ation should have a particular weight with the female world, who were designed to please the eye, and attract the regard of the other half of the species. Now there is nothing that wears out a fine face like the vigils of the card-table, and those cutting passions which naturally attend them. Hollow eyes, haggard looks, and pale complexions, are the natural indications of a female gamester. Her morning sleeps are not able to repair her midnight watchings. I have known a woman carried off half dead from basset, and have many a time grieved to see a person of quality gliding by me in her chair at two o'clock in the morning, and looking like a spectre amidst a glare of flambeaux. In short, I never knew a thoroughpaced female gamester hold her beauty two winters together. But there is still another case in which the body is more endangered than in the former. All play debts must be paid in specie, or by an equivalent. The man that plays beyond his income pawns his estate; the woman must find out something else to mortgage when her pin-money is gone: the husband has his lands to dispose of, the wife her person. Now when the female body is once dipped, if the creditor be very importunate, I leave my reader to consider the conse quences. No. 121.] Thursday, July 30. Hinc exaudiri gemitus, iræque leonum.-Virg Roarings of the Lion. 'OLD NESTOR,-Ever since the first notice you gave of the erection of that useful monument of yours in Button's coffee-house, I have had a restless ambition to imitate the renowned London 'prentice, and boldly venture my hand down the throat of your lion. The subject of this letter is a relation of a club whereof I am a member, and which has made a considerable noise of late, I mean the Silent Club. The year of our institution is 1694, the number of members twelve, and the place of our meeting is Dumb's Alley, in Holborn. We look upon ourselves as the relics of the old Pythagoreans, and have this maxim in common with them, which is the foundation of our design, that "talking spoils company. The president of our society is one who was born deaf and dumb, and owes that blessing to nature, which in the rest of us is owing to industry alone. I find upon inquiry, that the greater part of us are married men, and such whose wives are remarkably loud at home: hither we fly for refuge, and enjoy at once the two greatest and most valuable blessings, company and retirement. When that eminent relation of yours, the Spectator, published his weekly papers, and gave us that remarkable account of his silence (for you must know, though we do not read, yet we inspect all such useful es- I " says) we seemed unanimous to invite him to partake of our secrecy; but it was unluckily objected that he had just then published a discourse of his at his own club, and had not arrived to that happy inactivity of the tongue, which we expected from a man of his understanding. You will wonder, perhaps, how we managed this debate, but it will be easily accounted for, when I tell you that our fingers are as nimble and as infallible interpreters of our thoughts as other men's tongues are; yet, even this mechanic eloquence is only allowed upon the weightiest occasions. We admire the wise institutions of the Turks, and other eastern nations, where all commands are performed by officious mutes, and we wonder that the polite courts of christendom, should come so far short of the majesty of the barbarians. Ben Jonson has gained an eternal reputation among us by his play, called The Silent Woman. Every member here is another Morose while the club is sitting, but at home may talk as much and as fast as his family occasions require, without breach of statute. The advantages we find from this Quaker-like assembly are many. We consider, that the understanding of man is liable to mistakes, and his will fond of contradictions; that disputes, which are of no weight in themselves, are often very considerable in their effects. The disuse of the tongue is the only effectual remedy against these. All party concerns, all private scandal, all insults over another man's weaker reasons, must there be lost, where no disputes arise. Another advantage which follows from the first, (and which is very rarely to be met with) is, that we are all upon the same level in conversation. A wag of my acquaintance used to add a third, viz that, if ever we debate, we are sure to have all our arguments at our fingers' ends. all Longinus's remarks, we are most enamoured with that excellent passage, where he mentions Ajax's silence as one of the noblest instances of the sublime, and (if you will allow me to be free with a namesake of yours) I should think that the everlasting story-teller, Nestor, had he been likened to the ass instead of our hero, he had suffered less by the comparison. r Of "I have already described the practice and sentiments of this society, and shall but barely mention the report of the neighbourhood, that we are not only as mute as fishes, but that we drink like fishes too; that we are like the Welshman's owl, though we do not sing, we pay it off with thinking. Others take us for an assembly of disaffected persons; nay, their zeal to the government has carried them so far as to send, last week, a party of constables to surprise us: you may easily imagine how exactly we represented the Roman senators of old, sitting with majestic silence, and undaunted at the approach of an army of Gauls. If you approve of our undertaking, you need not declare it to the world; your silence shall be interpreted as consent given to the honourable body of mutes, and in particular "Your humble servant, to. “NED MUM.” "P. S. We have had but one word spoken since the foundation, for which the member was expelled by the old Roman custom of bending back the thumb. He had just received the news of the battle of Hochstat, and being too impatient to communicate his joy, was unfortunately betrayed into a lapsus lingua. We acted on the principles of the Roman Manlius; and, though we approved of the cause of his error, as just, we condemned the effect as a manifest violation of his duty." I never could have thought a dumb man would have roared so well out of my lion's mouth. My next pretty correspondent, like Shakspeare's lion in Pyramus and Thisbe, roars as it were any nightingale. ! July 28, 1713. “MR. IRONSIDE,-I was afraid, at first, you were only in jest, and had a mind to expose our nakedness for the diversion of the town; but since I see that you are in good earnest, and have infallibility of your side, I cannot forbear returning my thanks to you for the care you take of us, having a friend who has promised me to give my letters to the lion, till we can communicate our thoughts to you through our own proper vehicle. Now, you must know, dear sir, that if you do not take care to suppress this exorbitant growth of the female chest, all that is left of my waist must inevitably perish. It is at this time reduced to the depth of four inches, by what I have already made over to my neck. But if the stripping design, mentioned by Mrs. Figleaf yesterday, should take effect, sir, I dread to think what it will come to. In short, there is no help for it, my girdle and all must go, This is the naked truth of the matter. Have pity on me, then, my dear Guardian, and preserve me from being so inhumanly exposed. I do assure you that I follow your precepts as much as a young woman can, who will live in the world without being laughed at. I have no hooped petticoat, and when I am a matron will wear broad tuckers, whether you succeed or no. If the flying project takes, I intend to be the last in wings, being resolved in every thing to behave myself as becomes ration of mu.titudes, and that, too, in several ages of the world. This, however, is the general practice of all illiterate and undistinguishing critics. Because Homer, and Virgil, and Sophocles have been commended by the learned of all times, every scribbler, who has no relish of their beauties, gives himself an air of rapture when he speaks of them. But as he praises these he knows not why, there are others whom he depreciates with the same vehemence and upon the same account. We may see after what a different manner Strada proceeds in his judgment on the Latin poets; for I intend to publish, in this paper, à continuation of that prolusion which was the subject of the last Thursday. I shall therefore give my reader a short account, in prose, of every poem which was produced in the learned assembly there described; and if he is thoroughly conversant in the works of those ancient authors, he will see with how much judgment every subject is adapted to the poet who makes use of it, and with how much delicacy every particular poet's way of writing is characterised in the censure that is passed upon it. Lucan's representative was the first who recited before that august assembly. As Lucan was a Spaniard, his poem does honour to that nation, which, at the same time, makes the romantic bravery in the hero of it more probable. Alphonso was the governor of a town invested by the Moors. During the blockade, they made his only son their prisoner, whom they brought before the walls, and exposed to his father's sight, threatening to put him to death, if he did not immediately give up the town. The father tells them, if he had a hundred sons, he would rather see them all perish than do an ill action, or betray his country. "But," says he, "if you take a pleasure in destroying the innocent, you may do it if you please: behold a sword for your purpose. "Upon which he threw his sword from the wall, returned to his palace, and was able, at such a juncture, to sit down to the repast which was prepared for him. He was soon raised by the shouts of the enemy and the cries of the besieged. Upon returning again to the walls, he saw his son lying in the pangs of death; but, far from betraying any weakness at such a spectacle, he upbraids his friends for their sorrow, and returns to finish his repast. Upon the recital of this story, which is exquisitely drawn up in Lucan's spirit and language, the whole assembly declared their opinion of Lucan in a confused murmur. The poem was praised or censured, according to the prejudices which every one had conceived in favour or disadvantage of the author. These were so very great, that some had placed him in their opinions above the highest, and others beneath the lowest of the Latin poets. Most of them, however, agreed that Lucan's genius was wonderfully great, but, at the same time, too haughty and headstrong to be governed by art; and that his style was like his genius, | all other poets, to be always doing or teach. learned, bold, and lively, but, withal, too ing something, that no other style was so tragical and blustering. In a word, that he proper to teach in, or gave a greater plea chose rather a great than a just reputation; sure to those who had a true relish for the to which they added, that he was the first of Roman tongue. They added, further, that the Latin poets who deviated from the pu- if Lucretius had not been embarrassed rity of the Roman language. with the difficulty of his matter, and a little led away by an affectation of antiquity, there could not have been any thing more perfect than his poem. The representative of Lucretius told the assembly that they would soon be sensible of the difference between a poet who was a native of Rome, and a stranger who had been adopted into it: after which he entered upon his subject, which I find exhibited to my hand in a speculation of one of my predecessors. Claudian succeeded Lucretius, having chosen for his subject the famous contest between the nightingale and the lutanist, which every one is acquainted with, especially since Mr. Philips has so finely improved that hint in one of his pastorals. He had no sooner finished, but the assembly rung with acclamations made in his praise. His first beauty, which every one owned, was the great clearness and perspicuity which appeared in the plan of his poem. Others were wonderfully charmed with the smoothness of his verse, and the flowing of his numbers, in which there were none of those elisions and cuttings off so frequent in the works of other poets. There were several, however, of a more refined judgment, who ridiculed that infusion of foreign phrases with which he had corrupted the Latin tongue, and spoke with contempt of the equability of his numbers, that cloyed and satiated the ear for want of variety: to which they likewise added a_frequent and unseasonable affectation of appearing sonorous and sublime. Strada, in the person of Lucretius, gives an account of a chimerical correspondence between two friends, by the help of a certain loadstone, which had such a virtue in it, that, if it touched two several needles, when one of the needles so touched began to move, the other, though at ever so great a distance, moved at the same time, and in the same manner. He tells us that the two friends, being each of them possessed of one of these needles, made a kind of dial-plate, inscribing it with the four-and-twenty letters, in the same manner as the hours of the day are marked upon the ordinary dial-plate. They then fixed one of the needles on each of these plates, in such a manner, that it could move round without impediment, so as to touch any of the four-and-twenty letters. Upon their separating from one another into distant countries, they agreed to withdraw themselves punctually into their closets at a certain hour of the day, and to converse with one another by means of this their invention. Accordingly, when they were some hundred miles asunder, each of them shut himself up in his closet at the No. 122.] time appointed, and immediately cast his eye upon his dial-plate. If he had a mind to write any thing to his friend, he directed his needle to every letter that formed the words which he had occasion for, making a little pause at the end of every word or sentence, to avoid confusion. The friend, in the mean while, saw his own sympathetic needle moving of itself to every letter which that of his correspondent pointed at. By this means, they talked together across a whole continent, and conveyed their thoughts to one another in an instant, over cities or mountains, seas or deserts. The whole audience were pleased with the artifice of the poet, who represented Lucretius, observing very well how he had laid asleep their attention to the simplicity of his style in some verses, and to the want of harmony in others, by fixing their minds to the novelty of his subject, and to the experiment which he related. Without such an artifice, they were of opinion that nothing would have sounded more harsh than Lucretius' diction and numbers. But it was plain that the more learned part of the assembly were quite of another mind. These allowed that it was peculiar to Lucretius, above The sequel of this Prolusion shall be the work of another day. Friday, July 31. Nec magis expressi vultus per ahenea signa.-Hor. lic as fast as I can, I shall here give them THAT I may get out of debt with the pubthe remaining part of Strada's criticism on the Latin heroic poets. My readers may see the whole work in the three papers numbered 115, 119, 122. Those who are acnot but be pleased to see them so justly requainted with the authors themselves, canpresented; and as for those who have never perused the originals, they may form a judgment of them from such accurate and show, at least, how a man of genius (and entertaining copies. The whole piece will none else should call himself a critic) can make the driest art a pleasing amusement. THE EQUEL OF STRADA'S PROlusion. The poet who personated Ovid gives an account of the chryso-magnet, or of the loadstone which attracts gold, after the same manner as the common loadstone attracts iron. The author, that he might express Ovid's way of thinking, derives this virtue to the chryso-magnet from a poetical metamorphosis. A German and a Portuguese, when Vien na was besieged, having had frequent contests of rivalry, were preparing for a single duel, when on a sudden the walls were at German and Portuguese consented to sacrifice their private resentments to the public, and to see who could signalize himself most upon the common foe. Each of them did wonders in repelling the enemy from different parts of the wall. The German was at length engaged amidst a whole army of Turks, until his left arm, that held the shield, was unfortunately lopped off, and he himself so stunned with a blow he had received, that he fell down as dead. The Portuguese, seeing the condition of his rival very generously flew to his succour, dispersed the multitudes that were gathered about him, and fought over him as he lay upon the ground. In the mean while, the German recovered from his trance, and rose up to the "As I was sitting by a well," says he, [ "when I was a boy, my ring dropped into it, when immediately my father, fastening a certain stone to the end of a line, let it down into the well. It no sooner touched the sur-tacked by the enemy. Upon this, both the face of the water, but the ring leaped up from the bottom, and clung to it in such a manner, that he drew it out like a fish. My father, seeing me wonder at the experiment, gave me the following account of it. When Deucalion and Pyrrha went about the world to repair mankind, by throwing stones over their heads, the men who rose from them differed in their inclinations, according to the places on which the stones fell. Those which fell in the fields became ploughmen and shepherds. Those which fell into the the water produced sailors and fishermen. Those that fell among the woods and forests gave birth to huntsmen. Among the rest, there were several of them that fell upon mountains, that had mines of gold and silver in them. This last race of men immediate-assistance of the Portuguese, who, a little ly betook themselves to the search of these while after, had his right arm, which held precious metals; but Nature, being displeas- the sword, cut off by the blow of a sabre. ed to see herself ransacked, withdrew these He would have lost his life, at the same time, her treasures towards the centre of the by a spear which was aimed at his back, earth. The avarice of man, however, per- had not the German slain the person who sisted in its former pursuits, and ransacked was aiming at him. These two competitors her inmost bowels, in quest of the riches for fame having received such mutual obliwhich they contained. Nature, seeing her- gations, now fought in conjunction; and as self thus plundered by a swarm of miners, the one was only able to manage the sword, was so highly incensed, that she shook the and the other the shield, made up but one whole place with an earthquake, and buried warrior betwixt them. The Portuguese the men under their own works. The Sty-covered the German, while the German gian flames, which lay in the neighbourhood of these deep mines, broke out at the same time, with great fury, burning up the whole mass of human limbs and earth, until they were hardened and baked into stone. The human bodies that were delving in iron mines were converted into those common loadstones which attract that metal. Those which were in search of gold became chryso-magnets, and still keep their former avarice in their present state of petrefaction. Ovid had no sooner given over speaking, but the assembly pronounced their opinions of him. Several were so taken with his easy way of writing, and had so formed their tastes upon it, that they had no relish for any composition which was not framed in the Ovidian manner. A great many, however, were of a contrary opinion, until, at length, it was determined by a plurality of voices, that Ovid highly deserved the name of a witty man, but that his language was vulgar and trivial, and of the nature of those things which cost no labour in the invention, but are ready found out to a man's hand. In the last place, they all agreed that the greatest objection which lay against Ovid, both as to his life and writings, was his having too much wit; and that he would have succeeded better in both, had he rather checked than indulged it. Statius stood up next, with a swelling and haughty air, and made the following story the subject of his poem. At dealt destruction among the enemy. length, finding themselves faint with loss of blood, and resolving to perish nobly, they advanced to the most shattered part of the wall, and threw themselves down, with a huge fragment of it, upon the heads of the besiegers. When Statius ceased, the old factions immediately broke out concerning his manner of writing. Some gave him very loud acclamations, such as he had received in his life time; declaring him the only man who had written in a style which was truly heroical, and that he was above all others in his fame as well as in his diction. Others censured him as one who went beyond all bounds in his images and expressions, laughing at the cruelty of his conceptions, the rumbling of his numbers, and the dreadful pomp and bombast of his expressions. There were, however, a few select judges, who moderated between both these ex tremes, and pronounced upon Statius, that there appeared in his style much poetical heat and fire, but, withal, so much smoke as sullied the brightness of it. That there was a majesty in his verse, but that it was the majesty rather of a tyrant than of a king. That he was often towering among the clouds, but often met with the fate of Icarus. In a word, that Statius was among the poets, what Alexander the Great is among heroes, a man of great virtues and of great faults. Virgil was the last of the ancient poets hands. The last of them is, it seems, the copy of one sent by a mother, to one who had abused her daughter; and though I cannot justify her sentiments, at the latter end of it, they are such as might arise in a mind which had not yet recovered its temper after so great a provocation. I present the reader with it as I received it, because I think it gives a lively idea of the affliction which a fond parent suffers on such an occasion. who produced himself upon this occasion. | faction to himself? Nay, for a satisfaction His subject was the story of Theutilla; that is sure, at some time or other, to be folwhich being so near that of Judith, in all its lowed with remorse? I am led to this subcircumstances, and at the same time trans-ject by two letters which came lately to my lated by a very ingenious gentleman, in one of Mr. Dryden's miscellanies, I shall here give no farther account of it. When he had done, the whole assembly declared the works of this great poet a subject rather for their admiration than for their applause, and that if any thing was wanting in Virgil's poetry, it was to be ascribed to a deficiency in the art itself, and not in the genius of this great man. There were, however, some envious murmurs and detractions heard among the crowd, as if there were very frequently verses in him which flagged, or wanted spirit, and were rather to be looked upon as faultless than beautiful. But these injudicious censures were heard with a general indignation. I need not observe to my learned reader, that the foregoing story of the German and Portuguese is almost the same, in every particular, with that of the two rival soldiers in Cæsar's Commentaries. This Prolusion ends with the performance of an Italian poet, full of those little witticisms and conceits which have infected the greatest part of modern poetry. THERE are a sort of knight-errants in the world, who, quite contrary to those in romance, are perpetually seeking adventures to bring virgins into distress, and to ruin innocence. When men of rank and fig ure pass away their lives in these criminal Thy father's merit sets thee up to view, Cato. -shire, July, 1713. "SIR,-The_other day I went into the house of one of my tenants, whose wife was formerly a servant in our family, and, by my grandmother's kindness, had her education with my mother from her infancy; so that she is of a spirit and understanding greatly superior to those of her own rank. I found the poor woman in the utmost disorder of mind and attire, drowned in tears, and reduced to a condition that looked rather like stupidity than grief. She leaned upon her arm over a table, upon which lay a letter folded up and directed to a certain nobleman, very famous in our parts for low intrigue, or (in plainer words) for debauching country girls in which number is the unfortunate daughter of my poor tenant, as I learn from the following letter written by her mother. I have sent you here a copy of it, which, made public in your paper, may perhaps furnish useful reflections to many men of figure and quality, who indulge themselves in a passion which they possess but in common with the vilest part of mankind. "MY LORD,-Last night I discovered the injury you have done to my daughter. Heaven knows how long and piercing a tor ment that short-lived, shameful pleasure of yours must bring upon me; upon me, from whom you never received any offence. This consideration alone should have deterred a noble mind from so base and ungenerous an act. But, alas! what is all the grief that must be my share, in comparison of that with which you have requited her by whom you have been obliged? Loss of good name, anguish of heart, shame and infamy, are I have often wondered that these deflow- what must inevitably fall upon her, unless erers of innocence, though dead to all the she gets over them by what is much worse, sentiments of virtue and honour, are not re-open impudence, professed lewdness, and strained by compassion and humanity. To abandoned prostitution. These are the rebring sorrow, confusion, and infamy into a turns you have made to her, for putting in family, to wound the heart of a tender pa- your power all her livelihood and depenrent, and stain the life of a poor, deluded dance, her virtue and reputation. O, my young woman with a dishonour that can ne- Lord, should my son have practised the like ver be wiped off, are circumstances, one on one of your daughters!-I know you would think, sufficient to check the most vi- swell with indignation at the very mention olent passion in a heart that has the least of it, and would think he deserved a thoutincture of pity and good-nature. Would sand deaths, should he make such an atany one purchase the gratification of a mo- tempt upon the honour of your family. It ment at so dear a rate, and entail a lasting is well, my Lord. And is then the honour m'sery on others, for such a transient satis-of your daughter, whom still, though it har |