"It is of dangerous consequence," says he, "to represent to man how near he is to the level of beasts, without showing him at the same time his greatness. It is likewise dangerous to let him see his greatness without his meanness. It is more dangerous yet to leave him ignorant of either; but very beneficial that he should be made sensible of both." Whatever imperfections we may have in our nature, it is the business of religion and virtue to rectify them, as far as is consistent with our present state. In the mean time it is no small encouragement to generous minds to consider, that we shall put them all off with our mortality. That sublime manner of salutation with which the Jews approach their kings, "O king, live for ever!" may be addressed to the lowest and most despised mortal among us, under all the infirmities and distresses with which we see him surrounded. And whoever believes in the immortality of the soul, will not need a better argument for the dignity of his nature, nor a stronger incitement to actions suitable to it. I am naturally led by this reflection to a subject I have already touched upon in a former letter, and cannot without pleasure call to mind the thought of Cicero to this purpose, in the close of his book concerning old age. Every one who is acquainted with his writings will remember that the elder Cato is introduced in that discourse as the speaker, and Scipio and Lelius as his auditors. This venerable person is represented looking forward as it were from the verge of extreme old age into a future state, and rising into a contemplation on the unperishable part of his nature, and its existence after death. I shall collect part of his discourse. And as you have formerly offered some arguments for the soul's immortality, agreeable both to reason and the Christian doctrine, I believe your readers will not be displeased to see how the same great truth shines in the pomp of Roman eloquence. "This (says Cato) is my firm persuasion, that since the human soul exerts itself with so great activity; since it has such a remembrance of the past, such a concern for the future; since it is enriched with so many arts, sciences, and discoveries; it is impossible but the being which contains all these must be immortal." the soul while in a mortal body lives, bu when departed out of it dies: or that its consciousness is lost when it is discharged out of an unconscious habitation. But when it is freed from all corporeal alliance, then it truly exists. Farther, since the human frame is broken by death, tell us what becomes of its parts? It is visible whether the materials of other beings are translated; namely, to the source from whence they had their birth. The soul alone, neither present nor departed, is the object of our eyes. Thus Cyrus. But to proceed:-"No one shall persuade me, Scipio, that your worthy father or your grandfathers Paulus and Africanus, or Africanus his father or uncle, or many other excellent men whom I need not name, performed so many actions to be remembered by posterity, without being sensible that futurity was their right. And, if I may be allowed an old man's privilege so to speak of myself, do you think I would have endured the fatigue of so many wearisome days and nights, both at home and abroad, if I imagined that the same boundary which is set to my life must terminate my glory? Were it not more desirable to have worn out my days in ease and tranquillity, free from labour and without emulation? But, I know not how, my soul has always raised itself, and looked forward on futurity, in this view and expectation, that when it shall depart out of life it shall then live for ever; and if this were not true, that the mind is immortal, the soul of the most worthy would not, above all others, have the strongest impulse to glory. "What besides this is the cause that the wisest men die with the greatest equanimity, the ignorant with the greatest concern? Does it not seem that those minds which have the most extensive views foresee they are removing to a happier condition, which those of a narrow sight do not perceive? I, for my part, am transported with the hope of seeing your ancestors: whom I have honoured and loved; and am earnestly desirous of meeting not only those excellent persons whom I have known, but those too of whom I have heard and read, and of whom I my self have written; nor would I be detained from so pleasing a journey. O happy day, when I shall escape from this crowd, this heap of pollution, and be admitted to that The elder Cyrus, just before his death, divine assembly of exalted spirits! when I is represented by Xenophon speaking after shall go not only to those great persons I this manner: "Think not, my dearest chil- have named, but to my Cato, my son, than dren, that when I depart from you I shall whom a better man was never born, and be no more: but remember, that my soul, whose funeral rites I myself performed, even while I lived among you, was invisible whereas he ought rather to have attended to you: yet by my actions you were sensible mine. Yet has not his soul deserted me, it existed in this body. Believe it therefore but, seeming to cast back a look on me, is existing still, though it be still unseen. How gone before to those habitations to which it quickly would the honours of illustrious was sensible I should follow him. And men perish after death, if their souls performed nothing to preserve their fame! For my own part, I never could think that though I might appear to have borne my loss with courage, I was not unaffected with it; but I comforted myself in the assurance, that it would not be long before we should meet again and be divorced no more." I am, sir, &c.' No. 538.] Monday, November 17, 1712. -Ultra Finem tendere opus. Hor. Sat. i. Lib. 2. 1. until we had worked up ourselves to such a pitch of complaisance, that when the dinner was to come in we inquired the name of every dish, and hoped it would be no offence to any in company, before it was admitted. When we had sat down, this civility among us turned the discourse from eatables to other sorts of aversions; and the eternal cat, which plagues every conversation of this nature, began then to engross the subject. One had sweated at the sight To launch beyond all bounds. of it, another had smelled it out as it lay SURPRISE is so much the life of stories, concealed in a very distant cupboard; and that every one aims at it who endeavours to he who crowned the whole set of these please by telling them. Smooth delivery, stories, reckoned up the number of times an elegant choice of words, and a sweet ar- in which it had occasioned him to swoon rangement, are all beautifying graces, but away. 'At last,' says he, that you may not the particulars in this point of conversa- all be satisfied of my invincible aversion to tion which either long command the atten- a cat, I shall give an unanswerable instance. tion, or strike with the violence of a sudden As I was going through a street of London, passion, or occasion the burst of laughter where I never had been until then, I felt å which accompanies humour. I have some- general damp and faintness all over me, times fancied that the mind is in this case which I could not tell how to account for, like a traveller who sees a fine seat in haste; until I chanced to cast my eyes upwards, he acknowledges the delightfulness of a and found that I was passing under a walk set with regularity, but would be un-sign-post on which the picture of a cat was easy if he were obliged to pace it over, when the first view had let him into all its beauties from one end to the other. hung.' The extravagance of this turn in the way of surprise, gave a stop to the talk we had been carrying on. Some were silent because they doubted, and others because they were conquered in their own way; so that the gentleman had an opportunity to press the belief of it upon us, and let us see that he was rather exposing himself than ridiculing others. However, a knowledge of the success which stories will have when they are attended with a turn of surprise, as it has happily made the characters of some, so has it also been the ruin of the characters of others. There is a set of men who outrage truth, instead of affecting us with a manner in telling it; who overleap the line I must freely own that I did not all this of probability that they may be seen to move while disbelieve every thing that was said; out of the common road; and endeavour but yet I thought some in the company had only to make their hearers stare by impos-been endeavouring who should pitch the ing upon them with a kind of nonsense bar farthest; that it had for some time been against the philosophy of nature, or such a a measuring cast, and at last my friend of heap of wonders told upon their own know- the cat and sign-post had thrown beyond ledge, as it is not likely one man should them all. have ever met with. I then considered the manner in which this story had been received, and the possi bility that it might have passed for a jest upon others, if he had not laboured against himself. From hence, thought I, there are two ways which the well-bred world generally takes to correct such a practice, when they do not think fit to contradict it flatly. I have been led to this observation by a company into which I fell accidentally. The subject of antipathies was a proper field wherein such false surprisers might expatiate, and there were those present who appeared very fond to show it in its full extent of traditional history. Some of them, in a learned manner, offered to our consideration the miraculous powers which The first of these is a general silence, the effluviums of cheese have over bodies which I would not advise any one to inter whose pores are disposed to receive them pret in his own behalf. It is often the effect in a noxious manner; others gave an ac-of prudence in avoiding a quarrel, when count of such who could indeed bear the sight of cheese, but not the taste; for which they brought a reason from the milk of their nurses. Others again discoursed, without endeavouring at reasons, concerning an unconquerable aversion which some stomachs have against a joint of meat when it is whole, and the eager inclination they have for it when, by its being cut up, the shape which had affected them is altered. From hence they passed to eels,then to parsnips, and so from one aversion to another, they see another drive so fast that there is no stopping him without being run against; and but very seldom the effect of weakness in believing suddenly. The generality of mankind are not so grossly ignorant, as some overbearing spirits would persuade themselves; and if the authority of a character or a caution against danger make us suppress our opinions, yet neither of these are of force enough to suppress our thoughts of them. If a man who has endeavoured to amuse his company with improbabilities could but look into their minds, he would | others entertain concerning you. In short, find that they imagine he lightly esteems you are against yourself; the laugh of the of their sense when he thinks to impose company runs against you; the censuring upon them, and that he is less esteemed by world is obliged to you for that triumph them for his attempt in doing so. His en- which you have allowed them at your own deavour to glory at their expense becomes expense; and truth, which you have ina ground of quarrel, and the scorn. and jured, has a near way of being revenged on indifference with which they entertain it you, when by the bare repetition of your begins the immediate punishment: and in-story you become a frequent diversion for deed (if we should even go no farther) the public. silence, or a negligent indifference, has a deeper way of wounding than opposition, because opposition proceeds from an anger that has a sort of generous sentiment for the adversary mingling along with it, while it shows that there is some esteem in your mind for him: in short, that you think him worth while to contest with. But silence, or a negligent indifference, proceeds from anger, mixed with a scorn that shows another he is thought by you too contemptible to be regarded. The other method which the world has taken for correcting this practice of false surprise, is to overshoot such talkers in their own bow, or to raise the story with 'MR. SPECTATOR,-The other day, walking in Pancras church-yard, I thought of your paper wherein you mention epitaphs, and am of opinion this has a thought in it worth being communicated to your readers. "Here innocence and beauty lies, whose breath farther degrees of impossibility, and set up No. 539.] Tuesday, November 18, 1712. for a voucher to them in such a manner as must let them see they stand detected. Thus I have heard a discourse was once managed upon the effects of fear. One of the company had given an account how it had turned his friend's hair gray in a night, while the terrors of a shipwreck encompassed him. Another, taking the hint from hence, began, upon his own knowledge, to enlarge his instances of the like nature to such a number, that it was not probable he could ever have met with them: and as he still grounded these upon different causes for the sake of variety, it might seem at last, from his share of the conversation, almost impossible that any one who can feel the passion of fear, should all his life escape so common an effect of it. By this time some of the company grew negligent, or desirous to contradict him; but one rebuked the rest with an appearance of severity, and with the known old story in his head, assured them he did not scruple to believe that the fear of any thing can make a man's hair gray, since he knew one whose periwig had suffered so by it. Thus he stopped the talk, and made them easy. Thus is the same method taken to bring us to shame, which we fondly take to increase our character. It is indeed a kind of mimickry, by which another puts on our air of conversation to show us to ourselves. He seems to look ridiculous before you, that you may remember how near a resemblance you bear to him; or that you may know that he will not lie under the imputation of believing you. Then it is that you are struck dumb immediately with a conscientious shame for what you have been saying. Then it is that you are inwardly grieved at the sentiments which you cannot but perceive VOL. IL 40 Heteroclita sunto.-Que Genus. Be they heteroclites. MR. SPECTATOR,-I am a young widow of good fortune and family, and just come to town; where I find I have clusters of pretty fellows come already to visit me, some dying with hopes, others with fears, though they never saw me. Now, what I would beg of you would be to know whether I may venture to use these pert fellows with the same freedom as I did my country acquaintance. I desire your leave to use them as to me shall seem meet, without imputation of a jilt; for since I make declaration that not one of them shall have me, I think I ought to be allowed the liberty of insulting those who have the vanity to believe it is in their power to make me break that resolution. There are schools for learning to use foils, frequented by those who never design to fight; and this useless way of aiming at the heart, without design to wound it on either side, is the play with which I am resolved to divert myself. The man who pretends to win, I shall use him like one who comes into a fencing-school to pick a quarrel. I hope upon this foundation you will give me the free use of the natural and artificial force of my eyes, looks, and gestures. As for verbal promises, I will make none, but shall have no mercy on the conceited interpreters of glances and motions. I am particularly skilled in the downcast eye, and the recovery into a sudden full aspect and away again, as you may have seen sometimes practised by us country beauties beyond all that you have observed in courts and cities. Add to this, sir, that I have a ruddy heedless look, which covers_artifice the best of any thing. Though I can dance very well, I affect a tottering untaught way| Spectator, this reverend divine gave us his of walking, by which I appear an easy prey; and never exert my instructed charms, until I find I have engaged a pursuer. Be pleased, sir, to print this letter, which will certainly begin the chase of a rich widow. The many foldings, escapes, returns, and doublings, which I make, I shall from time to time communicate to you, for the better instruction of all females, who set up, like me, for reducing the present exorbitant power and insolence of man. I am, sir, your faithful correspondent, RELICTA LOVELY.' 'DEAR MR. SPECTATOR,-I depend upon your professed respect for virtuous love for your immediately answering the design of this letter: which is no other than to lay before the world the severity of certain parents, who desire to suspend the marriage of a discreet young woman of eighteen, three years longer, for no other reason but that of her being too young to enter into that state. As to the consideration of riches, my circumstances are such, that I cannot be suspected to make my addresses to her on such low motives as avarice or ambition. If ever innocence, wit, and beauty, united their utmost charms, they have in her. I wish you would expatiate a little on this subject, and admonish her parents that it may be from the very imperfection of human nature itself, and not any personal frailty of her or me, that our inclinations baffled at present may alter; and while we are arguing with ourselves to put off the enjoyment of our present passions, our affections may change their objects in the operation. It is a very delicate subject to talk upon; but if it were but hinted, I am in hopes it would give the parties concerned some reflection that might expedite our happiness. There is a possibility, and I hope I may say it without imputation of immodesty to her I love with the highest honour; I say there is a possibility this delay may be as painful to her as it is to me; if it be as much, it must be grace's sermon, and yet I do not know how; even I that am sure have read it at least twenty times, could not tell what to make of it, and was at a loss sometimes to guess what the man aimed at. He was so just, indeed, as to give us all the heads and the subdivisions of the sermon, and farther I think there was not one beautiful thought in it but what we had. But then, sir, this gentleman made so many pretty additions; and he could never give us a paragraph of the sermon but he introduced it with something which methought looked more like a design to show his own ingenuity than to instruct the people. In short, he added and curtailed in such a manner, that he vexed me; insomuch that I could not forbear thinking (what I confess I ought not to have thought in so holy a place,) that this young spark was as justly blameable as Bullock or Penkethman, when they mend a noble play of Shakspeare or Jonson. Pray, sir, take this into your consideration; and, if we must be entertained with the works of any of those great men, desire find them, that so when we read them to these gentlemen to give them us as they our families at home they may the better remember they have heard them at church. Sir, your humble servant.' No. 540.] Wednesday, November 19, 1712. -Non deficit alter.-Virg. Æn. vi. 143. A second is not wanting. 'MR. SPECTATOR,-There is no part of your writings which I have in more esteem honourable and candid endeavour to set the than your criticism upon Milton. It is an works of our noble writers in the graceful light which they deserve. You will lose much of my kind inclination towards you, if you do not attempt the encomium of Spenser also, or at least indulge my passion for that charming author so far as to print the loose hints I now give you on that subject. more, by reason of the severe rules the sex are under, in being denied even the relief tation of six virtues-holiness, temperance, Spenser's general plan is the represenof complaint. If you oblige me in this, and chastity, friendship, justice, and courtesyI succeed, I promise you a place at my wed-in six legends by six persons. The six ding, and a treatment suitable to your personages are supposed, under proper alspectatorial dignity. Your most humble legories suitable to their respective characters, to do all that is necessary for the full manifestation of the respective virtues which they are to exert. servant, EUSTACE.' 'SIR,-I yesterday heard a young gentleman, that looked as if he had come just to the gown and a scarf, upon evil speaking: "These, one might undertake to show which subject you know archbishop Til-under the several heads, are admirably lotson has so nobly handled in a sermon in his folio. As soon as ever he had named his text, and had opened a little the drift of his discourse, I was in great hopes he had been one of Sir Roger's chaplains. I have conceived so great an idea of the charming discourse above, that I should have thought one part of my sabbath very well spent in hearing a repetition of it. But, alas! Mr. drawn; no images improper, and most surprisingly beautiful. The Redcross Knight runs through the whole steps of the Christian life; Guyon does all that temperance can possibly require; Britomartis (a woman) observes the true rules of unaffected chastity; Arthegal is in every respect of life strictly and wisely just; Calidore is rightly courteous. In short, in Fairly-land, where knightserrant have a full scope to range, and to do even what Ariostos or Orlandos could not do in the world without breaking into credibility, Spenser's knights have, under those six heads, given a full and truly poetical system of Christian, public, and low life. 'His legend of friendship is more diffuse; and yet even there the allegory is finely drawn, only the heads various; one knight could not there support all the parts. To do honour to his country, prince Arthur is a universal hero; in holiness, temperance, chastity, and justice, superexcellent. For the same reason, and to compliment queen Elizabeth, Gloriana, queen of fairies, whose court was the asylum of the oppressed, represents that glorious queen. At her commands all these knights set forth, and only at hers the Redcross Knight destroys the dragon, Guyon overturns the Bower of Bliss, Arthegal (i. e. Justice) beats down Geryoneo (i. e. Philip II. king of Spain) to rescue Belge (i. e. Holland,) and he beats the Grantorto (the same Philip in another light) to restore Irena (i. e. Peace) to Europe. Chastity being the first female virtue, Britomartis is a Briton; her part is fine, though it requires explication. His style is very poetical; no puns, affectations of wit, forced antitheses, or any of that low tribe. His old words are all true English, and numbers exquisite; and since of words there is the multa renascentur, since they are all proper, such a poem should not (any more than Milton's) consist all of it of common ordinary words. See instances of descrip tions. Causeless jealousy in Britomartis, v. 6, 14, "Like as a wayward child, whose sounder sleepe "Then as she looked long, at last she spied One coming towards her with hasty speed, 34. "There entering in, they found the good man's se.f Who was so weel a wretched wearish elf, The which he never wont to comb, or comely shear. Rude was his garment, and to rags all rent, 'Homer's epithets were much admired "The laurel, meed of mighty conquerors, 'I shall trouble you no more, but desire you to let me conclude with these verses, though I think they have already been quoted by you. They are addressed to young ladies oppressed with calumny, v. 6. 14. "The best (said he) that I can you advise, Abstain from pleasure and restrain your will, So shall you soon repair your present evil plight." My friend the Templar, whom I have so often mentioned in these writings, hav ing determined to lay aside his poetical Care and his house are described thus, v. studies, in order to a closer pursuit of the 6. 33, 34, 35. law, has put together, as a farewell essay, some thoughts concerning pronunciation They spied a little cottage, like some poor man's nest, and action, which he has given me leave "Not far away, nor meet for any guest, |