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Dryden, and raised upon the same founda- | estate left him, which he said was welcome

tion:

In the first rank of these did Zimri stand:
A man so various, that he seem'd to be
Not one, but all mankind's epitome.
Stiff in opinion, always in the wrong;
Was every thing by starts, and nothing long;
But, in the course of one revolving moon,
Was chemist, fiddler, statesman, and buffoon!
Then all for women, painting, rhyming, drinking,
Besides ten thousand freaks that dy'd in thinking.
Blest madman, who could every hour employ,
With something new to wish, or to enjoy !*

C.

to him upon no other account, but as he hoped it would remove all difficulties that lay in the way to our mutual happiness. You may well suppose, sir, with how much joy I received this letter, which was followed by several others filled with those expressions of love and joy, which I verily believe nobody felt more sincerely, nor knew better how to describe, than the gentleman I am speaking of. But, sir, how shall I be able to tell it you! By the last week's post I received a letter from an in1711.timate friend of this unhappy gentleman, acquainting me, that as he had just settled his affairs, and was preparing for his journey, he fell sick of a fever and died. It is impossible to express to you the distress I am in upon this occasion. I can only have INQUIRIES after happiness, and rules for reading of good books for my consolation; recourse to my devotions; and to the attaining it, are not so necessary and useful and as I always take a particular delight to mankind as the arts of consolation, and in those frequent advices and admonitions supporting one's self under affliction. The which you give the public, it would be a utmost we can hope for in this world is very great piece of charity in you to lend contentment; if we aim at any thing higher, me your assistance in this conjuncture. If we shall meet with nothing but grief and after the reading of this letter you find disappointment. A man should direct all yourself in a humour, rather to rally and his studies and endeavours at making him-ridicule, than to comfort me, I desire you self easy now and happy hereafter.

No. 163.] Thursday, September 6,
-Si quid ego adjuero, curamve levasso
Que nunc te coquit, et versat sub pectore fixa,
Ecquid erit pretii?
Enn. apud Tullium.
Say, will you thank me if I bring you rest,
And ease the torture of your troubled breast?

The truth of it is, if all the happiness that is dispersed through the whole race of mankind in this world were drawn together, and put into the possession of any single man, it would not make a very happy being. Though on the contrary, if the miseries of the whole species were fixed in a single person, they would make a very miserable one.

would throw it into the fire, and think no more of it; but if you are touched with my misfortune, which is greater than I know how to bear, your counsels may very much support, and will infinitely oblige, the afflicted LEONÓRA.'

A disappointment in love is more hard to get over than any other: the passion itself so softens and subdues the heart, that it I am engaged in this subject by the fol-disables it from struggling or bearing up lowing letter, which, though subscribed by against the woes and distresses which befall a fictitious name, I have reason to believe it. The mind meets with other misforis not imaginary. tunes in her whole strength; she stands 'MR. SPECTATOR,-I am one of your collected within herself, and sustains the disciples, and endeavour to live up to your shock with all the force which is natural to rules, which I hope will incline you to pity her; but a heart in love has its foundation my condition. I shall open it to you in a sapped, and immediately sinks under the very few words. About three years since, weight of accidents that are disagreeable a gentleman, whom, I am sure, you your-to its favourite passion. self would have approved, made his addresses to me. He had every thing to recommend him but an estate, so that my friends, who all of them applauded his person, would not for the sake of both of us favour his passion. For my own part, I resigned myself up entirely to the direction of those who knew the world much better than myself, but still lived in hopes that some juncture or other would make me happy in the man, whom, in my heart, I prefered to all the world; being determined if I could not have him, to have nobody else. About three months ago I received a letter from him, acquainting me, that by the death of an uncle he had a considerable

"Absalom and Ahithophel." It is perhaps unnecessary to observe, that the character of Zimri is that of

In afflictions men generally draw their consolations out of books of morality, which indeed are of great use to fortify and strengthen the mind against the impressions of sorrow. Monsieur St. Evremont, who does not approve of this method, recommends authors who are apt to stir up mirth in the mind of readers, and fancies Don Quixote can give more relief to a heavy heart than Plutarch or Seneca, as it is much easier to divert grief than to conquer it. This doubtless may have its effects on some tempers. I should rather have recourse to authors of a quite contrary kind, that give us instances of calamities and misfortunes, and show human nature in its greatest distresses.

If the afflictions we groan under be very George Villiers, duke of Buckingham, author of the heavy, we shall find some consolation in the society of as great sufferers as ourselves,

"Rehearsal."

especially when we find our companions | nary wit and beauty, but very unhappy in men of virtue and merit. If our afflictions a father, who having arrived at great riches are light, we shall be comforted by the by his own industry, took delight in nocomparison we make between ourselves thing but his money. Theodosius was the and our fellow-sufferers. A loss at sea, a younger son of a decayed family, of great fit of sickness, or the death of a friend, are parts and learning, improved by a genteel such trifles, when we consider whole king-and virtuous education. When he was in doms laid in ashes, families put to the the twentieth year of his age he became sword, wretches shut up in dungeons, and acquainted with Constantia, who had not the like calamities of mankind, that we are then passed her fifteenth. As he lived but out of countenance for our own weakness, if a few miles distant from her father's house, we sink under such little strokes of fortune. he had frequent opportunities of seeing her, Let the disconsolate Leonora consider, and by the advantages of a good person and that at the very time in which she lan- a pleasing conversation, made such an imguishes for the loss of her deceased lover, pression on her heart as it was impossible there are persons in several parts of the for time to efface. He was himself no less world just perishing in a shipwreck; others smitten with Constantia. A long acquaintcrying out for mercy in the terrors of a ance made them still discover new beauties death-bed repentance; others lying under in each other, and by degrees raised in the tortures of an infamous execution, or them that mutual passion which had an the like dreadful calamities; and she will influence on their following lives. It unfind her sorrows vanish at the appearance fortunately happened, that in the midst of of those which are so much greater and this intercourse of love and friendship bemore astonishing. tween Theodosius and Constantia, there broke out an irreparable quarrel between their parents, the one valuing himself too much upon his birth, and the other upon his possessions. The father of Constantia was so incensed at the father of Theodosius, that he contracted an unreasonable aversion towards his son, insomuch that he forbade him his house, and charged his daughter, upon her duty, never to see him more. In the mean time, to break off all communication between the two lovers, who he knew entertained secret hopes of some favourable opportunity that should bring them together, he found out a young gentleman of a good fortune and an agreeable person, whom he pitched upon as a husband for his daughter. He soon concerted this affair so well, that he told Constantia it was his design to marry her to such a gentleman, and that her wedding should be celebrated on such a day. Constantia, who was overawed with the authority of her father, and unable to object any thing against so advantageous a match, received the proposal with a profound silence, which her father commended in her, as the most decent manner of a virgin's giving her consent to an overture of that kind. The noise of this intended marriage soon reached Theodosius, who, after a long tumult of passions, which naturally rise in a lover's heart on such an occasion, writ the following letter to Constantia.

I would further propose to the consideration of my afflicted disciple, that possibly what she now looks upon as the greatest misfortune, is not really such in itself. For my own part, I question not but our souls in a separate state will look back on their lives in quite another view than what they had of them in the body; and that what they now consider as misfortunes and disappointments, will very often appear to have been escapes and blessings.

The mind that hath any cast towards devotion, naturally flies to it in its afflictions.

When I was in France I heard a very remarkable story of two lovers, which I shall relate at length in my to-morrow's paper, not only because the circumstances of it are extraordinary, but because it may serve as an illustration to all that can be said on this last head, and show the power of religion in abating that particular anguish which seems to lie so heavy on Leonora. The story was told me by a priest, as I travelled with him in a stage-coach. I shall give it my reader, as well as I can remember, in his own words, after having premised, that if consolations may be drawn from a wrong religion and a misguided devotion, they cannot but flow much more naturally from those which are founded upon reason and established in good sense. L.

No. 164.] Friday, September 7, 1711.
Ma, Quis et me, inquit, miseram, et te perdidit, Orpheu?
Jamque vale: feror ingenti circumdata nocte,
Invalidasque tibi tendens, heu! non tua, palmas.
Virg. Georg, iv. 494.

Then thus the bride: What fury seiz'd on thee,
Unhappy man! to lose thyself and me?
And now farewell! involv'd in shades of night,
For ever I am ravish'd from thy sight:
In vain I reach my feeble hands to join

In sweet embraces, ah! no longer thine. Dryden.

CONSTANTIA was a woman of extraordi

"The thought of my Constantia, which for some years has been my only happiness, is now become a greater torment to me than I am able to bear. Must I then live to see you another's? The streams, the fields and meadows, where we have so often talked together, grow painful to me; life itself is become a burden. May you long be happy

* Dr. Langhorne's Theodosius and Constantia is founded upon this paper.

in the world, but forget that there was ever inquire after Constantia; whom he looked such a man in it as THEODOSIUS.'

upon as given away to his rival upon the day on which, according to common fame, their marriage was to have been solemn progress in learning, that he might dedicate himself more entirely to religion, he entered into holy orders, and in a few years became renowned for his sanctity of life, and those pious sentiments which he inspired into all who conversed with him. It was this holy man to whom Constantia had determined to apply herself in confession, though neither she nor any other, besides the prior of the convent, knew any thing of his name or family. The gay, the amiable Theodosius, had now taken upon him the name of Father Francis, and was so far concealed in a long beard, a shaven head, and a religious habit, that it was impossible to discover the man of the world in the venerable conventual.

This letter was conveyed to Constantia that very evening, who fainted at the read-ized. Having in his youth made a good ing of it; and the next morning she was much more alarmed by two or three messengers, that came to her father's house, one after another, to inquire if they had heard any thing of Theodosius, who, it seems, had left his chamber about midnight, and could no where be found. The deep melancholy which had hung upon his mind some time before, made them apprehend the worst that could befal him. Constantia, who knew that nothing but the report of her marriage could have driven him to such extremities, was not to be comforted. She now accused herself of having so tamely given an ear to the proposal of a husband, and looked upon the new lover as the murderer of Theodosius. In short, she resolved to suffer the utmost effects of her father's displeasure, rather than comply with a marriage which appeared to her so full of guilt and horror. The father seeing himself entirely rid of Theodosius, and likely to keep a considerable portion in his family, was not very much concerned at the obstinate refusal of his daughter; and did not find it very difficult to excuse himself upon that account to his intended son-in-law, who had all along regarded this alliance rather as a marriage of convenience than of love. Constantia had now no relief but in her devotions and exercises of religion, to which her afflictions had so entirely subjected her mind, that after some years had abated the violence of her sorrows, and settled her thoughts in a kind of tranquillity, she resolved to pass the remainder of her days in a convent. Her father was not displeased with a resolution which would save money in his family, and readily complied with his daughter's intentions. Accordingly in the twenty-fifth year of her age, while her beauty was yet in all its height and bloom, he carried her to a neighbouring city, in order to look out a sisterhood of nuns among whom to place his daughter. There was in this place a father of a convent who was very much renowned for his piety and exemplary life; and as it is usual in the Romish church for those who are under any great affliction, or trouble of mind, to apply themselves to the most eminent confessors for pardon and consolation, our beautiful votary took the opportunity of confessing herself to this celebrated father.

We must now return to Theodosius, who, the very morning that the above-mentioned inquiries had been made after him, arrived at a religious house in the city where now Constantia resided; and desiring that secrecy and concealment of the fathers of the convent, which is very usual upon any extraordinary occasion, he made himself one of the order, with a private vow never to

As he was one morning shut up in his confessional, Constantia kneeling by him opened the state of her soul to him; and after having given him the history of a life full of innocence, she burst out into tears, and entered upon that part of her story in which he himself had so great a share. 'My behaviour,' says she, 'has I fear been the death of a man who had no other fault but that of loving me too much. Heaven only knows how dear he was to me whilst he lived, and how bitter the remembrance of him has been to me since his death.' She here paused, and lifted up her eyes that streamed with tears, towards the father; who was so moved with the sense of her sorrows, that he could only command his voice, which was broke with sighs and sobbings, so far as to bid her proceed. She followed his directions, and in a flood of tears poured out her heart before him. The father could not forbear weeping aloud, insomuch that in the agonies of his grief the seat shook under him. Constantia, who thought the good man was thus moved by his compassion towards her, and by the horror of her guilt, proceeded with the utmost contrition to acquaint him with that vow of virginity in which she was going to engage herself, as the proper atonement for her sins, and the only sacrifice she could make to the memory of Theodosius. The father, who by this time had pretty well composed himself, burst out again in tears upon hearing that name to which he had been so long disused, and upon receiving this instance of unparalleled fidelity from one whom he thought had several years since given herself up to the possession of another. Amidst the interruptions of his sorrow, seeing his penitent overwhelmed with grief, he was only able to bid her from time to time be comforted-to tell her that her sins were forgiven her-that her guilt was not so great as she apprehended that she should not suffer herself to be afflicted above measure. After which he recovered

himself enough to give her the absolution | where she resided; and are often read to in form; directing her at the same time to the young religious, in order to inspire repair to him again the next day, that he them with good resolutions and sentiments might encourage her in the pious resolu- of virtue. It so happened, that after Contions she had taken, and give her suitable stantia had lived about ten years in the exhortations for her behaviour in it. Con- cloister, a violent fever broke out in the stantia retired, and the next morning re- place, which swept away great multitudes, newed her applications. Theodosius having and among others Theodosius. Upon his manned his soul with proper thoughts and death-bed he sent his benediction in a very reflections, exerted himself on this occasion moving manner to Constantia, who at that in the best manner he could to animate his time was so far gone in the same fatal dispenitent in the course of life she was enter- temper, that she lay delirious. Upon the ing upon, and wear out of her mind those interval which generally precedes death in groundless fears and apprehensions which sicknesses of this nature, the abbess, finding had taken possession of it; concluding with that the physicians had given her over, told a promise to her, that he would from time her that Theodosius was just gone before to time continue his admonitions when she her, and that he had sent her his benedicshould have taken upon her the holy veil. tion in his last moments. Constantia reThe rules of our respective orders,' says ceived it with pleasure. And now,' says he, will not permit that I should see you, she, if I do not ask any thing improper, but you may assure yourself not only of let me be buried by Theodosius. My vow having a place in my prayers, but of re-reaches no farther than the grave; what I ceiving such frequent instructions as I can ask is, I hope, no violation of it.'- -She convey to you by letters. Go on cheerfully died soon after, and was interred according in the glorious course you have undertaken, to her request. and you will quickly find such a peace and satisfaction in your mind, which is not in the power of the world to give.'

Constantia's heart was so elevated with the discourse of Father Francis, that the very next day she entered upon her vow. As soon as the solemnities of her reception were over; she retired, as it is usual, with the abbess into her own apartment.

Their tombs are still to be seen, with a short Latin inscription over them to the following purpose:

"Here lie the bodies of Father Francis and Sister Constance. They were lovely in their lives, and in their deaths they were not divided." C.

The abbess had been informed the night No. 165.] before of all that had passed between her noviciate and Father Francis; from whom she now delivered to her the following letter:

'As the first fruits of those joys and consolations which you may expect from the life you are now engaged in, I must acquaint you that Theodosius, whose death sits so heavy upon your thoughts, is still alive; and that the father to whom you have confessed yourself, was once that Theodosius whom you so much lament. The love which we have had for one another will make us more happy in its disappointment than it could have done in its success. Providence has disposed of us for our advantage, though not according to our wishes. Consider your Theodosius still as dead, but assure yourself of one who will not cease to pray for you, in Father

'FRANCIS.'

Constantia saw that the hand-writing agreed with the contents of the letter; and upon reflecting on the voice of the person, the behaviour, and above all the extreme sorrow of the father during her confession, she discovered Theodosius in every particular. After having wept with tears of joy, It is enough,' says she, Theodosius is still in being: I shall live with comfort and die in peace.'

The letters which the father sent her afterwards are yet extant in the nunnery

Saturday, September 8, 1711,

-Si forte necesse est,

Fingere cinctutis non exaudita Cethegis,
Continget: dabiturque licentia sumpta pudenter.
Hor. Ars Poet. v. 48.

———If you would unheard of things express,
Invent new words; we can indulge a muse,
Until the license rise to an abuse.

Creech.

I HAVE often wished that as in our con

stitution there are several persons whose business it is to watch over our laws, our liberties, and commerce, certain men might be set apart as superintendents of our lancoin from passing among us; and in parguage, to hinder any words of a foreign ticular to prohibit any French phrases from becoming current in this kingdom when those of our own stamp are altogether as valuable. The present war has so adulterated our tongue with strange words, that it would be impossible for one of our greatgrandfathers to know what his posterity have been doing, were he to read their exploits in a modern newspaper. Our warriors are very industrious in propagating the French language, at the same time that they are so gloriously successful in beating down their power. Our soldiers are men of strong heads for action, and perform such feats as they are not able to express. They want words in their own tongue to tell us what it is they achieve, and therefore send us over accounts of their performances in a jargon of phrases, which they learn among their conquered enemies.

They ought however to be provided with when our country was delivered from the secretaries, and assisted by our foreign mi- greatest fears and apprehensions, and raised nisters, to tell their story for them in plain to the greatest height of gladness it had English, and to let us know in our mother-ever felt since it was a nation, I mean the tongue what it is our brave countrymen are about. The French would indeed be in the right to publish the news of the present war in English phrases, and make their campaigns unintelligible. Their people might flatter themselves that things are not so bad as they really are, were they thus palliated with foreign terms, and thrown into shades and obscurity; but the English cannot be too clear in their narrative of those actions, which have raised their country to a higher pitch of glory than it ever yet arrived at, and which will be still the more admired the better they are explained.

scarce

For my part, by that time a siege is car ried on two or three days, I am altogether lost and bewildered in it, and meet with so many inexplicable difficulties, that I know which side has the better of it, until I am informed by the Tower-guns that the place is surrendered. I do indeed make some allowances for this part of the war; fortifications have been foreign inventions, and upon that account abounding in foreign

terms. But when we have won battles

which may be described in our own language, why are our papers filled with so many unintelligible exploits, and the French obliged to lend us a part of their tongue before we can know how they are conquered? They must be made accessary to their own disgrace, as the Britons were formerly so artificially wrought in the curtain of the Roman theatre, that they seemed to draw it up, in order to give the spectators an opportunity of seeing their own defeat celebrated upon the stage; for so Mr. Dryden has translated that verse in Virgil:

Purpurea intexti tollunt aulæa Britanni.

Georg. iii. 25.

Which interwoven Britons seem to raise,
And show the triumph that their shame displays.

year of Blenheim, I had the copy of a letter
sent me out of the country, which was writ-
ten from a young gentleman in the army to
his father, a man of good estate and plain
sense. As the letter was very modishly
chequered with this modern military elo-
quence, I shall present my reader with a
copy of it,

and Bavarian armies they took post behind
'SIR,-Upon the junction of the French
a great morass which they thought im-
practicable. Our general the next day sent
a party of horse to "reconnoitre" them
of an hour's distance from the army, who
from a little "hauteur," at about a quarter
returned again to the camp unobserved
through several "defiles," in one of which
they met with a party of French that had
been "marauding," and made them all
prisoners at discretion. The day after a
which he would communicate to none but
drum arrived at our camp, with a message
the general; he was followed by a trumpet,
who they say behaved himself very saucily,
The next morning our army being divided
with a message from the Duke of Bavaria.
into two "corps," made a movement to-
wards the enemy. You will hear in the
the other circumstances of that glorious
public prints how we treated them, with
day. I had the good fortune to be in that
regiment that pushed the "gens d'armes."
Several French battalions, which some say
of resistance; but it only proved a "gas-
"corps de reserve," made a show
conade," for upon our preparing to fill up
a little "fosse" in order to attack them,
they beat the "chamade," and sent us a
"carte blanche." Their "commandant,"
with a great many other general officers,
and troops without number, are made pri-
soners of war, and will, I believe, give you
a visit in England, the "cartel" not being
yet settled. Not questioning but these par-
ticulars will be very welcome to you, I con-
gratulate you upon them, and am your most
dutiful son,' &c.

were a

The histories of all our former wars are transmitted to us in our vernacular idiom, to use the phrase of a great modern critic. I do not find in any of our chronicles, that Edward the Third ever reconnoitred the enemy, though he often discovered the pos- The father of the young gentleman upon ture of the French, and as often vanquished the perusal of the letter found it contained them in battle. The Black Prince passed great news, but could not guess what it was. many a river without the help of pontoons, He immediately communicated it to the and filled a ditch with faggots as success-curate of the parish, who upon the reading fully as the generals of our times do it with of it, being vexed to see any thing he could fascines. Our commanders lose half their praise, and our people half their joy, by means of those hard words and dark expressions in which our newspapers do so much abound. I have seen many a prudent citizen, after having read every article, inquire of his next neighbour what news the mail had brought.

I remember, in that remarkable year

Dr. Richard Bentley.

not understand, fell into a kind of a passion, and told him, that his son had sent him a letter that was neither fish, flesh, nor good red-herring. I wish,' says he, the captain may be "compos mentis," he talks of a saucy trumpet, and a drum that carries messages; then who is this "carte blanche?" He must either banter us, or he is out of his senses.' The father, who always looked upon the curate as a learned man, began to fret inwardly at his son's usage, and pro

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