Sir David Lamb, fo well efteem'd, Yet faved could not be. The familiar found in thefe names deftroys the majefty of the defcription; for this reafon I do not mention this part of the poem but to shew the natural caft of thought which appears in it, as the two last verses look almost like a translation of Virgil. -Cadit & Ripheus juftiffimus unus Æn. ii. 426. Then Ripheus fell in the unequal fight, DRYDEN. In the catalogue of the English who fell, Witherington's behaviour is in the fame manner particularized very artfully, as the reader is prepared for it by that account which is given of him in the beginning of the battle; though I am fatisfied your little buffoon readers (who have seen that paffage ridiculed in Hudibras) will not be able to take the beauty of it: for which reason I dare not fo much as quote it. Then stept a gallant 'fquire forth, That e'er my captain fought on foot, And I ftood looking on. 1 We meet with fame heroic fentiment in Virgil, Non pudet, O Rutuli, cunctis pro talibus unam Æn. xii. 229. For fhame, Rutilians, can you bear the fight DRYDEN, What can be more natural, or more moving, than the circumftances in which he defcribes 'the behaviour of thofe women who had loft their husbands on this fatal day? Next day did many widows come They wash'd their wounds in brinish tears, Their bodies bath'd in purple blood, They bore with them away; They kifs'd them dead a thoufand times, Thus we fee how the thoughts of this poem, which naturally arife from the fubject, are always fimple, and fometimes exquifitely noble; that the language is often very founding, and that the whole is written with a true poetical fpirit. If this Song had been written in the Gothic manner, which is the delight of all our little wits, whether writers or readers, it would not have hit the tafte of fo many ages, and have pleafed pleased the readers of all ranks and conditions. I fhall only beg pardon for fuch a profufion of Latin quotations; which I should not have made ufe of, but that I feared my own judgment would have looked too fingular on fuch a fubject, had not I fupported it by the practice and authority of Virgil. C*. N° 75. Saturday, May 26, 1711. Omnis Aristippum decuit color, & ftatus, & res. HOR. I Ep. xvii. 23. All fortune fitted Ariftippus well. CREECH. T is with fome mortification that I fuffered the raillery of a fine lady of my acquaintance, for calling, in one of my Papers †, Dorimant a clown. She was fo unmerciful as to take advantage of my invincible taciturnity, and on that occafion with great freedom to confider the air, the height, the face, the gefture of him, who could pretend to judge fo arrogantly of gallan By ADDISON, dated from Chelsea, See final Note to N° 7. +SPECT. No 65. Drury-Lane, May 25. "LOVE FOR LOVE." Ben by Mr. Dogget; Angelica, Mrs. Oldfield; Sir S. Legend, Mr. Eftcourt; Valentine, Mr. Wilks; Scandal, Mr. Booth; Tattle, Mr. Cibber; Forefight, Mr. Johnfon; Trapland, Mr. Norris; Jeremy, Mr. Bowen; Mrs. Forefight, Mrs. Rogers; Mrs, Frail, Mrs. Porter; Nurfe, Mrs. Willis; Mils Prue, Mrs. Bicknell. SPECT, in folio, try. try. She is full of motion, janty and lively in her impertinence, and one of those that commonly pafs, among the ignorant, for persons who have a great deal of humour. She had the play of Sir Fopling in her hand, and after fhe had faid it was happy for her there was not so charming a creature as Dorimant now living, she began with a theatrical air and tone of voice to read, by way of triumph over me, fome of his fpeeches. "Tis he! that lovely hair, that easy shape, "those wanton eyes, and all thofe melting "charms about her mouth, which Medley spoke "of; I'll follow the lottery, and put in for a "prize with my friend Bellair," In love the victors from the vanquish'd fly; Then turning over the leaves, fhe reads alternately, and speaks, And you and Loveit to her coft fhall find Oh the fine gentleman! But here, continues the, is the paffage I admire moft, where he begins to teafe Loveit, and mimic Sir Fopling. Oh the pretty fatire, in his refolving to be a coxcomb to please, fince noife and nonfenfe have fuch powerful charms. I, that I may fuccessful prove, Then Then how like a man of the town, fo wild and gay is that! The wife will find a diff'rence in our fate, It would have been a very wild endeavour for a man of my temper to offer any oppofition to fo nimble a fpeaker as my fair enemy is; but her difcourfe gave me very many reflections, when I had left her company. Among others, I could not but confider, with fome attention, the false impreffions the generality (the fair sex more efpecially) have of what fhould be intended, when they say a fine gentleman; and could not help revolving that fubject in my thoughts, and fettling, as it were, an idea of that character in my own imagination. No man ought to have the efteem of the reft of the world, for any actions which are difagreeable to those maxims which prevail, as the ftandards of behaviour, in the country wherein he lives. What is oppofite to the eternal rules of reafon and good fenfe, muft be excluded from any place in the carriage of a well-bred man. I did not, I confess, explain myself enough on this fubject, when I called Dorimant a clown, and made it an instance of it, that he called the orange wench, Double Tripe: I fhould have fhewn, that humanity obliges a gentleman to give no part of human-kind reproach, for what they, whom they reproach, may poffibly have in common with the moft virtuous and worthy amongst us. When a gentleman fpeaks coarsely, he has dreffed |