Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

و

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

hasty to credit him: for some man is a friend for his own occasion, and will not abide in the day of thy trouble. And there is a friend who being turned to enmity and strife, will discover thy reproach. Again, 'Some friend is a companion at the table, and will not continue in the day of thy affliction: but in thy prosperity he will be as thyself, and will be bold over thy servants. If thou be brought low he will be against thee, and hide himself from thy face. ** What can be more strong and pointed than the following verse? Separate thyself from thine enemies, and take heed of thy friends. In the next words he particularizes one of those fruits of friendship which is described at length by the two famous authors above-mentioned, and falls into a general eulogium of friendship, which is very just as well as very sublime. A faithful friend is a strong defence; and he that hath found such a one hath found a treasure. Nothing doth countervail a faithful friend, and his excellency is invaluable. A faithful friend is the medicine of life; and they that fear the Lord shall find him. Whoso feareth the Lord shall direct his friendship aright; for as he is, so shall his neighbour (that is, his friend) be also.'t I do not remember to have met with any saying that has pleased me more than that of a friend's being the medicine of life, to express the efficacy of friendship in healing the pains and anguish which naturally cleave to our existence in this world; and am wonderfully pleased with the turn in the last sentence, that a virtuous man shall as a blessing meet with a friend who is as virtuous as himself. There is another saying in the same author, which would have been very much admired in a heathen writer: Forsake not an old friend, for the new is not comparable to him: a new friend is as new wine; when it is old thou shalt drink

it with pleasure. With what strength of allusion, and force of thought has he described the breaches and violations of friendship?—‹ Whoso casteth a stone at the birds frayeth them away; and he that upbraideth his friend, breaketh friendship. Though thou drawest a sword at a friend, yet despair not, for there may be a returning to favour. If thou hast opened thy mouth against thy friend, fear not, for there may be a reconciliation; except for upbraiding, or pride, or disclosing of secrets, or a treacherous wound; for, for these things every friend will depart.'s We may observe in this and several other precepts in this author, those little familiar instances and illustrations which are so much admired in the moral writings of Horace and Epictetus. There are very beautiful instances of this nature in the following passages, which are likewise written upon the same subject: 'Whoso discovereth secrets

* Ecclus. vi. 7, et seqq. † Ibid. vi. 15-18. ‡ Ibid. ix. 10. § Ibid. xxii. 20, 21, 22.

loseth his credit, and shall never find a friend to his mind. Love thy friend, and be faithful unto him; but if thou bewrayeth his secrets, follow no more after him; for as a man hath destroyed his enemy, so hast thou lost the love of thy friend; as one that letteth a bird go out of his hand, so hast thou let thy friend go, and shall not get him again: follow after him no more, for he is too far off; he is as a roe escaped out of the snare. As for a wound it may be bound up, and after reviling there may be a reconciliation; but he that bewrayeth secrets, is without hope,'ll

Among the several qualifications of a good friend, this wise man has very justly singled out constancy and faithfulness as the principal: to these, others have added virtue, knowledge, discretion, equality in age and fortune, and as Cicero calls it, Mo rum comitas, 'a pleasantness of temper.' If I were to give my opinion upon such an exhausted subject, I should join to these other qualifications, a certain equability or evenness of behaviour. A man often contracts a friendship with one whom perhaps he does not find out till after a year's conversation; when on a sudden some latent ill-humour breaks out upon him, which he never discovered or suspected at his first entering into an intimacy with him. There are several persons who in some certain periods of their lives are inexpressibly agreeable, and in others as odious and detestable. Martial has given us a very pretty picture of one of this species in the following epigram:

Difficilis, facilis, jucundus, acerbus es idem, Nec tecum possum vivere, nec sine te.-Epig. xii. 47. In all thy humours, whether grave or mellow, Thou'rt such a touchy, testy, pleasant fellow; Hast so much wit, and mirth, and spleen about thee, There is no living with thee, nor without thee. It is very unlucky for a man to be entangled in a friendship with one, who, by these changes and vicissitudes of humour, is sometimes amiable, and sometimes odious; and as most men are at sometimes in an admirable frame and disposition of mind, it should be one of the greatest tasks of wisdom to keep ourselves well when we are so, and never to go out of that which is the agreeable part of our character.

No. 69.] Saturday, May 19, 1711.

C.

Hic segetes, illic veniunt felicius uvæ;
Arborei fœtus alibi, atque injussa virescunt
Gramina. Nonne vides, croceos ut Tmolus odores,
India mittit ebur, molles sua thura Sabæi?
At Chalybes nudi ferrum, virosaque Pontus
Castorea, Eliadum palmas Epirus equarum?
Continuo has leges, æternaque fœdera certis
Imposuit natura locis-
Virg. Georg. i. 54.

This ground with Bacchus, that with Ceres suits;
The other loads the trees with happy fruits;
A fourth with grass, unbidden, decks the ground;
Thus Tmolus is with yellow saffron crown'd:
India black ebon and white iv'ry bears;
And soft Idume weeps her od'rous tears:

Ecclus. xxvii. 16. et seqq.

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 detogether 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 Indian 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 Ex-pendence upon one another, and be united change. 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 between an inhabitant of Japan and an al-tural prospect, without any of the benefits derman of London, or to see à subject of the Great Mogul entering into a league with one of the Czar of Muscovy. I am infinitely delighted in mixing with these several ministers of commerce, as they are distinguished 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.

If we consider our own country in its na

and advantages of commerce, what a barren uncomfortable spot of earth falls to our share! Natural historians tell us, that no fruit grows originally among us, besides hips and haws, acorns and pig-nuts, with cther 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 This grand scene of business gives me an the earth. We repair our bodies by the infinite variety of solid and substantial en- drugs of America, and repose ourselves untertainments. As I am a great lover of der Indian canopies. My friend Sir Anmankind, my heart naturally overflows with drew, calls the vineyards of France our pleasure at the sight of a prosperous and gardens; the spice-islands, our hot-beds; happy multitude, insomuch that at many the Persians, our silk-weavers, and the public solemnities I cannot forbear express- Chinese, our potters. Nature indeed furing my joy with tears that have stolen down|nishes us with the bare necessaries of life, my cheeks. For this reason I am wonder- but traffic gives us a great variety of what fully delighted to see such a body of men is useful, and at the same time supplies us thriving in their own private fortunes, and with every thing that is convenient and orat the same time promoting the public namental. Nor is it the least part of this stock; or, in other words, raising estates our happiness, that whilst we enjoy the refor their own families, by bringing into motest products of the north and south, we their country whatever is wanting, and are free from those extremities of weather carrying out of it whatever is superfluous. I which give them birth; that our eyes are

[graphic]

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 useful members in a commonwealth than merchants. They knit mankind together in a mutual intercourse of good offices, distribute the gifts of nature, .find work for the poor, add wealth to the rich, and magnificence to the great. Our English merchant converts the tin of his own country into gold, and exchanges its wool for rubies. The Mahometans are clothed in our British manufacture, and the inhabitants of the frozen zone warmed with the fleeces of our sheep.

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.

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 The old song of Chevy-Chase is the fa is every day filled. In this case, how would vourite ballad of the common people of he be surprised to hear all the languages of England, and Ben Jonson used to say, he Europe spoken in this little spot of his former had rather have been the author of it than dominions, and to see so many private men, of all his works. Sir Philip Sidney, in his who in his time would have been the vas-discourse of poetry, speaks of it in the folsals of some powerful baron, negotiating lowing words: 'I never heard the old song like princes for greater sums of money than of Percy and Douglas, that I found not my 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 them-fessed an admirer of this antiquated song, selves.

No. 70.] Monday, May 21, 1711.

C.

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 pro

that I shall give my reader a critique upon it, without any further apology for s doing.

*

The greatest modern critics have laid it down as a rule, that an heroic poem should Interdum vulgus rectum videtbe 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-corner; 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-consequence of it.

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 written after the eulogium of Sir Philip Sidney, or in older than the time of Elizabeth; and was probably

produced unspeakable calamities to the country. The poet, to deter men from such unnatural contentions, describes a bloody battle and dreadful scene of death, occasioned by the mutual feuds which reigned in the families of an English and Scotch nobleman. That he designed this for the instruction of his poem, we may learn from his four last lines, in which, after the example of the modern tragedians, he draws from it a precept for the benefit of his readers:

'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 expedition 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:

1

"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 ner 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.

[ocr errors]

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.

'Earl Douglas on a milk-white steed, Most like a baron bold, Rode foremost of the company,

Whose armour shone like gold.' His sentiments and actions are every way suitable to an hero. One of us two, says he, must die. I am an earl as well as yourself, so that you can have no pretence for refusing the combat: however, says he, it is pity, and indeed would be a sin, that so many innocent men should perish for our sakes; rather let you and I end our quarrel in single fight:

'Ere thus I will out-braved be,
One of us two shall die;

I know thee well, an earl thou art,
Lord Percy, so am I.

'But trust me, Percy, pity it were,

And great offence, to kill
Any of these our harmless men,
For they have done no ill.
'Let thou and I the battle try,
And set our men aside;
Accursed be he, Lord Percy said,

By whom it is deny'd.'

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 com panions 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 unàm
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.
Đồn 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:

'Lord Percy secs 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.'

6

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.

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 ker

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 ac

The pious prince beheld young Lausus dead;
He griev'd, he wept, then grasp'd his hand, and said, count of what has really ever happened in

&c.

Dryden.

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.

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;
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 summe.'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 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 for my love and service offered to your sweet person; which was your base_rethere is no ill conditions in me, but quite spects to my ill conditions; when, alas! contrary; all love, and purity, especially to your sweet person; but all this I take as a jest.

But the sal and dismal news which

« AnteriorContinuar »