the example of any particular person is recommended to them in gross; instead of which they ought to be taught wherein such a man, though great in some respects, was weak and faulty in others. For want of this caution, a boy is often so dazzled with the lustre of a great character, that he confounds its beauties with its blemishes, and looks even upon the faulty part of it with an eye of admiration. I have often wondered how Alexander, who was naturally of a generous and merciful disposition, came to be guilty of so barbarous an action as that of dragging the governor of a town after his chariot. I know this is generally ascribed to his passion for Homer, but I lately met with a passage in Plutarch, which, if I am not very much mistaken, still gives us a clearer light into the motives of this action. Plutarch tells us, that Alexander in his youth had a master named Lysimachus, who, though he was a man destitute of all politeness, ingratiated himself both with Philip and his pupil, and became the second man at court, by calling the king Peleus, the Prince Achilles, and himself Phoenix. It is no wonder if Alexander, having been thus used not only to admire but to personate Achilles, should think it glorious to imitate him in this piece of cruelty and extravagance. he would inspire me with an abhorrence of debauchery, 'Do not,' says he, 'make yourself like Sectanus, when you may be happy in the enjoyment of lawful pleasures. How scandalous," says he, 'is the character of Trebonius, who was lately caught in bed with another man's wife!" To illustrate the force of this method, the poet adds, that as a headstrong patient who will not follow at first his physician's prescriptions, grows orderly when he hears that the neighbours die all about him; so youth is often frightened from vice, by hearing the ill report it brings upon others. Xenophon's schools of equity, in his Life of Cyrus the Great, are sufficiently famous. He tells us, that the Persian children went to school, and employed their time as dili gently in learning the principles of justice and sobriety, as the youth in other countries did to acquire the most difficult arts and sciences; their governors spent most part of the day in hearing their mutual accusations one against the other, whether for violence, cheating, slander, or ingratitude; and taught them how to give judgment against those who were found to be any ways guilty of these crimes. I omit the story of the long and short coat, for which Cyrus himself was punished, as a case equally known with any in Littleton. The method which Apuleius tells us the To carry this thought yet further, I Indian Gymnosophists took to educate their shall submit it to your consideration, whe- disciples, is still more curious and remark ther, instead of a theme or copy of verses, able. His words are as follow: "When which are the usual exercises, as they are their dinner is ready, before it is served called in the school phrase, it would not be up, the masters inquire of every particular more proper that a boy should be tasked, scholar how he has employed his time since once or twice a week, to write down his sun-rising: some of them answer, that, opinion of such persons and things as occur having been chosen as arbiters between two to him by his reading; that he should des- persons, they have composed their differcant upon the actions of Turnus, or Æneas; ences, and made them friends; some that show wherein they excelled, or were de- they have been executing the orders of fective; censure or approve any particular their parents; and others, that they have action; observe how it might have been either found out something new by their carried to a greater degree of perfection, own application, or learnt it from the inand how it exceeded or fell short of an- structions of their fellows. But if there other. He might at the same time mark happens to be any one among them who what was moral in any speech, and how cannot make it appear that he has emfar it agreed with the character of the per-ployed the morning to advantage, he is son speaking. This exercise would soon immediately excluded from the company, strengthen his judgment in what is blame- and obliged to work while the rest are at able or praiseworthy, and give him an early dinner." seasoning of morality. 'Next to those examples which may be met with in books, I very much approve Horace's way of setting before youth the infamous or honourable characters of their contemporaries. That poet tells us, this was the method his father made use of to incline him to any particular virtue, or give him an aversion to any particular vice. "If," says Horace, "my father advised me to live within bounds, and be contented with the fortune he should leave me; 'Do you not see,' says he, the miserable condition of Burrus, and the son of Albus? Let the misfortunes of those two wretches teach you to avoid luxury and extravagance C If 'It is not impossible, that from these several ways of producing virtue in the minds of boys, some general method might be invented. What I would endeavour to inculcate is, that our youth cannot be too soon taught the principles of virtue, seeing the first impressions which are made on the mind, are always the strongest. "The archbishop of Cambray makes Telemachus say, that, though he was young in years, he was old in the art of knowing how to keep both his own and his friends' secrets. "When my father," says the prince, "went to the siege of Troy, he took me on his knees, and, after having embraced and blessed me, as he was sur cr self upon, that he will easily forgive me for publishing the exceptions made against gaiety at the end of serious entertainments in the following letter: I should be more unwilling to pardon him, than any body, a quence but from the abilities of the person who is guilty of it. rounded by the nobles of Ithaca, O my friends,' says he, 'into your hands I commit the education of my son: if ever you Loved his father, show it in your care towards him; but, above all, do not omit to form him just, sincere, and faithful in keep-practice which cannot have any ill conseing a secret.' These words of my father, says Telemachus, were continually repeated to me by his friends in his absence; who made no scruple of communicating to me their uneasiness to see my mother surrounded with lovers, and the measures they designed to take on that occasion." He adds, that he was so ravished at being thus treated like a man, and at the confidence reposed in him, that he never once abused it; nor could all the insinuations of his father's rivals ever get him to betray what was committed to him under the seal of secrecy. ‘MR. SPECTATOR,-I had the happiness the other night of sitting very near you, and your worthy friend Sir Roger, at the acting of the new tragedy, which you have, in a late paper or two, so justly recommended. I was highly pleased with the advantageous situation fortune had given me in placing me so near two gentlemen, from one of which I was sure to hear such reflections on the several incidents of the play as pure nature suggested, and from the other, such There is hardly any virtue which a lad as flowed from the exactest art and judgmight not thus learn by practice and ex-ment: though I must confess that my cuample. riosity led me so much to observe the I have heard of a good man, who used knight's reflections, that I was not well at at certain times to give his scholars six-leisure to improve myself by yours. Napence a-piece, that they might tell him the ture, I found, played her part in the knight next day how they had employed it. The pretty well, till at the last concluding lines third part was always to be laid out in she entirely forsook him. You must know, charity, and every boy was blamed, or sir, that it is always my custom, when commended, as he could make it appear have been well entertained at a new tragedy, he had chosen a fit object. to make my retreat before the facetious epilogue enters; not but that those pieces are often very well written, but having paid down my half-crown, and made a fair purchase of as much of the pleasing melancholy as the poet's art can afford me, or my own nature admit of, I am willing to carry some of it home with me: and cannot endure to be at once tricked out of all, though by the wittiest dexterity in the world. However, I kept my seat the other night in hopes of finding my own sentiments of the matter favoured by your friends; when, to my great surprise, I found the knight entering with 'As the subject of this essay is of the equal pleasure into both parts, and as much highest importance, and what I do not re- satisfied with Mrs. Oldfield's gaiety as he member to have yet seen treated by any had been before with Andromache's greatauthor, I have sent you what occurred to ness. Whether this were no more than an me on it from my own observation, or read-effect of the knight's peculiar humanity, ing, and which you may either suppress or publish, as you think fit. I am, sir, yours, &c.' X. In short, nothing is more wanting to our public schools, than that the masters of them should use the same care in fashioning the manners of their scholars, as in forming their tongues to the learned languages. Wherever the former is omitted, I cannot help agreeing with Mr. Locke, that a man must have a very strange value for words, when, preferring the languages of the Greeks and Romans to that which made them such brave men, he can think it worth while to hazard the innocence and virtue of his son for a little Greek and Latin. No. 338.] Friday, March 28, 1712. -Nil fuit unquam pleased to find at last, that, after all the tragical doings, every thing was safe and well, I do not know; but for my own part, I must confess, I was so dissatisfied, that I was sorry the poet had saved Andromache, and could heartily have wished that he had left her stone-dead upon the stage. For you cannot imagine, Mr. Spectator, the mis chief she was reserved to do me. I found my soul, during the action, gradually worked I FIND the tragedy of the Distrest Mo-up to the highest pitch, and felt the exalted ther* is published to-day. The author of the prologue,† I suppose, pleads an old excuse I have read somewhere, of being dull with design;' and the gentleman who writ the epilogue‡ has, to my knowledge, so much of greater moment to value him passion which all generous minds conceive at the sight of virtue in distress. The impression, believe me, sir, was so strong upon me, that I am persuaded, if I had been let alone in it, I could, at an extremity, have ventured to defend yourself and Sir Roger against half a score of the fiercest Mohocks; but the ludicrous epilogue in the close extinguished all my ardour, and made miss his audience with an excellent new me look upon all such noble achievements | signs, instead of a penitential psalm, to dis as downright silly and romantic. What the rest of the audience felt, I cannot so well ell. For myself I must declare, that at the end of the play I found my soul uniform, and all of a piece; but at the end of the epilogue it was so jumbled together, and divided between jest and earnest, that, if you will forgive me an extravagant fancy, I will here set it down. I could not but No. 339.] Saturday, March 29, 1712. fancy, if my soul had at that moment quit -Ut his exordia primis Virg. Ecl. v. 33 He sung the secret seeds of nature's frame: How seas, and earth, and air, and active flame, Fell through the mighty void, and in their fall Were blindly gather'd in this goodly ball. The tender soil then stiff ning by degrees, Shut from the bounded earth the bounding seas, The earth and ocean various forms disclose, And a new sun to the new world arose.—Dryden. LONGINUS has observed that there may be a loftiness in sentiments where there is no passion, and brings instances out of an cient authors to support this his opinion. The pathetic, as that great critic observes, may arimate and inflame the sublime, but is not essential to it. Accordingly, as he further remarks, we very often find that those who excel most in stirring up the passions very often want the talent of writing in the great and sublime manner, and so on the contrary. Milton has shown himself a master in both these ways of writing. The seventh book, which we are now entering upon, is an instance of that sublime which is not mixed and worked up with passion. The author appears in a kind of composed and sedate majesty; and though the sentiments do not give so great an emotion as those in the former book, they abound with as magnificent ideas. The sixth book, like a troubled ocean, repre sents greatness in confusion; the seventh affects the imagination like the ocean in a calm, and fills the mind of the reader, without producing in it any thing like tumult or agitation. ted my body, and descended to the poetical *The_ordinary of Newgate at this time. See the Tatler, No. 63. 6 The critic above-mentioned, among the rules which he lays down for succeeding in the sublime way of writing, proposes to his reader, that he should imitate the most celebrated authors who have gone before him, and have been engaged in works of the same nature; as in particular that, if he writes on poetical subjects, he should consider how Homer would have spoken on such an occasion. By this means one great genius often catches the flame from another, and writes in his spirit, without copying servilely after him. There are a thousand shining passages in Virgil, which have been Milton, though his own natural strength of genius was capable of furnishing out a perfect work, has doubtless very much raised and ennobled his conceptions by such an imitation as that which Longinus har recommended. In this book which gives us an account of clouds which lay as a barrier before of the six days' works, the poet received them. but very few assistances from heathen I do not know any thing in the whole writers, who are strangers to the wonders poem more sublime than the description of creation. But as there are many glorious which follows, where the Messiah is restrokes of poetry upon this subject in holy presented at the head of his angels, as look writ, the author has numberless allusions to ing down into the chaos, calming its confu them through the whole course of this book. sion, riding into the midst of it, and drawing The great critic I have before mentioned, the first outline of the creation: though a heathen, has taken notice of the sublime manner in which the lawgiver of the Jews has described the creation in the first chapter of Genesis; and there are many other passages in scripture which rise up to the same majesty, where the subject is touched upon. Milton has shown his judgment very remarkably, in making use of such of these as were proper for his poem, and in duly qualifying those strains of eastern poetry which were suited to readers whose imaginations were set to a higher pitch than those of colder climates. Adam's speech to the angel, wherein he desires an account of what had passed within the regions of nature before the creation, is very great and solemn. The following lines, in which he tells him, that the day is not too far spent for him to enter upon such a subject, are exquisite in their kind: And the great light of day yet wants to run The angel's encouraging our first parents in a modest pursuit after knowledge, with the causes which he assigns for the creation of the world, are very just and beautiful, The Messiah, by whom, as we are told in scripture, the heavens were made, goes forth in the power of his Father, surrounded with a host of angels, and clothed with such a majesty as becomes his entering upon a work which, according to our conceptions, appears the utmost exertion of Omnipotence. What a beautiful description has our author raised upon that hint in one of the prophets! And behold there came four chariots out from between two mountains, and the mountains were mountains of tains, and the mountains were mountains of brass:' About his chariot numberless were pour'd I have before taken notice of these chariots of God, and of these gates of heaven; and shall here only add, that Homer gives us the same idea of the latter as opening of themselves; though he afterwards takes off from it, by telling us, that the Hours first of all removed those prodigious heaps On heav'nly ground they stood, and from the shore Far into Chaos, and the world unborn; The thought of the golden compasses is conceived altogether in Homer's spirit, and is a very noble incident in this wonderful description. Homer, when he speaks of the gods, ascribes to them several arms and instruments with the same greatness of imagination. Let the reader only peruse the description of Minerva's ægis or buckler, in the fifth book, with her spear which helmet that was sufficient to cover an army would overturn whole squadrons, and her drawn out of a hundred cities. The golden compasses, in the above-mentioned passage, of him whom Plato somewhere calls the Diappear a very natural instrument in the hand vine Geometrician. As poetry delights in clothing abstracted ideas in allegories and sensible images, we find a magnificent description of the creation, formed after the same manner, in one of the prophets, wherein he describes the Almighty Archiof his hand, meting out the heavens with tect as measuring the waters in the hollow his span, comprehending the dust of the earth in a measure, weighing the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance. Another of them describing the Supreme Being in this great work of creation, re presents him as laying the foundations of the earth, and stretching a line upon it; and, in another place, as garnishing the heavens, stretching out the north over the empty place, and hanging the earth upon nothing. This last noble thought Milton has expressed in the following verse: And earth self-balanced on her centre hung. The beauties of description in this book lie so very thick, that it is impossible to enumerate them in this paper. The poet has employed on them the whole energy of our tongue. The several great scenes of the creation rise up to view one after another, in such a manner, that the reader seems present at this wonderful work, and to assist among the choirs of angels who are the spectators of it. How glorious is the conclusion of the first day! -Thus was the first day even and morn, By the celestial choirs, when orient light We have the same elevation of thought in the third day, when the mountains were brought forth, and the deep was made: Immediately the mountains huge appear We have also the rising of the whole vegetable world, described in this day's work, which is filled with all the graces that other poets have lavished on their description of the spring, and leads the reader's imagination into a theatre equally surprising and beautiful. The several glories of the heavens make their appearance on the fourth day: First in his east the glorious lamp was seen, One would wonder how the poet could be so concise in his description of the six days' works, as to comprehend them within the bounds of an episode, and, at the same time, so particular, as to give us a lively idea of them. This is still more remarkable in his account of the fifth and sixth days, in which he has drawn out to our view the whole animal creation, from the reptile to the behemoth. As the lion and the leviathan are two of the noblest productions in the world of living creatures, the reader will find a most exquisite spirit of poetry in the account which our author gives us of them. The sixth day concludes with the formation of man, upon which the angel takes occasion, as he did after the battle in heaven, to remind Adam of his obedience, which was the principal design of this visit. The poet afterwards represents the Messiah returning into heaven, and taking a survey of his great work. There is something inexpressibly sublime in this part of the poem, where the author describes the great period of time, filled with so many glorious circumstances; when the heavens and earth were finished; when the Messiah ascended up in triumph through the ever. lasting gates; when he looked down with pleasure upon his new creation; when every part of nature seemed to rejoice in its existence, when the morning-stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy. So even and morn accomplish'd the sixth day: Resounded, (thou rememberest, for thou heard'st) Open, ye heavens, your living doors! let în I cannot conclude this book upon the creation without mentioning a poem which has lately appeared under that title.* The work was undertaken with so good an intention, and is executed with so great a mastery, that it deserves to be looked upon as one of the most useful and noble productions in our English verse. The reader cannot but be pleased to find the depths of philosophy enlivened with all the charms of poetry, and to see so great a strength of reason, amidst so beautiful a redundancy of the imagination. The author has shown us that design in all the works of nature which necessarily leads us to the know ledge of its first cause. In short, he has illustrated, by numberless and incontestable instances, that divine wisdom which the son of Sirach has so nobly ascribed to the Supreme Being in his formation of the world, when he tells us, that He created her, and saw her, and numbered her, and poured her out upon all his works.' No. 340.] Monday, March 31, 1712. Quis novus hic nostris successit sedibus hospes ? Quem sese ore ferens! quam forti pectore et armis Virg. Æn. iv. 10. What chief is this that visits us from far, Whose gallant mien bespeaks him train'd to war! I TAKE it to be the highest instance of a noble mind, to bear great qualities without discovering in a man's behaviour any consciousness that he is superior to the rest of the duty of a great person so to demean the world. Or, to say it otherwise, it is himself, as that, whatever endowments he may have, he may appear to value himself upon no qualities but such as any man may arrive at. He ought to think no man valuable but for his public spirit, justice, and integrity; and all other endowments to be esteemed * By Sir Richard Blackmore |