appearances, from the fifteenth to the forty-fifth year of his age.

He assures me, with an air of confidence, which I hope proceeds from his real abilities, that he does not doubt of giving judg ment to the satisfaction of the parties concerned on the most nice and intricate cases which can happen in an amour; as,

truly and really exists. The ancient Pla- | tonic notion, which was drawn from speculations of eternity wonderfully agrees with this revelation which God has made of himself. There is nothing, say they, which in reality exists, whose existence, as we call it, is pieced up of past, present, and to come. Such a flitting and successive existence is rather a shadow of existence, and something which is like it, than existence itself. He only properly exists whose existence is entirely present; that is, in other What can be properly termed an absowords, who exists in the most perfect man-lute denial from a maid, and what from a ner, and in such a manner as we have no idea of.

How great the contraction of the fingers must be before it amounts to a squeeze by the hand.

widow.

What advances a lover may presume to make, after having received a pat upon his shoulder from his mistress's fan.

Whether a lady, at the first interview, may allow an humble servant to kiss her hand.

How far it may be permitted to caress the maid in order to succeed with the misWhat constructions a man may put upon a smile, and in what cases a frown goes for nothing..

On what occasions a sheepish look may do service, &c.

'I shall conclude this speculation with one useful inference. How can we sufficiently prostrate ourselves and fall down before our Maker, when we consider that ineffable goodness and wisdom which contrived this existence for finite natures? What must be the overflowings of that good-will, which prompted our Creator to adapt ex-tress. istence to beings in whom it is not necessary? especially when we consider that he himself was before in the complete possession of existence and of happiness, and in the full enjoyment of eternity. What man can think of himself as called out and separated from nothing, of his being made a conscious, a reasonable, and a happy creature; in short, in being taken in as a sharer of existence, and a kind of partner in eternity, without being swallowed up in wonder, in praise, in adoration! It is indeed a thought too big for the mind of man, and rather to be entertained in the secresy of devotion, and in the silence of his soul, than to be expressed by words. The Supreme Being has not given us powers or faculties sufficient to extol and magnify such unutterable goodness.

'It is however some comfort to us, that we shall be always doing what we shall be never able to do, and that a work which cannot be finished, will however be the work of an eternity.'

As a farther proof of his skill, he also sent me several maxims in love, which he assures me are the result of a long and profound reflection, some of which I think myself obliged to communicate to the public, not remembering to have seen them before in any author.

'There are more calamities in the world arising from love than from hatred.

'Love is the daughter of idleness, but the mother of disquietude.

'Men of grave natures, says Sir Francis Bacon, are the most constant; for the same reason men should be more constant than women.

'The gay part of mankind is most amo- . rous, the serious most loving.

'A coquette often loses her reputation while she preserves her virtue.

A prude often preserves her reputation when she has lost her virtue.

'Love refines a man's behaviour, but

No. 591.] Wednesday, September 8, 1714. makes a woman's ridiculous.

'Love is generally accompanied with good-will in the young, interest in the middle-aged, and a passion too gross to name

in the old.

'The endeavours to revive a decaying passion generally extinguish the remains of it.

'A woman who from being a slattern becomes over-neat, or from being over-neat becomes a slattern, is most certainly in love.'

I shall make use of this gentleman's skill as I see occasion; and since I am got upon the subject of love, shall conclude this paper with a copy of verses which were lately sent me by an unknown hand, as I look upon them to be above the ordinary run of sonnetteers.

The author tells me they were written in I do not indeed wonder that the actors one of his despairing fits; and I find enter- should be such professed enemies to those tains some hope that his mistress may pity among our nation who are commonly known such a passion as he has described, before by the name of critics, since it is a rule she knows that she herself is Corinna. among these gentlemen to fall upon a play, not because it is ill written, but because it takes. Several of them lay it down as a maxim, that whatever dramatic performance has a long run, must of necessity be good for nothing; as though the first precept in poetry were not to please.' Whether this rule holds good or not, I shall leave to the determination of those who are better judges than myself: if it does, I am sure it tends very much to the honour of those gentlemen who have established it; few of their pieces have been disgraced by a run of three days, and most of them being so exquisitely written, that the town would never give them more than one night's hearing.

Conceal, fond man, conceal thy mighty smart,
Nor tell Corinna she has fir'd thy heart.
In vain would'st thou complain, in vain pretend
To ask a pity which she must not lend.
She's too much thy superior to comply,
And too, too fair to let thy passion die.
Languish in secret, and with dumb surprise
Drink the resistless glances of her eyes.
At awful distance entertain thy grief,
Be still in pain, but never ask relief.
Ne'er tempt her scorn of thy consuming state,
Be any way undone, but fly her hate.
Thou must submit to see thy charmer bless
Some happier youth that shall admire her less;
Who in that lovely form, that heavenly mind,
Shall miss ten thousand beauties thou could'st find.
Who with low fancy shall approach her charms,
While, half enjoy'd, she sinks into his arms.
She knows not, must not know, thy nobler fire,
Whom she, and whom the muses do inspire;
Her image only shall thy breast employ,
And fill thy captive soul with shades of joy;
Direct thy dreams by night, thy thoughts by day;
And never, never from thy bosom stray.'*

No. 592.] Friday, September 10, 1714.

-Studium sine divite vena.

Hor. Ars Poet. 409.

Art without a vein.-Roscommon.

I have a great esteem for a true critic, such as Aristotle and Longinus among the Greeks: Horace and Quintilian among the Romans; Boileau and Dacier among the French. But it is our misfortune that some, who set up for professed critics among us, are so stupid that they do not know how to put ten words together with elegance cr common propriety; and withal so illiterate, that they have no taste of the learned lanI LOOK upon the playhouse as a world guages, and therefore criticise upon old auwithin itself. They have lately furnished thors only at second-hand. They judge of the middle region of it with a new set of them by what others have written, and not meteors in order to give the sublime to by any notions they have of the authors many modern tragedies. I was there last themselves. The words unity, action, senwinter at the first rehearsal of the new of authority, give them a figure among untiment, and diction, pronounced with an air thunder, which is much more deep and soporous than any hitherto made use of. learned readers, who are apt to believe They have a Salmoneus behind the scenes they are very deep, because they are uninwho plays it off with great success. Their telligible. The ancient critics are full of lightnings are made to flash more briskly discover beauties which escaped the obthe praises of their contemporaries; they than heretofore, their clouds are also better furbelowed, and more voluminous; not servation of the vulgar, and very often find to mention a violent storm locked out reasons palliating and excusing such up in a great chest, that is designed for the Tem-little slips and oversights as were commitpest. They are also provided with above ted in the writings of eminent authors. On a dozen showers of snow, which, as I am the contrary, most of the smatterers in informed, are the plays of many unsuccesscriticism, who appear among us, make it ful poets artificially cut and shredded for their business to vilify and depreciate every Mr. Ryner's Edgar is to fall in new production that gains applause, to snow at the next acting of King Lear, in decry imaginary blemishes, and to prove, order to heighten, or rather to alleviate, by far-fetched arguments, that what pass the distress of that unfortunate prince; and faults and errors. In short, the writings of, for beauties in any celebrated piece are to serve by way of decoration to a piece these critics, compared with those of the which that great critic has written against. ancients, are like the works of the sophists compared with those of the old philosophers.

that use.

*These verses were written by Gilbert, the second

brother of Eustace Budgel, esq.

This is an allusion to Mr. Dennis's new and im.

proved method of making thunder. Dennis had contrived this thunder for the advantage of his tragedy of

Appius and Virginia; the players highly approved of it, and it is the same that is used at the present day. Not withstanding the effect of this thunder, however, the play was coldly received, and laid aside. Some nights after, Dennis being in the pit at the representation of Macbeth, and hearing the thunder made use of, arose from his seat in a violent passion, exclaiming with an oath, that that was his thunder. 'See (said he) how these rascals use me: they will not let my play run,

and yet they steal my thunder.'

Envy and cavil are the natural fruits of laziness and ignorance: which was proba- ! bly the reason that in the heathen mythology Momus is said to be the son of Nox and Somnus, of darkness and sleep. Idle men, who have not been at the pains to accomplish or distinguish themselves, are very apt to detract from others; as ignobeauties in a celebrated work which they rant men are very subject to decry those

Quale per incertam lunam sub luce maligna
Est iter in sylvis-
Virg. En. vi. 270.
Thus wander travellers in woods by night,
By the moon's doubtful and malignant light.

Dryden.

have not eyes to discover. Many of our | No. 593.] Monday, September 13, 1714. sons of Momus, who dignify themselves by the name of critics, are the genuine descendants of these two illustrious ancestors. They are often led into those numerous absurdities, in which they daily instruct the people, by not considering that, first, there My dreaming correspondent, Mr. Shais sometimes a greater judgment shown in deviating from the rules of art than in ad- dow, has sent me a second letter, with hering to them; and, secondly, that there several curious observations on dreams in is more beauty in the works of a great ge-improving: an extract of his letter will not, general, and the method to render sleep nius, who is ignorant of all the rules of art, I presume, be disagreeable to my readers. than in the works of a little genius, who not only knows but scrupulously observes them.

'Since we have so little time to spare, that none of it may be lost, I see no reason First, We may often take notice of men why we should neglect to examine those who are perfectly acquainted with all the imaginary scenes we are presented with in rules of good writing, and, notwithstand- sleep, only because they have less reality ing, choose to depart from them on extra- in them than our waking meditations. Á ordinary occasions. I could give instances traveller would bring his judgment in quesout of all the tragic writers of antiquity tion, who would despise the directions of who have shown their judgment in this his map for want of real roads in it, beparticular; and purposely receded from an cause here stands a dot instead of a town, established rule of the drama, when it has or a cypher instead of a city; and it must made way for a much higher beauty than be a long day's journey to travel through the observation of such a rule would have two or three inches. Fancy in dreams been. Those who have surveyed the no- gives us much such another landscape of blest pieces of architecture and statuary, life as that does of countries: and, though both ancient and modern, know very well its appearance may seem strangely jumthat there are frequent deviations from artbled together, we may often observe such in the works of the greatest masters, which traces and footsteps of noble thoughts, as, have produced a much nobler effect than a if carefully pursued, might lead us into a more accurate and exact way of proceed-proper path of action. There is so much ing could have done. This often arises from what the Italians call the gusto grande in these arts, which is what we call the sublime in writing.

In the next place, our critics do not seem sensible that there is more beauty in the works of a great genius, who is ignorant of the rules of art, than in those of a little genius who knows and observes them. It is of these men of genius that Terence speaks in opposition to the little artificial cavillers of his time:

'Quorum æmulari exoptat negligentiam Potius quam istorum obscuram diligentiam.'

Whose negligence he would rather imitate than these

men's obscure diligence.'

rapture and ecstacy in our fancied bliss, and something so dismal and shocking in our fancied misery, that, though the inactivity of the body has given occasion for calling sleep the image of death, the briskness of the fancy affords us a strong intimation of something within us that can never die.

I have wondered that Alexander the Great, who came into the world sufficiently dreamed of by his parents, and had himself a tolerable knack of dreaming, should often say, that sleep was one thing which made him sensible he was mortal. I, who have not such fields of action in the daytime to divert my attention from this matter, plainly perceive that in those A critic may have the same consolation operations of the mind, while the body is in the ill success of his play as Dr. South at rest, there is a certain vastness of contells us a physician has at the death of a ception very suitable to the capacity, and patient, that he was killed secundum artem. demonstrative of the force of that divine Our inimitable Shakspeare is a stumbling-part in our composition which will last for block to the whole tribe of these rigid ever. Neither do I much doubt but, had critics. Who would not rather read one we a true account of the wonders the hero of his plays, where there is not a single last-mentioned performed in his sleep, his rule of the stage observed, than any pro- conquering this little globe would hardly duction of a modern critic, where there is not one of them violated! Shakspeare was indeed born with all the seeds of poetry, and may be compared to the stone in Pyrrhus's ring, which, as Pliny tells us, had the figure of Apollo and the nine muses in the veins of it, produced by the spontaneous hand of nature, without any help

from art. VOL. IL

49

be worth mentioning. I may affirm, with out vanity, that, when I compare sever. actions in Quintus Curtius with some other in my own noctuary, I appear the greate hero of the two.'

I shall close this subject with observing that while we are awake we are at liberty to fix our thoughts on what we please, but in sleep we have not the command of them.

No. 594.] Wednesday, September 15, 1714. within him. If his mind is gratified with

phors, which is a fault but too often found in learned writers, but in all the unlearned without exception.

ness of his own secret corruptions. It is a | I mean is the mixture of inconsistent metapretty saving of Thales, Falsehood is just as far distant from truth as the ears are from the eyes. By which he would intimate, that a wise man should not easily give credit to the report of actions which he has not seen. I shall, under this head, mention two or three remarkable rules to be observed by the members of the celebrated Abbey de la Trappe, as they are published in a little French book.†

The fathers are there ordered never to give an ear to any accounts of base or criminal actions; to turn off all such discourse if possible; but, in case they hear any thing of this nature so well attested that they cannot disbelieve it, they are then to suppose that the criminal action may have proceeded from a good intention in him who is guilty of it. This is, perhaps, carrying charity to an extravagance; but it is certainly much more laudable than to suppose, as the ill-natured part of the world does, that indifferent and even good actions proceed from bad principles and wrong intentions.

In the third place, a man should examine his heart, whether he does not find in it a secret inclination to propagate such reports as tend to the disreputation of another.

When the disease of the mind, which I have hitherto been speaking of, arises to this degree of malignity, it discovers itself in its worst symptom, and is in danger of becoming incurable. I need not therefore insist upon the guilt in this last particular, which every one cannot but disapprove, who is not void of humanity, or even common discretion. I shall only add, that, whatever pleasure any man may take in spreading whispers of this nature, he will find an infinitely greater satisfaction in conquering the temptation he is under, by letting the secret die within his own breast.

In order to set this matter in a clear light, to every reader, I shall in the first place observe, that a metaphor is a simile in one word, which serves to convey the thoughts of the mind under resemblances and images which affect the senses. There is not any thing in the world, which may not be compared to several things if considered in several distinct lights; or, in other words, the same thing may be expressed by different metaphors. But the mischief is, that an unskilful author shall run these metaphors so absurdly into one another, that there shall be no simile, no agreeable picture, no apt resemblance, but confusion, obscurity, and noise. Thus I have known a hero compared to a thunderbolt, a lion, and the sea; all and each of them proper metaphors for impetuosity, courage, or force. But by bad management it hath so happened, that the thunderbolt hath overflowed its banks, the lion hath been darted through the skies, and the billows have rolled out of the Libyan desert.

The absurdity, in this instance, is obvious. And yet every time that clashing meta phors are put together, this fault is com mitted more or less. It hath already been said, that metaphors are images of things which affect the senses. An image, therefore, taken from what acts upon the sight, cannot, without violence, be applied to the hearing; and so of the rest. It is no less an impropriety to make any being in nature or art to do things in its metaphorical state, which it could not do in its original. I shall illustrate what I have said by an instance which I have read more than once in controversial writers. The heavy lashes,' saith a celebrated author, 'that have dropped from your pen, &c.' I suppose this gentleman, having frequently heard of gall dropping from a pen, and being lashed in a satire,' he was resolved to have them both at any rate, and so uttered this complete piece of nonsense. It will most effectually discover the absurdity of these monstrous unions, if we will suppose these metaphors or images actually painted. Imagine then a hand holding a pen, and several lashes of whipcord falling IF ordinary authors would condescend to from it, and you have the true representa write as they think, they would at least be tion of this sort of eloquence. I believe, by allowed the praise of being intelligible. But this very rule, a reader may be able to they really take pains to be ridiculous: and, judge of the union of all metaphors whatsoby the studied ornaments of style, perfectly ever, and determine which are homogedisguise the little sense they aim at. There neous, and which heterogeneous; or, to is a grievance of this sort in the common-speak more plainly, which are consistent wealth of letters, which I have for some and which inconsistent. time resolved to redress, and accordingly I have set this day apart for justice. What

No. 595.] Friday, September 17, 1714.
-Non ut placidis coeant immitia, non ut
Serpentes avibus geminentur, tigribus agni.
Hor. Ars Poet. ver. 12.
-Nature, and the common laws of sense,

Forbid to reconcile antipathies;
Or make a snake engender with a dove,
And hungry tigers court the tender lambs.

Roscommon.

There is yet one evil more which I must take notice of, and that is the running of metaphors into tedious allegories; which, though an error on the better hand, causes Felibien, Description de l'Abbaye de la Trappe, confusion as much as the other. This beParis, 1671; reprinted in 1682. It is a letter of M. Felibien to the dutchess of Lancourt.

* Stobæi Serm. 61.

comes abominable, when the lustre of one