0. Hæc studia adolescentiam alunt, senectutem, oblec Since we have therefore such a treasury | produces more lasting and permanent im of words, so beautiful in themselves, and so pressions in the mind, than those which acproper for the airs of music, I cannot but company any transient form of words that wonder that persons of distinction should are uttered in the ordinary method of religive so little attention and encouragement gious worship. to that kind of music, which would have its foundation in reason, and which would improve our virtue in proportion as it raises No. 406.] Monday, June 16, 1712. our delight. The passions that are excited by ordinary compositions generally flow from such silly and absurd occasions, that a man is ashamed to reflect upon them seriously; but the fear, the love, the sorrow, the indignation, that are awakened in the mind by hymns and anthems, make the heart better, and proceed from such causes as are altogether reasonable and praisewor-journeys, and in the country. thy. Pleasure and duty go hand in hand, and the greater our satisfaction is, the greater is our religion. Music among those who are styled the chosen people was a religious art. The songs of Sion, which we have reason to believe were in high repute among the courts of the eastern monarchs, were nothing else but psalms and pieces of poetry that adored or celebrated the Supreme Being. The greatest conqueror in the holy nation, after the manner of the old Grecian lyrics, did not only compose the words of his divine odes, but generally set them to music himself: after which, his works, though they were consecrated to the tabernacle, became the national entertainment, as well as the devotion of the people. tant, secundas res ornant, adversis solatium et perfugium præbent; delectant domi, non impediunt foris; pernoctant nobiscum, peregrinatur, rusticantur.-Tull. These studies nourish youth; delight old age; are the ornament of prosperity; the solacement and the refuge of adversity; they are delectable at home, and not burdensome abroad; they gladden us at nights, and on our THE following letters bear a pleasing image of the joys and satisfactions of a private life. The first is from a gentleman to a friend, for whom he has a very great respect, and to whom he communicates the satisfaction he takes in retirement; the other is a letter to me, occasioned by an ode written by my Lapland lover: this correspondent is so kind as to translate another of Scheffer's songs in a very agreeable manner. I publish them together, that the young and old may find something in the same paper which may be suitable to their respective tastes in solitude; for I know no fault in the description of ardent desires, provided they are honourable. 'DEAR SIR,-You have obliged me with The first original of the drama was a re- a very kind letter; by which I find you ligious worship, consisting only of a chorus, shift the scene of your life from the town which was nothing else but a hymn to a to the country, and enjoy that mixed deity. As luxury and voluptuousness pre-state, which wise men both delight in and vailed over innocence and religion, this form are qualified for. Methinks most of the phiof worship degenerated into tragedies; in losophers and moralists have run too much which however the chorus so far remem-into extremes in praising entirely either sobered its first office, as to brand every thing litude or public life; in the former, men gethat was vicious, and recommend every nerally grow useless by too much rest; and, thing that was laudable, to intercede within the latter, are destroyed by too much heaven for the innocent, and to implore its precipitation; as waters lying still putrify vengeance on the people. and are good for nothing; and running vioHomer and Hesiod intimate to us how lently on, do but the more mischief in their this art should be applied, when they re-passage to others, and are swallowed up and present the Muses as surrounding Jupiter, lost the sooner themselves. Those who, and warbling their hymns about his throne. like you, can make themselves useful to all I might show, from innumerable passages states, should be like gentle streams, that in ancient writers, not only that vocal and not only glide through lonely vales and foinstrumental music were made use of in rests, amidst the flocks and shepherds, but their religious worship, but that their most visit populous towns in their course, and are favourite diversions were filled with songs at once of ornament and service to them. and hymns to their respective deities. Had But there is another sort of people who seem we frequent entertainments of this nature designed for solitude, those I mean who among us, they would not a little purify have more to hide than to show. As for and exalt our passions, give our thoughts a my own part, I am one of those whom Seproper turn, and cherish those divine im- neca says, Tam umbratiles sunt, ut pupulses in the soul, which every one feels tent in turbido esse quicquid in luce est.' that has not stifled them by sensual and Some men like pictures, are fitter for a corimmoral pleasures. ner than a full light; and I believe such as Music, when thus applied, raises noble have a natural bent to solitude are like wahints in the mind of the hearer, and fills itters, which may be forced into fountains, with great conceptions. It strengthens devotion, and advances praise into rapture, lengthens out every act of worship, and and, exalted to a great height, may make a much nobler figure, and a much louder noise, but after all run more smoothly, equally, and plentifully in their own natural course upon the ground. The consideration of this would make me very well contented with the possession only of that quiet which Cowley calls the companion of obscurity; but whoever has the muses too for his companions can never be idle enough to be uneasy. Thus, sir, you see I would flatter myself into a good opinion of my own way of living: Plutarch just now told me, that it is in human life as in a game at tables: one may wish he had the highest cast; but, if his chance be otherwise, he is even to play it as well as he can, and make the best of it. I am, sir, your most obliged and most humble servant.' 'MR. SPECTATOR,-The town being so well pleased with the fine picture of artless IV. "Each moment from the charmer I'm confin'd, V. "Our pleasing toil will then be soon o'erpaid, And thou, in wonder lost, shalt view my fair; Admire each feature of the lovely maid, Her artless charms, her bloom, her sprightly air. VI. "But lo! with graceful motion there she swims, VII. "In vain, ye envious streams, so fast ye flow, love, which nature inspired the Laplander No. 407.] Tuesday, June 17, 1712. to paint in the ode you lately printed, we were in hopes that the ingenious translator would have obliged it with the other also which Scheffer has given us: but since he has not, a much inferior hand has ventured to send you this. 'It is a custom with the northern lovers to divert themselves with a song, whilst they journey through the fenny moors to pay a visit to their mistresses. This is addressed by the lover to his rein-deer, which is the creature that in that country supplies the want of horses. The circumstances which successively present themselves to him in his way, are, I believe you will think, naturally interwoven. The anxiety of absence, the gloominess of the roads, and his resolution of frequenting only those, since those only can carry him to the object of his desires; the dissatisfaction he expresses even at the greatest swiftness with which he is carried, and his joyful surprise at an unexpected sight of his mistress as she is bathing, seem beautifully described in the original. If those pretty images of rural nature are lost in the imitation, yet possibly you may think fit to let this supply the place of a long letter, when want of leisure, or indisposition for writing, will not permit our being entertained by your own hand. I propose such a time, because, though it is natural to have a fondness for what one does oneself, yet, I assure you, I would not have any thing of mine displace a single line of yours. I. "Haste, my rein-deer, and let us nimbly go Our am'rous journey through this dreary waste; Haste, my rein-deer! still, still thou art too slow, Impetuous love demands the lightning's haste. II. "Around us far the rushy moors are spread: III. abest facundis gratia dictis. Eloquent words a graceful manner want. T. MOST foreign writers, who have given any character of the English nation, whatever vices they ascribe to it, allow, in general, that the people are naturally modest. It proceeds, perhaps, from this our national virtue, that our orators are observed to make use of less gesture or action than those of other countries. Our preachers stand stock still in the pulpit, and will not so much as move a finger to set off the best sermon in the world. We meet with the same speaking statues at our bars, and in all public places of debate. Our words flow from us in a smooth continued stream, without those strainings of the voice, motions of the body, and majesty of the hand, which are so much celebrated in the orators of Greece and Rome. We can talk of life and death in cold blood, and keep our temper in a discourse which turns upon every thing that is dear to us. Though our zeal breaks out in the finest tropes and figures, it is not able to stir a limb about us. I have heard it observed more than once, by those who have seen Italy, that an untravelled Englishman cannot relish all the beauties of Italian pictures, because the postures which are expressed in them are often such as are peculiar to that country. One who has not seen an Italian in the pulpit, will not know what to make of that noble gesture in Raphael's picture of St. Paul's preaching at Athens, where the apostle is represented as lifting up both his arms, and pouring out the thunder of his rhetoric amidst an audience of pagan philosophers. It is certain that proper gestures and ve hement exertions of the voice cannot be too much studied by a public orator. They are a kind of comment to what he utters, and enforce every thing he says, with weak hearers, better than the strongest argument he can make use of. They keep the audience awake, and fix their attention to what is delivered to them, at the same time that I they show the speaker is in earnest, and affected himself with what he so passionately recommends to others. Violent gesture and vociferation naturally shake the hearts of the ignorant, and fill them with a kind of religious horror. Nothing is more frequent than to see women weep and tremble at the sight of a moving preacher, though he is placed quite out of their hearing; as in England we very frequently see people lulled to sleep, with solid and elaborate discourses of piety, who would be warmed and transported out of themselves by the bellowing and distortions of enthusiasm. If nonsense, when accompanied with such an emotion of voice and body, has such an influence on men's minds, what might we not expect from many of those admirable discourses which are printed in our tongue, were they delivered with a becoming fervour, and with the most agreeable graces of voice and gesture! stole it from him one day in the midst of his pleading; but he had better have let it alone, for he lost his cause by his jest. I have all along acknowledged myself to be a dumb man, and therefore may be thought a very improper person to give rules for oratory; but I believe every one will agree with me in this, that we ought either to lay aside all kinds of gesture (which seems to be very suitable to the genius of our nation,) or at least to make use of such only as are graceful and expressive. O. No. 408.] Wednesday, June 18, 1712. subjacere, serviliter.-Tull. de Finibus. indulged, nor servilely depressed. 'MR. SPECTATOR,-I have always been a very great lover of your speculations, as We are told that the great Latin orator well in regard to the subject as to your manvery much impaired his health by the late-ner of treating it. Human nature I always rum contentio, the vehemence of action, with which he used to deliver himself. The Greek orator was likewise so very famous for this particular in rhetoric, that one of his antagonists, whom he had banished from Athens, reading over the oration which had procured his banishment, and seeing his friends admire it, could not forbear asking them, if they were so much affected by the bare reading of it, how much more they would have been alarmed, had they heard him actually throwing out such a storm of eloquence? thought the most useful object of human reason; and to make the consideration of it pleasant and entertaining, I always thought the best employment of human wit: other parts of philosophy may perhaps make us wiser, but this not only answers that end, but makes us better too. Hence it was that the oracle pronounced Socrates the wisest of all men living, because he judiciously made choice of human nature for the object of his thoughts; an inquiry into which, as much exceeds all other learning, as it is of more consequence to adjust the true nature and measures of right and wrong, than to settle the distances of the planets, and compute the time of their circumvolutions. 'One good effect that will immediately arise from a near observation of human nature, is, that we shall cease to wonder at those actions which men are used to reckon wholly unaccountable; for, as nothing is produced without a cause, so by observing the nature and course of the passions, we shall be able to trace every action from its first conception to its death. We shall no more admire at the proceedings of Catiline or Tiberius, when we know the one was actuated by a cruel jealousy, the other by a furious ambition: for the actions of men follow their passions as naturally as light does heat, or as any other effect flows from its cause; reason must be employed in adjusting the passions, but they must ever remain the principles of action. How cold and dead a figure, in comparison of these two great men, does an orator often make at the British bar, holding up his head with the most insipid serenity, and stroking the sides of a long wig that reaches down to his middle! The truth of it is, there is often nothing more ridiculous than the gestures of an English speaker: you see some of them running their hands into their pockets as far as ever they can thrust them, and others looking with great attention on a piece of paper that has nothing written on it; you may see many a smart rhetorician turning his hat in his hands, moulding it into several different cocks, examining sometimes the lining of it, and sometimes the button, during the whole course of his harangue. A deaf man would think he was cheapening a beaver, when perhaps he is talking of the fate of the British nation. I remember, when I was a young man, and used to frequent Westminster-hall, there was a counsellor who never pleaded with-so out a piece of pack-thread in his hand, which he used to twist about a thumb or a finger all the while he was speaking: the wags of those days used to call it the thread of his discourse,' for he was unable to utter a word without it. One of his clients, who was more merry than wise, The strange and absurd variety that is apparent in men's actions, shows plainly they can never proceed immediately from reason; so pure a fountain emits no such troubled waters: they must necessarily arise from the passions, which are to the mind as the winds to a ship; they can only move it, and they too often destroy it: if fair and gentle, they guide it into the harbour; if contrary and furious, they overset it in the waves. In the same manner is the mind assisted or endangered by the passions; reason must then take the place of pilot, and can never fail of securing her charge if she be not wanting to herself. The strength of the passions will never be accepted as an excuse for complying with them: they were designed for subjection; and if a man suffers them to get the upper hand, he then betrays the liberty of his own soul. 'As nature has framed the several species of being as it were in a chain, so man seems to be placed as the middle link between angels and brutes. Hence he participates both of flesh and spirit by an admirable tie, which in him occasions perpetual war of passions; and as man inclines to the angelic or brute part of his constitution, he is then denominated good or bad, virtuous or wicked; if love, mercy, and good-nature prevail, they speak him of the angel: if hatred, cruelty, and envy predominate, they declare his kindred to the brute. Hence it was that some of the ancients imagined, that as men in this life inclined more to the angel or the brute, so, after their death, they should transmigrate into the one or the other; and it would be no unpleasant notion to consider the several species of brutes, into which we may imagine that tyrants, misers, the proud, malicious, and ill-natured, might be changed. the gentle gales of the passions, which may preserve it from stagnating and corruption; for they are necessary to the health of the mind, as the circulation of the animal spirits is to the health of the body: they keep it in life, and strength, and vigour; nor is it possible for the mind to perform its offices without their assistance. These motions are given us with our being; they are little spirits that are born and die with us; to some they are mild, easy, and gentle; to others, wayward and unruly, yet never too strong for the reins of reason and the guidance of judgment. 'We may generally observe a pretty nice proportion between the strength of reason and passion; the greatest geniuses have commonly the strongest affections, as, on the other hand, the weaker understandings have generally the weaker passions; and it is fit the fury of the coursers should not be too great for the strength of the charioteer. Young men, whose passions are not a little unruly, give small hopes of their ever being considerable: the fire of youth will of course abate, and is a fault, if it be a fault, that mends every day; but, surely, unless a man has fire in his youth, he can hardly have warmth in old age. We must therefore be very cautious, lest, while we think to regulate the passions, we should quite extinguish them, which is putting out the light of the soul; for to be without passion, or to be hurried away with it, makes a man equally blind. The extraordinary severity used in most of our schools has this fatal effect, it breaks the spring of the mind, and most certainly destroys more good geniuses than it can possibly improve. And surely it is a mighty mistake that the passions should be so entirely subdued: for little irregularities are sometimes not only to be borne with, but to be cultivated too, since they are frequently attended with the greatest perfections. All great geniuses have faults mixed with their virtues, and resemble the flaming bush which has thorns amongst lights. 'As a consequence of this original, all passions are in all men, but appear not in all; constitution, education, custom of the country, reason, and the like causes, may improve or abate the strength of them; but still the seeds remain, which are ever ready to sprout forth upon the least encouragement. I have heard a story of a good religious man, who having been bred with the milk of a goat, was very modest in public, by a careful reflection he made on his actions; but he frequently had an hour in secret, wherein he had his frisks and capers; and if we had an opportunity 'Since, therefore, the passions are the of examining the retirement of the strictest principles of human actions, we must endea philosophers, no doubt but we should find vour to manage them so as to retain their perpetual returns of those passions they so vigour, yet keep them under strict comartfully conceal from the public. I remena-mand; we must govern them rather like ber Machiavel observes, that every state should entertain a perpetual jealousy of its neighbours, that so it should never be unprovided when an emergency happens; in like manner should reason be perpetually on its guard against the passions, and never suffer them to carry on any design that may be destructive of its security: yet, at the same time, it must be careful that it do not so far break their strength as to render them contemptible, and consequently itself unguarded. The understanding, being of itself too slow and lazy to exert itself into action, it s necessary it should be put in motion by free subjects than slaves, lest, while we in- No. 409.] Thursday, June 19, 1712. -Museo contingere cuncta lepore. Lucr. Lib. i. 933. To grace each subject with enliv'ning wit. GRATIAN very often recommends fine taste as the utmost perfection of an accomplished man. thoughts, he ought to conclude, not (as is too usual among tasteless readers,) that the author wants those perfections which have been admired in him, but that he himself wants the faculty of discovering them. He should, in the second place, be very careful to observe, whether he tastes the distinguishing perfections, or, if I may be alAs this word arises very often in conver-lowed to call them so, the specific qualities sation, I shall endeavour to give some account of it, and to lay down rules how we may know whether we are possessed of it, and how we may acquire that fine taste of writing, which is so much talked of among the polite world. I Most languages make use of this metaphor, to express that faculty of the mind which distinguishes all the most concealed faults and nicest perfections in writing. We may be sure this metaphor would not have been so general in all tongues, had there not been a very great conformity between that mental taste, which is the subject of this paper, and that sensitive taste which gives us a relish of every different flavour that affects the palate. Accordingly we find there are as many degrees of refinement in the intellectual faculty as in the sense, which is marked out by this common denomination. I knew a person who possessed the one in so great a perfection, that, after having tasted ten different kinds of tea, he would distinguish, without seeing the colour of it, the particular sort which was offered him; and not only so, but any two sorts of them that were mixed together in an equal proportion; nay, he has carried the experiment so far, as, upon tasting the composition of three different sorts, to name the parcels from whence the three several ingredients were taken. A man of fine taste in writing will discern, after the same manner, not (only the general beauties and imperfections of an author, but discover the several ways of thinking and expressing himself, which diversify him from all other authors, with the several foreign infusions of thought and language, and the particular authors from whom they were borrowed. of the author whom he peruses; whether he is particularly pleased with Livy, for his manner of telling a story, with Sallust, for entering into those internal principles of action which arise from the characters and manners of the person he describes, or, with Tacitus, for displaying those outward motives of safety and interest which gave birth to the whole series of transactions which he relates. He may likewise consider how differently he is affected by the same thought which presents itself in a great writer, from what he is when he finds it delivered by a person of an ordinary genius; for there is as much difference in apprehending a thought clothed in Cicero's language, and that of a common author, as in seeing an object by the light of a taper, or by the light of the sun. It is very difficult to lay down rules for the acquirement of such a taste as that I am here speaking of. The faculty must in some degree be born with us; and it very often happens, that those who have other qualities in perfection are wholly void of this. One of the most eminent mathematicians of the age has assured me, that the greatest pleasure he took in reading Virgil was in examining Æneas's voyage by the map; as I question not but many a modern compiler of history would be delighted with little more in that divine author than the bare matters of fact. But, notwithstanding this faculty must in some measure be born with us, there are several methods for cultivating and improving it, and without which it will be very uncertain, and of little use to the person that possesses it. The most natural method for this purpose is to be conversant among the writings of the most polite authors. A man who has any relish for fine writing, either discovers new beauties, or receives stronger impressions, from the masterly strokes of a great author every time he peruses him; besides that he naturally wears himself into the same manner of speaking and thinking. After having thus far explained what is generally meant by a fine taste in writing, and shown the propriety of the metaphor which is used on this occasion, I think I may define it to be that faculty of the soul which discerns the beauties of an author with pleasure, and the imperfections with dislike.' If a man would know whether he Conversation with men of a polite genius is possessed of this faculty, I would have is another method for improving our natural him read over the celebrated works of an- taste. It is impossible for a man of the tiquity, which have stood the test of so greatest parts to consider any thing in its many different ages and countries, or those whole extent, and in all its variety of lights. works among the moderns which have the Every man besides those general observasanction of the politer part of our contem- tions which are to be made upon an author, poraries. If, upon the perusal of such writ- forms several reflections that are peculiar ings, he does not find himself delighted in to his own manner of thinking; so that conan extraordinary manner, or if, upon read-versation will naturally furnish us with ing the admired passages in such authors, hints which we did not attend to, and make he finds a coldness and indifference in his us enjoy other men's varts and reflections |