especially when we find our companions | nary wit and beauty, but very unhappy in men of virtue and merit. If our afflictions a father, who having arrived at great riches are light, we shall be comforted by the by his own industry, took delight in nocomparison we make between ourselves thing but his money. Theodosius* was the and our fellow-sufferers. A loss at sea, a younger son of a decayed family, of great fit of sickness, or the death of a friend, are parts and learning, improved by a genteel such trifles, when we consider whole king- and virtuous education. When he was in doms laid in ashes, families put to the the twentieth year of his age he became sword, wretches shut up in dungeons, and acquainted with Constantia, who had not the like calamities of mankind, that we are then passed her fifteenth. As he lived but out of countenance for our own weakness, if a few miles distant from her father's house, we sink under such little strokes of fortune. he had frequent opportunities of seeing her, Let the disconsolate Leonora consider, and by the advantages of a good person and that at the very time in which she lan- a pleasing conversation, made such an imguishes for the loss of her deceased lover, pression on her heart as it was impossible there are persons in several parts of the for time to efface. He was himself no less world just perishing in a shipwreck; others smitten with Constantia. A long acquaintcrying out for mercy in the terrors of a ance made them still discover new beauties death-bed repentance; others lying under in each other, and by degrees raised in the tortures of an infamous execution, or them that mutual passion which had an the like dreadful calamities; and she will influence on their following lives. It unfind her sorrows vanish at the appearance fortunately happened, that in the midst of of those which are so much greater and this intercourse of love and friendship bemore astonishing. tween Theodosius and Constantia, there broke out an irreparable quarrel between their parents, the one valuing himself too much upon his birth, and the other upon his possessions. The father of Constantia was so incensed at the father of Theodosius, that he contracted an unreasonable aversion towards his son, insomuch that he forbade him his house, and charged his daughter, upon her duty, never to see him more. In the mean time, to break off all communication between the two lovers, who he knew entertained secret hopes of some favourable opportunity that should bring them together, he found out a young gentleman of a good fortune and an agreeable person, whom he pitched upon as a husband for his daughter. He soon concerted this affair so well, that he told Constantia it was his design to marry her to such a gentleman, and that her wedding should be celebrated on such a day. Constantia, who was overawed with the authority of her father, and unable to object any thing against so advantageous a match, received the proposal with a profound silence, which her father commended in her, as the most decent manner of a virgin's giving her consent to an overture of that kind. The noise of this intended marriage soon reached Theodosius, who, after a long tumult of passions, which naturally rise in a lover's heart on such an occasion, writ the follow ing letter to Constantia. I would further propose to the consideration of my afflicted disciple, that possibly what she now looks upon as the greatest misfortune, is not really such in itself. For my own part, I question not but our souls in a separate state will look back on their lives in quite another view than what they had of them in the body; and that what they now consider as misfortunes and disappointments, will very often appear to have been escapes and blessings. The mind that hath any cast towards devotion, naturally flies to it in its afflictions. When I was in France I heard a very remarkable story of two lovers, which I shall relate at length in my to-morrow's paper, not only because the circumstances of it are extraordinary, but because it may serve as an illustration to all that can be said on this last head, and show the power of religion in abating that particular anguish which seems to lie so heavy on Leonora. The story was told me by a priest, as I travelled with him in a stage-coach. I shall give it my reader, as well as I can remember, in his own words, after having premised, that if consolations may be drawn from a wrong religion and a misguided devotion, they cannot but flow much more naturally from those which are founded upon reason and established in good sense. L. No. 164.] Friday, September 7, 1711. 'The thought of my Constantia, which for some years has been my only happiness, is now become a greater torment to me than I am able to bear. Must I then live to see you another's? The streams, the fields and meadows, where we have so often talked together, grow painful to me; life itself is become a burden. May you long be happy Then thus the bride: What fury seiz'd on thee, Dryden. in the world, but forget that there was ever such a man in it as THEODOSIUS.' inquire after Constantia; whom he looked upon as given away to his rival upon the day on which, according to common fame, their marriage was to have been solemn progress in learning, that he might dedicate himself more entirely to religion, he entered into holy orders, and in a few years became renowned for his sanctity of life, and those pious sentiments which he in was this holy man to whom Constantia had determined to apply herself in confession, though neither she nor any other, besides the prior of the convent, knew any thing of his name or family. The gay, the amiable Theodosius, had now taken upon him the name of Father Francis, and was so far concealed in a long beard, a shaven head, and a religious habit, that it was impossible to discover the man of the world in the venerable conventual. This letter was conveyed to Constantia that very evening, who fainted at the read-ized. Having in his youth made a good ing of it; and the next morning she was much more alarmed by two or three messengers, that came to her father's house, one after another, to inquire if they had heard any thing of Theodosius, who, it seems, had left his chamber about mid-spired into all who conversed with him. It night, and could no where be found. The deep melancholy which had hung upon his mind some time before, made them apprehend the worst that could befal him. Constantia, who knew that nothing but the report of her marriage could have driven him to such extremities, was not to be comforted. She now accused herself of having so tamely given an ear to the proposal of a husband, and looked upon the new lover as the murderer of Theodosius. In short, she resolved to suffer the utmost As he was one morning shut up in his effects of her father's displeasure, rather confessional, Constantia kneeling by him than comply with a marriage which ap-opened the state of her soul to him; and peared to her so full of guilt and horror. after having given him the history of a life The father seeing himself entirely rid of full of innocence, she burst out into tears, Theodosius, and likely to keep a considera- and entered upon that part of her story in ble portion in his family, was not very much which he himself had so great a share, concerned at the obstinate refusal of his My behaviour,' says she, has I fear been daughter; and did not find it very difficult the death of a man who had no other fault to excuse himself upon that account to his but that of loving me too much. Heaven intended son-in-law, who had all along re- only knows how dear he was to me whilst garded this alliance rather as a marriage he lived, and how bitter the remembrance of convenience than of love. Constantia of him has been to me since his death." had now no relief but in her devotions and She here paused, and lifted up her eyes that exercises of religion, to which her afflic- streamed with tears, towards the father; tions had so entirely subjected her mind, who was so moved with the sense of her that after some years had abated the vio- sorrows, that he could only command his lence of her sorrows, and settled her voice, which was broke with sighs and thoughts in a kind of tranquillity, she re- sobbings, so far as to bid her proceed. She solved to pass the remainder of her days in followed his directions, and in a flood of a convent. Her father was not displeased tears poured out her heart before him. with a resolution which would save money The father could not forbear weeping aloud, in his family, and readily complied with insomuch that in the agonies of his grief the his daughter's intentions. Accordingly in seat shook under him. Constantia, who the twenty-fifth year of her age, while her thought the good man was thus moved by beauty was yet in all its height and bloom, his compassion towards her, and by the he carried her to a neighbouring city, in horror of her guilt, proceeded with the order to look out a sisterhood of nuns among utmost contrition to acquaint him with that whom to place his daughter. There was vow of virginity in which she was going to in this place a father of a convent who was engage herself, as the proper atonement very much renowned for his piety and ex- for her sins, and the only sacrifice she could emplary life; and as it is usual in the Ro- make to the memory of Theodosius. The mish church for those who are under any father, who by this time had pretty well great affliction, or trouble of mind, to apply composed himself, burst out again in tears themselves to the most eminent confessors upon hearing that name to which he had for pardon and consolation, our beautiful been so long disused, and upon receiving this votary took the opportunity of confessing instance of unparalleled fidelity from one herself to this celebrated father. whom he thought had several years since given herself up to the possession of another. Amidst the interruptions of his sor row, seeing his penitent overwhelmed with grief, he was only able to bid her from time to time be comforted-to tell her that her sins were forgiven her that her guilt was not so great as she apprehended-that she should not suffer herself to be afflicted above measure. After which he recovered We must now return to Theodosius, who, the very morning that the above-mentioned inquiries had been made after him, arrived at a religious house in the city where now Constantia resided; and desiring that secrecy and concealment of the fathers of the convent, which is very usual upon any extraordinary occasion, he made himself one of the order, with a private vow never to himself enough to give her the absolution | where she resided; and are often read to in form; directing her at the same time to the young religious, in order to inspire repair to him again the next day, that he them with good resolutions and sentiments might encourage her in the pious resolu- of virtue. It so happened, that after Con tions she had taken, and give her suitable stantia had lived about ten years in the exhortations for her behaviour in it. Con- cloister, a violent fever broke out in the stantia retired, and the next morning re- place, which swept away great multitudes, newed her applications. Theodosius having and among others Theodosius. Upon his manned his soul with proper thoughts and death-bed he sent his benediction in a very reflections, exerted himself on this occasion moving manner to Constantia, who at that in the best manner he could to animate his time was so far gone in the same fatal dis penitent in the course of life she was enter- temper, that she lay delirious. Upon the ing upon, and wear out of her mind those interval which generally precedes death in groundless fears and apprehensions which sicknesses of this nature, the abbess, finding had taken possession of it; concluding with that the physicians had given her over, told a promise to her, that he would from time her that Theodosius was just gone before to time continue his admonitions when she her, and that he had sent her his benedicshould have taken upon her the holy veil. tion in his last moments. Constantia reThe rules of our respective orders,' says ceived it with pleasure. And now,' says he, will not permit that I should see you, she, if I do not ask any thing improper, but you may assure yourself not only of let me be buried by Theodosius. My vow having a place in my prayers, but of re-reaches no farther than the grave; what I ceiving such frequent instructions as I can ask is, I hope, no violation of it.'- -She convey to you by letters. Go on cheerfully died soon after, and was interred according in the glorious course you have undertaken, to her request. and you will quickly find such a peace and satisfaction in your mind, which is not in the power of the world to give.' Constantia's heart was so elevated with the discourse of Father Francis, that the very next day she entered upon her vow. As soon as the solemnities of her reception were over; she retired, as it is usual, with the abbess into her own apartment. Their tombs are still to be seen, with a short Latin inscription over them to the following purpose: "Here lie the bodies of Father Francis and Sister Constance. They were lovely in their lives, and in their deaths they were not divided.' C. -Si forte necesse est, The abbess had been informed the night No. 165.] Saturday, September 8, 1711. before of all that had passed between her noviciate and Father Francis; from whom she now delivered to her the following letter: 'As the first fruits of those joys and consolations which you may expect from the life you are now engaged in, I must acquaint you that Theodosius, whose death sits so heavy upon your thoughts, is still alive; and that the father to whom you have confessed yourself, was once that Theodosius whom you so much lament. The love which we have had for one an other will make us more happy in its disappointment than it could have done in its success. Providence has disposed of us for our advantage, though not according to our wishes. Consider your Theodosius still as dead, but assure yourself of one who will not cease to pray for you, in Father FRANCIS.' Constantia saw that the hand-writing agreed with the contents of the letter; and upon reflecting on the voice of the person, the behaviour, and above all the extreme sorrow of the father during her confession, she discovered Theodosius in every particular. After having wept with tears of joy, It is enough,' says she, Theodosius is still in being: I shall live with comfort and die in peace.' The letters which the father sent her afterwards are yet extant in the nunnery Fingere cinctutis non exaudita Cethegis, -If you would unheard of things express, Creech. I HAVE often wished that as in our con stitution there are several persons whose business it is to watch over our laws, our liberties, and commerce, certain men might be set apart as superintendents of our lan guage, to hinder any words of a foreign ticular to prohibit any French phrases from coin from passing among us; and in parbecoming current in this kingdom when those of our own stamp are altogether as valuable. The present war has so adulte those of our own stamp are altogether as rated our tongue with strange words, that it would be impossible for one of our greatgrandfathers to know what his posterity have been doing, were he to read their exploits in a modern newspaper. Our warriors are very industrious in propagating the French language, at the same time that they are so gloriously successful in beating down their power. Our soldiers are men of strong heads for action, and perform such feats as they are not able to express They want words in their own tongue to tell us what it is they achieve, and there fore send us over accounts of their per formances in a jargon of phrases, which they learn among their conquered enemies. They ought however to be provided with when our country was delivered from the secretaries, and assisted by our foreign mi- greatest fears and apprehensions, and raised nisters, to tell their story for them in plain to the greatest height of gladness it had English, and to let us know in our mother-ever felt since it was a nation, I mean the tongue what it is our brave countrymen are year of Blenheim, I had the copy of a letter about, The French would indeed be in the sent me out of the country, which was writright to publish the news of the present war ten from a young gentleman in the army to in English phrases, and make their cam- his father, a man of good estate and plain paigns unintelligible. Their people might sense. As the letter was very modishly flatter themselves that things are not so bad chequered with this modern military eloas they really are, were they thus palliated quence, I shall present my reader with a with foreign terms, and thrown into shades copy of it. and obscurity; but the English cannot be too clear in their narrative of those actions, which have raised their country to a higher pitch of glory than it ever yet arrived at, and which will be still the more admired the better they are explained. For my part, by that time a siege is carried on two or three days, I am altogether lost and bewildered in it, and meet with so many inexplicable difficulties, that I scarce know which side has the better of it, until I am informed by the Tower-guns that the place is surrendered. I do indeed make some allowances for this part of the war; fortifications have been foreign inventions, and upon that account abounding in foreign terms. But when we have won battles which may be described in our own language, why are our papers filled with so many unintelligible exploits, and the French obliged to lend us a part of their tongue before we can know how they are conquered? They must be made accessary to their own disgrace, as the Britons were formerly so artificially wrought in the curtain of the Roman theatre, that they seemed to draw it up, in order to give the spectators an opportunity of seeing their own defeat celebrated upon the stage; for so Mr. Dryden has translated that verse in Virgil: Purpurea intexti tollunt aulæa Britanni. Georg. iii. 25. and Bavarian armies they took post behind were a gas Which interwoven Britons seem to raise, And show the triumph that their shame displays. The histories of all our former wars are transmitted to us in our vernacular idiom, to use the phrase of a great modern critic.* I do not find in any of our chronicles, that Edward the Third ever reconnoitred the enemy, though he often discovered the pos- The father of the young gentleman upon ture of the French, and as often vanquished the perusal of the letter found it contained them in battle. The Black Prince passed great news, but could not guess what it was. many a river without the help of pontoons, He immediately communicated it to the and filled a ditch with faggots as success- curate of the parish, who upon the reading fully as the generals of our times do it with of it, being vexed to see any thing he could fascines. Our commanders lose half their not understand, fell into a kind of a passion, praise, and our people half their joy, by and told him, that his son had sent him a means of those hard words and dark ex-letter that was neither fish, flesh, nor gcod pressions in which our newspapers do so red-herring. I wish,' says he, the capmuch abound. I have seen many a prudent citizen, after having read every article, inquire of his next neighbour what news the mail had brought. I remember, in that remarkable year * Dr. Richard Bentley. tain may be "compos mentis," he talks of a saucy trumpet, and a drum that carries messages; then who is this "carte blanche?" He must either banter us, or he is out of his senses.' The father, who always looked upon the curate as a learned man, began to fret inwardly at his son's usage, and pro ducing a letter which he had written to him ARISTOTLE tells us that the world is a copy or transcript of those ideas which are n the mind of the first Being, and that those ideas which are in the mind of man, are a transcript of the world. To this we may add, that words are the transcript of those ideas which are in the mind of man, and that writing or printing are the transcript of words. As the Supreme Being has expressed, and as it were printed his ideas in the creation, men express their ideas in books, which by this great invention of these latter ages may last as long as the sun and moon, and perish only in the general wreck of nature. Thus Cowley in his poem on the Resurrection, mentioning the destruction of the universe, has those admirable lines: Now all the wide extended sky, an advantage above all the great masters, is this, that they can multiply their originals: or rather can make copies of their works, to what number they please, which shall be as valuable as the originals themselves. This gives a great author something like a prospect of eternity, but at the same time deprives him of those other advantages which artists meet with. The artist finds greater returns in profit, as the author in fame. What an inestimable price would a Virgil or a Homer, a Cicero or an Aristotle bear, were their works like a statue, a building, or a picture, to be confined only in one place, and made the property of a single person! If writings are thus durable, and may pass from age to age throughout the whole course of time, how careful should an author be of committing any thing to print that may corrupt posterity, and poison the minds of men with vice and error! Writers of great talents, who employ their parts vicious sentiments with wit and humour, are in propagating immorality, and seasoning to be looked upon as the pests of society, and the enemies of mankind. They leave books behind them (as it is said of those who die in distempers which breed an illwill towards their own species) to scatter infection and destroy their posterity. They act the counterparts of a Confucius or a Socrates; and seem to have been sent into the world to deprave human nature, and sink it into the condition of brutality. I have seen some Roman Catholic authors who tell us, that vicious writers continue in purgatory so long as the influence of their writings continues upon posterity: for purgatory,' say they, is nothing else but a cleansing us of our sins, which cannot be And all th' harmonious worlds on high, said to be done away, so long as they conAnd Virgil's sacred work shall die. tinue to operate, and corrupt mankind. T'here is no other method of fixing those The vicious author,' say they, 'sins after thoughts which arise and disappear in the death, and so long as he continues to sin mind of man, and transmitting them to the so long must he expect to be punished. last periods of time; no other method of Though the Roman Catholic notion of purgiving a permanency to our ideas, and pre-gatory be indeed very ridiculous, one canserving the knowledge of any particular person, when his body is mixed with the common mass of matter, and his soul retired into the world of spirits. Books are the legacies that a great genius leaves to mankind, which are delivered down from generation to generation, as presents to the posterity of those who are yet unborn. not but think that if the soul after death has any knowledge of what passes in this world, that of an immoral writer would receive much more regret from the sense of corrupting, than satisfaction from the thought of pleasing his surviving admirers. To take off from the severity of this speculation, I shall conclude this paper All other arts of perpetuating our ideas with a story of an atheistical author, who continue but a short time. Statues can last at a time when he lay dangerously sick, and but a few thousands of years, edifices fewer, had desired the assistance of a neighbouring and colours still fewer than edifices. Mi- curate, confessed to him with great conchael Angelo, Fontana, and Raphael, will trition, that nothing sat more heavy at his hereafter be what Phidias, Vitruvius, and heart than the sense of his having seduced Apelles are at present, the names of great the age by his writings, and that their evil statuaries, architects, and painters, whose influence was likely to continue even after works are lost. The several arts are ex- his death. The curate upon farther expressed in mouldering materials. Nature amination finding the penitent in the utmost sinks under them and is not able to support agonies of despair, and being himself a man the ideas which are imprest upon it. of learning, told him that he hoped his case The circumstance which gives authors was not so desperate as he apprehended, |