liged to be still in another company than that which they are in. These persons who are just a going somewhere else should never be detained; let all the world allow that business is to be minded, and their affairs will be at an end. Their vanity is to be importuned, and compliance with their multiplicity of affairs would effectually dispatch them. The travelling ladies, who have half the town to see in an afternoon, may be pardoned for being in constant hurry: but it is inexcusable in men to come where they have no business, to profess they absent themselves where they have. It has been remarked by some nice observers and critics, that there is nothing discovers the true temper of a person so much as his letters. I have by me two epistles, which are written by two people of, the different humours above-mentioned. It is wonderful that a man cannot observe upon himself when he sits down to write, but that he will gravely commit himself to paper the same man that he is in the freedom of conversation. I have hardly seen a line from any of these gentleman, but spoke them as absent from what they were doing, as they profess they are when they come into company. For the folly is, that they have persuaded themselves they really are busy. Thus their whole time is spent in suspense of the present moment to the next, and then from the next to the succeeding, which to the end of life, is to pass away with pretence to many things, and execution of nothing. ASIR, THE post is just going out, and I have many other letters of very great importance to write this evening, but I could not omit making my compliments to you for your civilities to me when I was last in town. It is my misfortune to be so full of business, that I cannot tell you a thousand things which I have to say to you. I must desire you to communicate the contents of this to no one living; but believe me to be, with the greatest fidelity, SIR, Your most obedient STEPHEN COURIER.' S MADAM, 'I HATE writing, of all things in the world; however, though I have drank the waters, and am told I ought not to use my eyes so much, I cannot forbear writing to you, to tell you I have been to the last degree hipped since I saw you. How would you entertain such a thought, as that I should hear of that silly fellow with patience? Take my word for it, there is nothing in it; and you may believe it when so lazy a creature as I am undergo the pains to assure you of it, by taking pen, ink, and paper in my hand. Forgive this; you know I shall not often offend in this kind. I am very much Your servant, BRIDGET EITHERDOWN. The fellow is of your country, pr'ythee send me word however whether he has so great an estate.' MR. SPECTATOR, Jan. 24, 1712. 'I AM clerk of the parish from whence Mrs. Simper sends her complaint, in your Spectator of Wednesday last. I must beg of you to publish this as a public admonition to the aforesaid Mrs. Simper, otherwise all my honest care in the disposition of the greens in the church will have no effect: I shall therefore, with your leave, lay before you the whole matter. I was formerly, as she charges me, for several years a gardener in the county of Kent: but I must absolutely deny that it is out of any affection I retain for my old employment that I have placed my greens so liberally about the church, but out of a particular spleen I conceived against Mrs. Simper (and others of the same sisterhood) some time ago. As to herself, I had one day set the hundredth Psalm, and was singing the first line in order to put the congregation into the tune; she was all the while curtsying to Sir Anthony, in so affected and indecent a manner, that the indignation I conceived at it made me forget myself so far, as from the tune of that psalm to wander into South well tune, and from thence into Windsor tune, still unable to recover myself, until I had with the utmost confusion set a new one. Nay, I have often seen her rise up and smile, and curtsy to one at the lower end of the church in the midst of a Gloria Patri; and when I have spoken the assent to a prayer with a long Amen, uttered with decent gravity, she has been rolling her eyes around about in such a manner, as plainly shewed, however she was moved, it was not towards an heavenly object. In fine, she extended her conquests so far over the males, and raised such envy in the females, that what between love of those, and the jealousy of these, I was almost the only person that looked in a prayer-book all churchtime. I had several projects in my head to put a stop to this growing mischief; but as I have long lived in Kent, and there often heard how the Kentish men evaded the Conqueror, by carrying green boughs over their heads, it put me in mind of practising this device against Mrs. Simper. I find I have preserved many a young man from her eye-shot by this means: therefore humbly pray the boughs may be fixed, until she shall give security for her peaceable intentions. Your humble servant, T. No. 285. SATURDAY, JAN. 26, 1711-12. Ne, quicunque Deus, quicunque adhibebitur heros, HOR. Ars Poet. ver. 227. But then they did not wrong themselves so much, (Stript of his golden crown, and purple robe) Nor (to avoid such meanness) soaring high, ROSCOMMON. HAVING already treated of the fable, the characters, and sentiments in the Paradise Lost, we are in the last place to consider the language; and as the learned world is very much divided upon Milton as to this point, I hope they will excuse me if I appear particular in any of my opinions, and incline to those who judge the most advanta→ geously of the author. It is requisite that the language of an heroic poem should be both perspicuous and sublime. In proportion as either of these two qualities are VOL. V. wanting, the language is imperfect. Perspicuity is the first and most necessary qualification; insomuch that a good-natured reader sometimes overlooks a little slip even in the grammar or syntax, where it is impossible for him to mistake the poet's sense. Of this kind is that passage Milton, wherein he speaks of Satan : -God and his Son except, Created thing nought valu'd he nor shunn'd: and that in which he describes Adam and Eve: Adam the goodliest man of men since born His sons, the fairest of her daughters Eve. in It is plain, that in the former of these passages, according to the natural syntax, the divine persons mentioned in the first line are represented as created beings; and that, in the other, Adam and Eve are confounded with their sons and daughters. Such little blemishes as these, when the thought is great and natural, we should, with Horace, impute to a pardonable inadvertency, or to the weakness of human nature, which cannot attend to each minute particular, and give the last finishing to every circumstance in so long a work. The ancient critics, therefore, who were actuated by a spirit of candour, rather than that of cavilling, invented certain figures of speech, on purpose to palliate little errors of this nature in the writings of those authors who had so many greater beauties to atone for them. If clearness and perspicuity were only to be consulted, the poet would have nothing else to do but to clothe his thoughts in the most plain and natural expressions. But since it often happens that the most obvious phrases, and those which are used in ordinary conversation, become too familiar to the ear, and contract a kind of mean |