have allotted to them. Provided, nevertheless, that nothing herein contained shall in any wise be construed to extend to the hunters, who have our full license and permission to enter into any part of the town wherever their game shall lead them.

'And whereas we have nothing more at our imperial heart than the reformation of the cities of London and Westminster, which to our unspeakable satisfaction we have in some measure already effected, we do hereby earnestly pray and exhort all husbands, fathers, house-keepers, and masters of families, in either of the aforesaid cities, not only to repair themselves to their respective habitations at early and seasonable hours, but also to keep their wives and daughters, sons, servants, and apprentices, from appearing in the streets at those times and seasons which may expose them to a military discipline, as it is practised by our good subjects the Mohocks; and we do further promise on our imperial word, that as soon as the reformation aforesaid shall be brought about, we will forthwith cause all hostilities to cease. "Given from our court, at the Devil-tavern, March 15, 1712.' X.

No. 348.] Wednesday, April 9, 1712.
Invidiam placare paras virtute relicta.

night, it will serve as an instance that the sexes are equally inclined to defamation, with equal malice and impotence. Jack Triplett came into my lady Airy's about eight of the clock. You know the manner we sit at a visit, and I need not describe the circle; but Mr. Triplett came in, introduced by two tapers supported by a spruce servant, whose hair is under a cap till my lady's candles are all lighted up, and the hour of ceremony begins: I say Jack Triplett came in, and singing (for he is really good company) "Every feature, charming creature, -he went on, "It is a most unreasonable thing, that people cannot go peaceably to see their friends, but these murderers are let loose. Such a shape! such an air! what a glance was that as her chariot passed by mine!"-My lady herself interrupted him; "Pray, who is this fine thing?"-"I warrant, says another, "'tis the creature I was telling your ladyship of, just now."—"You were telling of?" says Jack; "I wish I had been so happy as to have come in and heard you; for I have not words to say what she is: but if an agreeable height, a modest air, a virgin shame, and impatience of being beheld amidst a blaze of ten thousand charms" The whole room flew out-"Oh Mr. Triplett!"- -When Mrs. Lofty, a known prude, said she believed she knew Hor. Sat. iii. Lib. 2. 13 whom the gentleman meant; but she was indeed, as he civilly represented her, imTo shun detraction, wouldst thou virtue fly? patient of being beheld. Then turning to 'MR. SPECTATOR,-I have not seen you the lady next to her,-"The most unbred lately at any of the places where I visit, so creature you ever saw!" Another pursued that I am afraid you are wholly unacquaint- the discourse; "As unbred, madam, as ed with what passes among my part of the you may think her, she is extremely belied world, who are, though I say it, without if she is the novice she appears; she was controversy, the most accomplished and last week at a ball till two in the morning: best bred of the town. Give me leave to Mr. Triplett knows whether he was the tell you, that I am extremely discomposed happy man that took care of her home; when I hear scandal, and am an utter but " This was followed by some partienemy to all manner of detraction, and cular exception that each woman in the think it the greatest meanness that people room made to some peculiar grace or adof distinction can be guilty of. However, vantage; so that Mr. Triplett was beaten it is hardly possible to come into company, from one limb and feature to another, till where you do not find them pulling one he was forced to resign the whole woman. another to pieces, and that from no other In the end, I took notice Triplett recorded provocation but that of hearing any one all this malice in his heart; and saw in his commended. Merit, both as to wit and countenance, and a certain waggish shrug, beauty, is become no other than the pos- that he designed to repeat the conversasession of a few trifling people's favour, tion: I therefore let the discourse die, and which you cannot possibly arrive at, if you soon after took an occasion to recommend have really any thing in you that is deserv- a certain gentleman of my acquaintance for ing. What they would bring to pass is, to a person of singular modesty, courage, inmake all good and evil consist in report, and tegrity, and withal as a man of an enterwith whispers, calumnies, and imperti- taining conversation, to which advantages nences, to have the conduct of those re- he had a shape and manner peculiarly ports. By this means, innocents are blasted graceful. Mr. Triplett, who is a woman's upon their first appearance in town and man seemed to hear me with patience there is nothing more required to make a enough commend the qualities of his mind. young woman the object of envy and hatred, He never heard indeed but that he was than to deserve love and admiration. This abominable endeavour to suppress or lessen every thing that is praiseworthy, is as frequent among the men as the women. If I can remember what passed at a visit last

a very honest man, and no fool; but for a fine gentleman, he must ask pardon. Upon no other foundation than this, Mr. Triplett took occasion to give the gentleman's pedigree, by what methods some part of the

from his body as a circumstance that ought to produce any change in the disposition of his mind; and as he died under a fixed and settled hope of immortality, he thought any unusual degree of sorrow and concern improper on such an occasion, as had nothing in it which could deject or terrify him.

There is no great danger of imitation from this example. Men's natural fears will be a sufficient guard against it. I shall only observe, that what was philosophy in this extraordinary man, would be phrensy in one who does not resemble him as well in the cheerfulness of his temper as in the sanctity of his life and manners.

I shall conclude this paper with the instance of a person who seems to me to have shown more intrepidity and greatness of soul in his dying moments than what we meet with among any of the most celebrated Greeks and Romans. I met with this instance in the History of the Revolutions in Portugal, written by the abbot de Vortot.

That elevation of mind which is displayed in dan gers, if it wants justice, and fights for its own conveniency, is vicious.

CAPTAIN SENTRY was last night at a club, and produced a letter from Ipswich, which his correspondent desired him to communicate to his friend the Spectator. It contained an account of an engagement between a French privateer, commanded by one Dominic Pottiere, and a little vessel of that place laden with corn, the master whereof, as I remember, was one Goodwin. The Englishman defended himself with incredible bravery, and beat off the French, after having been boarded three or four times. The enemy still came on with great fury, and hoped by his number of men to carry the prize; till at last the Englishman, finding himself sink apace, and ready to perish, struck: but the effect which this singular gallantry had upon the captain of the privateer was no other than an unmanly desire of vengeance for the loss he had sustained in his several attacks. He told the Ipswich man in a speaking trumpet, that he would not take him aboard, and that he stayed to see him sink. The Englishman at the same time observed a disorder in the vessel, which he rightly judged to proceed from the disdain which the ship's crew had of their captain's inhumanity. With this hope he went into his boat, and approached the enemy. He was taken in by the sailors in spite of their commander: but though they received him against his command, they treated him, when he was in the ship, in the manner he directed. Pottiere caused his men to hold Goodwin, while he beat him with a stick, till he fainted with loss of blood and rage of heart; after which he ordered him into irons, without allowing him any food, but such as one or two of the men stole to him under peril of the like usage: and having kept him several days overwhelmed with the misery of stench, hunger, and soreness, he brought him into Calais. The governor of the place was soon acquainted with all that had passed, dismissed Pottiere from his charge with ignominy, and gave Goodwin all the relief which a man of honour would bestow upon an enemy barbarously treated, to recover the imputation of cruelty upon his prince and country.

When Don Sebastian, king of Portugal, had invaded the territories of Muli Moluc, emperor of Morocco, in order to dethrone him, and set the crown upon the head of his nephew, Moluc was wearing away with a distemper which he himself knew was incurable. However, he prepared for the reception of so formidable an enemy. He was, indeed, so far spent with his sickness, that he did not expect to live out the whole day when the last decisive battle was given; but knowing the fatal consequences that would happen to his children and people, in case he should die before he put an end to that war, he commanded his principal officers, that if he died during the engagement, they should conceal his death from the army, and that they should ride up to the litter in which his corpse was carried, under pretence of receiving orders from him as usual. Before the battle began, he was carried, through all the ranks of his army in an open litter, as they stood drawn up in array, encouraging them to fight valiantly in defence of their religion and country. Finding afterwards the battle to go against him, though he was very near his last agonies, he threw himself out of his litter, rallied his army, and led them on to the charge: which afterwards ended in a complete victory on the side of the Moors. He had no sooner brought his men to the en-full of many other circumstances which gagement, but, finding himself utterly spent, he was again replaced in his litter, where, laying his finger on his mouth, to enjoin secrecy to his officers who stood about him, he died in a few moments after in that posture. L.

When Mr. Sentry had read his letter,

aggravate the barbarity, he fell into a sort of criticism upon magnanimity and courage, and argued that they were inseparable; and that courage, without regard to justice and humanity, was no other than the fierceness of a wild beast. A good and truly bold spirit,' continued he, is ever actuated by reason, and a sense of honour and duty. The affectation of such a spirit exerts itself in an impudent aspect, an overbearing confidence, and a certain negligence of giving offence. This is visible in all the cocking

youths you see about this town, who are | No. 351.] Saturday, April 12, 1712.

In te omnis domus inclinata recumbit.

Virg. Æn. xii. 59.

noisy in assemblies, unawed by the presence of wise and virtuous men; in a word, insensible of all the honours and decencies of human life. A shameless fellow takes On thee the fortunes of our house depend. advantage of merit clothed with modesty If we look into the three great heroic and magnanimity, and, in the eyes of little poems which have appeared in the world, people, appears sprightly and agreeable: we may observe that they are built upon while the man of resolution and true gal-very slight foundations. Homer lived near lantry is overlooked and disregarded, if not 300 years after the Trojan war; and, as the despised. There is a propriety in all things; writing of history was not then in use among and I believe what you scholars call just the Greeks, we may very well suppose that and sublime, in opposition to turgid and the tradition of Achilles and Ulysses had bombast_expression, may give you an idea brought down but very few particulars to of what I mean, when I say modesty is the his knowledge; though there is no question certain indication of a great spirit, and im- but he has wrought into his two poems such pudence the affectation of it. He that of their remarkable adventures as were still writes with judgment, and never rises into talked of among his contemporaries. improper warmths, manifests the true force of genius; in like manner, he who is quiet and equal in his behaviour is supported in that deportment by what we may call true courage. Alas! it is not so easy a thing to be a brave man as the unthinking part of mankind imagine. To dare is not all there is in it. The privateer we were just now talking of had boldness enough to attack his enemy, but not greatness of mind enough to admire the same quality exerted by that enemy in defending himself. Thus his base and little mind was wholly taken up in the sordid regard to the prize of which he failed, and the damage done to his own vessel; and therefore he used an honest man, who defended his own from him, in the manner as he would a thief that should

rob him.

'He was equally disappointed, and had not spirit enough to consider, that one case would be laudable, and the other criminal. Malice, rancour, hatred, vengeance, are what tear the breasts of mean men in fight; but fame, glory, conquests, desire of opportunities to pardon and oblige their opposers, are what glow in the minds of the gallant.' The captain ended his discourse with a specimen of his book-learning; and gave us to understand that he had read a French author on the subject of justness in point of gallantry. I love,' said Mr. Sentry a critic who mixes the rules of life with annotations upon writers. My author,' added he, in his discourse upon epic poems, takes occasion to speak of the same quality of courage drawn in the two different characters of Turnus and Æneas. He makes courage the chief and greatest ornament of Turnus; but in Æneas there are many others which outshine it; among the rest that of piety. Turnus is, therefore, all along painted by the poet full of ostentation, his language haughty and vain-glorious, as placing his honour in the manifestation of his valour; Æneas speaks little, is slow to action, and shows only a sort of defensive courage. If equipage and address make Turnus appear more courageous than Æneas, conduct and success prove Æneas more valiant than Turnus.

T.

The story of Æneas, on which Virgil founded his poem, was likewise very bare of circumstances, and by that means afforded him an opportunity of embellishing it with fiction, and giving a full range to his own invention. We find, however, that he has interwoven, in the course of his fable, the principal particulars, which were generally believed among the Romans, of Eneas's voyage and settlement in Italy.

The reader may find an abridgment of the whole story, as collected out of the ancient historians, and as it was received among the Romans, in Dionysius Halicarnassus.

Since none of the critics have considered Virgil's fable with relation to this history of Æneas, it may not perhaps be amiss to examine it in this light, so far as regards my present purpose. Whoever looks into the abridgment above-mentioned, will find that the character of Æneas is filled with piety to the gods, and a superstitious observation of prodigies, oracles, and predictions. Virgil has not only preserved his character in the person of Æneas, but has given a place in his poem to those particular prophecies which he found recorded of him in history and tradition. The poet took the matters of fact as they came down to him, and circumstanced them after his own manner, to make them appear the more natural, agreeable, or surprising. Ibelieve very many readers have been shocked at that ludicrous prophecy which one of the harpies pronounces to the Trojans in the third book; namely, that before they had built their intended city they should be reduced by hunger to eat their very tables. But, when they hear that this was one of the circumstances that had been transmitted to the Romans in the history of Æneas, they will think the poet did very well in taking notice of it. The historian above-mentioned acquaints us, that a prophetess had foretold Æneas, that he should take his voyage westward, till his companions should eat their tables; and that accordingly, upon his landing in Italy, as they were eating their flesh upon cakes of bread for want of other conveniences, they afterwards fed on the

cakes themselves: upon which one of the company said merrily, 'We are eating our tables.' They immediately took the hint, says the historian, and concluded the prophecy to be fulfilled. As Virgil did not think it proper to omit so material a particular in the history of Æneas, it may be worth while to consider with how much judgment he has qualified it, and taken off every thing that might have appeared improper for a passage in a heroic poem. The prophetess who foretells it is a hungry harpy, as the person who discovers it is young Ascanius:

'Heus etiam mensas consumimus, inquit Iulus!' En. vii. 116.

See we devour the plates on which we fed!"

Dryden.

Such an observation, which is beautiful in the mouth of a boy, would have been ridiculous from any other of the company. I am apt to think that the changing of the Trojan fleet into water-nymphs, which is the most violent machine in the whole Æneid, and has given offence to several critics, may be accounted for the same way. Virgil himself, before he begins that relation, premises, that what he was going to tell appeared incredible, but that it was justified by tradition. What further confirms me that this change of the fleet was a celebrated circumstance in the history of Æneas, is, that Ovid has given a place to the same metamorphosis in his account of the heathen mythology.

None of the critics I have met with have considered the fable of the Æneid in this light, and taken notice how the tradition on which it was founded authorizes those parts in it which appear most exceptionable. I hope the length of this reflection will not make it unacceptable to the curious part of my readers.

dents, than any other in the whole poem.
Satan's traversing the globe, and still keep-
ing within the shadow of the night, as fear-
ing to be discovered by the angel of the
sun, who had before detected him, is one
of those beautiful imaginations with which
he introduces this his second series of ad-
ventures. Having examined the nature of
every creature, and found out one which
was the most proper for his purpose, he
again returns to Paradise; and to avoid dis-
covery, sinks by night with a river that
ran under the garden, and rises up again
through a fountain that issued from it by
the tree of life. The poet, who, as we
have before taken notice, speaks as little
as possible in his own person, and, after the
example of Homer, fills every part of his
work with manners and characters, intro-
duces a soliloquy of this infernal agent,
who was thus restless in the destruction of
man. He is then described as gliding
through the garden, under the resemblance
of a mist, in order to find out the creature
in which he designed to tempt our first pa-
rents. This description has something in it
very poetical and surprising:

So saying, through each thicket dank or dry,
Like a black mist low creeping, he held on
His midnight search, where soonest he might find
The serpent: him fast sleeping soon he found,
In labyrinth of many a round self-roll'd
His head the midst, well stor'd with subtil wiles.

ration:

Now when a sacred light began to dawn
In Eden on the humid flowers, that breath'd
Their morning incense; when all things that breathe
From th' earth's great altar send up silent praise
To the Creator, and his nostrils fill

With grateful smell; forth came the human pair,
And join'd their vocal worship to the choir
Of creatures wanting voice.-

The author afterwards gives us a description of the morning which is wonderfully suitable to a divine poem, and peculiar to that first season of nature. He represents the earth before it was cursed, as a great altar, breathing out its incense from all parts, and sending up a pleasant savour to the nostrils of its Creator; to which he adds a noble idea of Adam and Eve, as offering their morning worship, and filling The history which was the basis of Mil-up the universal concert of praise and adoton's poem is still shorter than either that of the Iliad or Æneid. The poet has likewise taken care to insert every circumstance of it in the body of his fable. The ninth book, which we are here to consider, is raised upon that brief account in scripture, wherein we are told that the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field; that he tempted the woman to eat of the The dispute which follows between our forbidden fruit; that she was overcome by two first parents is represented with great this temptation, and that Adam followed art. It proceeds from a difference of judgher example. From these few particulars ment, not of passion, and is managed with Milton has formed one of the most entertain- reason, not with heat. It is such a dispute ing fables that invention ever produced. as we may suppose might have happened He has disposed of these several circum-in Paradise, had man continued happy and stances among so many agreeable and na- innocent. There is a great delicacy in tural fictions of his own, that his whole the moralities which are interspersed in story looks only like a comment upon sacred Adam's discourse, and which the most orwrit, or rather seems to be a full and com-dinary reader cannot but take notice of plete relation of what the other is only an That force of love which the father of manepitome. I have insisted the longer on this kind so finely describes in the eighth book, consideration, as I look upon the disposi- and which is inserted in my last Saturday's tion and contrivance of the fable to be the paper, shows itself here in many fine inprincipal beauty of the ninth book, which stances: as in those fond regards he casts tohas more story in it, and is fuller of inci-wards Eve at her parting from him: