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So spake our sire, and by his countenance seem'd
Ent'ring on studious thoughts abtruse; which Eve
Perceiving, where she sat retir'd in sight,
With lowliness majestic from her seat,

And grace that won who saw to wish her stay,
Rose; and went forth among her fruits and flowers,
To visit how they prosper'd, bud and bloom,
Her nursery: they at her coming sprung,
And, touch'd by her fair tendance, gladlier grew.
Yet went she not, as not with such discourse,
Delighted, or not capable her ear

Of what was high: such pleasure she reserv'd,
Adam relating, she sole auditress;
Her husband the relator she prefer'd
Before the angel, and of him to ask
Chose rather: he, she knew, would intermix
Grateful digressions, and solve high dispute
With conjugal caresses; from his lip
Not words alone pleas'd her. O, when meet now
Such pairs, in love and mutual honour join'd!

niece, does all she can to be as disagreeable | book, which is filled with Adam's account as her aunt; and if she is not as offensive to of his passion and esteem for Eve, would the eye, she is quite as much to the ear, have been improper for her hearing, and and makes up all she wants in a confident has therefore devised very just and beautiair, by a nauseous rattle of the nose, when ful reasons for her retiring: the snuff is delivered, and the fingers make the stops and closes on the nostrils. This, perhaps, is not a very courtly image in speaking of ladies; that is very true: but where arises the offence? Is it in those who commit, or those who observe it? As for my part, I have been so extremely disgusted with this filthy physic hanging on the lip, that the most agreeable conversation, or person, has not been able to make up for it. As to those who take it for no other end but to give themselves occasion for pretty action, or to fill up little intervals of discourse, I can bear with them; but then they must not use it when another is speaking, who ought to be heard with too much respect, to admit of offering at that time from hand to hand the snuff-box. But Flavilla is so far taken with her behaviour in this kind, that she pulls out her box (which is indeed full of good Brazil,) in the middle of the sermon; and, to show she has the audacity of a well-bred woman, she offers it to the men as well as to the women who sit near her: but since by this time all the world knows she has a fine hand, I am in hopes she may give herself no further trouble in this matter. On Sunday was sevennight, when they came about for the offering, she gave her charity with a very good air, but at the same time asked the church-warden if he would take a pinch. Pray, sir, think of these things in time, and you will oblige, your humble servant.

T.

No. 345.] Saturday, April 5, 1712.

Sanctius his animal, mentisque capacius alta
Deerat adhuc, et quod dominari in cætera posset,
Natus homo est.-
Ovid. Met. Lib. i. 76.

A creature of a more exalted kind
Was wanting yet, and then was man design'd:
Conscious of thought, of more capacious breast,
For empire form'd, and fit to rule the rest.-Dryden.
THE accounts which Raphael gives of
the battle of angels, and the creation of the
world, have in them those qualifications
which the critics judge requisite to an epi-
sode. They are nearly related to the prin-
cipal action, and have a just connexion with
the fable.

The eighth book opens with a beautiful description of the impression which this discourse of the archangel made on our first parents. Adam afterwards, by a very natural curiosity, inquires concerning the motions of those celestial bodies which make the most glorious appearance among the six days' work. The poet here, with a great deal of art, represents Eve as withdrawing from this part of their conversation, to amusements more suitable to her scx. He well knew that the episode in this

The angel's returning a doubtful answer to Adam's inquiries, was not only proper for the moral reason which the poet assigns, but because it would have been highly absurd to have given the sanction of an archangel to any particular system of philosophy. The chief points in the Ptolemaic and Copernican hypotheses are described with great conciseness and perspicuity, and at the same time dressed in very pleasing and poetical images.

Adam, to detain the angel, enters afterwards upon his own history, and relates to him the circumstances in which he found himself upon his creation; as also his conversation with his Maker, and his first meeting with Eve. There is no part of the poem more apt to raise the attention of the reader than this discourse of our great ancestor; as nothing can be more surprising and delightful to us, than to hear the sentiments that arose in the first man, while he was yet new and fresh from the hands of his Creator. The poet has interwoven every thing which is delivered upon this subject in holy writ with so many beautiful imaginations of his own, that nothing can be conceived more just and more natural than this whole episode. As our author knew this sub ject could not but be agreeable to his reader he would not throw it into the relation of the six days' work, but reserved it for a distinct episode, that he might have an opportunity of expatiating upon it more at large. Before I enter upon this part of the poem, I cannot but take notice of two shining passages in the dialogue between Adam and the angel. The first is that wherein our ancestor gives an account of the pleasure he took in conversing with him, which contains a very noble moral.

For while I sit with thee, I seem in heaven,
And sweeter thy discourse is to my ear
Than fruits of palm-trees (pleasantest to thirst
And hunger both, from labour) at the hour
Of sweet repast; they satiate and soon fill,
Though pleasant; but thy words, with grace divine
Imbued, bring to their sweetness no satiety.

The other I shall mention, is that in which the angel gives a reason why he should be glad to hear the story Adam was about to relate.

For I that day was absent as befel,
Bound on a voyage uncouth and obscure,
Far on excursion towards the gates of hell,
Squar'd in full legion (such command we had,)
To see that none thence issued forth a spy,
Or enemy, while God was in his work,
Lest he, incens'd at such eruption bold,
Destruction with creation might be mix'd.'

There is no question but our poet drew the image in what follows from that in Virgil's sixth book, where Æneas and the Sybil stand before the adamantine gates, which are there described as shut upon the place of torments, and listen to the groans, the clank of chains, and the noise of iron whips, that were heard in those regions of pain and

sorrow.

Fast we found, fast shut

The dismal gates, and barricado'd strong; But long ere our approaching heard within Noise, other than the sound of dance or song, Torment, and loud lament, and furious rage.'

prepared for his reception, are also cir cumstances finely imagined, and grounded upon what is delivered in sacred story.

These and the like wonderful incidents in this part of the work, have in them all the beauties of novelty, at the same time that they have all the graces of nature.

They are such as none but a great genius I could have thought of; though, upon the perusal of them, they seem to rise of themselves from the subject of which he treats. In a word, though they are natural, they are not obvious; which is the true character of all fine writing.

The impression which the interdiction of the tree of life left in the mind of our first parent is described with great strength and judgment; as the image of the several beasts and birds passing in review before him is very beautiful and lively:

Each bird and beast behold

Approaching two and two, these cow'ring low With blandishment; each bird stoop'd on his wing. I nam'd them as they pass'd.'

Adam in the next place, describes a conAdam then proceeds to give an account ference which he held with his Maker upon of his condition and sentiments immediately the subject of solitude. The poet here reafter his creation. How agreeably does he presents the Supreme Being as making an represent the posture in which he found essay of his own work, and putting to the himself, the delightful landscape that sur-trial that reasoning faculty with which he rounded him, and the gladness of heart which grew up in him on that occasion!

-'As new wak'd from soundest sleep, Soft on the flow'ry herb I found me laid In balmy sweat, which with his beams the sun Soon dry'd, and on the reeking moisture fed, Straight towards heaven my wond'ring eyes I turn'd And gaz'd awhile the ample sky; till rais'd By quick instinctive motion, up I sprung, As thitherward endeavouring, and upright Stood on my feet. About me round I saw Hill, dale, and shady woods, and sunny plains, And liquid lapse of murmuring streams: by these, Creatures that liv'd and mov'd, and walk'd, or flew,

Birds on the branches warbling; all things smil'd With fragrance, and with joy my heart o'erflow'd.' Adam is afterwards described as surprised at his own existence, and taking a survey of himself and of all the works of nature. He likewise is represented as discovering, by the light of reason, that he, and every thing about him, must have been the effect of some Being infinitely good and powerful, and that this Being had a right to his worship and adoration. His first address to the Sun, and to those parts of the creation which made the most distinguished figure, is very natural and amusing to the imagination:

-Thou Sun,' said I. ' Fair light,
And thou enlighten'd earth, so fresh and gay,
Ye hills, and dales, ye rivers, woods, and plains,
And ye that live and move, fair creatures, tell,
Tell, if ye saw, how came I thus? how here?"

His next sentiment, when, upon his first going to sleep, he fancies himself losing his existence, and falling away into nothing, can never be sufficiently admired. His dream, in which he still preserves the consciousness of his existence, together with his removal into the garden which was

had endued his creature. Adam urges, in this divine colloquy, the impossibility of his being happy, though he was the inhabitant of Paradise, and lord of the whole creation, without the conversation and society of some rational creature who should partake those blessings with him. This dialogue, which is supported chiefly by the beauty of the thoughts, without other poetical ornament, is as fine a part as any in the whole poem. The more the reader examines the justness and delicacy of its sentiments, the more he will find himself pleased with it. The poet has wonderfully preserved the character of majesty and condescension in the Creator, and, at the same time, that of humility and adoration in the creature, as particularly in the following lines:

Thus I presumptuous; and the vision bright,
As with a smile more brighten'd, thus reply'd, &c.
-I with leave of speech implor'd,
And humble deprecation, thus reply'd:
"Let not my words offend thee, Heavenly Power,
My Maker, be propitious while I speak." &c.

Adam then proceeds to give an account of his second sleep, and of the dream in which he beheld the formation of Eve. The new passion that was awakened in him at the sight of her is touched very finely.

'Under his forming hands a creature grew,
Manlike, but different sex: so lovely fair,
That what seem'd fair in all the world, seem'd now
Mean, or in her summ'd up, in her contain'd,
And in her looks, which from that time infus'd
Sweetness into my heart, unfelt before;
And into all things from her air inspir'd
The spirit of love and amorous delight.'

Adam's distress upon losing sight of this beautiful phantom, with his exclamations of joy and gratitude at the discovery of a real creature who resembled the apparition

which had been presented to him in his dream; the approaches he makes to her, and his manner of courtship, are all laid together in a most exquisite propriety of sentiments.

"Neither her outside form'd so fair, nor aught
In procreation common to all kinds,
(Though higher of the genial bed by far,
And with mysterious reverence I deem)
So much delights me, as those graceful acts,
Those thousand decencies that daily flow
From all her words and actions, mix'd with love
And sweet compliance, which declare unfeign'd
Union of mind, or in us both one soul:
Harmony to behold in wedded pair!"

Adam's speech at parting with the angel, has in it a deference and gratitude agreeable to an inferior nature, and at the same time a certain dignity and greatness suitable to the father of mankind in his state of inL. nocence.

Though this part of the poem is worked up with great warmth and spirit, the love which is described in it is every way suitable to a state of innocence. If the reader compares the description which Adam here gives of his leading Eve to the nuptial Sower, with that which Mr. Dryden has made on the same occasion in a scene of his Fall of Man, he will be sensible of the great care which Milton took to avoid all thoughts on so delicate a subject that might be offensive to religion or good manners. No. 346.] Monday, April 7, 1712. sentiments are chaste, but not cold; and Consuetudinem benignitatis largitioni munerum convey to the mind ideas of the most trans-longe antepono. Hæc est gravium hominum atque magnorum; illa quasi assentatorum populi, multitudinis porting passion, and of the greatest purity. levitatem voluptate quasi titillantium. What a noble mixture of rapture and innocence has the author joined together, in the reflection which Adam makes on the pleasures of love, compared to those of sense!

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Thus have I told thee, all my state, and brought My story to the sum of earthly bliss

Which I enjoy; and must confess to find

In all things else delight indeed, but such
As us'd or not, works in the mind no change
Nor vehement desire; these delicacies,

I mean of taste, sight, smell, herbs, fruits, and flowers,
Walks, and the melody of birds: but here
Far otherwise, transported I behold,
Transported touch; here passion first I felt,
Commotion strange! in all enjoyments else
Superior and unmov'd, here only weak
Against the charm of beauty's pow'rful glance.
Or nature fail'd in me, and left some part
Not proof enough such object to sustain;
Or from my side subducting, took perhaps
More than enough; at least on her bestow'd
Too much of ornament, in outward show
Elaborate, of inward less exact.
-When I approach
Her loveliness, so absolute she seems,
And in herself complete, so well to know
Her own, that what she wills to do or say,
Seems wisest, virtuousest, discreetest, best;
All higher knowledge in her presence falls
Degraded: wisdom in discourse with her
Loses, discountenanc'd, and like folly shows:
Authority and reason on her wait,
As one intended first, not after made
Occasionally; and to consummate all,
Greatness of mind and nobleness their seat
Build in her loveliest, and create an awe
About her, as a guard angelic plac'd.'

Tull.

I esteem a habit of benignity greatly preferable to munificence. The former is peculiar to great and distinguished persons; the latter belongs to flatterers of the people, who tickle the levity of the multitude with a kind of pleasure.

WHEN We consider the offices of human life, there is, methinks, something in what we ordinarily call generosity, which, when carefully examined, seems to flow rather from a loose and unguarded temper than an honest and liberal mind. For this reason it is absolutely necessary that all liberality should have for its basis and support frugality. By this means the beneficent spirit works in a man from convictions of reason, not from the impulse of passion. The generous man in the ordinary acceptation, without respect of the demands of his family, will soon find upon the foot of his account, that he has sacrificed to fools, knaves, flatterers, or the deservedly unhappy, all the opportunities of affording any future assistance where it ought to be. Let him therefore reflect, that if to bestow be in itself laudable, should not a man take care to secure an ability to do things praiseworthy as long as he lives? Or could there be a more cruel piece of raillery upon a man who should have reduced his fortune below the capacity of acting according to his natural temper, than to say of him, These sentiments of love in our first pa-That gentleman was generous? My berent, gave the angel such an insight into loved author therefore has, in the sentence human nature, that he seems apprehensive on the top of my paper, turned his eye with of the evils which might befall the species a certain satiety from beholding the adin general, as well as Adam in particular, dresses to the people by largesses and pubfrom the excess of his passion. He there-lic entertainments, which he asserts to be fore fortifies him against it by timely ad- in general vicious, and are always to be monitions; which very artfully prepare the regulated according to the circumstances mind of the reader for the occurrences of of time and a man's own fortune. A conthe next book, where the weakness, of stant benignity in commerce with the rest which Adam here gives such distant dis- of the world, which ought to run through coveries, brings about that fatal event which all a man's actions, has effects more useful is the subject of the poem. His discourse, to those whom you oblige and is less ostenwhich follows the gentle rebuke he received tatious in yourself. He turns his recomfrom the angel, shows that his love, how-mendation of this virtue on commercial life: ever violent it might appear, was still and, according to him, a citizen who is founded in reason, and consequently not frank in his kindnesses, and abhors severity improper for Paradise: in his demands: he who, in buying, selling,

lending, doing acts of good neighbourhood, is just and easy; he who appears naturally averse to disputes, and above the sense of little sufferings; bears a noble character, and does much more good to mankind than any other man's fortune, without commerce, can possibly support. For the citizen above all other men, has opportunities of arriving at the highest fruit of wealth,' to be liberal without the least expense of a man's own fortune. It is not to be denied but such a practice is liable to hazard; but this therefore adds to the obligation, that, among traders, he who obliges is as much concerned to keep the favour a secret as he who receives it. The unhappy distinctions among us in England are so great, that to celebrate the intercourse of commercial friendship (with which I am daily made acquainted) would be to raise the virtuous man so many enemies of the contrary party. I am obliged to conceal all I know of Tom the Bounteous,' who lends at the ordinary interest, to give men of less fortune opportunities of making greater advantages. He conceals, under a rough air and distant behaviour, a bleeding compassion and womanish tenderness. This is governed by the most exact circumspection, that there is no industry wanting in the person whom he is to serve, and that he is guilty of no improper expenses. This I know of Tom; but who dare say it of so known a Tory? The same care I was forced to use some time ago, in the report of another's virtue, and said fifty instead of a hundred, because the man I pointed at was a Whig. Actions of this kind are popular, without being invidious: for every man of ordinary circumstances looks upon a man who has this known benignity in his nature as a person ready to be his friend upon such terms as he ought to expect it; and the wealthy who may envy such a character, can do no injury to its interests, but by the imitation of it, in which the good citizen will rejoice to be rivalled. I know not how to form to myself a greater idea of human life, than in what is the practice of some wealthy men whom I could name, that make no step to the improvement of their own fortunes, wherein they do not also advance those of other men who would languish in poverty without that munificence. In a nation where there are so many public funds to be supported, I know not whether he can be called good subject, who does not embark some part of his fortune with the state, to whose vigilance he owes the security of the whole. This certainly is an immediate way of laying an obligation upon many, and extending your benignity the farthest a man can possibly, who is not engaged in commerce. But he who trades, besides giving the state some part of this sort of credit he gives his banker, may, in all the occurrences of his life, have his eye upon removing want from the door of the industrious, and defending the unhappy upright man from bankruptcy.

Without this benignity, pride or vengeance will precipitate a man to choose the receipt of half his demands from one whom he has undone, rather than the whole from one to whom he has shown mercy. This benignity is essential to the character of a fair trader, and any man who designs to enjoy his wealth with honour and self-satisfaction; nay, it would not be hard to maintain, that the practice of supporting good and industrious men would carry a man farther even to his profit, than indulging the propensity of serving and obliging the fortunate. My author argues on this subject, in order to incline men's minds to those who want them most, after this manner. We must always consider the nature of things, and govern ourselves accordingly. The wealthy man, when he has repaid you, is upon a balance, with you; but the person whom you favoured with a loan, if he be a good man, will think himself in your debt after he has paid you. The wealthy and the conspicuous are not obliged by the benefits you do them; they think they conferred a benefit when they received one. Your good offices are always suspected, and it is with them the same thing to expect their favour as to receive it. But the man below you, who knows, in the good you have done him, you respected himself more than his circumstances, does not act like an obliged man only to him from whom he has received a benefit, but also to all who are capable of doing him one. And whatever little offices he can do for you, he is so far from magnifying it, that he will labour to extenuate it in all his actions and expressions. Moreover, the regard to what you do to a great man at best is taken notice of no further than by himself or his family; but what you do to a man of an humble fortune (provided always that he is a good and a modest man) raises the affections towards you of all men of that character (of which there are many) in the whole city.

There is nothing gains a reputation to a preacher so much as his own practice; I am therefore casting about what act of benignity is in the power of a Spectator. Alas! that lies but in a very narrow compass; and I think the most immediately under my patronage are either players, or such whose circumstances bear an affinity with theirs. All, therefore, I am able to do at this time of this kind, is to tell the town, that on Friday the 11th of this instant, April, there will be performed in YorkBuildings, a concert of vocal and instrumental music, for the benefit of Mr. Edward Keen, the father of twenty children; and that this day the haughty George Powell hopes all the good-natured part of the town will favour him, whom they applauded in Alexander, Timon, Lear, and Orestes, with their company this night, when he hazards all his heroic glory for their approbation in the humble condition of honest Jack Falstaff.

T.

No. 347.] Tuesday, April 8, 1712.

Quis furor, o cives! quæ tanta licentia ferri!
Lucan, Lib. i. 8.

What blind, detested fury, could afford
Such horrid license to the barb'rous sword!

I Do not question but my country readers have been very much surprised at the several accounts they have met with in our public papers, of that species of men among us, lately known by the name of Mohocks. I find the opinions of the learned, as to their origin and designs, are altogether various, insomuch that very many begin to doubt whether indeed there were ever any such society of men. The terror which spread itself over the whole nation some years since on account of the Irish, is still fresh in most people's memories, though it afterwards appeared there was not the least ground for that general consternation.

The Manifesto of Taw Waw Eben Zan Kaladar, Emperor of the Mohocks. 'Whereas we have received information, from sundry quarters of this great and populous city, of several outrages committed on the legs, arms, noses, and other parts, of the good people of England, by such as have styled themselves our subjects; in order to vindicate our imperial dignity from those false aspersions which have been cast on it, as if we ourselves might have encouraged or abetted any such practices, we have, by these presents, thought fit to signify our utmost abhorrence and detestation of all such tumultuous and irregular proceedings; and do hereby farther give notice, that if any person or persons has or have suffered any wound, hurt, damage, or detriment, in his or their limb or limbs otherwise than shall be hereafter specified, the said person or persons, upon applying themselves to such as we shall appoint for the inspection and redress of the grievances aforesaid, shall be forthwith committed to the care of our principal surgeon, and be cured at our own expense, in some one or other of those hospitals which we are now erecting for that purpose.

The late panic fear was in the opinion of many deep and penetrating persons of the same nature. These will have it that the Mohocks are like those spectres and apparitions which frighten several towns and villages in her majesty's dominions, though they were never seen by any of the inhabitants. Others are apt to think that 'And to the end that no one may, either these Mohocks are a kind of bull-beggars, through ignorance or inadvertency, incur first invented by prudent married men, and those penalties which we have thought fit masters of families, in order to deter their to inflict on persons of loose and dissolute wives and daughters from taking the air at lives, we do hereby notify to the public, unseasonable hours; and that when they that if any man be knocked down or astell them the Mohocks will catch them,' saulted while he is employed in his lawful it is a caution of the same nature with that business, at proper hours, that it is not of our forefathers, when they bid their chil-done by our order; and we do hereby perdren have a care of Raw-head and Bloody-mit and allow any such person, so knocked bones.

For my own part, I am afraid there was too much reason for the great alarm the whole city has been in upon this occasion; though at the same time I must own, that I am in some doubt whether the following pieces are genuine and authentic; the more so, because I am not fully satisfied that the name by which the emperor subscribes himself, is altogether conformable to the Indian orthography.

I shall only farther inform my readers, that it was some time since I received the following letter and manifesto, though, for particular reasons, I did not think fit to publish them till now.

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down or assaulted, to rise again, and defend himself in the best manner that he is able.

'We do also command all and every our good subjects, that they do not presume, upon any pretext whatsoever, to issue and sally forth from their respective quarters till between the hours of eleven and twelve. That they never tip the lion upon man, woman, or child, till the clock at St. Dunstan's shall have struck one.

'That the sweat be never given but between the hours of one and two; always provided, that our hunters may begin to hunt a little after the close of the evening, any thing to the contrary herein notwithstanding. Provided also, that if ever they are reduced to the necessity of pinking, ít shall always be in the most fleshy parts, and such as are least exposed to view.

It is also our imperial will and pleasure, that our good subjects the sweaters do establish their hummums in such close places, alleys, nooks, and corners, that the patient or patients may not be in danger of catching cold.

That the tumblers, to whose care we chiefly commit the female sex, confine themselves to Drury-lane, and the purlieus of the Temple; and that every other party and division of our subjects do each of them keep within the respective quarters we

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