it. And did no one tell you any thing of the behaviour of your lover Mr. What d'ye call last night? But perhaps it is nothing to you that he is to be married to young Mrs. -on Tuesday 'next? Belinda was here ready to die with rage and jealoufy. Then Mrs. Jane goes on: I have a young kinfman who is clerk to a great conveyancer, who 'fhall fhew you the rough draught of the marriage fettlement. The world fays her father gives him two 'thousand pounds more than he could have with you. 'I went innocently to wait on Belinda as usual, but was ⚫ not admitted; I writ to her, and my letter was sent back unopened. Poor Betty her maid, who is on my fide, has been here just now blubbering, and told me the whole matter. She fays fhe did not think I could be fo bafe; and that he is now odious to her mistress 'for having so often spoke well of me, that she dare 6 not mention me more. All our hopes are placed in having these circumftances fairly reprefented in the SPECTATOR, which Betty fays the dare not but bring up as foon as it is brought in; and has promif 'ed when you have broke the ice to own this was laid between us: And when I can come to an hearing, the young Lady will fupport what we fay by her teftimony, • that

6

'that I never faw her but that once in my whole life. Dear Sir, do not omit this true relation, nor think it too particular; for there are crowds of forlorn co'quettes who intermingle themfelves with other Ladies, and contract familiarities out of malice, and with no other defign but to blaft the hopes of lovers, the expectation of parents, and the benevolence of kindred. 'I doubt not but I fhall be,

S1.R,

your moft obliged humble fervant,

SIR,

THE

CLEANTHES.

Will's Coffee-house, Jan. 10.

HE other day entering a room adorned with the fair-fex, offered, after the ufual manner, to ' each of them a kifs; but one, more fcornful than the • reft, turned her cheek. I did not think it 'take any notice of it until I had asked your advice. Your bumble fervant,

proper to

E. S.

The correfpondent is defired to fay which cheek the offender turned to him.

ADVERTISEMENT.

From the parish-vestry, January 9.

All Ladies who come to church in the new fashioned boods, are defired to be there before divine frvice begins, left they divert the attention of the congregation.

T

-RALPH.

1

*****

N° 273

Saturday, January 12.

Notandi funt tibi mores.

Note well the manners.

H

Hor. Ars Poet. ver. 156.

Aving examined the action of Paradife Loft, let us in the next place confider the actors. This is Ariftotle's method of confidering, firft the fable, and fecondly the manners; or, as we generally call them in English, the fable and the characters.

Homer has excelled all the heroick poets that ever wrote in the multitude and variety of his characters. Every God that is admitted into his poem, acts a part which would have been fuitable to no other deity. His Princes are as much distinguished by their manners, as by their dominions; and even thofe among them, whofe characters feem wholly made up of courage, dif fer from one another as to the particular kinds of courage in which they excel. In short, there is scarce a fpeech or action in the Iliad, which the reader may not afcribe to the person who speaks or acts, without feeing his name at the head of it.

Homer does not only outfhine all other poets in the variety, but also in the novelty of his characters. He has introduced among his Grecian princes a person who had lived thrice the age of man, and converfed with Thefeus, Hercules, Polyphemus, and the first race of heroes. His principal actor is the son of a goddefs, not to mention the offspring of other deities, who have likewife a place in his poem, and the venerable Trojan prince, who was the father of fo many kings and heroes. There is in these several characters of Homer, a certain dignity as well as novelty, which adapts them in a more peculiar manner to the nature of an heroick poem. Though at the fame time, to give them the greater variety, he has described a Vulcan, that is a buffoon among his gods, and a Therfites among his mortals.

Virgil

Virgil falls infinitely fhort of Homer in the characters of his poem, both as to their variety and novelty. Æneas is indeed a perfect character, but as for Achates, though he is ftiled the hero's friend, he does nothing in the whole poem which may deferve that title. Gyas, Mneftheus, Sergeftus and Cloanthus, are all of them men of the fame ftamp and character.

-Fortemque Gyan, fortemque Cloanthum.

There are indeed several natural incidents in the Part of Afcanius; as that of Dido cannot be fufficiently admired. I do not fee any thing new or particular in Turnus. Pallas and Evander are remote copies of Hector and Priam, as Laufus and Mezentius are almost parallels to Pallas and Evander. The characters of Nifus and Euryalus are beautiful, but common. We must not forget the parts of Sinon, Camilla, and fome few others, which are fine improvements on the Greek poet. In fhort, there is neither that variety nor novelty in the perfons of the Eneid, which we meet with in thofe of the Iliad.

If we look into the characters of Milton, we shall find that he has introduced all the variety his fable was capable of receiving. The whole fpecies of mankind was in two perfons at the time to which the fubject of his poem is confined. We have however, four diftin&t characters in these two perfons. We fee man and woman in the highest innocence and perfection, and in the most abject ftate of guilt and infirmity. The two laft characters are, indeed, very common and obvious, but the two first are not only more magnificent, but more new than any characters either in Virgil or Homer, or indeed in the whole circle of nature.

Milton was fo fenfible of this defect in the subject of his poem, and of the few characters it would afford him, that he has brought into it two actors of a shadowy and fictitious nature, in the perfons of Sin and Death, by which means he has wrought into the body of his fable a very beautiful and well-invented allegory. But notwithflanding the fineness of this allegory may atone for itin fome measure, I cannot think that perfons of fuch a chimerical exiftence are proper actors in an epic poem; because there is not that measure of probability annexed

to