The publication of these criticisms having procured me the following letter from a very ingenious gentleman, I cannot forbear inserting it in the volume*, though it did not come soon enough to have a place in any of my single papers. • Mr. SPECTATOR, HAVING read over in your paper, No 551, some of the epigrams made by the Grecian wits, in commendation of their celebrated poets, I could not forbear sending you another, out of the same collection; which I take to be as great a compliment to Homer as any that has yet been paid him. Τίς ποθ ̓ τὴν Τροίης πόλεμον, &c. "Who first transcrib'd the famous Trojan war, No more let Homer boast they are his own.” • If you think it worthy of a place in your speculations, for aught I know (by that means) it may in time be printed as often in English as it has already been in Greek. I am (like the rest of the world) 4th Dec. Sir, The reader may observe that the beauty of this epigram is different from that of the foregoing. An irony is looked upon as the finest palliative of praise; and very often conveys the noblest panegyric under the appearance of satire. Homer is here seemingly * The translation of Cowley's epitaph, and all that follows, except the concluding letter signed Philonicus, was not printed in the Spect. in folio, but added in the 8vo edition of 1712. accused and treated as a plagiary; but what is drawn up in the form of an accusation is certainly, as my correspondent observes, the greatest compliment that could have been paid to that divine poet. 'Dear Mr. SPECTATOR, 'I AM a gentleman of a pretty good fortune, and of a temper impatient of any thing which I think an injury. However, I always quarreled according to law, and instead of attacking my adversary by the dangerous method of sword and pistol, I made my assaults by that more secure one of writ or warrant. I cannot help telling you, that either by the justice of my causes or the superiority of my counsel, I have been generally successful: and to my great satisfaction I can say it, that by three actions of slander, and half a dozen trespasses, I have for several years enjoyed a perfect tranquillity in my reputation and estate: by these means also I have been made known to the judges; the serjeants of our circuit are my intimate friends; and the oinamental counsel pay a very profound respect to one who has made so great a figure in the law. Affairs of consequence having brought me to town, I had the curiosity the other day to visit Westminster-hall; and, having placed myself in one of the courts, expected to be most agreeably entertained. After the court and counsel were with due ceremony seated, up stands a learned gentleman, and began, When this matter was last "stirred" before your lordships; the next humbly moved to "quash" an indictment; another complained that his adversary had "snapped" a judgment; the next informed the court that his client was 66 stripped" of his possessions; another begged leave to acquaint his lordship they had been" saddled" with costs. At last up got a grave serjeant, and told us his client had been “hung up" a whole term by a writ of error. At this I could bear it no longer, but came hither, and resolved to apply myself to your honour to interpose with these gentlemen, that they would leave off such low and unnatural expressions: for surely though the lawyers subscribe to hideous French and false Latin, yet they should let their clients have a little decent and proper English for their money. What man that has a value for a good name would like to have it said in a public court, that Mr. Such a-one was stripped, saddled, or hung up? This being what has escaped your spectatorial observation, be pleased to correct such an illiberal cant among professed speakers, and you will infinitely oblige Joe's Coffee-house, Nov. 28. Your humble servant, PHILONICUS*. * No. 551 is not lettered in the Spect. in folio, nor has it any signature in the 8vo. or 12mo. editions of 1712. No 552. WEDNESDAY, DEC. 3, 1712. Qui prægravat artes Infra se positas, extinctus amabitur idem. Hor. 2 Ep. i. 13, For those are hated that excel the rest, CREECH. As I was tumbling about the town the other day in a hackney-coach, and delighting myself with busy scenes in the shops of each side of me, it came into my head, with no small remorse, that I had not been frequent enough in the mention and recommendation of the industrious part of mankind. It very naturally upon this occasion touched my conscience in particular, that I had not acquitted myself to my friend Mr. Peter Motteux. That industrious man of trade, and formerly brother of the quill, has dedicated to me a poem upon tea. It would injure him, as a man of business, if I did not let the world know that the author of so good verses writ them before he was concerned in traffic. In order to expiate my negligence towards him, I immediately resolved to make him a visit. I found his spacious warehouses filled and adorned with tea, China and India-ware. I could observe a beautiful ordonnance of the whole; and such different and considerable branches of trade carried on in the same house I exulted in seeing disposed by a poetical head. In one place were exposed to view silks of various shades and colours, rich brocades, and the wealthiest product of foreign looms. Here you might see the finest laces held up by the fairest hands; and, there, examined by the beauteous eyes of the buyers, the most delicate cambrics, muslins, and linens. I could not but congratulate my friend on the humble, but I hoped beneficial, use he had made of his talents, and wished I could be a patrou to his trade, as he had been pleased to make me of his poetry. The honest man has I know the modest desire of gain which is peculiar to those who understand better things than riches; and I dare say he would be contented with much less than what is called wealth at that quarter of the town which he inhabits, and will oblige all his customers with demands agreeable to the moderation of his desires. Among other omissions of which I have been also guilty, with relation to men of industry of a superior order, I must acknowledge my silence towards a proposal frequently inclosed to me by Mr. Renatus Harris, organ-builder. The ambition of this artificer is to erect an organ in St. Paul's cathedral, over the west door, at the entrance into the body of the church, which in art and magnificence shall transcend any works of that kind ever before invented. The proposal in perspicuous language sets forth the honour and advantage such a performance would be to the British name, as well as that it would apply the power of sounds in a manner more amazingly forcible than perhaps has yet been known, and I am sure to an end much more worthy. Had the vast sums which have been laid out upon operas without skill or conduct, and to no other purpose but to suspend or vitiate our understandings, been disposed this way, we should now perhaps have an engine so formed as to strike the minds of half a people at once in a place of worship with a forgetfulness of present care and calamity, and a hope of endless rapture and joy and hallelujah hereafter. When I am doing this justice, I am not to forget |