and the awe of equality, swells into contemptu- | Mr. Busy, finding the economical qualities of ous confidence, and sets blame and laughter at his lady, resigned his affairs wholly into her defiance; the impulses of nature act unrestrain-hands, and devoted his life to his pointers and ed, and the disposition dares to show itself in its true form, without any disguise of hypocrisy, or decorations of elegance. Every one indulges the full enjoyment of his own choice, and talks and lives with no other view than to please himself, without inquiring how far he deviates from the general practice, or considering others as entitled to any account of his sentiments or actions. If he builds or demolishes, opens or encloses, deluges or drains, it is not his care what may be the opinion of those who are skilled in perspective or architecture, it is sufficient that he has no landlord to control him, and that none has any right to examine in what projects the lord of the manor spends his own money on his own grounds.

For this reason it is not very common to want subjects for rural conversation. Almost every man is daily doing something which produces merriment wonder or resentment, among his neighbours. This utter exemption from restraint leaves every anomalous quality to operate in its full extent, and suffers the natural character to diffuse itself to every part of life. The pride which, under the check of public observation, would have been only vented among servants and domestics, becomes in a country baronet the torment of a province, and, instead of terminating in the destruction of China ware and glasses, ruins tenants, dispossesses cottagers, and harasses villagers with actions of trespass and bills of indictment.

his hounds. He never visited his estates, but to
destroy the partridges or foxes; and often com-
mitted such devastations in the range of pleasure,
that some of his tenants refused to hold their
lands at the usual rent.
Their landlady per-
suaded them to be satisfied, and entreated her
husband to dismiss his dogs, with many exact
calculations of the ale drank by his companions,
and corn consumed by his horses, and remon-
strances against the insolence of the huntsman,
and the frauds of the groom. The huntsman
was too necessary to his happiness to be discard-
ed; and he had still continued to ravage his
own estate, had he not caught a cold and a fever
by shooting mallards in the fens. His fever was
followed by a consumption, which in a few
months brought him to the grave.

Mrs. Busy was too much an economist to feel either joy or sorrow at his death. She received the compliments and consolations of her neighbours in a dark room, out of which she stole privately every night and morning to see the cows milked; and, after a few days, declared that she thought a widow might employ herself better than in nursing grief: and that, for her part, she was resolved that the fortunes of her children should not be impaired by her neglect.

She therefore immediately applied herself to the reformation of abuses. She gave away the dogs, discharged the servants of the kennel and stable, and sent the horses to the next fair, but rated at so high a price that they returned unIt frequently happens that, even without vio- sold. She was resolved to have nothing idle lent passions, or enormous corruption, the free-about her, and ordered them to be employed in dom and laxity of a rustic life produce remarkable common drudgery. They lost their sleekness particularities of conduct or manner. In the and grace, and were soon purchased at half the province where I now reside, we have one lady value. eminent for wearing a gown always of the same cut and colour; another for shaking hands with those that visit her; and a third for her unshaken resolution never to let tea or coffee enter her house.

But of all the female characters which this place affords, I have found none so worthy of attention as that of Mrs. Busy, a widow, who lost her husband in her thirtieth year, and has since passed her time at the manor-house in the government of her children, and the management of the estate.

She soon disencumbered herself from her weeds, and put on a riding-hood, a coarse apron, and short petticoats, and has turned a large manor into a farm, of which she takes the management wholly upon herself. She rises before the sun to order the horses to their geers, and sees them well rubbed down at their return from work; she attends the dairy morning and evening, and watches when a calf falls that it may be carefully nursed; she walks out among the sheep at noon, counts the lambs, and observes the fences, and where she finds a gap, stops it with a bush till it can be better mended. In harvest she rides a-field in the wagon, and is very liberal of her ale from a wooden bottle. At her leisure hours she looks goose eggs, airs the wool room, and turns the cheese.

When respect or curiosity brings visitants to her house, she entertains them with prognostics of a scarcity of wheat, or a rot among the sheep, and always thinks herself privileged to dismiss them when she is to see the hogs fed, or to count

Mrs. Busy was married at eighteen from a boarding-school, where she had passed her time, like other young ladies, in needle work, with a few intervals of dancing and reading. When she became a bride she spent one winter with her husband in town, where having no idea of any conversation beyond the formalities of a visit, she found nothing to engage her passions; and when she had been one night at court, and two at an opera, and seen the Monument, the Tombs and the Tower, she concluded that Lon-her poultry on the roost. on had nothing more to show, and wondered that when women had once seen the world they could not be content to stay at home. She therefore went willingly to the ancient seat, and for some years studied housewifery under Mr. Busy's mother, with so much assiduity, that the old lady, when she died, bequeathed her a caudle-cup, a soup-dish, two beakers, and a chest of table linen spun by herself.

The only things neglected about her are her children, whom she has taught nothing but the lowest household duties. In my last visit I met Miss Busy carrying grains to a sick cow, and was entertained with the accomplishments of her eldest son, a youth of such early maturity, that, though he is only sixteen, she can trust him to sell corn in the market. Her younger daughter, who is eminent for her beauty, though some

what tanned in making hay, was busy in pouring | authority can make error venerable, his works out ale to the ploughmen, that every one might have an equal share.

Let every piece be simple and be one. Ir is required by Aristotle to the perfection of a tragedy, and is equally necessary to every other species of regular composition, that it should have a beginning, a middle, and an end. "The beginning," says he, "is that which has nothing necessarily previous, but to which that which follows is naturally consequent; the end, on the contrary, is that which by necessity, or at least according to the common course of things, succeeds something else, but which implies nothing consequent to itself; the middle is connected on one side to something that naturally goes before, and on the other to something that naturally follows it."

Such is the rule laid down by this great critic, for the disposition of the different parts of a wellconstituted fable. It must begin, where it may be made intelligible without introduction; and end, where the mind is left in repose, without expectation of any farther event. The intermediate passages must join the last effect to the first cause, by a regular and unbroken concatenation; nothing must be therefore inserted which does not apparently arise from something foregoing, and properly make way for something

that succeeds it.

This precept is to be understood in its rigour only with respect to great and essential events, and cannot be extended in the same force to minuter circumstances and arbitrary decorations, which yet are more happy, as they contribute more to the main design; for it is always a proof of extensive thought and accurate circumspection, to promote various purposes by the same act; and the idea of an ornament admits use, though it seems to exclude necessity.

are the proper objects of critical inquisition. To expunge faults where there are no excellences, is a task equally useless with that of the chemist, who employs the arts of separation and refinement upon ore in which no precious metal is contained to reward his preparations.

The tragedy of Samson Agonistes has been celebrated as the second work of the great author of "Paradise Lost," and opposed, with all the confidence of triumph, to the dramatic performances of other nations. It contains indeed just sentiments, maxims of wisdom, and oracles of piety, and many passages written with the ancient spirit of choral poetry, in which there is a just and pleasing mixture of Seneca's moral de clamation, with the wild enthusiasm of the Greek writers. It is therefore worthy of examination, whether a performance thus illuminated with genius, and enriched with learning, is composed according to the indispensable laws of Aristotelian criticism: and, omitting at present all other considerations, whether it exhibits a beginning, a middle, and an end.

The beginning is undoubtedly beautiful and proper, opening with a graceful abruptness, and proceeding naturally to a mournful recital of facts necessary to be known.

Samson. A little onward lend thy guiding hand
To these dark steps, a little farther on;
For yonder bank hath choice of sun and shade;
There I am wont to sit when any chance
Relieves me from my task of servile toil,
Daily in the common prison else enjoin'd me.-
-O wherefore was my birth from heaven foretold
Twice by an angel!-

-Why was my breeding order'd and prescribed,
As of a person separate to God,

Design'd for great exploits; if I must die

Betray'd, captived, and both my eyes put out
-Whom have I to complain of but myself?
Who this high gift of strength, committed to me,
In what part lodg'd, how easily bereft me
Under the seat of silence could not keep,
But weakly to a woman must reveal it.

His soliloquy is interrupted by a chorus or com-
pany of men of his own tribe, who condole his
miseries, extenuate his fault, and conclude with
a solemn vindication of Divine justice. So that
at the conclusion of the first act there is no de-
sign laid, no discovery made, nor any disposition
formed towards the subsequent event.

In the second act, Manoah, the father of Samson, comes to seek his son, and, being shown him by the chorus, breaks out into lamentations of his misery, and comparisons of his present with his former state, representing to him the ignominy which his religion suffers, by the festiWhoever purposes, as it is expressed by Mil-val this day celebrated in honour of Dagon, to ton, to build the lofty rhyme, must acquaint him- whom the idolaters ascribed his overthrow. self with this law of poetical architecture, and take care that his edifice be solid as well as beautiful; that nothing stand single or independent, so as that it may be taken away without injuring the rest; but that, from the foundation to the pinnacles, one part rest firm upon another.

This regular and consequential distribution is, among common authors, frequently neglected; but the failures of those, whose example can have no influence, may be safely overlooked, nor is it of much use to recall obscure and unregarded names to memory for the sake of sporting with their infamy. But if there is any writer whose genius can embellish impropriety, and whose

-Thou bear'st

Enough, and more, the burden of that fault;
Bitterly hast thou paid and still art paying
That rigid score. A worse thing yet remains:
This day the Philistines a popular feast
Here celebrate in Gaza; and proclaim
Great pomp and sacrifice, and praises loud
To Dagon, as their god, who hath deliver'd
Thee, Samson, bound and blind, into their hands,
Them out of thine, who slew'st them many a slain.

Samson, touched with this reproach, makes a reply equally penitential and pious, which his father considers as the effusion of prophetic confidence.

Sainson.
-God, be sure,
Willot connive or linger thus provoked,
But will arise and his great name assert:
Dagon must stoop, and shall ere long receive
Such a discomfit, as shall quite despoil him

Of all these boasted trophies won on me.

Our law, or stain my vow of Nazarite.
If there be ought of presage in the mind,
This day will be remarkable in my life,
By some great act, or of my days the last.
While Samson is conducted off by the messen-

Manoak. With cause this hope relieves thee, and these ger, his father returns with hopes of success in

words

I as a prophecy receive; for God,

Nothing more certain, will not long defer,
To vindicate the glory of his naine.

This part of the dialogue, as it might tend to animate or exasperate Samson, cannot, I think, be censured as wholly superfluous; but the succeeding dispute, in which Samson contends to die, and which his father breaks off, that he may go to solicit his release, is only valuable for its own beauties, and has no tendency to introduce any thing that follows it.

his solicitation, upon which he confers with the chorus till their dialogue is interrupted, first by a shout of triumph, and afterwards by screams of horror and agony. As they stand deliberating where they shall be secure, a man who had been present at the show enters, and relates how Samson, having prevailed on his guide to suffer him to lean against the main pillars of the thea trical edifice, tore down the roof upon the spec tators and himself.

-Those two massy pillars, The next event of the drama is the arrival of With horrible confusion, to and fro He tugg'd, he shook, till down they came, and drew Delilah, with all her graces, artifices, and allure-The whole roof after them, with burst of thunder, ments. This produces a dialogue, in a very high Upon the heads of all who sat beneath.. degree elegant and instructive, from which she reures, after she has exhausted her persuasions, and is no more seen nor heard of; nor has her visit any effect but that of raising the character

of Samson.

In the fourth act enters Harapha, the giant of Gath, whose name had never been mentioned before, and who has now no other motive of coming than to see the man whose strength and actions are so loudly celebrated:

Haraph.

-Much I have heard
Of thy prodigious might, and feats perform'd
Incredible to me; in this displeased
That I was never present in the place

Of those encounters, where we might have tried
Each other's force in camp or listed fields:
And now am come to see of whom such noise
Hath walked about, and each limb to survey,
If thy appearance answer loud report.

Samson challenges him to the combat; and, af-
ter an interchange of reproaches, elevated by re-
peated defiance on one side, and embittered by
contemptuous insults on the other, Harapha re-
tires; we then hear it determined, by Samson
and the chorus, that no consequence good or bad
will proceed from their interview:

Chorus. He will directly to the lords, I fear,
Aud with malicious counsel stir them up
Some way or other farther to afflict thee.

Sams. He must allege some cause, and offered fight
Will not dare mention, lest a question rise,
Whether he durst accept the offer or not;
And that he durst not, plain enough appear'd.

-Samson, with these immixt, inevitably
Pull'd down the same destruction on himself.

This is undoubtedly a just and regular catastrophe, and the poem, therefore, has a beginning and an end which Aristotle himself could not

have disapproved; but it must be allowed to want a middle, since nothing passes between the first act and the last, that either hastens or delays the death of Samson. The whole drama, if its superfluities were cut of, would scarcely fill a single act; yet this is the tragedy which igno rance has adinired, and bigotry applauded.

Ir is common, says Bacon, to desire the end without enduring the means. Every member of society feels and acknowledges the necessity of detecting crimes; yet scarce any degree of virtue or reputation is able to secure an informer from public hatred. The learned world has always admitted the usefulness of critical disquisitions, yet he that attempts to show, however modestly, the failures of a celebrated writer, shall surely irritate his admirers, and incur the imputation of envy, captiousness and malignity.

With this danger full in my view, I shall proAt last, in the fifth act, appears a messenger ceed to examine the sentiments of Milton's trafrom the lords, assembled at the festival of Dagedy, which, though much less liable to censure gon, with a summons by which Samson is re-than the disposition of his plan, are, like those of quired to come and entertain them with some proof of his strength. Samson, after a short expostulation, dismisses him with a firm and resolute refusal; but, during the absence of the messenger, having awhile defended the propriety of his conduct, he at last declares himself moved by a secret impulse to comply, and utters some dark presages of a great event to be brought to pass by his agency, under the direction of Providence.

Sams. Be of good courage; I begin to feel
Some rousing motions in me, which dispose
To something extraordinary my thoughts.
I with this messenger will go along,
Nothing to do, be sure, that may dishonour

other writers, someumes exposed to just excep tions for want of care, or want of discernment. Sentiments are proper and improper as they consist more or less with the character and cir cumstances of the person to whom they are attributed, with the rules of the composition in which they are found, or with the settled and unalterable nature of things.

It is common among the tragic poets to introduce their persons alluding to events or opinions, of which they could not possibly have any know. ledge. The barbarians of remote or newly-dis covered regions often display their skill in European learning. The god of love is mentioned in

Tamerlane with all the familiarity of a Roman | which, depending only upon sounds, lose their epigrammatist; and a late writer has put Har-existence by the change of a syllable. Of this vey's doctrine of the circulation of the blood into kind, is the following dialogue:

the mouth of a Turkish statesman, who lived near two centuries before it was known even to philosophers or anatomists.

Milton's learning, which acquainted him with the manners of the ancient eastern nations, and his invention, which required no assistance from the common cant of poetry, have preserved him from frequent outrages of local or chronological propriety. Yet he has mentioned Chalybean steel, of which it is not very likely that his chorus should have heard, and has made Alp the general name of a mountain, in a region where the Alps could scarcely be known:

Since I have thus pointed out the faults of Milton, critical integrity requires that I 'should All allusions to low and trivial objects, with endeavour to display his excellences, though which contempt is usually associated, are doubt- they will not easily be discovered in short quoless unsuitable to a species of composition which tations, because they consist in the justness of ought to be always awful though not always diffuse reasonings, or in the contexture and me magnificent. The remark therefore of the cho-thod of continued dialogues; this play having rus on good and bad news seems to want ele-none of those descriptions, similes, or splendid

sentences, with which other tragedies are so la. vishly adorned.

Yet some passages may be selected which seem to deserve particular notice, either as con. taining sentiments of passion, representations of life, precepts of conduct, or sallies of imagina tion. It is not easy to give a stronger represen

tation of the weariness of despondency, than in | No. 141.] TUESDAY, JULY 23, 1751. the words of Samson to his father:

-I feel my genial spirits droop,

My hopes all flat; nature within me seems
In all her functions weary of herself;
My race of glory run, and race of shame;
And I shall shortly be with them that rest.

The reply of Samson to the flattering Delilah affords a just and striking description of the stratagems and allurements of feminine hypocrisy :

-These are thy wonted arts,

And arts of every woman false like thee,
To break all faith, all vows, deceive, betray,
Then as repentant to submit, beseech,
And reconcilement move with feign'd remorse,
Confess and promise wonders in her change;
Not truly penitent, but chief to try

Her husband, how far urg'd his patience bears,
His virtue or weakness which way to assail;
Then with more cautious and instructed skill
Again transgresses and again submits.

When Samson has refused to make himself a

spectacle at the feast of Dagon, he first justifies his behaviour to the chorus, who charge him with having served the Philistines, by a very just distinction; and then destroys the common excuse of cowardice and servility, which always confound temptation with compulsion :

Chor. Yet with thy strength thou servest the Philistines.

Sams. Not in their idol worship, but by labour Honest and lawful, to deserve my food

Of those who have me in their civil power.

Hilarisque, tamen cum pondere, virtus.
Greatness with ease, and gay severity.
TO THE RAMBLER.

STAT.

SIR, POLITICIANS have long observed that the greatest events may be often traced back to slender causes. Petty competition or casual friendship, the prudence of a slave, or the garrulity of a woman, have hindered or promoted the most important schemes, and hastened or retarded the revolutions of empires.

Whoever shall review his life will generally find that the whole tenor of his conduct has been determined by some accident of no apparent moment, or by a combination of inconsiderable circumstances, acting when his imagination was unoccupied, and his judgment unsettled; and that his principles and actions have taken their colour from some secret infusion, mingled with out design in the current of his ideas. The desires that predominate in our hearts are instilled by imperceptible communications at the time when we look upon the various scenes of the world, and the different employments of men, with the neutrality of inexperience; and we come forth from the nursery or the school, invariably destined to the pursuit of great acquisitions, or petty accomplishments.

Such was the impulse by which I have been

Chor. Where the heart joins not, outward acts defile kept in motion from my earliest years. I was

not.

Sams. Where outward force constrains, the sentence
holds,

But who constrains me to the temple of Dagon,
Not dragging the Philistine lords command.
Commands are no restraints. If I obey them,
I do it freely, vent'ring to displease
God for the fear of man, and man prefer,
Set God behind.

The complaint of blindness which Samson pours out at the beginning of the tragedy is equally addressed to the passions and the fancy. The enumeration of his miseries is succeeded by a very pleasing train of poetical images, and concluded by such expostulations and wishes, as reason too often submits to learn from despair:

O first created beam, and thou great word
Let there be light, and light was over all;
Why am I thus bereaved thy prime decree!
The sun to me is dark,

And silent as the moon,

When she deserts the night,

Hid in her vacant interlunar cave,
Since light so necessary is to life,
And almost life itself; if it be true,

That light is in the soul,

She all in every part; why was the sight
To such a tender ball as the eye confined,
So obvious and so easy to be quench'd,
And not, as feeling, through all parts diffused
That she may look at will through every pore?

born to an inheritance which gave my childhood a claim to distinction and caresses, and was accustomed to hear applauses before they had much influence on my thoughts. The first praise of which I remember myself sensible was that of good-humour, which, whether I deserved it or not when it was bestowed, I have since made it my whole business to propagate and maintain.

When I was sent to school, the gayety of my look, and the liveliness of my loquacity, soon gained me admission to hearts not yet fortified against affection by artifice or interest. I was in every sport; my company gave alacrity to a entrusted with every stratagem, and associated frolic and gladness to a holiday. I was indeed so much employed in adjusting or executing schemes of diversion, that I had no leisure for my tasks, but was furnished with exercises, and instructed in my lessons by some kind patron of the higher classes. My master not suspecting my deficiency, or unwilling to detect what his kindness would not punish nor his impartiality excuse, allowed me to escape with a slight examination, laughed at the pertness of my ignorance and the sprightliness of my absurdities, and could not forbear to show that he regarded me with such tenderness as genius and learning can seldom excite.

From school I was dismissed to the university, where I soon drew upon me the notice of the Such are the faults and such the beauties of younger students, and was the constant partner Samson Agonistes, which I have shown with no of their morning walks and evening compotaother purpose than to promote the knowledge of tions. I was not indeed much celebrated for litetrue criticism. The everlasting verdure of Mil-rature, but was looked on with indulgence as a ton's laurels has nothing to fear from the blasts of malignity; nor can my attempt produce any other effect, than to strengthen their shoots by lopping their luxuriance.

man of parts, who wanted nothing but the dulness of a scholar, and might become eminent whenever he should condescend to labour and attention. My tutor a while reproached me with