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Thus Pontus sends her beaver stones from far;
And naked Spaniards temper steel for war.
Epirus for th' Elean chariot breeds
(In hopes of palms) a race of running steeds.
This is th' original contract; these the laws

Nature seems to have taken a particular care to disseminate her blessings among the different regions of the world, with an eye to this mutual intercourse and traffic among mankind, that the natives of the several parts of the globe might have a kind of dependence upon one another, and be united together by their common interest. Almost every degree produces something peculiar to it. The food often grows in one country, and the sauce in another. The fruits of Portugal are corrected by the products of Barbadoes, and the infusion of a China plant is sweetened with the pith of an In- ✦ dian cane. The Philippine islands give a flavour to the European bowls. The single dress of a woman of quality is often the products of a hundred climates. The muff and the fan come together from the different ends of the earth. The scarf is sent from the torrid zone, and the tippet from beneath the pole. The brocade petticoat rises out of the mines of Peru, and the diamond necklace out of the bowels of Indostan.

Impos'd by nature, and by nature's cause.-Dryden. THERE is no place in the town which I so much love to frequent as the Royal Exchange. It gives me a secret satisfaction, and in some measure gratifies my vanity, as I am an Englishman, to see so rich an assembly of countrymen and foreigners, consulting together upon the private business of mankind, and making this metropolis a kind of emporium for the whole earth. I must confess I look upon high Change to be a great council, in which all considerable nations have their representatives. Factors in the trading world are what ambassadors are in the politic world; they negotiate affairs, conclude treaties, and maintain a good correspondence between those wealthy societies of men that are divided from one another by seas and oceans, or live on the different extremities of a continent. I have often been pleased to hear disputes adjusted If we consider our own country in its nabetween an inhabitant of Japan and an al-tural prospect, without any of the benefits derman of London, or to see a subject of the and advantages of commerce, what a barGreat Mogul entering into a league with ren uncomfortable spot of earth falls to our one of the Czar of Muscovy. I am infinitely share! Natural historians tell us, that no delighted in mixing with these several mi- fruit grows originally among us, besides nisters of commerce, as they are distin-hips and haws, acorns and pig-nuts, with guished by their different walks and different languages. Sometimes I am jostled among a body of Armenians; sometimes I am lost in a crowd of Jews; and sometimes make one in a group of Dutchmen. I am a Dane, Swede, or Frenchman, at different | times; or rather fancy myself like the old philosopher, who upon being asked what Countryman he was, replied, that he was a ⚫ citizen of the world.

Though I very frequently visit this busy multitude of people, I am known to nobody there but my friend Sir Andrew, who often smiles upon me as he sees me bustling in the crowd, but at the same time connives at my presence without taking further notice of me. There is indeed a merchant of Egypt, who just knows me by sight, having formerly remitted me some money to Grand Cairo: but as I am not versed in the modern Coptic, our conferences go no further than a bow and a grimace.

This grand scene of business gives me an infinite variety of solid and substantial entertainments. As I am a great lover of mankind, my heart naturally overflows with pleasure at the sight of a prosperous and happy multitude, insomuch that at many public solemnities I cannot forbear expressing my joy with tears that have stolen down my cheeks. For this reason I am wonderfully delighted to see such a body of men thriving in their own private fortunes, and at the same time promoting the public stock; or, in other words, raising estates for their own families, by bringing into heir country whatever is wanting, and rrying out of it whatever is superfluous.

other delicacies of the like nature; that our climate of itself, and without the assistance of art, can make no farther advances towards a plum, than to a sloe, and carries an apple to no greater perfection than a crab; that our melons, our peaches, our figs, our apricots, and cherries, are strangers among us, imported in different ages, and naturalized in our English gardens; and that they would all degenerate and fall away into the trash of our own country, if they were wholly neglected by the planter, and left to the mercy of our sun and soil. Nor has traffic more enriched our vegetable world, than it has improved the whole face of nature among us. Our ships are laden with the harvest of every climate. Our tables are stored with spices, and oils, and wines. Our rooms are filled with pyramids of China, and adorned with the workmanship of Japan. Our morning's draught comes to us from the remotest corners of the earth. We repair our bodies by the drugs of America, and repose ourselves under Indian canopies. My friend Sir Andrew, calls the vineyards of France our gardens; the spice-islands, our hot-beds; the Persians, our silk-weavers, and the Chinese, our potters. Nature indeed furnishes us with the bare necessaries of life, but traffic gives us a great variety of what is useful, and at the same time supplies us with every thing that is convenient and ornamental. Nor is it the least part of this our happiness, that whilst we enjoy the remotest products of the north and south, we are free from those extremities of weather 'which give them birth; that our eyes are

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refreshed with the green fields of Britain, | plicity of thought, above that which I call
at the same time that our palates are feasted
with fruits that rise between the tropics.
For these reasons there are not more use-
ful members in a commonwealth than mer-
chants. They knit mankind together in a
mutual intercourse of good offices, distri-
bute the gifts of nature, find work for the
poor, add wealth to the rich, and magni-
ficence to the great. Our English mer-
chant converts the tin of his own country
into gold, and exchanges its wool for rubies.
The Mahometans are clothed in our Bri-
tish manufacture, and the inhabitants of the
frozen zone warmed with the fleeces of our
sheep.

When I have been upon the Change, I have often fancied one of our old kings standing in person, where is represented in effigy, and looking down upon the wealthy concourse of people with which that place is every day filled. In this case, how would he be surprised to hear all the languages of Europe spoken in this little spot of his former dominions, and to see so many private men, who in bis time would have been the vassals of some powerful baron, negotiating like princes for greater sums of money than were formerly to be met with in the royal treasury! Trade, without enlarging the British territories, has given us a kind of additional empire. It has multiplied the number of the rich, made our landed estates infinitely more valuable than they were formerly, and added to them an accession of other estates as valuable as the lands themselves.

C.

the Gothic manner of writing, than thisthat the first pleases all kinds of palates, and the latter only such as have formed to themselves a wrong artificial taste upon little fanciful authors and writers of epigrams. Homer, Virgil, or Milton, so far as the language of their poems is understood, will please a reader of plain common sense, who would neither relish nor comprehend an epigram of Martial, or a poem of Cowley; so, on the contrary, an ordinary song or ballad, that is the delight of the common people, cannot fail to please all such readers as are not unqualified for the entertainment by their affectation or ignorance; and the reason is plain, because the same paintings of nature, which recommend it to the most ordinary reader, will appear beautiful to the most refined.

The old song of Chevy-Chase is the favourite ballad of the common people of England, and Ben Jonson used to say, he had rather have been the author of it than of all his works. Sir Philip Sidney, in his discourse of poetry, speaks of it in the following words: 'I never heard the old song of Percy and Douglas, that I found not my heart more moved than with a trumpet; and yet it is sung by some blind crowder with no rougher voice than rude style, which being so evil apparelled in the dust and cobweb of that uncivil age, what would it work trimmed in the gorgeous eloquence of Pindar?" For my own part, I am so professed an admirer of this antiquated song, that I shall give my reader a critique upon it, without any further apology for so doing.

No. 70.] Monday, May 21, 1711.
The greatest modern critics have laid it
down as a rule, that an heroic poem should
Interdum vulgus rectum videt-
be founded upon some important precept
Hor. Lib. ii. Ep. i. 63.
of morality, adapted to the constitution of
Sometimes the vulgar see and judge aright.
the country in which the poet writes.
WHEN I travelled, I took a particular Homer and Virgil have formed their plans
delight in hearing the songs and fables that in this view. As Greece was a collection
are come from father to son, and are most of many governments, who suffered very
in vogue among the common people of the much among themselves, and gave the
countries through which I passed; for it is Persian emperor, who was their common
impossible that any thing should be univer- enemy, many advantages over them by
sally tasted and approved by a multitude, their mutual jealousies and animosities,
though they are only the rabble of a nation, Homer, in order to establish among them
which hath not in it some peculiar aptness a union which was so necessary for their
to please and gratify the mind of man. safety, grounds his poem upon the discords
Human nature is the same in all reasona- of the several Grecian princes who were
ble creatures; and whatever falls in with engaged in a confederacy against an Asiatic
it, will meet with admirers amongst rea- prince, and the several advantages which
ders of all qualities and conditions. Mo- the enemy gained by such discords. At the
liere, as we are told by Monsieur Boileau, time the poem we are now treating of was
used to read all his comedies to an old wo-written, the dissensions of the barons,
man who was his house-keeper, as she sat
with him at her work by the chimney-cor-
ner; and could foretel the success of his
play in the theatre, from the reception it
met with at his fire-side: for he tells us the
audience always followed the old woman,
and never failed to laugh in the same place.
I know nothing which more shows the
essential and inherent perfection of sim-

who were then so many petty princes, ran very high, whether they quarrelled among themselves, or with their neighbours, and

much admired by Sir Philip Sidney and Ben Jonson, *Mr. Addison was not aware that the old song so was not the same as that which he here so elegantly criticises, and which, in Dr. Percy's opinion, cannot be older than the time of Elizabeth; and was probably written after the eulogium of Sir Philip Sidney, or in consequence of it.

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'God save the king, and bless the land
In plenty, joy, and peace;

And grant henceforth that foul debate
"Twixt noblemen may cease.'

The next point observed by the greatest heroic poets, hath been to celebrate persons and actions which do honour to their country: thus Virgil's hero was the founder of Rome, Homer's a prince of Greece; and for this reason Valerius Flaccus and Statius, who were both Romans, might be justly derided for having chosen the expe dition of the Golden Fleece, and the wars of Thebes, for the subjects of their epic writings.

The poet before us has not only found out an hero in his own country, but raises the reputation of it by several beautiful incidents. The English are the first who take the field, and the last who quit it. The English bring only fifteen hundred to the battle, the Scotch two thousand. The English keep the field with fifty-three; the Scotch retire with fifty-five: all the rest on each side being slain in battle. But the most remarkable circumstance of this kind is the different manner in which the Scotch and English kings receive the news of this fight, and of the great men's deaths who

commanded in it:

This news was brought to Edinburgh,
Where Scotland's king did reign,
That brave Earl Douglas suddenly,
Was with an arrow slain.

O heavy news, king James did say,
Scotland can witness be,

I have not any captain more
Of such account as he.

'Like tidings to King Henry came
Within as short a space,
That Percy of Northumberland
Was slain at Chevy-Chase.

'Now God be with him, said our king,
Sith 'twill no better be,

I trust I have within my realm
Five hundred good as he.

Yet shall not Scot nor Scotland say,
But I will vengeance take,

And be revenged on them all

For brave Lord Percy's sake.

This vow full well the king perform'd
After on Humble-down,

In one day fifty knights were slain,
With lords of great renown.
And of the rest of small account
Did many thousands die,' &c.

At the same time that our poet shows a laudable partiality to his countrymen, he represents the Scots after a manner not unbecoming so bold and brave a people.

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When these brave men had distinguished themselves in the battle, and in single combat with each other, in the midst of a generous parley, full of heroic sentiments, the Scotch earl falls; and with his dying words encourages his men to revenge his death, representing to them, as the most bitter circumstance of it, that his rival saw him fall:

With that there came an arrow keen
Out of an English bow,

Which struck Earl Douglas to the heart
A deep and deadly blow.

'Who never spoke more words than these,
Fight on my merry-men all,
For why, my life is at an end,

Lord Percy sees my fall.'

Merry-men in the language of those times, is no more than a cheerful word for companions and fellow-soldiers. A passage in the eleventh book of Virgil's Æneid is very much to be admired, where Camilla, in her last agonies, instead of weeping over the wound she had received, as one might have expected from a warrior of her sex, considers only (like the hero of whom we are now speaking) how the battle should be continued after her death:

Tum sic expirans Accam ex æqualibus unam
Alloquitur; fida ante alias quæ sola Cammillæ.
Quicum partiri curas; atque hæc ita fatur:
Hactenus, Acca soror, potui: nunc vulnus acerbum
Conficit, et tenebris nigrescunt omnia circum:
Effuge, et hæc Turno mandata novissima perfer;
Succedat pugnæ; Trojanosque arceat urbe:
Jamque vale.-
En. xi. 820.

A gathering mist o'erclouds her cheerful eyes;
And from her cheeks the rosy colour flies,
Then turns to her, whom of her female train,
She trusted most, and thus she speaks with pain:
Acca, 'tis past! he swims before my sight,
Inexorable death; and claims his right.
Bear my last words to Turnus; fly with speed,
And bid him timely to my charge succeed,
Repel the Trojans, and the town relieve
Farewell.

Dryden.

Turnus did not die in so heroic a manner; though our poet seems to have had his eye upon Turnus's speech in the last

verse:

No. 71.]

'Lord Percy sees my fall.'

Ausonii videre

THE SPECTATOR

-Vicisti, et victum tendere palmas

En. 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.'

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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.
Jn. x. 822.

The pious prince beheld young Lausus dead;

He griev❜d, he wept, then grasp'd his hand, and said,

&c.

Dryden.

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

No. 71.] Tuesday, May 22, 1711.
Ovid. Ep. iv. 10.
-Scribere jussit amor.

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 acthe world, I shall give you, verbatim, the count of what has really ever happened in 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 in'May 14, 1711. flame and chastise the imagination. Such an impression as this gives an immediate 'MY DEAR BETTY,-Remember your ambition to deserve, in order to please. 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 your sweet person. sented Cymon so stupid, that

• He whistled as he went for want of thought ;'

he makes him fall into the following scene,
and shows its influence upon him so excel-
lently, that it appears as natural as won-
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,

gratifies a secret passion of her own, by
making Betty talk of James; and James is
become a constant waiter near his master's
I cannot learn who Molly is,
apartment, in reading, as well as he can,
romances.
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 for my love and service offered to your sweet person; which was your base respects to my ill conditions; when, alas! there is no ill conditions in me, but quite 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

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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

to me.

'Now, my dear, if I may not be permitted 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.

DEAR CREATURE,-Can you then neglect him who has forgot all his recreations and enjoyments to pine away his life in thinking of you? When I do so, you appear 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 livering a number of letters to his master, he gave him, 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 Betty was the first which met Mr. Wortley's eye, and he hid indulged his curiosity in reading the pathetic effusion of his love-lorn footman. James begged to have it returned: "No, James," said his inaster, "You

shall be a great man; and this letter must appear in the Spectator."

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 kiss the impression made by your fair hand. I love you above all things, and, in 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 gardens, 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 in

constancy.

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

R.

-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.
Dryden.

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 dare say will be no less surprising to my reader than it was to myself; for which reason I shall communicate it to the public as one of the greatest curiosities of its 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

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-party presuming to rise till they are refortunately 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

lieved 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,

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