Sidebilder
PDF
ePub

not make myself merry even with a piece of pasteboard that is invested with a public character; for which reason I have never glanced upon the late designed procession of his Holiness and his attendants, notwithstanding it might have afforded matter to many ludicrous speculations.' Among those advantages which the public may reap from this paper, it is not the least, that it draws men's minds" off from the bitterness of party, and furnishes them with subjects of discourse that may be treated without warmth or passion. This is said to have been the first design of those gentlemen who set on foot the Royal Society; and had then a very good effect, as it turned many of the greatest geniuses of that age to the disquisitions of natural knowledge, who, if they had engaged in politics, with the same parts and application, might have set their country in a flame. The air-pump, the barometer, the quadrant, and the like inventions, were thrown out to these busy spirits, as tubs and barrels are to a whale, that he may let the ship sail on without disturbance, while he diverts himself with those innocent amusements.2

b

I have been so very scrupulous in this particular, of not hurting any man's reputation, that I have forborn mentioning even

"This is Queen Elizabeth's birth-day, usually kept in this town by apprentices, &c.; but the Whigs designed a mighty procession by midnight, and had laid out a thousand pounds to dress up the pope, devil, cardinals, Sachverel, &c., and carry them with torches about and burn them. They did it by contribution. Garth gave five guineas.-But they were seized last night by order of the Secretary.-They had some very foolish and mischievous designs, &c., &c." V. Swift's Journal to Stella; Lett. 35.-G. 2 Johnson's Lives of English Poets, vol. ii. p. 364: 8vo. 1781.-C.

Men's minds. Men's for the genitive plural of man, is not allowable. We say, a man's mind, but we can only say, the minds of men, as Mr. Addison should have done here.-H.

b This looks as if the author had a political aim, even in this moral paper. But it is to be remembered, that the party in power could only profit by this expedient: and not the party in opposition, whose cause he favoured; which sets the purity of his intentions, and the merit of his work, in the clearest light.-H.

such authors as I could not name with honour. This I must confess to have been a piece of very great self-denial: for as the public relishes nothing better than the ridicule which turns upon a writer of any eminence, so there is nothing which a man that has but a very ordinary talent in ridicule may execute with greater ease. One might raise laughter for a quarter of a year together upon the works of a person who has published but a very few volumes. For which reason I am astonished, that those who have appeared against this paper have made so very little of it. The criticisms which I have hitherto published, have been made with an intention rather to discover beauties and excellencies in the writers of my own time, than to publish any of their faults and imperfections. In the mean while, I should take it for a very great favour from some of my underhand detractors, if they would break all measures with me so far, as to give me a pretence for examining their performances with an impartial eye; nor shall I look upon it as a breach of charity to criticise the author, so long as I keep clear of the person.

In the mean while, till I am provoked to such hostilities, I shall from time to time endeavour to do justice to those who have distinguished themselves in the politer parts of learning, and to point out such beauties in their works as may have escaped the observation of others.

As the first place among our English poets is due to Milton, and as I have drawn more quotations out of him than from any other, I shall enter into a regular criticism upon his Paradise Lost, which I shall publish every Saturday, 'till I have given my thoughts upon that poem. I shall not, however, presume to impose upon others my own particular judgment on this author, but only deliver it as my private opinion. Criticism is of a large extent, and every particular master in this art has his favourite passages in an author, which do not equally strike the best judges.

It will be sufficiont for me if I discover many beauties or imperfections which others have not attended to, and I should be very glad to see any of our eminent writers publish their discoveries on the same subject. In short, I would always be understood to write my papers of criticism in the spirit which Horace has expressed in those two famous lines;

-Si quid novisti rectius istis,

Candidus imperti; si non, his utere mecum.

1 Ep. vi. ult.

'If you have made any better remarks of your own, communicate them with candour; if not, make use of these I present you with.'1

C.

No. 265. THURSDAY, JANUARY 3.

Dixerit e multis aliquis, Quid virus in angues

Adjicis? et rabida tradis ovile lupa ?

OVID. DE ART. AM. iii. 7.

But some exclaim, What frenzy rules your mind?
Would you increase the craft of womankind?
Teach them new wiles and arts? as well you may
Instruct a snake to bite, or wolf to prey.

CONGREVE

ONE of the fathers, if I am rightly informed, has defined a woman to be ζῶον φιλοκόσμον, • An animal that delights in fnery.' I have already treated of the sex in two or three papers, conformably to this definition, and have in particular observed, that in all ages they have been more careful than the men to adorn that part of the head, which we generally call the outside.

This observation is so very notorious, that when in ordinary

'The note at the end of No. 261 applies to this also.-G.

discourse we say a man has a fine head, a long head, or a good head, we express ourselves metaphorically, and speak in relation to his understanding; whereas when we say of a woman, she has a fine, a long, or a good head, we speak only in relation to her commode.'

It is observed among birds, that nature has lavished all her ornaments upon the male, who very often appears in a most beautiful head dress; whether it be a crest, a comb, a tuft of feathers, or a natural little plume, erected like a kind of pinnacle on the very top of the head. As nature, on the contrary, has poured out her charms in the greatest abundance upon the female part of our species, so they are very assiduous in bestowing upon themselves the finest garnitures of art. The peacock, in all his pride, does not display half the colours that appear in the garments of a British lady, when she is dressed either for a ball or a birth-day.

But to return to our female heads. The ladies have been for some time in a kind of moulting season, with regard to that part of their dress, having cast great quantities of ribbon, lace, and cambric, and in some measure reduced that part of the human figure to the beautiful globular form which is natural to it. We have for a great while expected what kind of ornament would be substituted in the place of those antiquated commodes. But our female projectors were all the last summer so taken up with the improvement of their petticoats, that they had not time to attend to any thing else; but having at length sufficiently adorned their lower parts, they now begin to turn their thoughts upon the other

[ocr errors]

'V. No. 98-note, and Swift's Works, vol. xxiii. p. 97, cr. 8vo. ed. 1769.-C.

But, began this sentence, and therefore can have no business here. One of them should be omitted; if the last, a new sentence should begin at this place. But, I think, the first had better been struck out.-H.

extremity, as well remembering the old kitchen proverb, That if you light a fire at both ends, the middle will shift for itself. I am engaged in this speculation by a sight which I lately met with at the opera. As I was standing in the hinder part of the box, I took notice of a little cluster of women sitting together in

[ocr errors]

One of them was

the prettiest coloured hoods that I ever saw. blue, another yellow, and another philomot; the fourth was of a pink colour, and the fifth of a pale green. I looked with as much pleasure upon this little party-coloured assembly, as upon a bed of tulips, and did not know at first whether it might not be an embassy of Indian queens; but upon my going about into the pit, and taking them in front, I was immediately undeceived, and saw so much beauty in every face, that I found them all to be English. Such eyes and lips, cheeks and foreheads, could be the growth of no other country. The complexion of their faces hindered me from observing any further the colour of their hoods, though I could easily perceive by that unspeakable satisfaction which appeared in their looks, that their own thoughts were wholly taken up on those pretty ornaments they wore upon their heads.

I am informed that this fashion spreads daily, insomuch that the Whig and Tory ladies begin already to hang out different colours, and to shew their principles in their head-dress. Nay, if I may believe my friend Will Honeycomb, there is a certain. old coquette of his acquaintance, who intends to appear very suddenly in a rainbow hood, like the Iris in Dryden's Virgil, not questioning but that among such a variety of colours she shall have a charm for every heart.

My friend Will, who very much values himself upon his great insights into gallantry, tells me, that he can already guess at the humour a lady is in by her hood, as the courtiers of Morocco

[ocr errors]

Philomot, a faint, brownish yellow, like that of a dead leaf. "Feuille morte."-H.

« ForrigeFortsett »