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called the Lover's Leap, which I find has raised a great curiosity among several of my correspondents. I there told them that this leap was used to be taken from a promontory of Leucas. This Leucas was formerly a part of Acarnania, being joined to it by a narrow neck of land, which the sea has by length of time overflowed and washed away; so that at present Leucas is divided from the continent, and is a little island in the Ionian sea. The promontory of this island, from whence the lover took his leap, was formerly called Leucate. If the reader has a mind 10 to know both the island and the promontory by their modern titles, he will find in his map the ancient island of Leucas under the name of St. Mauro, and the ancient promontory of Leucate under the name of the Cape of St. Mauro.

Since I am engaged thus far in antiquity, I must observe, that Theocritus in the motto prefixed to my paper describes one of his despairing shepherds addressing himself to his mistress after the following manner: Alas! what will become of me! wretch that I am! will you not hear me? I'll throw off my clothes, and take a leap into that part of the sea which is so much frequented by Olphis 20 the fisher-man. And though I should escape with my life, I know you will be pleased with it. I shall leave it with the critics to determine, whether the place which this shepherd so particularly points out was not the above-mentioned Leucate, or at least some other lover's leap, which was supposed to have had the same effect. I cannot believe, as all the interpreters do, that the shepherd means nothing farther here than that he would drown himself, since he represents the issue of his leap as doubtful, by adding, That if he should escape with life, he knows his mistress would be pleased with it; which is, according to our 30 interpretation, that she would rejoice any way to get rid of a lover who was so troublesome to her.

After this short preface, I shall present my reader with some letters which I have received upon this subject. The first is sent me by a physician.

'MR. SPECTATOR,

'The lover's leap, which you mentioned in your 223rd paper, was generally, I believe, a very effectual cure for love, and not only for love, but for all other evils. In short, Sir, I am afraid it was such a leap as that which Hero took to get rid of her passion

for Leander. A man is in no danger of breaking his heart, who breaks his neck to prevent it. I know very well the wonders which ancient authors relate concerning this leap; and in particular, that very many persons who tried it escaped not only with their lives but their limbs. If by this means they got rid of their love, though it may in part be ascribed to the reasons you give for it, why may not we suppose that the cold bath into which they plunged themselves had also some share in their cure? A leap into the sea, or into any creek of salt waters, 10 very often gives a new motion to the spirits, and a new turn to the blood; for which reason we prescribe it in distempers which no other medicine will reach. I could produce a quotation out of a very venerable author, in which the frenzy produced by love is compared to that which is produced by the biting of a mad dog. But as this comparison is a little too coarse for your paper, and might look as if it were cited to ridicule the author who has made use of it, I shall only hint at it, and desire you to consider whether, if the frenzy produced by these two different causes be of the same nature, it may not very properly be cured 20 by the same means.

'I am, Sir,

"Your most humble servant, and well-wisher,

'MR. SPECTAtor,

'ESCULAPIUS.'

I am a young woman crossed in love. My story is very long and melancholy. To give you the heads of it: A young gentleman, after having made his applications to me for three years together, and filled my head with a thousand dreams of happiness, some few days since married another. Pray tell me in 30 what part of the world your promontory lies, which you call the Lover's Leap, and whether one may go to it by land? But, alas, I am afraid it has lost its virtue, and that a woman of our times would find no more relief in taking such a leap, than in singing an hymn to Venus. So that I must cry out with Dido in Dryden's Virgil.

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"Ah! cruel heaven, that made no cure for love!"
'Your disconsolate servant,

'MISTER SPICTATUR,

'ATHENAIS.'

'My heart is full of lofes and passions for Mrs. Gwinifrid, and

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she is so pettish and over-run with cholers against me, that if I had the good happiness to have my dwelling (which is placed by my creat-cranfather upon the pottom of an hill) no farther distance but twenty miles from the Lofer's Leap, I would indeed indefour to preck my neck upon it on purpose. Now, good mister Spictatur of Crete Pritain, you must know it, there is in Caernarvanshire a very pig mountain, the clory of all Wales, which is named Penmainmaure, and you must also know, it is no crete journey on foot from me; but the road is stony and bad 10 for shooes. Now, there is upon the forehead of this mountain a very high rock, like a parish steeple, that cometh a huge deal over the sea; so when I am in my melancholies, and I do throw myself from it, I do desire my fery good friend to tell me in his Spictatur, if I shall be cure of my griefous lofes; for there is the sea clear as glass, and as creen as the leek: then likeways if I be drown, and preak my neck, if Mrs. Gwinifrid will not lofe me afterwards. Pray be speedy in your answers, for I am in creat haste, and it is my tesires to do my pusiness without loss of time. I remain with cordial affections, your ever loving friend,

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'DAVYTH AP SHENKYN.'

'P.S. My law suits have brought me to London, but I have lost my causes; and so have made my resolutions to go down and leap before the frosts begin; for I am apt to take colds.'

Ridicule, perhaps, is a better expedient against love than sober advice, and I am of opinion, that Hudibras and Don Quixote may be as effectual to cure the extravagancies of this passion, as any of the old philosophers. I shall therefore publish very speedily the translation of a little Greek manuscript, which is sent me by a learned friend. It appears to have been a piece 30 of those records which were kept in the temple of Apollo, that stood upon the promontory of Leucate. The reader will find it to be a summary account of several persons who tried the lover's leap, and of the success they have found in it. As there seem to be in it some anachronisms and deviations from the ancient orthography, I am not wholly satisfied myself that it is authentic, and not rather the production of one of those Grecian sophisters, who have imposed upon the world several spurious works of this nature. I speak this by way of precaution, because I know there are several writers of uncommon erudition, who would not

fail to expose my ignorance, if they caught me tripping in a matter of so great moment.-C.

No. 239. Different methods of Disputation; Greek Philosophers; the Schoolmen; Club Law; the logic of Kings; arguing by torture-by bribery.

Bella, horrida bella!-VIRG. Æn. vi. 86.

I have sometimes amused myself with considering the several methods of managing a debate which have obtained in the world. The first races of mankind used to dispute, as our ordinary people do now-a-days, in a kind of wild logic, uncultivated by rules of art.

Socrates introduced a catechetical method of arguing. He would ask his adversary question upon question, till he had con10 vinced him out of his own mouth that his opinions were wrong.

This way of debating drives an enemy up into a corner, seizes all the passes through which he can make an escape, and forces him to surrender at discretion.

Aristotle changed this method of attack, and invented a great variety of little weapons, called syllogisms. As in the Socratic way of dispute you agree to every thing which your opponent advances, in the Aristotelic you are still denying and contradicting some part or other of what he says. Socrates conquers you by stratagem, Aristotle by force: the one takes the town by sap, the

20 other sword in hand.

The universities of Europe for many years carried on their debates by syllogism, insomuch that we see the knowledge of several centuries laid out into objections and answers, and all the good sense of the age cut and minced into almost an infinitude of distinctions ".

When our universities found that there was no end of wrangling this way, they invented a kind of argument, which is not reducible to any mood or figure in Aristotle. It was called the argumentum basilinum, (others write it bacilinum, or baculinum) which 30 is pretty well expressed in our English word club-law. When they were not able to confute their antagonist, they knocked him down. It was their method in their polemical debates, first to discharge their syllogisms, and afterwards to betake them

ΙΟ

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EFFECTUAL ARGUMENTS.

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selves to their clubs, till such time as they had one way or other confounded their gainsayers. There is in Oxford a narrow defile, (to make use of a military term,) where the partizans used to encounter, for which reason it still retains the name of Logiclane. I have heard an old gentleman, a physician, make his boast that, when he was a young fellow, he marched several times at the head of a troop of Scotists, and cudgelled a body of Smiglesians half the length of High-street, till they had dispersed themselves for shelter into their respective garrisons.

This humour, I find, went very far in Erasmus's " time. For that author tells us, That upon the revival of Greek letters, most of the universities in Europe were divided into Greeks and Trojans. The latter were those who bore a mortal enmity to the language of the Grecians, insomuch that if they met with any who understood it, they did not fail to treat him as a foe. Erasmus himself had, it seems, the misfortune to fall into the hands of a party of Trojans, who laid on him with so many blows and buffets, that he never forgot their hostilities to his dying day.

There is a way of managing an argument not much unlike the former, which is made use of by states and communities, when they draw up an hundred thousand disputants on each side, and convince one another by dint of sword. A certain grand monarch " was so sensible of his strength in this way of reasoning, that he writ upon his great guns-Ratio ultima regum, the logic of kings; but, God be thanked, he is now pretty well baffled at his own weapons. When one has to do with a philosopher of this kind, one should remember the old gentleman's saying, who had been engaged in an argument with one of the Roman emperors. 30 Upon his friend's telling him, That he wondered he would give up the question, when he had visibly the better of the dispute; I am never ashamed, says he, to be confuted by one who is master of fifty legions".

I shall but just mention another kind of reasoning, which may be called arguing by poll; and another which is of equal force, in which wagers are made use of as arguments, according to the celebrated line in Hudibras ".

But the most notable way of managing a controversy, is that which we may call arguing by torture. This is a method of 40 reasoning which has been made use of with the poor refugees",

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