Page images
PDF
EPUB

the Gauls were preferable; but to particular men, who were born for the good of their country, and formed for great attempts. This he says to introduce the characters of Cæsar and Cato. It would be entering into too weighty a discourse for this place, if I attempted to shew, that our nation has produced as great and able men for public affairs as any other. But I believe the reader outruns me, and fixes his imagination upon the duke of Marlborough. It is, methinks, a pleasing reflection to consider the dispensations of Providence in the fortune of this illustrious man, who, in the space of forty years, has passed through all the gradations of human life, until he has ascended to the character of a prince', and become the scourge of a tyrant, who sat on one of the greatest thrones of Europe, before the man who was to have the greatest part in his downfal, had made one step into the world. But such elevations are the natural consequences of an exact prudence, a calm courage, a well-governed temper, a patient ambition, and an affable behaviour. These arts, as they were the steps to his greatness, so they are the pillars of it now it is raised. To this, her glorious son, Great Britain is indebted for the happy conduct of her arms, in whom she can boast, that she has produced a man formed by nature to lead a nation of heroes.

STEELE.

6 In 1704, in consequence of the memorable victory at Hochsted, the duke of Marlborough was appointed a prince of the empire; and Nov. 12, 1705, had Mildenheim assigned for his principality.

N° 6. SATURDAY, APRIL 23, 1709

Quicquid agunt homines

I

nostri est farrago libelli.

JUV. Sat. i. 85, 86.

Whatever good is done, whatever ill

By human kind, shall this collection fill.

Will's Coffee-house, April 22.

AM just come from visiting Sappho ', a fine lady, who writes verses, sings, dances, and can say and do whatever she pleases, without the imputation of any thing that can injure her character; for she is so well known to have no passion but self-love; or folly, but affectation; that now, upon any occasion, they only cry, It is her way!' and, That is so like her!' without farther reflection. As I came into the room,

she cries,

6

Oh! Mr. Bickerstaff, I am utterly undone; I have broke that pretty Italian fan I shewed you when you were here last, wherein were so admirably drawn our first parents in Paradise, asleep in each other's arms. But there is such an affinity between painting and poetry, that I have been improving the images which were raised by that picture, by reading the same representation in two of our greatest poets. Look you, here are the same passages in Milton and in Dryden. All Milton's thoughts are wonderfully just and natural, in that inimitable description which Adam makes of himself in the eighth book

This Sappho, whoever she was, makes her appearance again in No 40. where she is represented to greater advantage,

[blocks in formation]

of Paradise Lost. But there is none of them finer than that contained in the following lines, where he tells us his thoughts, when he was falling asleep a little after the creation:

'While thus I call'd, and stray'd I knew not whither, From where I first drew air, and first beheld This happy light; when answer none return'd, On a green shady bank, profuse of flowers, Pensive I sate me down, there gentle sleep First found me, and with soft oppression seiz'd My drowsed sense, untroubled, though I thought I then was passing to my former state Insensible, and forthwith to dissolve 2.'

But now I cannot forgive this odious thing, this Dryden, who, in his State of Innocence, has given my great grandmother Lve the same apprehension of annihilation on a very different occasion; as Adam pronounces it of himself, when he was seized with a pleasing kind of stupor and deadness, Eve fancies herself falling away, and dissolving in the hurry of a rapture. However, the verses are very good, and I do not know but what she says may be natural; I will read them:

"When your kind eyes look'd languishing on mine, And wreathing arms did soft embraces join;

A doubtful trembling seiz'd me first all o'er,

Then wishes, and a warmth unknown before;
What follow'd was all ecstasy and trance,

Immortal pleasures round my swimming eyes did dance,
And speechless joys, in whose sweet tumults tost,

I thought my breath and my new being lost.'

She went on, and said a thousand good things at random, but so strangely mixed, that you would be 2 Paradise Lost, b. viii, 283, &c.

[ocr errors]

apt to say, all her wit is mere good luck, and not the effect of reason and judgment. When I made my escape hither, I found a gentleman playing the critic on two other great poets, even Virgil and Homer3. He was observing, that Virgil is more judicious than the other in the epithets he gives his hero. • Homer's usual epithet,' said he, is Пodas wxus, or Пodagens, and his indiscretion has been often rallied by the critics, for mentioning the nimbleness of foot in Achilles, though he describes him standing, sitting, lying down, fighting, eating, drinking, or in any other circumstance, however foreign or repugnant to speed and activity. Virgil's common epithet to Æneas is Pius, or Pater. I have therefore considered,' said he,' what passage there is in any of his hero's actions, where either of these appellations would have been most proper, to see if I could catch him at the same fault with Homer: and this, I think, is his meeting with Dido in the cave, where Pius Eneas would have been absurd, and Pater Æneas a burlesque the poet therefore wisely dropped them both for Dux Trojanus; which he has repeated twice in Juno's speech, and his own narration: for he very well knew, a loose action might be consistent enough with the usual manners of a soldier, though it became neither the chastity of a pious man, nor the gravity of the father of a people.'

3 Tickell tells us, that Addison, on reading this curious remark upon Virgil, which he himself had communicated (probably in the way of raillery) to Steele, instantly discovered that his friend was the author of the Tatler; to which he himself very soon after became a principal contributor. He was at this time in Ireland, as secretary to lord Wharton.

Grecian Coffee-house, April 22.

WHILE other parts of the town are amused with the present actions, we generally spend the evening at this table in inquiries into antiquity, and think any thing news which gives us new knowledge. Thus we are making a very pleasant entertainment to ourselves, in putting the actions of Homer's Iliad into an exact journal.

This poem is introduced by Chryses, king of Chryseïs and priest of Apollo, who comes to re-demand his daughter, who had been carried off at the taking of that city, and given to Agamemnon for his part of the booty. The refusal he received enrages Apollo, who for nine days showered down darts upon them, which occasioned the pestilence.

The tenth day Achilles assembles the council, and encourages Chalcas to speak for the surrender of Chryseïs, to appease Apollo. Agamemnon and Achilles storm at one another, notwithstanding which, Agamemnon will not release his prisoner, unless he has Briseïs in her stead. After long contestations, wherein Agamemnon gives a glorious character of Achilles's valour, he determines to restore Chryseïs to her father, and sends two heralds to fetch away Briseïs from Achilles, who abandons himself to sorrow and despair. His mother Thetis comes to comfort him under his affliction, and promises to represent his sorrowful lamentation to Jupiter: but he could not attend to it; for, the evening before, he had appointed to divert himself for two days beyond the seas with the harmless Ethiopians.

It was the twenty-first day after Chryseïs's arrival

« PreviousContinue »