The reader will pardon me if I insert as a note on this beautiful passage, the account given us by the late ingenious Mr. Maundrell of this ancient piece of worship, and probably the first occasion of such a superstition. "We came to a fair large river; doubtless the ancient river Adonis, as fa mous for the idolatrous rites performed here in lamentation of Adonis. We had the fortune to see what may be supposed to be the occasion of that opinion which Lucian relates concerning this river, viz: That this stream, at certain seasons of the year, especially about the feast of Adonis, is of a bloody color; which the heathens looked upon as proceeding from a kind of sympathy in the river for the death of Adonis, who was killed by a wild boar in the mountains, out of which this stream rises. Something like this we saw actually come to pass; for the water was stained to a surprising redness: and, as we observed in traveling, had discolored the sea a great way into s reddish hue, occasioned doubtless by a sort of minium, or red earth, washed into the river by the violence of the rain, and not by any stain from Adonis's blood." Amidst those impieties which this enraged The passage in the catalogue, explaining the spirit utters in other places of the poem, the manner how spirits transform themselves by conauthor has taken care to introduce none that is not traction or enlargement of their dimensions, is inbig with absurdity, and incapable of shocking a troduced with great judgment, to make way for religious reader; his words, as the poet himself several surprising accidents in the sequel of the describes them, bearing only a "semblance of poem. There follows one at the very end of the worth, not substance.' He is, likewise, with first book, which is what the French critics call great art described as owning his adversary to be marvelous, but at the same time probable, by rea Almighty. Whatever perverse interpretation he son of the passage last mentioned. As soon as the puts on the justice, mercy, and other attributes of infernal palace is finished, we are told the multithe Supreme Being, he frequently confesses his tude and rabble of spirits immediately shrunk omnipotence, that being the perfection he was themselves into a small compass, that there might forced to allow him, and the only consideration be room for such a numberless assembly in this which could support his pride under the shame of capacious hall. But it is the poet's refinement upon this thought which I most admire, and which indeed is very noble in itself. For he tells as, that notwithstanding the vulgar among the fallen spirits contracted their forms, those of the first rank and dignity still preserved their natural di his defeat. Nor must I here omit that beautiful circumstance of his bursting out into tears, upon his survey of those innumerable spirits whom he had involved in the same guilt and ruin with himself: He now prepar'd To speak: whereat their doubled ranks they bend The catalogue of evil spirits has abundance of learning in it, and a very agreeable turn of poetry, which rises in a great measure from its describing the places where they were worshiped, by those beautiful marks of rivers so frequent among the ancient poets. The author had, doubtless, in this place Homer's catalogue of ships, and Virgil's list of warriors, in his view. The characters of Moloch and Belial prepare the reader's mind for their respective speeches and behavior in the second and sixth books. The account of Thammuz is finely romantic, and suitable to what we read among the ancients of the worship which was paid to that idol; mensions: Thus incorporeal spirits to smallest forms The character of Mammon, and the description of the Pandæmonium, are full of beauties. There are several other strokes in the first book wonderfully poetical, and instances of that sublime genius so peculiar to the author. Such is the description of Azazel's stature, and the inf nal standard which he unfurls; as also of that ghastly light by which the fiends appear to ose another in their place of torments: The seat of desolation, void of light, Save what the glimm ring of those livid flames The shout of the whole host of fallen angels when drawn up in battle array: -The universal host up sent A shout that tore hell's concave, and beyond The review, which the leader makes of his in fernal army: -He through the armed flies Darts his experienc'd eye, and soon traverse The whole battalion views, their order due, Their visages and stature as of gods, Their number last he sums; and now his heart Distends with pride, and hard'ning in his strength Glories of each poem, so to give their works an agreeable variety, their episodes are so many short fables, and their similes so many short episodes; to which you may add, if you please, that their metaphors are so many short similes. If the reader The flash of light which appeared upon the considers the comparisons in the first book of Mildrawing of their swords : He spake; and to confirm his words out flew The sudden production of the Pandæmonium : Anon out of the earth a fabric huge The artificial illuminations made in it: -From the arch'd roof Pendent by subtile magic, many a row There are also several noble similes and allusions in the first book of Paradise Lost. And here I must observe, that when Milton alludes either to things or persons, he never quits his simile until it rises to some very great idea, which is often foreign to the occasion that gave birth to it. The resemblance does not, perhaps, last above a line or two, but the poet runs on with the hint until he has raised out of it some glorious image or sentiment, proper to inflame the mind of the reader, and to give it that sublime kind of entertainment which is suitable to the nature of an heroic poem. Those who are acquainted with Homer's and Virgil's way of writing, cannot but be pleased with this kind of structure in Milton's similitudes. I am the more particular on this head, because ignorant readers, who have formed their taste upon the quaint similes and little turns of wit, which are so much in vogue among modern poets, cannot relish these beauties, which are of a much higher nature, and are therefore apt to censure Milton's comparisons, in which they do not see any surprising points of likeness. Monsieur Perrault was a man of this vitiated relish, and for that very reason has endeavored to turn into ridicule several of Homer's similitudes, which he calls "comparaisons a longue queue," "long-tailed comparisons." I shall conclude this paper on the first book of Milton with the answer which Monsieur Boileau makes to Perrault on this occasion: Comparisons," says he," in odes and epic poems, are not introduced only to illustrate and embellish the discourse, but to amuse and relax the mind of the reader, by frequently disengaging him from too painful an attention to the principal subject, and by leading him into other agreeable images. Homer, says he, excelled in this particular, whose Comparisons abound with such images of nature as are proper to relieve and diversify his subjects. He continually instructs the reader, and makes him take notice, even in objects which are every day before his eyes, of such circumstances as he should not otherwise have observed. To this he adds, as a maxim universally acknowledged, "that it is not necessary in poetry for the points of the comparison to correspond with one another exactly, but that a general resemblance is sufficient, and that too much nicety in this particular savors of the rhetorician and epigrammatist. In short, if we look into the conduct of Homer, Virgil, and Milton, as the great fable is the soul *Cresset, i, e.. a blazing light set on a beacon, in French *croisette," because beacons formerly had crosses on their topa.-JOHNSON. ton, of the sun in an eclipse, of the sleeping leviathan, of the bees swarming about their hive, of the fairy dance, in the view wherein I have here placed them, he will easily discover the great beauties that are in each of those passages.-L. No. 304.] MONDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 1711-12. A latent fire preys on his feverish veins. THE circumstances of my correspondent, whose letter I now insert, are so frequent, that I cannot want compassion so much as to forbear laying it before the town. There is something so mean and inhuman in a direct Smithfield bargain for children, that if this lover carries his point, and observes the rules he pretends to follow, I do not only wish him success, but also that it may animate others to follow his example. I know not one motive relating to this life which could produce so many honorable and worthy actions, as the hopes of obtaining a woman of merit. There would ten thousand ways of industry and honest ambition be pursued by young men, who believed that the persons admired had value enough for their passion to attend the event of their good fortune in all their applications, in order to make their circumstances fall in with the duties they owe to themselves, their families, and their country. All these relations a man should think of who intends to go into the state of marriage, and expects to make it a state of pleasure and satis faction. "I have for some years indulged a passion for a young lady of age and quality suitable to my own, but very much superior in fortune. It is the fashion with parents (how justly I leave you to judge) to make all regards give way to the article of wealth. From this one consideration it is, that I have concealed the ardent love I have for her; but I am beholden to the force of my love for many advantages which I reaped from it toward the better conduct of my life. À certain complacency to all the world, a strong desire to oblige wherever it lay in my power, and a circumspect behavior in all my words and actions, have rendered me more particularly acceptable to all my friends and acquaintance. Love has had the same good effect upon my fortune, and I have increased in riches, in proportion to my advancement in those arts which make a man agreeable and amiable. There is a certain sympathy which will tell my mistress from these circumstances, that it is I who wrote this for her reading, if you will please to insert it. There is not a downright enmity, but a great coldness between our parents; so that if either of us declared any kind sentiments for each other, her friends would be very backward to lay an obligation upon our family, and mine to receive it from hers. Under these delicate circumstances it is no easy matter to act with safety. I have no reason to fancy my mistress has any regard for me, but from a very disinterested value which I have for her. If from any hint in any future paper of yours she gives me the least encouragement, I doubt not but I "That your petitioner and his forefathers, have been sellers of books for time immemorial: that your petitioner's ancestor, Crouchback Title-page, was the first of that vocation in Britain; who keeping his station (in fair weather) at the corner of Lothbury, was, by way of eminency, called 'The Stationer,' a name which from him all succeeding booksellers have affected to bear: that the station of your petitioner and his father has been in the place of his present settlement ever since that square has been built: that your petitioner has formerly had the honor of your worship's custom, and hopes you never had reason to complain of your pennyworths: that particularly he sold you your first Lilly's Grammar, and at the same time a Wit's Commonwealth, almost as good of their throats, draw off the regard of all passengers from your said petitioners; from which violence they are distinguished by the name of The Worriers.' "That while your petitioners stand ready to receive passengers with a submissive bow, and repeat with a gentle voice, Ladies, what do you want? pray look in here;' the worriers reach out their hands at pistol-shot, and seize the customers at arms' length. "That while the fawners strain and relax the muscles of their faces, in making a distinction between a spinster in a colored scarf and a handmaid in a straw hat, the worriers use the same roughness to both, and prevail upon the easiness of the passengers, to the impoverishment of your petitioners. "Your petitioners therefore most humbly pray, that the worriers may not be permitted to inhabit the politer parts of the town; and that Roundcourt may remain a receptacle for buyers of a more soft education. "And your Petitioners," etc. The petition of the New-exchange, concerning the arts of buying and selling, and particu larly valuing goods, by the complexion of the seller, will be considered on another occasion.-T. Non tali auxilio, nec defensoribus istis These times want other aids.-DRYDEN. as new moreover, that your first rudimental No. 305.] TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 1711–12 essays in spectatorship were made in your petitioner's shop, where you often practiced for hours together, sometimes on the little hieroglyphics either gilt, silvered, or plain, which the Egyptian woman on the other side of the shop had wrought in gingerbread, and sometimes on the English youths who in sundry places there were exercising themselves in the traditional sports of the field. From these considerations it is; that your petitioner is encouraged to apply himself to you, and to proceed humbly to acquaint your worship, that he has certain intelligence that you receive great numbers of defamatory letters designed by their authors to be published, which you throw aside and totally neglect: Your petitioner there. fore prays, that you will please to bestow on him those refuse letters, and he hopes by printing them to get a more plentiful provision for his family; or, at the worst, he may be allowed to sell them by the pound weight to his good customers the pastry-cooks of London and Westminster. "TO THE SPECTATOR. "The humble petition of Bartholomew Ladylove, of Round-court, in the parish of St. Martin's in the Fields, in behalf of himself and neighbors. "Showeth, "That your petitioners have, with great industry and application, arrived at the most exact art of invitation or entreaty: that by a beseeching air and persuasive address, they have for many years last past peaceably drawn in every tenth passenger, whether they intended or not to call at their shops, to come in and buy; and from that softness of behavior have arrived among tradesmen at the gentle appellation of The Fawners.' "That there have of late set up among us certain persons from Monmouth street and Long-lane, who by the strength of their arms, and loudness OUR late newspapers being full of the project now on foot in the court of France for establishing a political academy, and I myself having received letters from several virtuosos among my foreign correspondents, which give some light into that affair, I intend to make it the subject of this day's speculation. A general account of this project may be met with in the Daily Courant of last Friday, in the following words, translated from the Gazette of Amsterdam: Paris, February 12. "It is confirmed, that the King has resolved to establish a new academy for politics, of which the Marquis de Torcy, minister and secretary of state, is to be protector. Su academicians are to be chosen, endowed with proper talents, for beginning to form this academy, into which no person is to be admitted under twenty-five years of age: they must likewise have each an estate of two thousand livres a year, either in possession, or to come to them by inheritance. The King will allow to each a pension of a thon sand livres. They are likewise to have able masters to teach them the necessary sciences, and to instruct them in all the treaties of peace, alliance, and others, which have been made in several ages past. These members are to meet twice a w at the Louvre. From this seminary are to be chosen secretaries to embassies, who by degrees may advance to higher employments." Cardinal Richelieu's politics made France the terror of Europe. The statesmen who have ap peared in that nation of late years have, on the contrary, rendered it either the pity or contempé of its neighbors. The cardinal erected that famous academy which has carried all the parts of polite learning to the greatest height. chief design in that institution was to divert the men of genius from meddling with politics a province in which he did not care to have any uze else interfere with him. On the contrary, the Marquis de Torcy seems resolved to make several His young men in France as wise as himself, and is therefore taken up at present in establishing a nursery of statesmen. The fourth professor is to teach the whole art of political characters and hieroglyphics; and to the end that they may be perfect also in this practice, they are not to send a note to one another (though it be but to borrow a Tacitus or a Machiavel) which is not written in cipher. Some private letters add, that there will also be erected a seminary of petticoat politicians, who are to be brought up at the feet of Madame de Maintenon, and to be dispatched into foreign Their fifth professor, it is thought, will be courts upon any emergencies of state: but as the chosen out of the society of Jesuits, and is to be news of this last project has not been yet confirm-well read in the controversies of probable doced, I shall take no further notice of it. Several of my readers may doubtless remember that upon the conclusion of the last war, which had been carried on so successfully by the enemy, their generals were many of them transformed into ambassadors; but the conduct of those who have commanded in the present war, has it seems, brought so little honor and advantage to their great monarch, that he is resolved to trust his affairs no longer in the hands of those military gentlemen. The regulations of this new academy very much deserve our attention. The students are to have in possession or reversion, an estate of two thousand French livres per annum, which, as the present exchange runs, will amount to at least one hundred and twenty-six pounds English. This, with the royal allowance of a thousand livres, will enable them to find themselves in coffee and snuff; not to mention newspapers, pens and ink, wax and wafers, with the like necessaries for politicians. A man must be at least five-and-twenty before he can be initiated into the mysteries of this academy, though there is no question but many grave persons of a much more advanced age, who have been constant readers of the Paris Gazette, will be glad to begin the world anew, and enter themselves upon this list of politicians. The society of these hopeful young gentlemen is to be under the direction of six professors, who, it seems, are to be speculative statesmen, and drawn out of the body of the royal academy. These six wise masters, according to my private letters, are to have the following parts allotted to them. This artist is to teach them how to nod judiciously, to shrug up their shoulders in a dubious case, to connive with either eye, and in a word, the whole practice of political grimace. The third is a sort of language-master, who is to instruct them in a style proper for a minister in his ordinary discourse. And to the end that this college of statesmen may be thoroughly practiced in the political style, they are to make use of it in their common conversations, before they are employed either in foreign or domestic affairs. If one of them asks another what o'clock it is, the other is to answer him indirectly, and, if possible, to turn off the question. If he is desired to change a louisd'or, he must beg time to consider of it. If it be inquired of him whether the King is at Versailles or Marly, he must answer in a whisper. If he be asked the news of the last Gazette, or the subject of a proclamation, he is to reply that he has not yet read it; or if he does not care for explaining himself so far, he needs only draw up his brow in wrinkles, or elevate the left shoulder. trines, mental reservation, and the rights of princes. This learned man is to instruct them in the grammar, syntax, and construing part of Treaty Latin; how to distinguish between the spirit and the letter, and likewise demonstrate how the same form of words may lay an obligation upon any prince in Europe, different from that which it lays upon his most Christian Majesty. He is likewise to teach them the art of finding flaws, loop-holes, and evasions in the most solemn compacts, and particularly a great rabbinical secret, revived of late years by the fraternity of Jesuits, namely, that contradictory interpretations of the same article may both of them be true and valid. When our statesmen are sufficiently improved by these several instructors, they are to receive their last polishing from one who is to act among them as master of the ceremonies. This gentleman is to give them lectures upon the important points of the elbow-chair and the stair-head, to instruct them in the different situations of the right hand, and to furnish them with bows and inclinations of all sizes, measures, and proportions. In short, this professor is to give the society their stiffening, and infuse into their manners that beautiful political starch, which may qualify them for levees, conferences, visits, and make them shine in what vulgar minds are apt to look upon as trifles. I have not yet heard any further particulars, which are to be observed in this society of unfledged statesmen; but I must confess, had I a son of five-and-twenty, that should take it into his head at that age to set up for a politician, I think I should go near to disinherit him for a blockhead. Beside, I should be apprehensive lest the same arts which are to enable him to negotiate between potentates, might a little infect his ordinary behavior between man and man. There is no question but these young Machiavels will in a little time turn their college upside down with plots and stratagems, and lay as many schemes to circumvent one another in a frog or a salad, as they may hereafter put in practice to overreach a neighboring prince or state. We are told that the Spartans, though they punished theft in the young men when it was discovered, looked upon it as honorable if it succeeded. Provided the conveyance was clean and unsuspected, a youth might afterward boast of it. This, say the historians, was to keep them sharp, and to hinder them from being imposed upon, either in their public or private negotiations. Whether any such relaxations of morality, such little jeux d'esprit, ought not to be allowed in this intended seminary of politicians, I shall leave to the wisdom of their founder. In the meantime, we have fair warning given us by this doughty body of statesmen: and as Sylla saw many Mariuses in Caesar, so I think we may discover many Torcys in this college of academicians. Whatever we think of ourselves, I am afraid neither our Smyrna nor St. James's will be a match for it. Our coffee-houses are, indeed, very good institutions; but whether or no these our British schools of politics may furnish out as able envoys and secretaries as an academy that is set apart for that purpose will deserve our serious The lover thought there was something so sprightly in her behavior, that he answered:" "MADAM, "I am not obliged since you are not the same woman, to let you know whether I flattered you or not; but I assure you I do not, when I tell you now like you above all your sex, and hope you will bear what may befall me when we are one, as well as you do what happens to yourself now you are single; therefore I am ready to take such a spirit for my companion as soon as you "I WRITE this to communicate to you a misfor-please. tune which frequently happens, and therefore deserves a consolatory discourse on the subject. I was within this half-year in the possession of as much beauty and as many lovers as any young lady in England. But my admirers have left me, and I cannot complain of their behavior. I have within that time had the small-pox: and this face, which (according to many amorous epistles which I have by me) was the seat of all that is beautiful in woman, is now disfigured with scars. It goes to the very soul of me to speak what I really think of my face; and though I think I did not overrate my beauty while I had it, it has extremely advanced in its value with me, now it is lost. There is one circumstance which makes my case very particular; the ugliest fellow that ever pretended to me, was and is most in my favor, and he treats me at present the most unreasonably. If you could make him return an obligation which he owes me, in liking a person that is not amiable. But there is, I fear, no possibility of making passion move by the rules of reason and gratitude. But say what you can to one who has survived herself, and knows not how to act in a new being. My lovers are at the feet of my rivals, my rivals are every day bewailing me, and I cannot enjoy what I am, by reason of the distracting reflection upon Consider the woman I was did not die of old age, but I was taken off in the prime of youth, and according to the course of nature may have forty years after-life to come. I have nothing of myself left which I like, but that what I was. "I am, Sir, your most humble Servant, "PARTHENISSA." both "AMILCAR." If Parthenissa can now possess her own mind and think as little of her beauty as she ought to have done when she had it, there will be no great diminution of her charms; and if she was for merly affected too much with them, an easy beha vior will more than make up for the loss of them Take the whole sex together, and you find those who have the strongest possession of men's hearts are not eminent for their beauty. You see it oftes happen that those who engage men to the greatest violence, are such as those who are strangers to them would take to be remarkably defective for that end. The fondest lover I know, said to me one day in a crowd of women at an entertainment of music, "You have often heard me talk of my beloved; that woman there,”continued he, smiling, when he had fixed my eye, " is her very picture. The lady he showed me was by much the least remarkable for beauty of any in the whole assembly but having my curiosity extremely raised, I could not keep my eyes off her. Her eyes at last met mine, and with a sudden surprise she looked round her to see who near her was remarka handsome that I was gazing at. This little & explained the secret. She did not understand her self for the object of love, and therefore she was so. The lover is a very honest, plain man; and what charmed him was a person that goes along with him in the cares and joys of life, not taken up with herself, but sincerely attentive, with a ready and cheerful mind, to accompany him in either. their own I can tell Parthenissa for her comfort, that the When Louis of France had lost the battle of beauties, generally speaking, are the most imper Ramilies, the addresses to him at that time were tinent and disagreeable of women. An apparent full of his fortitude, and they turned his misfor-desire of admiration, a reflection upon tune to his glory; in that, during his prosperity, merit, and a precise behavior in their general con he could never have manifested his heroic con- duct, are almost inseparable accidents in beauties, stancy under distresses, and so the world had lost All you obtain of them, is granted to importunity the most eminent part of his character. Parthe- and solicitation for what did not deserve so much nissa's condition gives her the same opportunity: of your time, and you recover from the possession and to resign conquests is a task as difficult in a of it as out of a dream. beauty as a hero. In the very entrance upon this You are ashamed of the vagaries of fancy which work she must burn all her love-letters; or since so strangely misled you, and your admiration of a she is so candid as not to call her lovers, who fol- beauty, merely as such, is inconsistent with a tollow her no longer, unfaithful, it would be a very erable reflection upon yourself. The cheerful good beginning of a new life from that of a good-humored creatures, into whose heads it beauty, to send them back to those who wrote never entered that they could make any mat them, with this honest inscription, "Articles of a happy, are the persons formed for making men marriage treaty broken off by the small-pox." I happy. There is Miss Liddy can dance a have known but one instance where a matter of this kind went on after a like misfortune, where the lady, who was a woman of spirit, wrote this billet to her lover: raise paste, write a good hand, keep an account. give a reasonable answer, and do as she is bid; while her eldest sister, Madam Martha, is out of humor, has the spleen, learns by reports of people |