bard, do you think was the favourite? In troth, says he, not one of all the three. The behaviour of this old idol in Chaucer, puts me in mind of the beautiful Clarinda, one of the greatest idols among the moderns. She is worshipped once a week by candle-light, in the midst of a large congregation, generally called an assembly. Some of the gayest youths in the nation endeavour to plant themselves in her eye, while she sits in form with multitudes of tapers burning about her. To encourage the zeal of her idolaters, she bestows a mark of her favour upon every one of them, before they go out of her presence. She asks a question of one, tells a story to another, glances an ogle upon a third, takes a pinch of snuff from the fourth, lets her fan drop by accident to give the fifth an occasion of taking it up. In short, every one goes away satisfied with his success, and encouraged to renew his devotions on the same canonical hour that day sevennight. An idol may be undeified by many accidental causes. Marriage in particular is a kind of counterapotheosis, or a deification inverted.-When a man becomes familiar with his goddess, she quickly sinks into a woman. Old age is likewise a great decayer of your idol. The truth of it is, there is not a more unhappy being than a superannuated idol, especially when she has contracted such airs and behaviour as are only graceful when her worshippers are about her. Considering therefore that in these and many other cases the woman generally outlives the idol, I must return to the moral of this paper, and desire my fair readers to give a proper direction to their passion for being admired; in order to which, they must endeavour to make themselves the objects of a reasonable and lasting admiration. This is not VOL. VII. to be hoped for from beauty, or dress, or fashion, but from those inward ornaments which are not to be defaced by time or sickness, and which appear most amiable to those who are most acquainted with them. C. N° 74. FRIDAY, MAY 25, 1711. -Pendent opera interrupta VIRG. En. iv 88. The works unfinished and neglected lie. IN my last Monday's paper I gave some general instances of those beautiful strokes which please the reader in the old song of Chevy-Chase; I shall here, according to my promise, be more particular, and shew that the sentiments in that ballad are extremely natural and poetical, and full of the majestic simplicity which we admire in the greatest of the ancient poets: for which reason I shall quote several passages of it, in which the thought is altogether the same with what we meet in several passages of the Eneid; not that I would infer from thence, that the poet (whoever he was) proposed to himself any imitation of those passages, but that he was directed to them in general by the same kind of poetical genius, and by the same copyings after nature. Had this old song been filled with epigrammatical turns and points of wit, it might perhaps have pleased the wrong taste of some readers; but it would never have become the delight of the common people, nor have warmed the heart of Sir Philip Sidney like the sound of a trumpet; it is only nature that can have this effect, and please those tastes which are the most unprejudiced, or the most refined. I must however beg leave to dissent from so great an authority as that of Sir Philip Sidney, in the judgment which he has passed as to the rude style and evil apparel of this antiquated song; for there are several parts in it where not only the thought but the language is majestic, and the numbers sonorous; at least, the apparel is much more gorgeous than many of the poets made use of in queen Elizabeth's time, as the reader will see in several of the following quotations. What can be greater than either the thought or the expression in that stanza, To drive the deer with hound and horn Earl Percy took his way! The child may rue that is unborn The hunting of that day!' This way of considering the misfortunes which this battle would bring upon posterity, not only on those who were born immediately after the battle, and lost their fathers in it, but on those also who perished in future battles which took their rise from this quarrel of the two earls, is wonderfully beautiful, and conformable to the way of thinking among the ancient poets. Audiet pugnas vitio parentum Rara juventus. HOR. 1 Od. ii. 23. Posterity, thinn'd by their fathers' crimes, Shall read with grief, the story of their times. What can be more sounding and poetical, or resemble more the majestic simplicity of the ancients, than the following stanzas ? The stout Earl of Northumberland His pleasure in the Scottish woods With fifteen hundred bowmen bold, All chosen men of might, Who knew full well, in time of need, The hounds ran swiftly through the woods And with their cries the hills and dales -Vocat ingenti clamore Citharon Taygetique canes, domitrixque Epidaurus equorum : Citharon loudly calls me to my way; GEOKG. iii. 43. Thy hounds, Taygetus, open and pursue the prey: Fam'd for his hills, and for his horses breed: Lo, yonder doth Earl Douglas come, His men in armour bright; All men of pleasant Tividale, Fast by the river Tweed, &c. DRYDEN, The country of the Scotch warriors, described in these two last verses, has a fine romantic situation, and affords a couple of smooth words for verse. If the reader compares the foregoing six lines of the song with the following Latin verses, he will see how much they are written in the spirit of Virgil: Adversi campo apparent, hastasque reductis ÆN. xi. 605. vii. 682, 712. Advancing in a line, they couch their spears- With those who plow Saturnia's Gabine land: But to proceed: Earl Douglas on a milk-white steed, Rode foremost of the company, Whose armour shone like gold. DRYDEN. Turnus ut antevolans tardum præcesserat agmen, &c. Our English archers bent their bows, At the first flight of arrows sent, They clos'd full fast on ev'ry side, With that there came an arrow keen Out of an English bow, Which struck Earl Douglas to the heart, A deep and deadly blow. Æneas was wounded after the same manner by an unknown hand in the midst of a parley. Has inter voces, media inter talia verba, EN, xii. 318. |