with the wound still fresh upon her, addresses himself to her with expanded arms, floods of tears, and the most passionate professions of his own innocence, as to what had happened; all which Dido receives with the dignity and disdain of a resenting lover and an injured queen; and is so far from vouchsafing him an answer, that she does not give him a single look. The poet represents her as turning away her face from him while he spoke to her; and, after having kept her eyes some time upon the ground, as one that heard and contemned his protestations, flying from him into the grove of myrtle, and into the arms of another, whose fidelity had deserved her love*. I have often thought our writers of tragedy have been very defective in this particular, and that they might have given great beauty to their works, by certain stops and pauses in the representation of such passions as it is not in the power of language to express. There is something like this in the last act of "Venice Preserved," where Pierre is brought to an infamous execution, and begs of his friend, as a reparation for past injuries, and the only favour he could do him, to rescue him from the ignominy of the wheel by stabbing him. As he is going to make this dreadful request, he is not able to communicate it; but withdraws his face from his friend's ear, and bursts into tears. The melancholy Silence that follows hereupon, and continues until he has recovered himself enough to reveal his mind to his friend, raises in the spectators a grief that is inexpressible, and an idea of such a complicated distress in the actor, as words cannot utter. It would look as ridiculous to many readers, to give rules and di * Sichæus. rections for proper Silences, as for " penning a Whisper:" but it is certain, that in the extremity of most passions, particularly surprise, admiration, astonishment, nay, rage itself, there is nothing more graceful than to see the play stand still for a few moments, and the audience fixed in an agreeable suspense, during the Silence of a skilful actor. But Silence never shows itself to so great an advantage, as when it is made the reply to calumny and defamation, provided that we give no just occasion for them. We might produce an example of it in the behaviour of one, in whom it appeared in all its majesty, and one, whose Silence, as well as his person, was altogether divine. When one considers this subject only in its sublimity, this great instance could not but occur to me; and since I only make use of it to show the highest example of it, I hope I do not offend in it. To forbear replying to an unjust reproach, and overlook it with a generous, or, if possible, with an entire neglect of it, is one of the most heroic acts of a great mind: and I must confess, when I reflect upon the behaviour of some of the greatest men in antiquity, I do not so much admire them, that they deserved the praise of the whole age they lived in, as because they contemned the envy and detraction of it. All that is incumbent on a man of worth, who suffers under so ill a treatment, is to lie by for some time in silence and obscurity, until the prejudice of the times be over, and his reputation cleared. I have often read, with a great deal of pleasure, a legacy of the fainous lord Bacon, one of the greatest geniuses that our own or any country has produced. After having bequeathed his soul, body, and estate, in the usual form, he adds, " My name and me mory I leave to foreign nations, and to my countrymen after some time be passed over. At the same time that I recommend this philosophy to others, I must confess, I am so poor a proficient in it myself, that if in the course of my Lucubrations it happens, as it has done more than once, that my paper is duller than in tonscience it ought to be, I think the time an age until I have an opportunity of putting out another, and growing famous again for two days. I must not close my discourse upon Silence, without informing my reader, that I have by me an elaborate treatise on the Aposiopesis, called an Et cœtera; it being a figure much used by some learned authors, and particularly by the great Littleton, who, as my lord chief justice Coke observes, had a most admirable talent at an &c. ADVERTISEMENT. To oblige the pretty fellows, and my fair readers, I have thought fit to insert the whole passage above mentioned relating to Dido, as it is translated by Mr. Dryden*. Not far from thence, the mournful fields appear: The souls, whom that unhappy flame invades, * Aneïd, book vi. 46. Not far from these Phænician Dido stood; Unhappy queen! then is the common breath N. 134. THURSDAY, FEB. 16, 1709-10. Quis talia fando Myrmidonum, Dolopumve, aut duri miles Ulyssci, Temperet à lacrymis? VIRG. En. II. &. Such woes Not even the hardest of our foes could hear, Sheer-lane, February 15. DRYDEN, I was awakened very early this morning by the distant crowing of a cock, which I thought had the finest pipe ever heard. He seemed to me to strain his voice more than ordinary, as if he designed to make himself heard to the remotest corner of this lane. Having entertained myself a little before I went to bed with a discourse on the transmigration of men into other animals, I could not but fancy that this was the soul of some drowsy bell-man who used to sleep upon his post, for which he was condemned to do penance in feathers, and distinguish the several watches of the night under the outside of a cock. While I was thinking of the condition of this poor bell-man in masquerade, I heard a great knocking at my door, and was soon after told by my maid, that my worthy friend the tall black gentleman, who frequents the coffee-houses hereabouts, desired to speak with me. This ancient Pythagorean, who has as much honesty as any man living, but good nature to an excess, brought me the following petition; which I am apt to believe he penned himself, the petitioner not being able to ex |