"These, one might undertake to show under the several heads, are admirably drawn; no images improper, and most surprisingly beautiful. The Redcross Knight runs through the whole steps of the Christian life; Guyon does all that temperance can possibly require; Britomartis (a woman) observes the true rules of unaffected chas tity; Arthegal is in every respect of life strictly and wisely just; Calidore is rightly courteous.

• His legend of friendship is more diffuse; and yet even there the allegory is finely drawn, only the heads various; one knight could not there support all the parts.

34.

"There entering in, they found the good man's self Full busily unto his work ybent,

Who was so weel a wretched wearish elf,

With hollow eyes and rawbone cheeks far spent,
As if he had in prison long been pent.
Full black and griedly did his face appear,
Besmear'd with smoke, that nigh his eye-sight blent,
With rugged beard, and hoary shagged hair,

The which he never wont to comb, or comely shear.
35.

Rude was his garment, and to rags all rent,
Ne better had he, ne for better cared;
His blister'd hands amongst the cinders brent,
And fingers filthy, with long nails prepared,
Right fit to rend the food on which he fared.
His name was Care: a blacksmith by his trade,
That neither day nor night from working spared,
But to small purpose iron wedges made:
These be unquiet thoughts that careful minds invade."

To do honour to his country, prince Arthur is a universal hero; in holiness, temperance,_chastity, and justice, superexcellent. For the same reason, and to compliment queen Elizabeth, Gloriana, queen of fairies, whose court was the asy- 'Homer's epithets were much admired lum of the oppressed, represents that glo- by antiquity: see what great justness and rious queen. At her commands all these variety there are in these epithets of the knights set forth, and only at hers the Red-trees in the forest, where the Redcross cross Knight destroys the dragon, Guyon Knight lost truth, B. i. Cant. i. Stan. 8, 9. overturns the Bower of Bliss, Arthegal "The sailing pine, the cedar proud and tall, (i. e. Justice) beats down Geryoneo (i. e. The vine-prop elm, the poplar never dry; Philip II. king of Spain) to rescue Belge The builder oak, sole king of forests all, (i. e. Holland,) and he beats the Grantorto The aspine, good for staves, the cypress funeral. 9. (the same Philip in another light) to restore Irena (i. e. Peace) to Europe.

Chastity being the first female virtue, Britomartis is a Briton; her part is fine, though it requires explication. His style is very poetical; no puns, affectations of wit, forced antitheses, or any of that low tribe.

His old words are all true English, and numbers exquisite; and since of words there is the multa renascentur, since they are all proper, such a poem should not (any more than Milton's) consist all of it of common ordinary words. See instances of descriptions.

Causeless jealousy in Britomartis, v. 6, 14, in its restlessness.

"Like as a wayward child, whose sounder sleepe
Is broken with some fearful dream's affright,
With froward will doth set himself to weep,
Ne can be still'd for all his nurse's might,
But kicks and squalls, and shrieks for fell despite :
Now scratching her, and her loose locks misusing,
Now seeking darkness, and now seeking light;
Then craving suck, and then the suck refusing:

"The laurel, meed of mighty conquerors,
And poets sage; the fir, that weepeth still,
The willow, worn of forlorn paramours,
The yew, obedient to the bender's will,
The birch for shafts, the sailow for the mill:
The myrrhe sweet, bleeding in the bitter wound,
The war-like beech, the ash, for nothing ill,
The fruitful olive, and the plantane round,
The carver holm, the maple, seldom inward sound."

'I shall trouble you no more, but desire you to let me conclude with these verses, though I think they have already been quoted by you. They are addressed to young ladies oppressed with calumny, v. 6. 14.

"The best (said he) that I can you advise,
Is to avoid the occasion of the ill;
For when the cause whence evil doth arise,
Removed is, the effect surceaseth still.
Abstain from pleasure and restrain your will,
Subdue desire and bridle loose delight,
Use scanted diet, and forbear your fill,
Shun secresy, and talk in open sight,

So shall you soon repair your present evil plight."
plight

Such was this lady's loves in her love's fond accusing." No. 541.] Thursday, November 20, 1712.

Curiosity occasioned by jealousy, upon occasion of her lover's absence. Ibid. Stan. 8, 9.

"Then as she looked long, at last she spied

One coming towards her with hasty speed,
Well ween'd she then, ere him she plain descry'd,
That it was one sent from her love indeed :
Whereat her heart was fill'd with hope and dread,
Ne would she stay till he in place could come,
But ran to meet him forth to know his tidings somme;
Even in the door him meeting, she begun,
And where is he, thy lord, and how far hence?
Declare at once: and hath he lost or won?"

Format enim natura prius nos intus ad omnem,
Fortunarum habitum: juvat, aut impellit ad iram.
Aut ad humum mærore gravi deducit, et angit:
Post effert animi motus interprete lingua.

Hor. Ars Poet. ver. 108.

For nature forms and softens us within,
And writes our fortune's changes in our face:
Pleasure enchants, impetuous rage transports,
And grief dejects, and wrings the tortur'd soul:
And these are all interpreted by speech.

Roscommon.

My friend the Templar, whom I have so often mentioned in these writings, having determined to lay aside his poetical

Care and his house are described thus, v. studies, in order to a closer pursuit of the

6. 33, 34, 35.

law, has put together, as a farewell essay, some thoughts concerning pronunciation They spied a little cottage, like some poor man's nest, and action, which he has given me leave

"Not far away, nor meet for any guest,

to communicate to the public. They are chiefly collected from his favourite author Cicero, who is known to have been an intimate friend of Roscius the actor, and a good judge of dramatic performances, as well as the most eloquent pleader of the time in which he lived.

Cicero concludes his celebrated books De Oratore with some precepts for pronunciation and action, without which part he affirms that the best orator in the world can never succeed; and an indifferent one, who is master of this, shall gain much greater applause. What could make a stronger impression,' says he, 'than those exclamations of Gracchus?". "Whither shall I turn? Wretch that I am! to what place betake myself? Shall I go to the Capitol? Alas! it is overflowed with my brother's blood. Or shall I retire to my house? Yet there I behold my mother plunged in misery, weeping and despairing!" These breaks and turns of passion, it seems, were so enforced by the eyes, voice, and gesture of the speaker, that his very enemies could not refrain from tears. I insist,' says Tully, upon this the rather, because our orators, who are as it were actors of the truth itself, have quitted this manner of speaking: and the players, who are but the imitators of truth, have taken it up.'

I shall therefore pursue the hint he has here given me, and for the service of the British stage I shall copy some of the rules which this great Roman master has laid down; yet without confining myself wholly to his thoughts or words: and to adapt this essay the more to the purpose for which I intend it, instead of the examples he has inserted in this discourse out of the ancient tragedies, I shall make use of parallel passages out of the most celebrated of our own.

The design of art is to assist action as much as possible in the representation of nature; for the appearance of reality is that which moves us in all representations, and these have always the greater force the nearer they approach to nature, and the less they show of imitation.

Nature herself has assigned to every motion of the soul its peculiar cast of the countenance, tone of voice, and manner of gesture, through the whole person; all the features of the face and tones of the voice answer, like strings upon musical instruments, to the impressions made on them by the mind. Thus the sounds of the voice, according to the various touches which raise them, form themselves into an acute or grave, quick or slow, loud or soft, tone. These two may be subdivided into various kinds of tones, as the gentle, the rough, the contracted, the diffuse, the continued, the intermitted, the broken, abrupt, winding, softened or elevated. Every one of these may be employed with art and judgment; and all supply the actor, as colours do the painter, with an expressive variety.

Anger exerts its peculiar voice in an

acute, raised, and hurrying sound. The passionate character of king Lear, as it is admirably drawn by Shakspeare, abounds with the strongest instances of this kind.

-Death! Confusion!

Fiery! what quality ?-why Gloster! Gloster!
I'd speak with the Duke of Cornwall and his wife.
Are they informed of this? my breath and blood!
Fiery! the fiery duke!'-&c.

Sorrow and complaint demand a voice quite different; flexible, slow, interrupted, and modulated in a mournful tone: as in that pathetical soliloquy of cardinal Wolsey on his fall.

'Farewell!-A long farewell to all my greatness!
This is the state of man!-to day be puts forth
The tender leaves of hope; to-morrow blossoms,
And bears his blushing honours thick upon him;
The third day comes a frost, a killing frost,
And when he thinks, good, easy man, full surely
His greatness is a ripening, nips his root;
And then he falls as I do.'

We have likewise a fine example of this in the whole of Andromache in the Distrest Mother, particularly in these lines

'I'll go, and in the anguish of my heart

Weep o'er my child-If he must die, my life Is wrapt in his, I shall not long survive : 'Tis for his sake that I have suffered life, Groan'd in captivity, and out-liv'd Hector. Yes, my Astyanax, we'll go together! Together to the realms of night we'll go, There to thy ravish'd eyes thy sire I'll show, And point him out among the shades below.' Fear expresses itself in a low, hesitating, If the reader considers and abject sound. the following speech of lady Macbeth, while her husband is about the murder of Duncan and his grooms, he will imagine her even affrighted with the sound of her own voice while she is speaking it.

'Alas! I am afraid they have awak'd,

And 'tis not done; th' attempt and not the deed,
Confound us-Hark! I laid the daggers ready,
He could not miss them. Had he not resembled
My father as he slept, I had done it.'

Courage assumes a louder tone, as in that speech of Don Sebastian.

'Here satiate all your fury:

Let fortune empty her whole quiver on me ;
I have a soul, that, like an ample shield,
Can take in all, and verge enough for more.'

Pleasure dissolves into a luxurious, mild, tender, and joyous modulation; as in the following lines in Caius Marius.

'Lavinia! O there's music in the name,
That soft'ning me to infant tenderness,
Makes my heart spring like the first leaps of life.'

And perplexity is different from all these; grave, but not bemoaning, with an earnest uniform sound of voice; as in that celebrated speech of Hamlet.

'To be, or not to be!-that is the question.
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The stings and arrows of outrageous fortune:
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them. To die, to sleep:
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart ache, and a thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to; 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd! To die, to sleep!

To sleep; perchance to dream! Ay, there's the rub;
For, in that sleep of death, what dreams may come,

2

When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause- -There's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
Th' oppressor's wrongs, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despis'd love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make,
With a bare bodkin? Who would fardles bear,
To groan and sweat under a weary life?
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscovered country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will,

And makes us rather choose those ills we have,
Than fly to others that we know not of.'

As all these varieties of voice are to be directed by the sense, so the action is to be directed by the voice, and with a beautiful propriety, as it were, to enforce it. The arm, which by a strong figure Tully calls the orator's weapon, is to be sometimes raised and extended: and the hand, by its motion, sometimes to lead, and sometimes to follow, the words as they are uttered. The stamping of the foot too has its proper expression in contention, anger, or absolute command. But the face is the epitome of

swer to which I venture to lay it down as a maxim, that without good sense no one can be a good player, and that he is very unfit to personate the dignity of a Roman hero who cannot enter into the rules for pronunciation and gesture delivered by a Roman

orator.

There is another thing which my author does not think too minute to insist on, though it is purely mechanical; and that is the right pitching of the voice. On this occasion he tells the story of Gracchus, who employed a servant with a little ivory pipe to stand behind him, and give him the right pitch, as often as he wandered too far from the proper modulation. Every voice,' says Tully, 'has its particular medium and compass, and the sweetness of speech consists in leading it through all the variety of tones naturally, and without touching any extreme. Therefore,' says he, leave the pipe at home, but carry the sense of custom with you.

Et sibi præferri se gaudet

Ovid, Met. Lib. ii. 430.
-He heard,
Well pleased, himself before himself preferred.

Addison.

the whole man, and the eyes are, as it No. 542.] Friday, November 21, 1712. were, the epitome of the face; for which reason, he says, the best judges among the Romans were not extremely pleased even with Roscius himself in his mask. No part of the body, besides the face, is capable of as many changes as there are different emotions in the mind, and of expressing them all by those changes. Nor is this to be done without the freedom of the eyes; therefore Theophratus called one, who barely rehearsed his speech with his eyes fixed, an absent actor.'

WHEN I have been present in assemblies where my paper has been talked of, I have been very well pleased to hear those who would detract from the author of it observe that the letters which are sent to the Spectator are as good, if not better, than any of As the countenance admits of so great his works. Upon this occasion many letvariety, it requires also great judgment to ters of mirth are usually mentioned, which govern it. Not that the form of the face is some think the Spectator writ to himself, to be shifted on every occasion; lest it turn and which others commend because they to farce and buffoonery; but it is certain fancy he received them from his corresthat the eyes have a wonderful power of pondents. Such are those from the valetumarking the emotions of the mind; some-dinarian; the inspector of the sign-posts; times by a steadfast look, sometimes by a the master of the fan exercise; with that careless one-now by a sudden regard, of the hooped petticoat; that of Nicholas then by a joyful sparkling, as the sense of Hart, the annual sleeper; that from Sir the word is diversified: for action is, as it John Envil; that upon London cries; with were, the speech of the features and multitudes of the same nature. As I love limbs, and must therefore conform itself nothing more than to mortify the ill-natured, always to the sentiments of the soul. And that I may do it effectually, I must acquaint it may be observed, that in all which re- them they have very often praised me when lates to the gesture there is a wonderful they did not design it, and that they have force implanted by nature: since the vulgar, approved my writings when they thought the unskilful, and even the most barbarous, they had derogated from them. I have are chiefly affected by this. None are heard several of these unhappy gentlemen moved by the sound of words but those proving, by undeniable arguments, that who understand the language; and the was not able to pen a letter which I had sense of many things is lost upon men of a written the day before. Nay, I have heard dull apprehension: but action is a kind of some of them throwing out ambiguous exuniversal tongue: all men are subject to the pressions, and giving the company reason to suspect that they themselves did me the honour to send me such and such a particular epistle, which happened to be talked of with the esteem or approbation of those who were present. These rigid critics are so afraid of allowing me any thing which does not belong to me, that they will not

same

passions, and consequently know the Same marks of them in others, by which they themselves express them.

Perhaps some of my readers may be of pinion that the hints I have here made use of out of Cicero are somewhat too refined for the players on our theatre; in an

I

was made use of, that is not liable to this exception; since nothing, according to this notion, can be related innocently, which was not once matter of fact. Besides I think the most ordinary reader may be able to discover, by my way of writing, what I deliver in these occurrences as truth, and what as fiction.

be positive whether the lion, the wild boar, and the flower-pots in the play-house, did not actually write those letters which came to me in their names. I must therefore inform these gentlemen, that I often choose this way of casting my thoughts into a letter, for the following reasons. First, out of the policy of those who try their jest upon another, before they own it them- Since I am unawares engaged in answerselves. Secondly, because I would extort a ing the several objections which have been little praise from such who will never ap- made against these my works, I must take plaud any thing whose author is known and notice that there are some who affirm a certain. Thirdly, because it gave me an paper of this nature should always turn opportunity of introducing a great variety upon diverting subjects, and others who of characters into my works, which could find fault with every one of them that hath not have been done had I always written in not an immediate tendency to the advancethe person of the Spectator. Fourthly, be- ment of religion or learning. I shall leave cause the dignity spectatorial would have these gentlemen to dispute it out among suffered had I published as from myself themselves; since I see one half of my conthose severe ludicrous compositions which duct patronized by each side. Were I I have ascribed to fictitious names and serious on an improper subject, or trifling characters. And lastly, because they often in a serious one, I should deservedly draw serve to bring in more naturally such ad-upon me the censure of my readers: or ditional reflections as have been placed at the end of them.

There are others who have likewise done me a very particular honour, though undesignedly. These are such who will needs have it that I have translated or borrowed many of my thoughts out of books which are written in other languages. I have heard of a person, who is more famous for his library than his learning, that has asserted this more than once in his private conversation.* Were it true, I am sure he could not speak it from his own knowledge; but, had he read the books which he has collected, he would find this accusation to be wholly groundless. Those who are truly learned will acquit me in this point, in which I have been so far from offending, that I have been scrupulous, perhaps to a fault, in quoting the authors of several passages which I might have made my own. But, as this assertion is in reality an encomium on what I have published, I ought rather to glory in it than endeavour to confute it.

Some are so very willing to alienate from me that small reputation which might accrue to me from any of these my speculations, that they attribute some of the best of them to those imaginary manuscripts with which I have introduced them. There are others I must confess whose objections have given me a greater concern, as they seem to reflect, under this head, rather on my morality than on my invention. These are they who say an author is guilty of falsehood, when he talks to the public of manuscripts which he never saw, or describes scenes of action or discourse in which he was never engaged. But these gentlemen would do well to consider, that there is not a fable or parable, which ever

*This is an allusion to Mr. Thomas Rowlinson, the celebrated book collector. Addison had already ridi:

culed him in the Tattler, No. 158, under the name of Tom Folio.

were I conscious of any thing in my writings that is not innocent at least, or that the greatest part of them were not sincerely designed to discountenance vice and ignorance, and support the interest of truth, wisdom, and virtue, I should be more severe upon myself than the public is disposed to be. In the mean while I desire my reader to consider every particular paper, or discourse, as a distinct tract by itself, and independent of every thing that goes before or after it.

I shall end this paper with the following letter, which was really sent me, as some others have been which I have published, and for which I must own myself indebted to their respective writers.

'SIR,-I was this morning in a company of your well-wishers, when we read over, with great satisfaction, Tully's observation on action adapted to the British theatre: though by the way, we were very sorry to find that you have disposed of another member of your club. Poor Sir Roger is dead, and the worthy clergyman dying; captain Sentry has taken possession of a good estate; Will Honeycomb has married a farmer's daughter; and the Templar withdraws himself into the business of his own profession. What will all this end in? We are afraid it portends no good to the public. Unless you very speedily fix the day for the election of new members, we are under apprehensions of losing the British Spectator. I hear of a party of ladies who intended to address you on this subject: and I question not, if you do not give us the slip very suddenly, that you will re ceive addresses from all parts of the kingdom to continue so useful a work. Pray deliver us out of this perplexity; and, among the multitude of your readers, you will particularly oblige your most sincere friend and servant,

O.

'PHILO-SPEC.'