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N° CXXVI. SATURDAY, JANUARY 19, 1754.

T

STERILES NEC LEGIT ARENAS

UT CANERET PAUCIS, MERSITQUE HOC PULVERE VERUM.

LUCAN.

CANST THOU BELIEVE THE VAST ETERNAL MIND
WAS E'ER TO SYRTS AND LYBIAN SANDS CONFIN'D?
THAT HE WOULD CHUSE THIS WASTE, THIS BARREN GROUND,
TO TEACH THE THIN INHABITANTS AROUND,

AND LEAVE HIS TRUTH IN WILDS AND DESARTS DROWN'D?

HERE has always prevailed among that part of mankind that addict their minds to fpeculation, a propenfity to talk much of the delights of retirement; and fome of the most pleafing compofitions produced in every age contain defcriptions of the peace and happiness of a country life.

I know not whether thofe who thus ambitiously repeat the praifes of folitude, have always confidered, how much they depreciate mankind by declaring, that whatever is excellent or defirable is to be obtained by departing from them; that the affiftance which we may derive from one another, is not equivalent to the evils which we have to fear; that the kindnefs of a few is overbalanced by the malice of many; and that the protection of fociety is too dearly purchafed, by encountering it's dangers and enduring it's oppreffions.

Thele fpecious reprefentations of folitary happiness, however opprobrious to human nature, have fo far fpread their influence over the world, that almost every man delights his imagination with the hopes of obtaining fome time an opportunity of retreat. Many, indeed, who enjoy retreat only in imagination, content themselves with believing, that another year will transport them to rural tranquility, and die while they talk of doing what, if they had lived longer, they would never have done. But many likewife there are, either of greater refolution or more credulity, who in carneft try the fate which they have been taught to think thus fecure from cares and dan gers; and retire to privacy, either that they may impove their happinefs, inercafe their knowledge, or exalt their.

virtue.

The greater part of the admirers of folitude, as of all other claffes of mankind, have no higher or remoter view, than the prefent gratification of their

paffions. Of thefe fome, haughty and impetuous, fly from fociety only because they cannot bear to repay to others the regard which themselves exact; and think no state of life eligible, Eut that which places them out of the reach of cenfure or controul, and affords them opportunities of living in a perpetual compliance with their own inclinations, without the neceffity of regulating their actions by any other man's convenience or opinion.

There are others of minds more delicate and tender, eafily offended by every deviation from rectitude, foon difgutted by ignorance or impertinence, and always expecting from the convertation of mankind more elegance, purity, and truth, than the mingled mats of life will easily afford.

Such men are in hafte to retie from groffness, falfhood, and brutality; and hope to find in private habitations at least a negative felicity, an exemption from the fhocks and perturbations with which public scenes are continually diftrefling them.

To neither of thefe votaries will folitude afford that content, which the has been taught fo lavishly to promife. The man of arrogance will quickly discover, that by elcaping from his opponents he has loft his flatterers, that greatness is nothing where it is not feen, and power nothing where it cannot be felt: and he whofe faculties are employed in too clofe an obfervation of failings and defects, will find his condition very little mended by transferring his attention from others to himself; he will probably foon come back in queft of new objects, and be glad to keep his captioufnefs employed on any character rather than his own.

Others are feduced into folitude merely by the authority of great names, and expect to find thofe charms in tranquillity which have allured statesmen and conquerors to the shades: these like

wife are apt to wonder at their difappointment, for want of confidering, that thofe whom they afpire to imitate carried with them to their country feats minds full fraught with fubjects of reflection, the confcioufnefs of great merit, the memory of illuftrious actions, the knowledge of important events, and the feeds of mighty defigns to be ripened by future meditation. Solitude was to fuch men a release from fatigue, and an opportunity of ufefulnefs. But what can retirement confer upon him who, having done nothing, can receive no fupport from his own importance, who having known nothing, can find no entertainment in reviewing the past; and who, intending nothing, can form no hopes from profpects of the future: he can, furely, take no wifer courfe than that of losing himself again in the crowd, and filling the vacuities of his mind with the news of the day.

Others confider folitude as the parent of philofophy, and retire in expectation of greater intimacies with fcience, as Numa repaired to the groves when he conferred with Egeria. These men have not always reason to repent. Some ftudies require a continued profecution of the fame train of thought, fuch as is too often interrupted by the petty avocations of common life: fometimes, likewife, it is neceffary, that a multiplicity of objects be at once prefent to the mind; and every thing, therefore, must be kept at a distance, which may perplex the memory, or diffipate the attention.

But though learning may be conferred by folitude, it's application must be attained by general converse. He has learned to no purpofe, that is not able to teach; and he will always teach unfuccefsfully, who cannot recommend his fentiments by his diction or addrefs.

Even the acquifition of knowledge is often much facilitated by the advantages of fociety: he that never compares his notions with thofe of others, readily acquiefces in his first thoughts, and very feldom difcovers the objections which may be raised againft his opinions; he, therefore, often thinks himself in poffeffion of truth, when he is only fond ling an error long fince exploded. He that has neither companions nor rivals in his ftudies, will always applaud his own progrefs, and think highly of his performances, because he knows not that others have equalled or excelled

him. And I am afraid it may be added, that the ftudent who withdraws himfeif from the world, will foon feel that ardour extinguished which praise or emulation had enkindled, and take the advantage of fecrecy to fleep, rather than to labour.

There remains vet another fet of reclufes, whofe intention entitles then to higher refpect, and whofe motives deferve a more ferious confideration. Thefe retire from the world, not merely to balk in eafe or gratify curiofity; but that being difengaged from common cares, they may employ more time in the duties of religion; that they may regulate their actions with ftricter vigilance, and purify their thoughts by more frequent meditation.

To men thus elevated above the mifts of mortality, I am far from prefuming myfelf qualified to give directions. On him that appears to país through things temporary, with no other care than not to lofe finally the things eternal, I look with fuch veneration as inclines me to approve his conduct in the whole, without a minute examination of it's parts; yet I could never forbear to wifh, that while vice is every day multiplying fe ducements, and stalking forth with more hardened effrontery, virtue would not withdraw the influence of her prefence, or forbear to affert her natural dignity by open and undaunted perfeverance in the right. Piety practifed in folitude, like the flower that blooms in the defart, may give it's fragrance to the winds of heaven, and delight thofe unbodied fpirits that furvey the works of GOD and the actions of men; but it bestows no affiftance upon earthly beings, and however free from taints of impurity, yet wants the facred splendor of beneficence.

Our MAKER, who, though he gave us fuch varieties of temper and fuch difference of powers, yet defigned us all for happiness, undoubtedly intended, that we should obtain that happiness by different means. Some are unable to refift the temptations of importunity, or the impetuofity of their own paffions incited by the force of prefent temptations: of thefe it is undoubtedly the duty to fly from enemies which they cannot conquer, and to cultivate, in the calm of folitude, that virtue which is too tender to endure the tempefts of public life. But there are others, whofe paffions grow more ftrong and irregular in pri-

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vacy; and who cannot maintain an uniform tenor of virtue, but by exposing their manners to the public eye, and affifting the admonitions of confcience with the fear of infamy: for fuch it is dangerous to exclude all witneffes of their conduct, till they have formed ftrong habits of virtue, and weakened their pations by frequent victories. But there is a higher order of men fo infpired

with ardour, and fo fortified with refolution, that the world paffes before them without influence or regard: theie ought to confider themfelves as appointed the guardians of mankind; they are placed in an evil world, to exhibit public examples of good life; and may be faid, when they withdraw to folitude, to defert the station which Providence aligned them. T.

N° CXXVII. TUESDAY, JANUARY 22, 1754

-VETERES ITA MIRATUR, LAUDATQUE!

THE WITS OF OLD HE PRAISES AND ADMIRES.

Tis very remarkable,' fays Addi

Hor.

that we can venture to oppofe to Efchy.

IT we fall lus, Sophocles, and Euripides. The

'fhort at prefent of the ancients in po

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etry, painting, oratory, hiftory, architecture, and all the noble arts and • fciences which depend more upon genius than experience; we exceed them as much in doggerel, humour, bur• lefque, and all the trivial arts of ridi

cule. As this fine observation ftands at prefent only in the form of a general affertion, it deferves, I think, to be examined by a deduction of particulars, and confirmed by an allegation of examples, which may furnish an agreeable entertainment to thofe who have ability and inclination to remark the revolutions of human wit.

That Tallo, Ariofto, and Camoens, the three most celebrated of modern Epic Poets, are infinitely excelled in propriety of defign, of fentiment and Ityle, by Horace and Virgil, it would be ferious trifling to attempt to prove: but Milton, perhaps, will not fo eafily refign his claim to equality, if not to fuperiority. Let it, however, be remembered, that if Milton be enabled to dispute the prize with the great champions of antiquity, it is entirely owing to the fublime conceptions he has copied from the Book of GOD. Thefe, therefore, muft be taken away, before we begin to make a juft eftimate of his genius; and from what remains, it cannot, I prefume, be faid, with candour and impartiality, that he has excelled Homer, in the sublimity and variety of his thoughts, or the strength and majesty of his diction.

Shakelpeare, Corneille, and Racine, are the only modern writers of Tragedy,

first is an author fo uncommon and eccentric, that we can fcarcely try him by dramatic rules. In ftrokes of nature and character, he yields not to the Greeks in all other circumstances that conftitute the excellence of the drama, he is vaftly inferior. Of the three moderns, the most faultlefs is the tender and exact Racine: but he was ever ready to acknowledge, that his capital beauties were borrowed from his favourite Euripides; which, indeed, cannot escape the obfervation of those who read with attention his Phædra and Andromache. The pompous and truly Roman fentiments of Corneille are chiefly drawn from Lucan and Tacitus; the former of whom, by a ftrange pervertion of tale, he is known to have preferred to Virgil. His diction is not fo pure and mellifluous, his characters not fo various and juft, nor his plots fo regular, so intereiting and fimple, as thofe of his pathetic rival. It is by this fimplicity of fable alone, when every single act, and fcene, and speech, and fentiment and word, concur to accelerate the intended event, that the Greek tragedies kept the attention of the audience immoveably fixed upon one principal object, which must be neceffarily leffened, and the ends of the drama defeated, by the mazes and intricacies of modern plots.

The affertion of Addison with respect to the first particular, regarding the higher kinds of poetry, will remain unqueftionably true, till nature in fome diftant age, for in the prefent enervated with luxury the feems incapable of fuch

an

an effort, fhall produce fome tranfcendent genius, of power to eclipfe the Iliad and the Edipus.

The fuperiority of the ancient artists in Painting, is not perhaps fo clearly manifeft. They were ignorant, it will be faid, of light, of fhade, and perfpective; and they had not the ufe of el colours, which are happily calculated to blend and unite without harshness and difcordance, to give a boldness and relief to the figures, and to form thofe middle Teints which render every wellwrought piece a clofer refemblance of nature. Judges of the trueft tafte do, however, place the merit of colouring far below that of justness of defign, and face of expreffion. In thefe two highest and most important excellencies the ancient painters were eminently skilled, if we trust the teftimonies of Pliny, Quintilian, and Lucian; and to credit them we are obliged, if we would form to ourfelves any idea of these artists at all; for there is not one Grecian picture remaining: and the Romans, fome few of whole works have defcended to this age, could never boaft of a Parrhafius or Apelies, a Zeuxis, Timanthes, or Protogenes, of whofe performances the two accomplished critics above-mentioned fpeak in terms of rapture and admiration. The ftatues that have escaped the ravages of time, as the Hercules and Laocoon for inftance, are still a ftronger demonftration of the power of the Grecian artifts in expreffing the paffions; for what was executed in marble, we have prefumptive evidence to think, might alfo have been executed in colours. Carlo Marat, the last valuable painter of Italy, after copying the head of the Venus in the Medicean colle&tion three hundred times, generously confeffed, that he could not arrive at half the grace and perfection of his model. But to fpeak my opinion freely on a very difputable point, I must own, that if the moderns approach the ancients in any of the arts here in queftion, they approach them nearest in the Art of Painting. The human mind can with difficulty conceive any thing more exalted, than the Laft Judgment of Michael Angelo, and the Transfiguration of Raphael. What can be more animated than Raphael's Paul preaching at Athens? What more tender and delicate than Mary holding the child Jefus, in his famous Holy Family? What more graceful than

the Aurora of Guido? What more deeply moving than the Maffacre of the Innocents, by Le Brun?

But no modern Orator can dare to enter the lifts with Demofthenes and Tully. We have difcourfes, indeed, that may be admired for their perfpicuity, purity, and elegance; but can produce none that abound in a fublime which whirls away the auditor like a mighty torrent, and pierces the inmost recesses of his heart like a flash of lightning; which irrefiftibly and inftantaneously convinces, without leaving him leifure to weigh the motives of conviction. The fermons of Bourdaloue, the funeral orations of Boffuet, particularly that on the death of Henrietta, and the pleadings of Peliffon for his difgraced patron Fouquet, are the only pieces of eloquence I can recollect, that bear any refemblance to the Greek or Roman orator; for in England we have been particularly unfortunate in our attempts to be eloquent, whether in parliament, in the pulpit, or at the bar. If it be urged, that the nature of modern politics and laws excludes the pathetic and the fublime, and con- . fines the fpeaker to a cold argumenta tive method, and a dull detail of proof and dry matters of fact; yet, furely, the religion of the moderns abounds in topics fo incomparably noble and exalted, as might kindle the flames of genuine oratory in the moft frigid and barren genius: much more might this fuccefs be reafonably expected from fuch geniuses as Britain can enumerate; yet no piece of this fort, worthy applause or notice, has ever yet appeared.

The few, even among profeffed fcholars, that are able to read the ancient Hiftorians in their inimitable originals, are startled at the paradox of Bolingbroke, who boldly prefers Guicciardini to Thucydides; that is, the most verbofe and tedious to the most comprehenfive and concife of writers, and a collector of facts to one who was himself an eye-witness and a principal actor in the important ftory he relates. And, indeed, it may well be prefumed, that the ancient hiftories exceed the modern from this fingle confideration, that the latter are commonly compiled by reclufe fcholars, unpractifed in bufinefs, war, and poli tics; whilft the former are many "of them written by minifters, commanders, and princes themfelves. We have, indeed, a few flimiy memoirs, particularly

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was doing; but was told at lait, that he was writing deferiptions of mankind, who when he had defcribed them would live juft as they had lived before; that he fat up whole nights to change a fentence, because the found of a letter was too often repeated; that he was often difquieted with doubts, about the propriety of a word which every body understood; that he would hefitate between two expreffions equally proper, till he could not fix his choice but by confulting his friends; that he will run from one end of Paris to the other, for an opportunity of reading a period to a nice ear; that if a fingle line is heard with coldnefs and inattention, he returns home dejeЯted and difconfolate; and that by all this care and labour, he hopes only to make a little book, which at laft will teach no ufeful art, and which none who has it not will perceive himfelf to want. I have often wondered for what end fuch a being as this was fent into the world; and fhould be glad to fee thofe who live thus foolishly, feized by an order of the government, and obliged to labour at fome ufeful occupation.'

Thus, by a partial and imperfect reprefentation, may every thing be made equally ridiculous. He that gazed with contempt on human beings rubbing ftones together, might have prolonged the fame amusement by walking through the city, and feeing others with looks of importance heaping one brick upon another; or by rambling into the country, where he might obferve other creatures of the fame kind driving pieces of fharp iron into the clay, or, in the language of men lefs enlightened, ploughing the field.

fecured from the inclemercy of the feafons, and fortified against the ravages of hoftility; and the ploughman is changing the face of nature, diffufing plenty and happiness over kingdoms, and compelling the earth to give food to her inhabitants.

Greatnefs and littleness are terms merely comparative; and we err in our eftimation of things, becaufe we measure them by fome wrong ftandard. The trifier propofes to himself only to equal or excel fome other trifler, and is happy or miferable as he fucceeds or nilcarries: the man of fedentary defire and unactive ambition fits comparing his power with his wifhes; and makes his inability to perform things impoffible, an excufe to himself for performing nothing. Man can only form a just estiinate of his own actions, by making his power the test of his performance, by comparing what he does with what he can do. Whoever fteadily perfeveres in the exertion of all his faculties, does what is great with refpect to himself; and what will not be defpifed by Him, who has given to all created beings their different abilities: he faithfully performs the talk of life, within whatever limits his labours may be confined, or how foon foever they may be forgotten.

We can conceive fo much more than we can accomplish, that whoever tries his own actions by his imagination, may appear defpicable in his own eyes. He that defpifes for it's littlenefs any thing really ufeful, has no pretenfions to applaud the grandeur of his conceptions; fince nothing but narrowness of mind hinders him from feeing, that by pur fuing the fame principles every thing limited will appear contemptible.

He that neglects the care of his fami As it is thus eafy, by a detail of mi- ly, while his benevolence expands itfelf nute circumstances, to make every thing in fcheming the happiness of imaginary little, fo it is not difficult, by an aggre- kingdoms, might with equal reason fit gation of effects, to make every thing on a throne dreaming of univerfal emgreat. The polisher of marble may be pire, and of the diffufion of bleffings forming ornaments for the palaces of over all the globe: yet even this globe is virtue, and the schools of fcience; or pro-little, compared with the fyftem of matviding tables, on which the actions of heroes and the difcoveries of fages fhall be recorded, for the incitement and inftruction of future generations. The mafon is exercifing one of the principal arts by which reafon.ing beings are diftinguished from the brute, the art to which life owes much of it's fafety and all it's conveniences, by which we are

ter within our view; and that fyftem barely fomething more than non-entity, compared with the boundless regions of pace, to which neither eye nor imagination can extend.

From conceptions, therefore, of what we might have been, and from withes to be what we are not, conceptions that we know to be foolish, and wishes which

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