Sidebilder
PDF
ePub

RALPHI ERSKINE.—THOMAS TICKELL.

luxury of the present age would make it a very expensive fashion. There is no question but the beaux would soon provide themselves with false ones of the lightest colours and the most immoderate lengths. A fair beard of the tapestry size, which Sir Roger seems to approve, could not come under twenty guineas. The famous golden beard of Esculapius would hardly be more valuable than one made in the extravagance of the fashion.

Besides, we are not certain that the ladies would not come into the mode when they take the air on horseback. They already appear in hats and feathers, coats and periwigs and I see no reason why we may not suppose that they would have their ridingbeards on the same occasion. I may give the moral of this discourse in another paper. X. The Spectator, No. 331, Thursday, March 20, 1711-12.

RALPH ERSKINE,

born 1685, minister at Dunfermline, 1711, joined the Seceders, 1734, died 1752, published a number of Sermons, Theological Treatises, Scripture Songs, Gospel Songs, etc., 1738-52, and several of his works were published after his death. Works: Glasg., 1764-66, 2 vols. fol.; Glasg., 1777, 10 vols. 8vo; Lond., 1821, 10 vols. 8vo; Gospel Sonnets, new edit., 1844, 24mo; Sermons of Ralph and Ebenezer Erskine, Selected, with a Preface, by the Rev. Thomas Bradbury, 1738, 3 vols.; 1757, 3 vols. 8vo; Sermons by Rev. Ralph Erskine, A.M., Selected from the British Editions of 1777 and 1821; with a Preface by the Rev. Stephen H. Tyng, D.D., Leighton Publications, Phila., 1863, 2 vols. 8vo.

"The works of Ralph Erskine are highly evangelical; the productions of minds very strongly attached to truth, devotional and zealous."-WILLIAMS's Christian Preacher.

"The two Erskines Cecil calls the best Scotch divines, but speaks of them as dry and laboured. He did not at this moment recollect Leighton, Rutherford, Maclaurin, etc."-BICKERSTETH'S Christian Student.

THE MERCY OF GOD.

There are some merciful intimations and communications that they sometimes get to make them sing of mercy. Sometimes he intimates his love, saying, I have loved thee with an everlasting love. Sometimes he intimates pardon, saying, I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions, and will remember thy sins no more: Sometimes he intimates acceptance, saying, O man, greatly

155

beloved; and the intimation sets them a wondering and praising: Sometimes he communicates his mind and his secrets to them, The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him, and he will shew unto them his covenant: Sometimes the secrets of his providence: he will tell them what he hath a mind to do with themselves, and what he hath a mind to do with such a friend, and such a child, and such a land or church : Shall I hide from Abraham that which I do? Sometimes he communicates himself to them, saying I am thy God, I am thy shield; Fear not, for I am with thee: Sometimes such intimations and communications are given as make all their bones to say, Who is like unto thee?

yet,

There are merciful visits after desertion, and after backsliding, that they sometimes get, to make them sing of mercy, when they have been heaping up mountains of sin and provocation betwixt them and him after all, he hath come and given them oc casion to say, "The voice of my beloved! behold he cometh, leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills," Cant. ii. 8. The voice of my Beloved! O an exceeding sweet and powerful voice! It had a sound of heaven; I thought the mountains would have kept him away, but I heard the sound of his feet upon the mountains, that made my heart warm toward him again; I had departed from him by an evil heart of unbelief, and I thought he would never return; but, O he restored my soul, and helped me anew to wrestle with him: We found him in Bethel, and there he spake with us.

There are merciful accomplishments of promises that they sometimes get, to make them sing of mercy. The Lord sometimes lets in a promise with life and power, and gives them a word on which he causes them to hope. It may be he will give them a promise their children; such as that, I will be thy for themselves, and it may be a promise for God, and the God of thy seed; and sometimes a promise for the church; such as that, Upon all the glory there shall be a defence; and sometimes he gives a wonderful accomplishment of promises, like that of Hezekiah: What shall I say? he hath both spoken, and himself hath done it: He hath come to my soul, and made me see that he is as good as his word; and that faithfulness is the girdle of his loins.

Sermon XXII. The Militant's Song.

THOMAS TICKELL,

born 1686, Fellow of Queen's College, Oxford, 1710, was introduced to literary circles

and public employment by Addison, who in 1717, when he became Secretary of State, made Tickell Under-Secretary; was ap pointed Secretary to the Lords Justices of Ireland in 1724, and held this post until his death, 1740. He published The First Book of Homer's Iliad, translated into English Verse by Thomas Tickell, Esq., Lond., 1715, 4to (supposed by Pope to be really translated by Addison for the purpose of injuring his translation), contributed papers to The Spectator and The Guardian, and published a number of poems, of which his Elegy to Addison, prefixed to his edition of that poet's Works, Lond., 1721, 4 vols. 4to, is the best known.

[blocks in formation]

PLEASURES OF SPRING-MUSIC OF BIRDS. Men of my age receive a greater pleasure from fine weather than from any other sensual enjoyment of life. In spite of the auxiliary bottle, or any artificial heat, we are apt to droop under a gloomy sky; and taste no luxury like a blue firmament, and sunshine. I have often, in a splenetic fit, wished myself a dormouse during the winter; and I never see one of those snug animals, wrapt up close in his fur, and compactly happy in himself, but I contemplate him with envy beneath the dignity of a philosopher. If the art of flying were brought to perfection, the use that I should make of it would be to attend the sun round the world, and pursue the spring through every sign of the Zodiac. His love of warmth makes my heart glad at the return of the spring. How amazing is the change in the face of nature, when the earth from being bound with frost, or covered with snow, begins to put forth her plants and flowers, to be clothed with green, diversified with ten thousand various dyes; and to exhale such fresh and charming odours as fill every living creature with delight!

Full of thoughts like these, I make it a rule to lose as little as I can of that blessed season; and accordingly rise with the sun, and wander through the fields, throw my

self on the banks of little rivulets, or lose myself in the woods. I spent a day or two this spring at a country gentleman's seat, where I feasted my imagination every morning with the most luxurious prospect I ever saw. I usually took my stand by the wall of an old castle built upon a high hill. A noble river ran at the foot of it, which, after being broken by a heap of misshapen stones, glided away in a clear stream, and wandering through two woods on each side of it in many windings, shone here and there at a great distance through the trees. I could trace the mazes for some miles, until my eye was led through two ridges of hills, and terminated by a vast mountain in another county.

I hope the reader will pardon me for taking his eye from our present subject of the spring by this landscape, since it is at this time of the year only that prospects excel in beauty. But if the eye is delighted, the ear hath likewise its proper entertainment. The music of the birds at this time of the year hath something in it so wildly

sweet as makes me less relish the most elaborate compositions of Italy. . . . The sight that gave me the most satisfaction was a flight of young birds, under the conduct of the father, and indulgent directions and assistance of the dam. I took particular notice of a beau goldfinch, who was picking his plumes, pruning his wings, and with great diligence adjusting all his gaudy furniture. When he had equipped himself with great trimness and nicety, he stretched his painted neck, which seemed to brighten with new glowings, and strained his throat into many wild notes and natural melody. He then flew about the nest in several circles and windings, and invited his wife and children into open air. It was very entertaining to see the trembling and the fluttering little strangers at their first appearance in the world, and the different care of the male and female parent, as suitable to their several sexes. I could not take my eye quickly from so entertaining an object; nor could I help wishing that creatures of a superior rank would so manifest their mutual affection, and so cheerfully concur in providing for their offspring.

The Guardian, No. 125, Tuesday, August 4, 1713.

ALEXANDER POPE,

born in London, 1688. died at Twickenham, 1744, famous as a poet, has also claims to be reckoned among prose writers from his Prefaces to his works, and his letters: see Pope's Literary Correspondence for Thirty

ALEXANDER POPE.

Years, from 1704 to 1734, Lond., 1735-37, 5 vols. small 8vo, and other volumes enumerated in Bohn's Lowndes's Bibliographer's Manual, vol. iv., 1916, and especially Rev. Mr. Elwin's edition of Pope's Works, now (1879) in course of publication.

1780.

"Pope seems to have thought that unless a sentence was well turned, and every period pointed with some conceit, it was not worth the carriage. Accordingly, he is to me, except in a very few instances, the most disagreeable maker of epistles that I ever met with."-COWPER TO UNWIN, June 8, "It is a mercy to have no character to maintain. Your predecessor, Mr. Pope, laboured his letters as much as the Essay on Man;' and as they were written to every body, they do not look as if they had been written to any body."-HORACE WALPOLE TO REV. WM. MASON, Mar. 13, 1777: Letters, edit. 1861, vi. 422.

[ocr errors]

Pope's letters and prose writings neither take away from, nor add to, his poetical reputation. There is occasionally a littleness of manner and an unnecessary degree of caution. He appears anxious to say a good thing in every word as well as every sentence. They, however, give a very favourable idea of his moral character in all re

spects; and his letters to Atterbury in disgrace and exile do equal honour to both."-HAZLITT: Lects, on the English Puets, Lect. IV.

ON HOMER AND VIRGIL.

The beauty of his [IIomer's] numbers is allowed by the critics to be copied but faintly by Virgil himself, though they are so just as to ascribe it to the nature of the Latin tongue: indeed, the Greek has some advantages, both from the natural sound of its words, and the turn and cadence of its verse, which agree with the genius of no other language. Virgil was very sensible of this, and used the utmost diligence in working up a more intractable language to whatsoever graces it was capable of; and in particular never failed to bring the sound of his line to a beautiful agreement with its sense. If the Grecian poet has not been so frequently celebrated on this account as the Roman, the only reason is, that fewer critics have understood one language than the other. Dionysius of Halicarnassus has pointed out many of our author's beauties in this kind, in his treatise of the Composition of Words. It suffices at present to observe of his numbers, that they flow with so much ease as to make one imagine Homer had no other care than to transcribe as fast as the Muses dictated; and at the same time with so much force and aspiring vigour that they awaken and raise us like the sound of a trumpet. They roll along as a plentiful river, always in motion, and always full; while we are borne away by a tide of verse, the most rapid and yet the most smooth imaginable.

Thus, on whatever side we contemplate

157

Homer, what principally strikes us is his Invention. It is that which forms the character of each part of his work; and accordingly we find it to have made his fable more extensive and copious than any other, his manners more lively and strongly marked, his speeches more affecting and transported, his sentiments more warm and sublime, his images and descriptions more full and animated, his expression more raised and daring, and his numbers more rapid and various. I hope, in what has been said of Virgil, with regard to any of these heads, I have in no way derogated from his character. Nothing is more absurd and endless than the common method of comparing eminent writers by an opposition of particular passages in them, and forming a judgment from thence of their merit upon the whole. We ought to have a certain knowledge of the principal character and distinguishing excellence of each: it is in that we are to consider him, and in proportion to his degree in that we are to admire him. No author or man ever excelled all the world in more than one faculty; and as Homer has done this in Invention, Virgil has in Judgment. Not that we are to think Homer wanted Judgment, because Virgil has it in a more eminent degree, or that Virgil wanted Invention, because Homer possessed a larger share of it: each of these great authors had more of both than perhaps any man besides, and are only said to have less in comparison with one another. Homer was the greater genius, Virgil the better artist. In one we most admire the man, in the other the work: Homer hurries and transports us with a commanding impetuosity, Virgil leads us with an attractive majesty: Homer scatters with a generous profusion, Virgil bestows with a careful magnificence: Homer, like the Nile, pours out his riches with a boundless overflow, Virgil, like a river in its banks, with a gentle and constant stream. When we behold their battles, methinks the two poets resemble the heroes they celebrate: Homer, boundless and irresistible as Achilles, bears all before him, and shines more and more as the tumult increases; Virgil, calmly daring like Eneas, appears undisturbed in the midst of the action; disposes all about him, and conquers with tranquillity. And when we look upon their machines, Iomer seems like his own Jupiter in his terrors, shaking Olympus, scattering the lightnings, and firing the heavens; Virgil, like the same power in his benevolence, counselling with the gods, laying plans for empires, and regularly or dering his whole creation.

Preface to the Translation of Homer.

POPE TO BISHOP ATTERBURY, IN THE TOWER of the latter, will infallibly influence men

BEFORE HIS EXILE.

May 17, 1723.

Once more I write to you, as I promised, and this once, I fear, will be the last! The curtain will soon be drawn between my friend and me, and nothing left but to wish you a long good-night. May you enjoy a state of repose in this life not unlike that sleep of

the soul which some have believed is to suc

whose thoughts and whose hearts are enlarged, and cause them to prefer the whole to any part of mankind, especially to so small a part as one's single self.

Believe me, my lord, I look upon you as a spirit entered into another life, as one just upon the edge of immortality, where the passions and affections must be much more exalted, and where you ought to despise all little views and all mean retrospects. Nothing is worth your looking back; and, therefore, look forward, and make (as you can) the world look after you. But take care that it be not with pity, but with esteem and admiration.

I am, with the greatest sincerity and passion for your fame as well as happiness, your, &c.

SAMUEL RICHARDSON,

"The inventor of the English novel,” the author of Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded, Lond., 1741, 2 vols. 12mo, Clarissa Harlowe, Lond., 1751, 7 vols. 8vo, and the History of Sir Charles Grandison, Lond., 1754, 6 vols. 8vo, was born in Derbyshire, 1689, commenced master printer in Fleet Street, 1719, and died, after a prosperous career, in 1761.

ceed it, where we lie utterly forgetful of that world from which we are gone, and ripening for that to which we are to go. If you retain any memory of the past, let it only image to you what has pleased you best; sometimes present a dream of an absent friend, or bring you back an agreeable conversation. But, upon the whole, I hope you will think less of the time past than of the future, as the former has been less kind to you than the latter infallibly will be. Do not envy the world your studies; they will tend to the benefit of men against whom you can have no complaint; I mean of all posterity and perhaps at your time of life nothing else is worth your care. What is every year of a wise man's life but a censure or critic on the past? Those whose date is the shortest live long enough to laugh at one-half of it; the boy despises the infant, the man the boy, the philosopher both, and the Christian all. You may now "Richardson, with the mere advantages of nabegin to think your manhood was too much ture, improved by a very moderate progress in a puerility, and you will never suffer your education, struck out at once, and of his own acage to be but a second infancy. The toys cord, into a new province of writing, in which he and baubles of your childhood are hardly succeeded to admiration; and, what is more renow more below you than those toys of our markable, he not only began, but finished, the plan on which he set out, leaving no room for any one riper and our declining years, the drums after him to render it more complete; and not one and rattles of ambition, and the dirt and of the various writers that have ever since attempted bubbles of avarice. At this time, when you to imitate him has in any respect or at all apare cut off from a little society, and made a proached near him. This kind of romance is citizen of the world at large, you should peculiarly his own: and I consider him as a truly bend your talents, not to serve a party or a great natural genius; as great and super-eminent few, but all mankind. Your genius should in his way as Shakspeare and Milton were in mount above that mist in which its partici- theirs."-DR. YOUNG, Author of the Night Thoughts. "The great excellence of Richardson's novels pation and neighbourhood with earth long consists, we think, in the unparalleled minuteness involved it: to shine abroad, and to heaven, and copiousness of his descriptions, and in the ought to be the business and the glory of pains he takes to make us thoroughly acquainted your present situation. Remember it was with every particular in the character and situaat such a time that the greatest lights of tion of the personages with whom we are occupied. antiquity dazzled and blazed the most. in.. In this art Richardson is undoubtedly withtheir retreat, in their exile, or in their death. But why do I talk of dazzling or blazing? -it was then that they did good, that they gave light, and that they became guides to

mankind.

Those aims alone are worthy of spirits truly great, and such I therefore hope will be yours. Resentment, indeed, may remain, perhaps cannot be quite extinguished in the noblest minds; but revenge never will harbour there. Higher principles than those of the first, and better principles than those

competitor, we believe, in the whole history of out an equal, and, if we except De Foe, without a literature."-LORD JEFFREY: Edin. Rev., v. 43, and in his Contrib. to Edin. Rev., edit. 1853, 151.

ADVICE TO UNMARRIED LADIES.

The reader is indebted for this day's entertainment to an author from whom the age has received greater favours, who has enlarged the knowledge of human nature, and taught the passions to move at the command of virtue (Dr. Johnson).

SAMUEL RICHARDSON.

TO THE RAMBLER.

15)

ful perturbations, and hopes, and a few lovers' fears, fill up the tedious space, till an

not made herself cheap at public places.

The time of interview arrives. She is modestly reserved; he is not confident. He declares his passion: the consciousness of her own worth, and his application to her parents, take from her any doubt of his sincerity and she owns herself obliged to him for his good opinion. The inquiries of her friends into his character have taught her that his good opinion deserves to be valued.

:

SIR, When the Spectator was first pub-interview is granted: for the young lady had lished in single papers, it gave me so much pleasure that it is one of the favourite amusements of my age to recollect it; and when I reflect on the foibles of those times, as described in that useful work, and compare them with the vices now reigning among us, I cannot but wish that you would oftener take cognizance of the manners of the better half of the human species, that if your precepts and observations be carried down to posterity, the Spectators may shew to the rising generation what were the fashionable follies of their grandmothers, the Rambler of their mothers, and that from both they may draw instruction and warning.

...

In the time of the Spectator, excepting sometimes an appearance in the ring, sometimes at a good and chosen play, sometimes on a visit at the house of a grave relation, the young ladies contented themselves to be found employed in domestic duties; for then routs, drums, balls, assemblies, and such like markets for women, were not known.

Modesty and diffidence, gentleness and meekness, were looked upon as the appropriate virtues and characteristic graces of the sex. And if a forward spirit pushed itself into notice, it was exposed in print as it deserved.

The churches were almost the only places where single women were to be seen by strangers. Men went thither expecting to see them, and perhaps too much for that only purpose.

Every inquiry he made into the lady's domestic excellence, which, when a wife is to be chosen, will surely not be neglected, confirmed him in his choice. He opens his heart to a common friend, and honestly discovers the state of his fortune. His friend applies to those of the young lady, whose parents, if they approve his proposals, close them to their daughter.

She, perhaps, is not an absolute stranger to the passion of the young gentleman. His eyes, his assiduities, his constant attendance at a church whither, till of late, he used seldom to come, and a thousand little observances that he paid her, had very probably first forced her to regard, and then inclined

her to favour him.

She tacitly allows of his future visits; he renews them; the regard of each for the other is confirmed; and when he presses for the favour of her hand, he receives a declaration of an entire acquiescence with her duty, and a modest acknowledgment of esteem for him.

He applies to her parents, therefore, for a near day and thinks himself under obligation to them for the cheerful and affectionate manner in which they receive his agreeable application.

With this prospect of future happiness the marriage is celebrated. Gratulations pour in from every quarter. Parents and relations on both sides, brought acquainted in the course of the courtship, can receive the happy couple with countenances illumined, and joyful hearts.

The brothers, the sisters, the friends of one family are the brothers, the sisters, the friends of the other. Their two families, thus made one, are the world to the young couple.

Their home is the place of their principal delight, nor do they ever occasionally quit it but they find the pleasure of returning to it augmented in proportion to the time of their absence from it."

Ah, Mr. Rambler! forgive the talkativedis-ness of an old man! When I courted and married my Lætitia, then a blooming beauty, every thing passed just so! But how is the case now? The ladies, maidens, wives, and widows are engrossed by places of open resort and general entertainment, which fill every quarter of the metropolis, and being constantly frequented, make home irksome. Breakfasting-places, dining-places; routs, drums, concerts, balls, plays, operas, masquerades for the evening, and even for all night; and, lately, public sales of the goods of broken housekeepers, which the general dissoluteness of manners has contributed to make very frequent, come in as another seasonable relief to those modern time

That a young lady should be in love, and the love of the young gentleman undeclared, is a heterodoxy which prudence, and even policy, must not allow. But thus applied to she is all resignation to her parents, Charming resignation, which inclination opposes

not.

Her relations applaud her for her duty; friends meet; points are adjusted; delight

killers. . .

Two thousand pounds in the last age, with a domestic wife, would go farther than ten

« ForrigeFortsett »