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'Lord Percy sees my fall.'

-Vicisti, et victum tendere palmas
Ausonii videre-

Jn. xii, 936. The Latian chiefs have seen me beg my life.

Dryden. Earl Percy's lamentation over his enemy is generous, beautiful, and passionate: I must only caution the reader not to let the simplicity of the style, which one may well pardon in so old a poet, prejudice him against the greatness of the thought:

Then leaving life, Earl Percy took
The dead man by the hand,
And said, Earl Douglas, for thy life
Would I have lost my land.

O Christ, my very heart doth bleed
With sorrow for thy sake:
For sure a more renowned knight
Mischance did never take.'

The beautiful line, Taking the dead man
by the hand,' will put the reader in mind
of Æneas's behaviour toward Lausus, whom
he himself had slain as he came to the res-
cue of his aged father:

At vero ut vultum vidit morientis, et ora,
Ora modis Anchisiades pallentia miris;
Ingemuit, miserans graviter, dextramque tetendit.
n. x. 822.

The pious prince beheld young Lausus dead;
He griev'd, he wept, then grasp'd his hand, and said,
Dryden.

&c.

I shall take another opportunity to consider the other parts of this old song. C.

No. 71.] Tuesday, May 22, 1711.

Scribere jussit amor. Ovid. Ep. iv. 10.

Love bade me write.

He trudg'd along, unknowing what he sought,
And whistled as he went for want of thought.

By chance conducted, or by thirst constrain'd,
The deep recesses of the grove he gain'd;
Where in a plain, defended by the wood,
Crept through the matted grass a chrystal flood,
By which an alabaster fountain stood:
And on the margin of the fount was laid
(Attended by her slaves) a sleeping maid,
Like Dian and her nymphs, when tir'd with sport,
To rest by cool Eurotas they resort;
The dame herself the goddess well express'd,
Not more distinguish'd by her purple vest,
Than by the charming features of her face,
And e'en in slumber a superior grace:
Her comely limbs compos'd with decent care,
Her body shaded with a slight cymar;
Her bosom to the view was only bare:
The fanning wind upon her bosom blows;
To meet the fanning wind her bosom rose;
The fanning wind and purling streams continue her

repose.

The fool of nature stood with stupid eyes,
And gaping mouth that testify'd surprise;
Fix'd on her face, nor could remove his sight,
New as he was to love, and novice in delight:
Long mute he stood, and leaning on his staff,
His wonder witness'd with an idiot laugh;
Then would have spoke, but by his glimm'ring sense
First found his want of words, and fear'd offence:
Doubted for what he was he should be known,
By his clown-accent and his country-tone.'

But lest this fine description should be excepted against, as the creation of that great master Mr. Dryden, and not an account of what has really ever happened in the world, I shall give you, verbatim, the epistle of an enamoured footman in the country to his mistress. Their surnames shall not be inserted, because their passions demand a greater respect than is due to their quality. James is servant in a great family, and Elizabeth waits upon the daughter of one as numerous, some miles off her lover. James, before he beheld Betty, was vain of his strength, a rough THE entire conquest of our passions is wrestler, and quarrelsome cudgel-player; so difficult a work, that they who despair Betty a public dancer at May-poles, a romp of it should think of a less difficult task, at stool-ball: he always following idle woand only attempt to regulate them. But men, she playing among the peasants: he a there is a third thing which may contribute country bully, she a country coquette. But not only to the ease, but also to the plea- love has made her constantly in her missure of our life; and that is refining our pas-tress's chamber, where the young lady sions to a greater elegance than we receive them from nature. When the passion is love, this work is performed in innocent, though rude and uncultivated minds, by the mere force and dignity of the object. There are forms which naturally create respect in the beholders, and at once inflame and chastise the imagination. Such an impression as this gives an immediate 'May 14, 1711. ambition to deserve, in order to please. 'MY DEAR BETTY,-Remember your This cause and effect are beautifully de- bleeding lover, who lies bleeding at the cribed by Mr. Dryden in the fable of Cy-wounds Cupid made with the arrows he mon and Iphigenia. After he has repre- borrowed at the eyes of Venus, which is sented Cymon so stupid, that your sweet person.

He whistled as he went for want of thought;'

gratifies a secret passion of her own, by making Betty talk of James; and James is become a constant waiter near his master's apartment, in reading, as well, as he can, romances. I cannot learn who Molly is, who it seems walked ten miles to carry the angry message, which gave occasion to what follows:

'Nay more, with the token you sent me he makes him fall into the following scene, sweet person; which was your base refor my love and service offered to your and shows its influence upon him so excelspects to my ill conditions; when, alas! lently, that it appears as natural as won-there is no ill conditions in me, but quite derful:

'It happen'd on a summer's holiday,
That to the greenwood-shade he took his way;
His quarter-staff, which he could ne'er forsake,
Hung half before, and half behind his back,

contrary; all love, and purity, especially to your sweet person; but all this I take as a jest.

But the sad and dismal news which

Molly brought me struck me to the heart, which was, it seems, and is, your ill conditions for my love and respects to you.

"For she told me, if I came forty times to you, you would not speak with me, which words I am sure is a great grief

that I cannot think you are in earnest. But the certainty given me in your message by Molly, that you do not love me, is what robs me of all comfort. She says you will not see me: if you can have so much cruelty, at least write to me, that I may to me. kiss the impression made by your fair Now, my dear, if I may not be permit-hand. I love you above all things, and, in ted to your sweet company, and to have the happiness of speaking with your sweet person, I beg the favour of you to accept of this my secret mind and thoughts, which hath so long lodged in my breast, the which if you do not accept, I believe will go nigh to break my heart.

For, indeed, my dear, I love you above all the beauties I ever saw in my life.

"The young gentleman, and my master's daughter, the Londoner that is come down to marry her, sat in the arbour most part of last night. Oh, dear Betty, must the nightingales sing to those who marry for money, and not to us true lovers! Oh, my dear Betty, that we could meet this night where we used to do in the wood!,

Now, my dear, if I may not have the blessing of kissing your sweet lips, I beg I may have the happiness of kissing your fair hand, with a few lines from your dear self, presented by whom you please or think fit. I believe, if time would permit me, I could write all day; but the time being short, and paper little, no more from your never failing lover till death,

'JAMES

Poor James! since his time and paper were so short, I that have more than I can use well of both, will put the sentiments of this kind letter (the style of which seems to be confused with scraps he had got in hearing and reading what he did not understand) into what he meant to express.

my condition, what you look upon with indifference is to me the most exquisite pleasure or pain. Our young lady and a fine gentleman from London, who are to marry for mercenary ends, walk about our gar dens, and hear the voice of evening nightingales, as if for fashion sake they courted those solitudes, because they have heard lovers do so. Oh, Betty! could I hear those rivulets murmur, and birds sing, while you stood near me, how little sensible should I be that we are both servants, that there is any thing on earth above us! Oh! I could write to you as long as I love you, till death itself. JAMES.'

N. B. By the words ill conditions, James means, in a woman coquetry, in a man inR. constancy.

No. 72.] Wednesday, May 22, 1711.

Genus immortale manet, multosque per annos
Stat fortuna domus, et avi numerantur avorum.
Virg. Georg. iv. 208.

Th' immortal line in sure succession reigns,
The fortune of the family remains,
And grandsires' grandsons the long list contains.
Drydra.

HAVING already given my reader an account of several extraordinary clubs both ancient and modern, I did not design to have troubled him with any more narratives of this nature; but I have lately received information of a club which I can call neither ancient nor modern, that I DEAR CREATURE,-Can you then ne- dare say will be no less surprising to my glect him who has forgot all his recrea- reader than it was to myself; for which tions and enjoyments to pine away his life reason I shall communicate it to the pubin thinking of you? When I do so, you ap-lic as one of the greatest curiosities of its pear more amiable to me than Venus does in the most beautiful description that ever was made of her. All this kindness you return with an accusation, that I do not love you: but the contrary is so manifest,

The writer of this loving epistle was James Hirst, a servant to the Hon. Edward Wortley, esq. In de by mistake, this which he had just written to his sweetheart, and in its stead kept one of his master's James soon discovered the error he had committed, and returned to rectify it, but it was too late: the letter to

livering a number of letters to his master, he gave him,

Betty was the first which met Mr. Wortley's eye, and be bad indulged his curiosity in reading the pathetic effusion of his love-lorn footman. James begged to have it returned: "No, James," said his master," You

shall be a great man; and this letter must appear in

the Spectator."

James at length succeeded in convincing Betty that he had no ill conditions," and obtained her cor sent to marry him: the marriage, however, was un fortunately prevented by her sudden death; and James, who seems to have been a good sort of soul, soon after married her sister. This sister was most proba bly, the Molly who trudged so many miles to carry the angry message

kind.

A friend of mine complaining of a tradesman who is related to him, after having represented him as a very idle, worthless fellow, who neglected his family, and spent most of his time over a bottle, told me, to conclude his character, that he was a member of the Everlasting Club. So very odd a title raised my curiosity to inquire into the nature of a club that had such a sounding name; upon which my friend gave me the the following account.

The Everlasting Club consists of a hundred members, who divide the whole twenty-four hours among them in such a manner, that the club sits day and night from one end of the year to another; no party presuming to rise till they are relieved by those who are in course to succeed them. By this means a member of the Everlasting Club never wants company; for though he is not upon duty himself,

he is sure to find some who are; so that if | clubs with an eye of contempt, and talks he be disposed to take a whet, a nooning, an evening's draught, or a bottle after midnight, he goes to the club, and finds a knot of friends to his mind.

even of the Kit-Cat and October as of a couple of upstarts. Their ordinary discourse, (as much as I have been able to learn of it) turns altogether upon such adventures as have passed in their own as

It is a maxim in this club, that the steward never dies; for as they succeed one an-sembly; of members who have taken the other by way of rotation, no man is to quit the great elbow-chair which stands at the upper-end of the table, till his successor is in readiness to fill it: insomuch that there has not been a sede vacante in the memory of man.

glass in their turns for a week together, without stirring out of the club; of others who have smoked an hundred pipes at a sitting; of others, who have not missed their morning's draught for twenty years together. Sometimes they speak in raptures of a run of ale in king Charles's reign; and sometimes reflect with astonishment upon games at whist, which have been miraculously recovered by members of the society, when in all human probability the case was desperate.

They delight in several old catches, which they sing at all hours, to encourage one another to moisten their clay, and grow immortal by drinking; with many other edifying exhortations of the like na

This club was instituted towards the end (or as some of them say, about the middle) of the civil wars, and continued without interruption till the time of the great fire,* which burnt them out, and dispersed them for several weeks. The steward at that time maintained his post till he had like to have been blown up with a neighbouring house, (which was demolished in order to stop the fire;) and would not leave the chair at last, till he had emptied all the bottles upon the table, and received re-ture. peated directions from the Club to withdraw himself. This steward is frequently talked of in the club, and looked upon by every member of it as a greater man than the famous captain mentioned in my lord Clarendon, who was burnt in his ship because he would not quit it without orders. It is said, that towards the close of 1700, being the great year of jubilee, the club had it under consideration whether they should break up or continue their session; but after many speeches and debates, it was at length agreed to sit out the other century. This resolution was passed in a general club nemine contradicente.

Having given this short account of the institution and continuation of the Everlasting Club, I should here endeavour to say something of the manners and characters of its several members, which I shall do according to the best lights I have received in this matter.

There are four general clubs held in a year, at which times they fill up vacancies, appoint waiters, confirm the old firemaker, or elect a new one, settle contributions for coals, pipes, tobacco, and other necessaries.

The senior member has outlived the whole club twice over, and has been drunk with the grandfathers of some of the present sitting members.

No. 73.]

Thursday, May 24, 1711.

O Dea certe!

Cre

Virg. n. i. 328.

O goddess! for no less you seem. IT is very strange to consider, that a creature like man, who is sensible of so many weaknesses and imperfections, should be actuated by a love of fame: that vice and ignorance, imperfection and misery, should contend for praise, and endeavour as much as possible to make themselves objects of admiration.

It appears by their books in general, that since their first institution, they have But notwithstanding man's essential persmoked fifty tons of tobacco, drank thirty fection is but very little, his comparative thousand butts of ale, one thousand hogs- perfection may be very considerable. If he heads of red port, two hundred barrels of looks upon himself in an abstracted light, brandy, and a kilderkin of small beer. he has not much to boast of; but if he conThere has been likewise a great consump-siders himself with regard to others, he tion of cards. It is also said, that they ob- may find occasion of glorying, if not in his serve the law in Ben Jonson's club,† which own virtues, at least in the absence of anorders the fire to be always kept in (focus other's imperfections. This gives a difperennis esto) as well for the convenience ferent turn to the reflections of the wise of lighting their pipes, as to cure the damp-man and the fool. The first endeavours to ness of the club-room. They have an old shine in himself, and the last to outshine woman in the nature of a vestal, whose others. The first is humbled by the sense business it is to cherish and perpetuate the fire, which burns from generation to generation, and has seen the glass-house fires in and out above an hundred times.

The Everlasting Club treats all other

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of his own infirmities, the last is lifted up by the discovery of those which he observes in other men. The wise man considers what he wants, and the fool what he abounds in. The wise man is happy when he gains his own approbation, and the fool when he recommends himself to the applause of those about him.

But however unreasonable and absurd | smiles make men happy; their frowns drive this passion for admiration may appear in them to despair. I shall only add under such a creature as man, it is not wholly to this head, that Ovid's book of the Art of be discouraged; since it often produces very Love is a kind of heathen ritual, which good effects, not only as it restrains him contains all the forms of worship which are from doing any thing which is mean and made use of to an idol. contemptible, but as it pushes him to actions which are great and glorious. The principle may be defective or faulty, but the consequences it produces are so good, that for the benefit of mankind, it ought not to be extinguished.

It is observed by Cicero, that men of the greatest and the most shining parts are the most actuated by ambition; and if we look into the two sexes, I believe we shall find this principle of action stronger in women than in men.

when they refuse to comply with the prayers that are offered to them.

It would be as difficult a task to reckon up these different kinds of idols, as Milton's was to number those that were known in Canaan, and the lands adjoining. Most of them are worshipped like Moloch in fires and flames. Some of them, like Baal, love to see their votaries cut and slashed, and shedding their blood for them. Some of them, like the idol in the Apocrypha, must have treats and collations prepared for them every night. It has indeed been known, that some of them have been used The passion for praise, which is so very by their incensed worshippers like the Chivehement in the fair sex, produces excel-nese idols, who are whipped and scourged lent effects in women of sense, who desire to be admired for that only which deserves admiration; and I think we may observe, without a compliment to them, that many of them do not only live in a more uniform course of virtue, but with an infinitely greater regard to their honour, than what we find in the generality of our own sex. How many instances have we of chastity, fidelity, devotion! How many ladies distin- The intention therefore of the idol is quite guish themselves by the education of their contrary to the wishes of the idolater: as children, care of their families, and love of the one desires to confine the idol to himtheir husbands, which are the great quali-self, the whole business and ambition of the ties and achievements of womankind! as the making of war, the carrying on of traffic, the administration of justice, are those by which men grow famous, and get them selves a name.

I must here observe that those idolaters who devote themselves to the idols I am here speaking of, differ very much from all other kinds of idolaters. For as others fall out because they worship different idols, these idolaters quarrel because they worship the same.

other is to multiply adorers. This humour of an idol is prettily described in a tale of Chaucer. He represents one of them sitting at a table with three of her votaries about her, who are all of them courting her favour, and paying their adorations. She smiled upon one, drank to another, and trod upon the other's foot which was under the table. Now which of these three, says the old bard, do you think was the favourite? In troth, says he, not one of all the three.

But as this passion for admiration, when it works according to reason, improves the beautiful part of our species in every thing that is laudable; so nothing is more destructive to them when it is governed by vanity and folly. What I have therefore here to say, only regards the vain part of the sex, The behaviour of this old idol in Chaucer, whom for certain reasons, which the reader puts me in mind of the beautiful Clarinda, will hereafter see at large, I shall distin-one of the greatest idols among the moderns. guish by the name of idols. An idol is wholly taken up in the adorning of her person. You see in every posture of her body, air of her face, and motion of her head, that it is her business and employment to gain adorers. For this reason your idols appear in all public places and assemblies, in order to seduce men to their worship. The playhouse is very frequently filled with idols; several of them are carried in procession every evening about the ring, and several of them set up their worship even in churches. They are to be accosted in the language proper to the deity. Life and death are in their power: joys of heaven and pains of hell, are at their disposal; paradise is in their arms, and eternity in every moment that you are present with them. Raptures, transports, and ecstacies are the rewards which they confer; sighs and tears, prayers and broken hearts, are the offerings which are paid to them. Their

She is worshipped once a week by candlelight, in the midst of a large congregation, generally called an assembly. Some of the gayest youths in the nation endeavour to plant themselves in her eye, while she sits in form with multitudes of tapers burning about her. To encourage the zeal of her idolaters, she bestows a mark of her favour upon every one of them, before they go out of her presence. She asks a question of one, tells a story to another, glances an ogle upon a third, takes a pinch of snuff from the fourth, lets her fan drop by accident to give the fifth an occasion of taking it up. In short, every one goes away satisfied with his success, and encouraged to renew his devotions on the same canonical hour that day seven-night.

An idol may be undeified by many accidental causes. Marriage in particular is a kind of counter-apotheosis, or a deification inverted.-When a man becomes familiar

with his goddess, she quickly sinks into a

woman.

Old age is likewise a great decayer of your idol. The truth of it is, there is not a more unhappy being than a superannuated idol, especially when she has contracted such airs and behaviour as are only graceful when her worshippers are about her.

Considering therefore that in these and many other cases the woman generally outlives the idol, I must return to the moral of this paper, and desire my fair readers to give a proper direction to their passion for being admired; in order to which, they must endeavour to make themselves the objects of a reasonable and lasting admiration. This is not to be hoped for from beauty, or dress, or fashion, but from those inward ornaments which are not to be defaced by time or sickness, and which appear most amiable to those who are most acquainted with them.

No. 74.] Friday, May 25, 1711.

-Pendent opera interrupta

C.

Virg. Æn. iv. 83.

The works unfinish'd and neglected lie.

In my last Monday's paper I gave some general instances of those beautiful strokes which please the reader in the old song of Chevy-Chase; I shall here, according to my promise, be more particular, and show that the sentiments in that ballad are extremely natural and poetical, and full of the majestic simplicity which we admire in the greatest of the ancient poets: for which reason I shall quote several passages of it, in which the thought is altogether the same with what we meet in several passages of the Eneid; not that I would infer from thence that the poet (whoever he was) proposed to himself any imitation of those passages, but that he was directed to them in general by the same kind of poetical genius, and by the same copyings after

nature.

Had this old song been filled with epigrammatical turns and points of wit, it might perhaps have pleased the wrong taste of some readers; but it would never have become the delight of the common people, nor have warmed the heart of Sir Philip Sidney like the sound of a trumpet; it is only nature that can have this effect, and please those tastes which are the most unprejudiced, or the most refined. I must however beg leave to dissent from so great an authority as that of Sir Philip Sidney, in the judgment which he has passed as to the rude style and evil apparel of this antiquated song; for there are several parts in it where not only the thought but the language is majestic, and the numbers sonorous; at least the apparel is much more gorgeous than many of the poets made use of in Queen Elizabeth's time, as the reader

will see in several of the following quotations.

What can be greater than either the thought or the expression in that stanza,

To drive the deer with hound and horn
Earl Percy took his way;
The child may rue that is unborn

The hunting of that day!'

This way of considering the misfortunes which this battle would bring upon posterity, not only on those who were born immediately after the battle, and lost their fathers in it, but on those also who perished in future battles which took their rise from this quarrel of the two earls, is wonderfully beautiful, and conformable to the way of thinking among the ancient poets.

Audiet pugnas vitio parentum

Rara juventus. Hor. Lib. 1. Od. ii. 23. Posterity, thinn'd by their fathers' crimes, Shall read, with grief, the story of their times. What can be more sounding and poetical, or resemble more the majestic simplicity of the ancients, than the following stanzas?

The stout Earl of Northumberland
A vow to God did make,
His pleasure in the Scottish woods
Three summers' days to take.

'With fifteen hundred bowmen bold,
All chosen men of might,

Who knew full well, in time of need
To aim their shafts aright.

"The hounds ran swiftly through the woods
The nimble deer to take,

And with their cries the hills and dales
An echo shrill did make.'

-Vocat ingenti clamore Citharon,
Taygetique canes, domitrixque Epidaurus equorum:
Et vox assensu nemorum ingeminata remugit.
Georg. iii. 43.

Citharon loudly calls me to my way;
Thy hounds, Taygetus, open, and pursue the prey:
High Epidaurus urges on my speed,
Fam'd for his hills, and for his horses' breed:
From hills and dales the cheerful cries rebound;
For Echo hunts along and propagates the sound.

Lo yonder doth Earl Douglas come, His men in armour bright; Full twenty hundred Scottish spears, All marching in our sight.

All men of pleasant Tividale,

Dryden.

Fast by the river Tweed,' &c. The country of the Scotch warriors, described in these two last verses, has a fine romantic situation, and affords a couple of smooth words for verse. If the reader compares the foregoing six lines of the song with the following Latin verses, he will see how much they are written in the spirit of Virgil:

Adversi campo apparent, hastasque reductis
Protendunt longe dextris; et spicula vibrant:-
Quique altum Præneste viri, quique arva Gabinæ
Junonis, gelidumque Anienem, et roscida rivis
Hernica saxa colunt:-qui rosea rura Velini,
Qui Tetricæ horrentes rupes, montemque Severum,
Casperiamque colunt, Forulosque, et flumen Himelle:
Qui Tiberim Fabarimque bibunt.-

Æn. xi. 605vii. 682, 712.

Advancing in a line, they couch their spears—
-Præneste sends a chosen band,
With those who plow Saturnia's Gabine land:
Besides the succours which cold Anien yields;

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