from

a

gion or decency should preserve from contempt. But all this evil arises from this one corruption of mind, that makes men resent offenses against their virtue, less than those against their understanding. An author shall write as if he thought there was not one man of honor or woman of chastity in the house, and come off with applause: for an insult upon all the ten commandments with the little critics is not so bad as the breach of a unity of time and place. Half wits do not apprehend the miseries that must necessarily flow degeneracy of manners; nor do they know that order is the support of society. Sir Roger and his mistress are monsters of the poet's own forming; the sentiments in both of them are such as do not arise in fools of their education. We all know that a silly scholar, instead of being below every one he meets with, is apt to be exalted above the rank of such as are really his superiors: his arrogance is always founded upon particular notions of distinction in his own head, accompanied with a pedantic scorn of all fortune and pre-eminence, when compared with his knowledge and learning. This very one character of Sir Roger, as silly as it really is, has done more toward the disparagement of holy orders, and consequently of virtue itself, than all the wit of that author, or any other, could make up for in the conduct of the longest life after it. I do not pretend, in saying this, to give myself airs of more virtue than my neighbors, but assert it from the principles by which mankind must always be governed. Sallies of imagination are to be overlooked, when they are committed out of warmth in the recommendation of what is praiseworthy; but a deliberate advancing of vice, with all the wit in the world, is as ill an action as any that comes before the magistrate, and ought to be received as such by the people.-T.

No. 271.) THURSDAY, JAN. 10, 1711-12.

Mille trahens varios adverso sole colores.

VIRG., Æn. iv, 701.

Drawing a thousand colors from the light.-DRYDEN.

I RECEIVE a double advantage from the letters of my correspondents; first, as they show me which of my papers are most acceptable to them; and in the next place, as they furnish me with materials for new speculations. Sometimes indeed I do not make use of the letter itself, but form the hints of it into plans of my own invention; sometimes I take the liberty to change the language or thought into my own way of speaking and thinking, and always (if it can be done without prejudice to the sense) omit the many compliments and applauses which are usually bestowed upon me.

Beside the two advantages above-mentioned, which I receive from the letters that are sent me, they give me an opportunity of lengthening out my paper by the skillful management of the subscribing part at the end of them, which perhaps does not a little conduce to the ease both of my

self and reader.

Some will have it, that I often write to myself, and am the only punctual correspondent I have. This objection would indeed be material, were the letters I communicate to the public stuffed with my own commendations; and if instead of endea

"SIR,

"I was last Thursday in an assembly of ladies, where there were thirteen different colored hoods. Your Spectator of that day lying upon the table, they ordered me to read it to them, which I did with a very clear voice, until I came to the Greek verse at the end of it. I must confess I was a little startled at its popping upon me so unexpectedly. However, I covered my confusion as well as I could, and after having muttered two or three hard words to myself, laughed ed heartily, hear and cried, 'a very good jest, est, faith. The ladies desired me to explain it to them; but I begged their pardon for that, and told them, that if it had been proper for them to hear, they might be sure the author would not have wrapped it up in Greek. I then let drop several expressions, as if there was something in it that was not fit to be spoken before a company of ladies. Upon which the matron of the assembly, who was dressed in a cherrycolored hood, commended the discretion of the writer for having thrown his filthy thoughts into Greek, which was likely to corrupt but few of his readers. At the same time she declared herself very well pleased that he had not given a decisive opinion upon the new-fashioned hoods; 'for to tell you truly,' says she, 'I was afraid he would have made us ashamed to show our heads.' Now, Sir, you must know, since this unlucky accident happened to me in a company of ladies, among whom I passed for a most ingenious man, I have consulted one who is well versed in the Greek language, and he assures me upon his word that your late quotation means no more than that "manners, not dress, are the ornaments of a'woman." If this comes to the knowledge of my female admirers, I shall be very hard put to it to bring myself off handsomely. In the meanwhile, I give you this account, that you may take care hereafter not to betray any of your well-wishers into the like inconveniences. It is in the number of these that I beg leave to subscribe myself, "TOM TRIPPIT."

"MR. SPECTATOR,

"Your readers are so well pleased with your character of Sir Roger de Coverley, that there appeared a sensible joy in every coffee-house, upon hearing the old knight was come to town. I'am now with a knot of his admirers, who make it their joint request to you, that you would give us public notice of the window or balcony where the knight intends to make his appearance. He has already given great satisfaction to several who have seen him at Squires's coffee-house. If you think fit to place your short face at Sir Roger's left elbow, we shall take the hint, and gratefully acknowledge so great a favor.

"Knowing that you are very inquisitive after everything that is curious in nature, I will wait on you if you please, in the dusk of the evening, with my show upon my back, which I carry about with me in a box, as only consisting of a man, a woman, and a horse. The two first are married, in which state the little cavalier has so well acquitted himself, that his lady is with child. The

each of them a kiss; but one, more scornful than the rest, turned her cheek, I did not think it proper to take any notice of it until 1 had asked your advice.

"Your humble Servant,

"E. S."

are beautiful, but common. We must not forget. the parts of Sinon, Camilla, and some few others, which are fine improvements on the Greek poes In short, there is neither that variety nor novelty in the persons of the Eneid, which we meet with in those of the Iliad.

his fable was capable of receiving. The whole species of mankind was in two persons at the time to which the subject of his poem is confined. We have, however, four distinct characters in these two persons. We see man and woman in the highest innocence and perfection, and in the most abject state of guilt and infirmity. The two last characters are, indeed, very common and obvious, but the two first are not only more magnifi cent, but more new than any characters either in Virgil or Homer, or indeed in the whole circle of

_ Notandi sunt tibi mores.

HOR., Ars. Poet., ver. 156.

Note well the manners.

HAVING examined the action of Paradise Lost, let us in the next place consider the actors. This is Aristotle's method of considering, first the fable, and secondly the manners; or, as we generally call them, in English, the fable and the cha

racters.

Homer has excelled all the heroic 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 suitable to no other deity. His princes are as much distinguished by their manners, as by their dominions; and even those among them, whose characters seem wholly made up of courage, differ from one another as to the particular kinds of courage in which they excel. In short, there is scarce a speech or action in the Iliad, which the reader may not ascribe to the person who speaks or acts, without seeing his name at the head of it.

Homer does not only outshine 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 conversed with Theseus, Hercules, Polyphemus, and the first race of heroes. His principal actor is the son of a goddess, not to mention the offspring of other deities, who have likewise a place in his poem, and the venerable Trojan prince, who was the father of so 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 a heroic poem. Though, at the same time, to give them the greater variety, he has described a Vulcan, that is a buffoon, among his gods, and a Thersites among his mortals.

Virgil falls infinitely short 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 styled the hero's friend, he does nothing in the whole poem which may deserve that title. Gyas, Mnestheus, Sergestus, and Cloanthes, are all of them men of the same stamp and character:

-Fortemque Gyan, fortemque Cloanthem.

Milton was so sensible 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 persons of Sin and Death, by which means he has wrought into the body of his fable a very beautiful and well-invented allegory. But notwithstanding the fineness of this allegory may atone for it in some measure, I cannot think that persons of such a chimerical existence are proper actors in an epic poem; because there is not that measure of probability annexed to them, which is requisite in writings of this kind, as I shall show more at large hereafter.

Virgil has indeed admitted Fame as an actress in the Æneid, but the part she acts is very short, and none of the most admired circumstances in that divine work. We find in mock-heroic poems, particularly in the Dispensary and the Lutrin, several allego allegorical persons of this nature, which are very beautiful in these compositions, and may perhaps be used as an argument, that the authors of them were of opinion such characters might have a place in an epic work. For my own part, I should be glad the reader would think so, for the sake of the poem I am now examining: and must further add, that if such empty, unsubstantial beings may be ever made use of on this occasion, never were any more nicely imagined, and employed in more proper actions, than those of which I am now speaking.

Another principal actor in this poem is the great enemy of mankind. The part of Ulysses in Homer's Odyssey is very much admired by Aristotle, as perplexing that fable with very agreeable plots and intricacies, not only by the many adventures in his voyage, and the subtilty of his behavior, but by the various concealments and discoveries of his person in several parts of that poem. But the crafty being I have now mentioned makes a much longer voyage than Ulysses, puts in practice many more wiles and stratagems, and hides himself under a greater variety of shapes and appearances, all of which are severally detected, to the great delight and surprise of the reader.

We may likewise observe with how much art the poet has varied several characters of the persons that speak in his infernal assembly. On the contrary, how has he represented the whole Godhead exerting itself toward man in its full benevolence under the threefold distinction of a Creator, a Redeemer, and a Comforter!

Nor must we omit the person of Raphael, who, amidst his tenderness and friendship for man, shows such a dignity and condescension in all his reader will find nothing ascribed to Uriel, Gabriel, Michael, or Raphael; which is not in a particular manner suitable to their respective characters.*

There is another circumstance in the principal actors of the Iliad and Æneid, which gives a peculiar beauty to those two poems, and was therefore contrived with very great judgment. I mean the authors having chosen for their heroes, persons who were so nearly related to the people for whom they wrote. Achilles was a Greek, and Æneas the remote founder of Rome. By this means their countrymen (whom they principally propose to themselves for their readers) were particularly attentive to all the parts of their story, and sympathized with their heroes in all their adventures. A Roman could not but rejoice in the escapes, successes, and victories, of Æneas, and be grieved at any defeats, misfortunes, or disappointments that befel him; as a Greek must have had the same regard for Achilles. And it is plain, that each of those poems have lost this great advantage, among those readers to whom their heroes are as strangers, or indifferent persons.

Milton's poem is admirable in this respect, since it is impossible for any of its readers, whatever nation, country, or people, he may belong to, not to be related to the persons who are the principal actors in it; but what is still infinitely more to its advantage, the principal actors in this poem are not only our progenitors, but our representatives. We have an actual interest in everything they do, and no less than our utmost happiness is concerned, and lies at stake in all their behavior.

I shall subjoin, as a corollary to the foregoing remark, an admirable observation out of Aristotle, which has been very much misrepresented in the quotations of some modern critics: "If a man of perfect and consummate virtue falis into a misfortune, it raises our pity, but not our terror, because we do not fear that it may be our own case, who do not resemble the suffering person." But, as that great philosopher adds "if we see a man of virtue mixed with infirmities fall into any misfortune, it does not only raise our pity but our terror; because we are afraid that the like misfortunes may happen to ourselves, who resemble the character of the suffering person."

I shall take another opportunity to observe, that a person of an absolute and consummate virtue should never be introduced into tragedy, and shall only remark in this place, that the foregoing observation of Aristotle, though it may be true in other occasions, does not hold in this; because in the present case, though the persons who fall into misfortune are of the most perfect and consummate virtue, it is not to be considered as what may possibly be, but what actually is our own case;

we are embarked them on the same bottom, and must be partakers of their happiness or misery.

In this, and some other very few instances, Aristotle's rules for epic poetry (which he had drawn from his reflections upon Homer) cannot be supposed to quadrate exactly tly with the heroic poems which have been made since his time; since it is plain his rules would still have been more perfect, could he have perused the Eneid, which was made some hundred years after his death.

In my next; I shall go through other parts of Milton's poem; and hope that what I shall there

Coordina

No. 274.] MONDAY, JANUARY 14, 1711-12.

Audire est operæ pretium, procedere recte
Qui mæchis non vultis-

HOR. 1 Sat. ii, 37

All you, who think the city ne'er can thrive
Till every cuckold-maker's flay'd alive,
Attend.
POPE.

I HAVE upon several occasions (that have occurred since I first took into my thoughts the present state of fornication) weighed with myself in behalf of guilty females, the impulses of flesh and blood, together with the arts and gallantries of crafty men; and reflect with some scorn that most part of what we in our youth think gay and polite, is nothing else but a habit of indulging a pruriency that way. It will cost some labor to bring people to so lively a sense of this, as to recover the manly modesty in the behavior of my men readers, and the bashful grace in the faces of my women; but in all cases which come into debate, there are certain things previously to be done before we can have a true light into the subject matter: therefore it will, in the first place, be necessary to consider the impotent wenchers and industrious hags, who are supplied with, and are constantly supplying, new sacrifices to the devil of lust. You are to know, then, if you are so happy as not to know it already, that the great havoe which is made in the habitations of beauty and innocence, is committed by such as can only lay waste and not enjoy the soil. When you observe the present state of vice and virtue, the offenders are such as one would think should have no impulse to what they are pursuing; as in business, you see sometimes fools pretend to be knaves, so in pleasure, you will find old men set up for wenchers. This latter sort of men are the great basis and fund of iniquity in the kind we are speaking of; you shall have an old rich man often receive scrawls from the several quarters of the town, with descriptions of the new wares in their hands, if he will please to send word when he will be waited on. This interview is contrived, and the innocent is brought to such indecencies, as from time to time banish shame and raise desire. With these preparatives the hags break their wards by little and little, until they are brought to lose all apprehensions of what shall befall them in the possession of younger men. It is a common postscript of a hag to a young fellow whom she invites to a new woman, "She has, I assure you, seen none but old Mr. Such-a-one." pleases the old fellow that the nymph is brought to him unadorned, and from his bounty she is accommodated with enough to dress her for other lovers. This is the most ordinary method of bringing beauty and poverty into the possession of the town: but the particular cases of kind keepers, skillful pimps, and all others who drive a separate trade, and are not in the general society or commerce of sin, will require distinct consideration. At the same time that we are thus severe on the abandoned, we are to represent the case of others with that mitigation as the circumstances demand. Calling names does no good; to speak worse of anything than it deserves, does only take off from the credit of the accuser, and has implicitly the force of an apology in the behalf of the person accused. We shall, therefore, according as the circumstances differ vary our ap

It