tes, or he himself, deserved most to be esteem-sufficient guard against it. I shall only obed? You must first see us die,' saith he, be-serve, that what was philosophy in this extrafore that question can be answered.' ordinary man, would be phrensy in one who

As there is not a more melancholy conside-does not resemble him as well in the cheerration to a good man than his being obnoxious fulness of his temper as in the sanctity of his to such a change, so there is nothing more glo- life and maurers.

rious than to keep up an uniformity in his ac- I shall conclude this paper with the instance tions, and preserve the beauty of his charac-of a person who seems to me to have shown ter to the last. more intrepidity and greatness of soul in his The end of a man's life is often compared dying moments than what we meet with among to the winding up of a well-written play, any of the most celebrated Greeks and Rowhere the principal persons still act in cha-mans. I met with this instance in the History racter, whatever the fate is which they under- of the Revolutions in Portugal, written by the go. There is scarce a great person in the abbot de Vertot. Grecian or Roman history, whose death has When Don Sebastian, king of Portugal, had not been remarked upon by some writer or invaded the territories of Muli Moluc, emperor other, and censured or applauded according to of Morocco, in order to dethrone him, and the genius or principles of the person who has set the crown upon the head of his nephew, descanted on it. Monsieur de St. Evremond Moluc was wearing away with a distemper is very particular in setting forth the constan- which he himself knew was incurable. Howcy and courage of Petronius Arbiter during ever, he prepared for the reception of so forhis last moments, and thinks he discovers in midable an enemy. He was, indeed, so far them a greater firmness of mind and resolution spent with his sickness, that he did not expect than in the death of Seneca, Cato, or Socrates. to live out the whole day, when the last deThere is no question but this polite author's cisive battle was given; but, knowing the faaffectation of appearing singular in his re-tal consequences that would happen to his marks, and making discoveries which had children and people, in case he should die beescaped the observation of others, threw him fore he put an end to that war, he commanded into this course of reflection. It was Petro: his principal officers, that if he died during nius's merit that he died in the same gayety the engagement, they should conceal his of temper, in which he lived; but as his life death from the army, and that they should was altogether loose and dissolute, the indif- ride up to the litter in which his corpse was ference which he showed at the close of it is carried, under pretence of receiving orders to be looked upon as a piece of natural care- from him as usual. Before the battle began, lessness and levity, rather than fortitude. The he was carried through all the ranks of his resolution of Socrates proceeded from very army in an open litter, as they stood drawn different motives, the consciousness of a well up in array, encouraging them to fight valiantspent life, and the prospect of a happy eter-ly in defence of their religion and country. nity. If the ingenious author above-mention- Finding afterwards the battle to go against ed was so pleased with gayety of humour him, though he was very near his last agonies, in a dying man, he might have found a much he threw himself out of his litter, rallied his nobler instance of it in our country man Sir army, and led them on to the charge: which

Thomas More.

This great and learned man was famous for enlivening his ordinary discourses with wit and pleasantry; and as Erasmus tells him in an epistle dedicatory, acted in all parts of life like a second Democritus.

He died upon a point of religion, and is respected as a martyr by that side for which he suffered. That innocent mirth, which had been so conspicuous in his life, did not forsake him

afterwards ended in a complete victory on the
side of the Moors. He had no sooner brought
his men to the engagement, but, finding him-
self utterly spent he was again replaced in
his litter, where, laying his finger on
mouth, to enjoin secrecy to his officers who
stood about him, he died a few moments af-
L.
ter in that posture.

his

to the last. He maintained the same cheer-No. 350.] Friday, April 11, 1712. fulness of heart upon the scaffold which he Ea animi elatio que cernitur in periculis, si justitiâ vaused to show at his table; and upon laying cat, pugnatque pro suis commodis, in vitio est. Tull. his head on the block, gave instances of that

That elevation of mind which is displayed in dangers,

good humour with which he had always en-if it wants justice, and fights for its own conveniency, is tertained his friends in the most ordinary oc- vicious. currences. His death was of a piece with his

life. There was nothing in it new, forced, or CAPTAIN SENTRY was last night at a club, affected. He did not look upon the severing and produced a letter from Ipswich, which his his head from his body as a circumstance that correspondent desired him to communicate to ought to produce any change in the disposition his friend the Spectator. It contained an acof his mind; and as he died under a fixed and count of an engagement between a French settled hope of immortality, he thought any privateer, commanded by one Dominic Potunusual degree of sorrow and concern impro- tiere, and a little vessel of that place laden per on such an occasion, as had nothing in it with corn, the master whereof, as I rememwhich could deject or terrify him. ber, was one Goodwin. The Englishman deThere is no great danger of imitation from fended himself with incredible bravery, and this example. Men's natural fears will be a beat off the French, after having been board

ed three or four times. The enemy still came what we may call true courage.

Alas! it is

Το

on with greater fury, and hoped by his num- not so easy a thing to be a brave man as the ber of men to carry the prize; till at last the unthinking part of mankind imagine. Englishman, finding himself sink apace, and dare is not all that there is in it. The privateer ready to perish, struck: but the effect which we were just now talking of had boldness this singular gallantry had upon the captain enough to attack his enemy, but not greatness of the privateer was no other than an unman-of mind enough to admire the same quality ly desire of vengeance for the loss he had sus- exerted by that enemy in defending himself. tained in his several attacks. He told the Ips- Thus his base and little mind was wholly tawich man in a speaking trumpet, that he would ken up in the sordid regard to the prize of which not take him aboard, and that he stayed to see he failed, and the damage done to his own him sink. The Englishman at the same time vessel; and therefore he used an honest observed a disorder in the vessel, which he man, who defended his own from him, in the rightly judged to proceed from the disdain manner as he would a thief that should rob which the ships crew had of their captain's in- him. humanity. With this hope he went into his He was equally disappointed, and had not boat, and approached the enemy He was spirit enough to consider, that one case would taken in by the sailors in spite of their com- be laudable, and the other criminal. Malice, mander: but, though they received him against rancour, hatred, vengeance, are what tear the his command, they treated him, when he was breasts of mean men in fight; but fame glory, in the ship, in the manner he directed Pot-conquests, desire of opportunities to pardon tiere caused his men to hold Goodwin, while he and oblige their opposers, are what glow in beat him with a stick, till he fainted with loss the minds of the gallant.' The captain ended of blood and rage of heart; after which he or- his discourse with a specimen of his book-learndered him into irons, without allowing him any ing; and gave us to understand that he had food, but such as one or two of the men stole read a French author on the subject of justness to him under peril of the like usage: and in point of gallantry. I love,' said Mr. Sentry having kept him several days overwhelmed a critic who mixes the rules of life with annowith the misery of stench, hunger, and sore-tations upon writers. My author,' added he, ness, he brought him into Calais. The gover- in his discoure upon epic poems, takes occanor of the place was soon acquainted with all that had passed, dismissed Pottiere from his charge with ignominy, and gave Goodwin all the relief which a man of honour would be stow upon an enemy barbarously treated, to recover the imputation of cruelty upon his prince and country.

sion to speak of the same quality of courage drawn in the two different characters of Turnus and Æneas. He makes courage the chief and greatest ornament of Turnus; but in Æneas there are many others which outshine it; among the rest, that of piety. Turnus is, therefore, all along painted by the poet full of ostentation, his language haughty and vainglorious as placing his honour in the manifestation of his valour: Æneas speaks little, is slow to action, and shows only a sort of defensive courage. If equipage and address make Turnus appear more courageous than Æneas, conduct and success prove Æneas more valiant than Turnus.

In te omnis domus inclinata recumbit.

T.

When Mr. Sentry had read his letter, full of many other circumstances which aggravate the barbarity, he fell into a sort of criticism upon magnanimity and courage, and argued that they were inseparable; and that courage, without regard to justice and humanity, was no other than the fierceness of a wild beast. A good and truly bold spirit,' continued he, 'is ever actuated by reason, and a sense of honour and duty. The affectation of such a No. 351.] Saturday, April 12, 1712. spirit exerts itself in an impudent aspect, an over-bearing confidence, and a certain negliVirg. En. xii. 59. gence of giving offence. This is visible in all the On thee the fortunes of our house depend. cocking youths you see about this town, who are noisy in assemblies, unawed by the presence If we look into the three great heroic poems of wise and virtuous men; in a word, insensible which have appeared in the world, we may obof all the honours and decencies of human life. serve that they are built upon very slight founA shameless fellow takes advantage of merit dations. Homer lived near 300 years after the clothed with modesty and magnanimity, and, Trojan war: and, as the writing of history was in the eyes of little people, appears sprightly not then in use among the Greeks, we may and agreeable: while the man of resolution very well suppose that the tradition of Achilles and true gallantry is overlooked and disre- and Ulysses had brought down but very few garded, if not despised. There is a propriety particulars to his knowledge; though there is in all things; and I believe what you scholars no question but he has wrought into his two call just and sublime, in opposition to turgid poems such of their remarkable adventures and bombast expression, may give you an idea as were still talked of amoug his conetmporaof what I mean, when I say modesty is the cer-ries.

tain indication of a great spirit, and impudence The story of Eneas, on which Virgil founded the affectation of it. He that writes with judg-his poem, was likewise very bare of circumment, and never writes with improper warmths, stances, and by that means afforded him an manifests the true force of genius; in like opportunity of embellishing it with fiction and manner, he who is quiet and equal in his be-giving a full range to his own invention. We haviour is supported in that deportment by find, however, that he has interwoven, in the

course of his fable, the principal particulars, |tified by tradition.

What further confirms

which were generally believed among the Ro-me that this change of the fleet was a celebramans, of Æneas's voyage and settlement in ted circumstance in the history of Eneas, is, that Ovid has given a place to the same metaItaly. The reader may find an abridgment of the morphosis in his account of the heathen mywhole story, as collected out of the ancient his-thology. torians, and as it was received among the Romans, in Dionysius Halicarnassus.

formed one of the most entertaining fables that invention ever produced. He has disposed of these several circumstances among so many agreeable and natural fictions of his own, that his whole story looks only like a comment upou sacred writ, or rather seems to be a full and complete relation of what the other is only an epitome.

None of the critics I have met with have considered the fable of the Æneid in this light, Shice none of the critics have considered and taken notice how the tradition on which Virgil's fable with relation to this history of it was founded authorizes those parts in it Eneas, it may not perhaps, be amiss to examine which appear most exceptionable. I hope the it in this light, so far as regards my present length of this reflection will not make it unpurpose. Whoever looks into the abridgment acceptable to the curious part of my reader. The history which was the basis of Milton's above-mentioned, will find that the character of Æneas is filled with piety to the gods, and a poem is still shorter than either that of the Iliad superstitious observation of prodigies, oracles, or Æneid. The poet has likewise taken care to and predictions. Virgil has not only preserved insert every circumstance of it in the body of his character in the person of Æneas, but has his fable. The ninth book, which we are here given a place in his poem to those particular to consider, is raised upon that brief account in prophecies which he found recorded of him in scripture, wherein we are told that the serpent history and tradition. The poet took the mat- was more subtle than any beast in the field; ters of fact as they came down to him, and that he tempted the woman to eat of the forcircumstanced them after his own manner, to-bidden fruit; that she was overcome by this make them appear the more natural, agreeable, temptation, and that Adam followed her exor surprising. I believe very many readers ample. From these few particulars Milton has have been shocked at that ludicrous prophecy which one of the harpies pronounces to the Trojans in the third book; namely, that before they had built their intended city they should be reduced by hunger to eat their very tables. But, when they hear that this was one of the circumstances that had been transmitted to the I have insisted the longer on this Romans in the history of Æneas, they will think the poet did very well in taking notice of it. consideration, as I look upon the disposition The historian above-mentioned acquaints us, and contrivance of the fable to be the principal that a prophetess had foretold Æneas, that he beauty of the ninth book, which has more story should take his voyage westward, till his com-in it, and is fuller of incidents, than any other Satan's traversing the panions should eat their tables; and that accor- in the whole poem. dingly, upon his landing in Italy, as they were globe, and still keeping within the shadow of eating their flesh upon cakes of bread for want the night, as fearing to be discovered by the of other conveniences, they afterwards fed on angel of the sun, who had before detected him, the cakes themselves: upon which one of the is one of those beautiful imaginations with company said merrily, We are eating our ta- which he introduces this his second series of adbles. They immediately took the hint, says ventures. Having examined the nature of every the historian, and concluded the prophecy to creature, and found out one which was the most be fulfilled. As Virgil did not think it proper proper for his purpose, he again returns to Parato omit so material a particular in the history dise; and, to avoid discovery, sinks by night of Eneas, it may be worth while to consider with a river that ran under the garden, and with how much judgment he has qualified it, rises up again through a fountain that issued from it by the tree of life. The poet, who, as and taken off every thing that might have appeared improper for a passage in an heroic we have before taken notice, speaks as little as poem. The prophetess who foretells it is an possible in his own person, and, after the exhungry harpy, as the person who discovers it ample of Homer, fills every part of his work with manners and characters, introduces a sois young Ascanius. liloquy of this infernal agent, who was thus restless in the destruction of man. He is then deEn. vii. 116. scribed as gliding through the garden, under the resemblance of a mist, in order to find out the creature in which he designed to tempt our first parents. This description has something in it very poetical and surprising :

4

'Heus etiam mensas consumimus, inquit lulus!'

'See, we devour the plates on which we fed!'

Dryden.

Such an observation, which is beautiful in the mouth of a boy, would have been ridiculous from any other of the company. I am apt to think that the changing of the Trojan fleet into water-nymphs, which is the most violent machine in the whole Eueid, and has given offence to several critics, may be accounted for the same way. Virgil himself, before he begins that relation, premises, that what he was going to tell appeared incredible, but that is was jus

So saying, through each thicket dank or dry,
Like a black mist low creeping, he held on
His midnight search, where soonest he might find
The serpent: him fast sleeping soon he found
In labyrinth of many a round self-roll'd,
His head the midst, well stor'd with subtle wiles.

The author afterwards gives us a description of the morning, which is wonderfully suitable to a divine poem, and peculiar to that

first season of nature. He represents the earth from her husband, the many pleasing images before it was cursed, as a great altar breath- of nature which are intermixed in this part of ing out its incense from all parts, and sending the story, with its gradual and regular proup a pleasant savour to the nostrils of its gress to the fatal catastrophe, are so very reCreator; to which he adds a noble idea of markable, that it would be superfluous to Adam and Eve, as offering their morning wor-point out their respective beauties. ship, and filling up the universal concert of praise and adoration:

Now when a sacred light began to dawn
In Eden on the humid flowers, that breath'd

Their morning incense; when all things that breathe
From th' earth's great altar send up silent praise
To the Creator, and his nostrils fill

With grateful smell; forth came the human pair,
And join'd their vocal worship to the choir
Of creatures wanting voice.-

I have avoided mentioinng any particular similitudes in my remarks on this great work, because I have given a general account of them in my paper on the first book. There is one, however, in this part of the poem which I shall here quote, as it is not only very beautiful, but the closest of any in the whole poem; I mean that where the serpent is described as rolling forward in all his pride, animated by the evil spirit, and conducting Eve to her The dispute which follows between our two destruction, while Adam was at too great a first parents is represented with great art. It distance from her to give her his assistance. proceeds from a difference of judgment, not of These several particulars are all of them passion, and is managed with reason, not with wrought into the following similitude: heat. It is such a dispute as we may suppose might have happened in Paradise, had man continued happy and innocent. There is a great delicacy in the moralities which are interspersed in Adam's discourse, and which the most ordinary reader cannot but take notice of. That force of love which the father of mankind so finely describes in the eighth book, and which is inserted in my last Saturday's paper, shows itself here in many fine instances; as in those fond regards he casts towards Eve at her parting from him

Of enemy hath beguil'd thee, yet unknown,
And me with thee hath ruin'd; for with thee
Certain my resolution is to die :

How can I live without thee? how forego
Thy sweet converse and love so dearly join'd,
To live again in these wild woods forlorn?
Should God create another Eve, and I
Another rib afford, yet loss of thee
Would never from my heart; no, no! I feel
The link of nature draw me: flesh of flesh,
Bone of my bone thou art, and from thy state
Mine never shall be parted, bliss or woe.

Hope elevates, and joy
Brightens his crest; as when a wandering fire
Compact of unctious vapour, which the night
Condenses, and the cold environs round,
Kindled through agitation to a flame,
(Which oft, they say, some evil spirit attends)
Hovering and blazing with delusive light,
Misleads th' amaz'd night-wanderer from his way
To bogs and mires, and oft through pond or pool,
There swallow'd up and lost, from succour far.

The secret intoxication of pleasure, with all those transient flushings of guilt and joy, which the poet represents in our first parents upon their eating the forbidden fruit, to those flaggings of spirit, damps of sorrow, and mutual accusations which succeed it, are conceived with a wonderful imagination, and described in very natural sentiments.

When Dido, in the fourth Eneid, yielded to that fatal temptation which ruined her, Virgil tells us the earth trembled, the heavens were filled with flashes of lightning, and the nymphs howled upon the mountain tops. Milton, in the same poetical spirit, has described all nature as disturbed upon Eve's eating the forbidden fruit.

As all nature suffered by the guilt of our first

The beginning of this speech, and the pre-parents, these symptoms of trouble and conparation to it, are animated with the same spirit as the conclusion, which I have here quoted.

The several wiles which are put in practice by the tempter, when he found Eve separated

sternation are wonderfully imagined, not only as prodigies, but as marks of her sympathizing in the fall of man.

Adam's converse with Eve, after having eaten the forbidden fruit, is an exact copy of

that between Jupiter and Juno in the fourteenth intrigue, are advanced very far in years, and Iliad. Juno there approaches Jupiter with the beyond the pleasures and sallies of youth; girdle which she had received from Venus; but now Will observes, that the young have upon which he tells her, that she appeared taken in the vices of the aged, and you shall more charming and desirable than she had have a man of five-and-twenty, crafty, false, ever done before, even when their loves were and intriguing, not ashamed to over-reach, at the highest. The poet afterwards describes cozen, and beguile. My friend adds, that till them as reposing on a summit of Mount about the latter end of king Charles's reign Ida, which produced under them a bed of there was not a rascal of any eminence under flowers, the lotus, the crocus, and the bya- forty. In the places of resort for conversacinth; and concludes his description with tion, you now hear nothing but what relates their falling asleep. to the improving men's fortunes, without re

Let the reader compare this with the fol-gard to the methods towards it. This is so lowing passage in Milton, which begins with fashionable, that young men form themselves Adam's speech to Eve:

'For never did thy beauty since the day
I saw thee first and wedded thee, adorn'd
With all perfections, so inflame my sense
With ardour to enjoy thee, fairer now
Than ever, bounty of this virtuous tree,

So said ho, and forbore not glance or toy
Of amorous intent, well understood
Of Eve, whose eye darted contagious fire.
Her hand he seized, and to a shady bank,
Thick over head with verdant roof embower'd,
He led her nothing loth; flowers were the couch,
Pansies, and violets, and asphodel,

And hyacinth, Earth's freshest softest lap.
There they their fill of love and love's disport
Took largely, of their mutual guilt the seal.
The solace of their sin, till dewy sleep
Oppress'd them.—

upon a certain neglect of every thing that is candid, simple, and worthy of true esteem ; and affect being yet worse than they are, by acknowledging, in their general turn of mind and discourse, that they have not any remaining value for true honour and honesty ; preferring the capacity of being artful to gain their ends, to the merit of despising those ends when they come in competition with their honesty. All this is due to the very silly pride that generally prevails, of being valued for the ability of carrying their point; in a word, from the opinion that shallow and unexperienced people entertain of the short-lived force of cunning. But I shall, before I enter upon the various faces which folly, covered with artifice, puts on to impose upor the unthinking, produce a great authority for asserting that nothing but truth and ingenuity has any lasting good effect, even upon a man's fortune and interest.

As no poet seems ever to have studied Homer more, or to have more resembled him in the greatness of genius, than Milton, I think I should have given but a very imperfect account of its beauties. If I had not observed the most remarkable passages which look like Truth and reality have all the advantages parallels in these two great authors. I might, of appearance, and many more. If the show of in the course of these criticism, have taken no- any thing be good for any thing, I am sure sintice of many particular lines and expressions cerity is better; for why does any man dissemwhich are translated from the Greek poet; but ble, or seem to be that which he is not, but beas I thought this would have appeared too cause he thinks it good to have such a quality minute and over-curious. I have purposely as he pretends to ? for to counterfeit and disomitted them. The greater incidents however, semble is to put on the appearance of some are not only set off by being shown in the real excellency. Now the best way in the world same light with several of the same nature for a man to seem to be any thing, is really to in Homer, but by that means may be also be what he would seem to be. Besides, that it guarded against the cavils of the tasteless or is many times as troublesome to make good ignorant.

No. 352.] Monday, April 14, 1712.

L.

Si ad honestatem nati sumus, ea aut sola expetenda est, aut certè omni pondere gravior est haTull. benda quàm reliqua omnia.

If we be made for honesty, either it is solely to be sought, or certainly to be estimated much more highly than all other things.

the pretence of a good quality, as to have it; and if a man have it not, it is ten to one but he is discovered to want it, and then all his pains and labour to seem to have it is lost. There is something unnatural in painting, which a skilful eye will easily discern from native beauty and complexion.

'It is hard to personate and act a part long; for where truth is not at the bottom, nature will always be endeavouring to return, and will WILL HONEYCOMB was complaining to me peep out and betray herself one time or other. yesterday, that the conversation of the town Thorefore if any man think it convenient to is so altered of late years, that a fine gentle- seem good, let him be so indeed, and then his man is at a loss for matter to start discourse, goodness will appear to every body's satisfacas well as unable to fall in with the talk he tion; so that upon all accounts sincerity is true generally meets with. Will takes notice, that wisdom. Particularly as to the affairs of this there is now an evil under the sun which he world, integrity hath many advantages over supposes to be entirely new, because not men- all the fine and artificial ways of dissimulation tioned by any satirist, or moralist, in any age. and deceit; it is much the plainer and easier, 'Men,' said he, grow knaves sooner than much the safer and more secure way of dealthey ever did since the creation of the world ing in the world: it has less of trouble and before.' If you read the tragedies of the last difficulty, of entanglement and perplexity, of age, you find the artful men, and persons of danger and hazard in it: it is the shortest and