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

The intention therefore of the Idol is quite contrary to the wishes of the idolater: as the one desires to confine the idol to himself, the whole business and ambition of the other is to multiply adorers. This humour of an idol is prettily described in a tale of Chaucer: he represents one of them sitting at a table with three of her votaries about her, who are all of them courting her favour, and paying their adorations: she smiled to one, drank to another, and trod upon the other's foot which was under the table. Now which of those three, says the old bard, do you think was the favourite? In troth, says he, not one of all the three.

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

An Idol may be undeified by many accidental causes. Marriage in particular is a kind of Counter

VOL. I.

Hh

Apotheosis, or deification inverted. When a man becomes familiar with his goddess, she quickly sinks into a woman.

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

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

C.

No. LXXIV. FRIDAY, MAY 25.

.......... Pendent opera interrupta...."

The works unfinish'd and neglected lie.

VIRG.

IN my last Monday's paper I gave some general instances of those beautiful strokes which please the reader in the old song of Chevy-Chase: I shall here, according to my promise, be more particular, and shew that the sentiments in that ballad are extremely natural and poetical, and full of the majestic simplicity which we admire in the greatest of the an

cient poets for which reason I shall quote several passages of it, in which the thought is altogether the same with what we meet in several passages of the Aneid; not that I would infer from thence, that the poet, whoever he was, proposed to himself any imitation of those passages, but that he was directed to them in general by the same kind of poetical genius, and by the same copyings after nature.

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

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

To drive the deer with hound and horn
Earl Piercy took his way;

'The child may rue that was unborn
The hunting of that day!

This way of considering the misfortunes which this battle would bring upon posterity, not only on those who were born immediately after the battle, and lost their fathers in it, but on those also who perished in future battles which took their rise from this quarrel

of the two Earls, is wonderfully beautiful and conformable to the way of thinking among the ancient poets.

Audiet pugnas, vitia parentum
Rara juventus.

'Posterity, thinn'd by their fathers' crimes,

Shall read, with grief, the story of their times.'

HOR

What can be more sounding or poetical, or resemble more the majestic simplicity of the ancients, than the following stanzas?

The stout Earl of Northumberland

A vow to God did make,

His pleasure in the Scottish woods
• Three summer's days to take.

• With fifteen hundred bowmen bold,
All chosen men of might,
'Who knew full well, in time of need,
To aim their shafts aright.

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

'And with their cries the hills and dales

An echo shrill did make.'

...........Vocat ingenti clamore Citharon

Taygetique canes, domitrixque Epidaurus equorum:
Et vox assensu nemorum ingeminata remugit.

Citharon loudly calls me to my way;

The hounds, Taygetus, open, and pursue the prey:
High Epidaurus urges on my speed,

'Fam'd for his hills, and for his horses breed:

. From hills and dales the cheerful cries rebound;

GEORG

• For echo hunts along, and propagates the sound. DRYDEN.

• Lo, yonder doth earl Douglas come,

• His men in armour bright;

Full twenty hundred Scottish spears
All marching in our sight.

All men of pleasant Tividale,

Fast by the river Tweed, &c.'

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

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

• Advancing in a line they couch their spears....
..Præneste sends a chosen band,

With those who plough Saturnia's Gabine land:
Besides the succours which cold Anien yields:
The rocks of Hernicus-besides a band,
That follow'd from Velinum's dewy land....
And mountaineers that from Severus came:
And from the craggy cliffs of Tetrica;
And those where yellow Tiber takes his way,
And where Himella's wanton waters play :
Casperia sends her arms, with those that lie
By Fabaris, and fruitful Foruli.?

But to proceed.

Earl Douglas on a milk-white steed,
• Most like a baron bold,

Rode foremost of the company,
Whose armour shone like gold.'

DRYDEN...