THE CHARACTER OF FRANKLIN

From Letter to the Boston Patriot, May 15th, 1811

Franklin had a great genius, original, sagacious, and inventive, capable of discoveries in science no less than of improvements in the fine arts and the mechanic arts. He had a vast imagination, equal to the comprehension of the greatest objects, and capable of a cool and steady comprehension of them. He had wit at will. He had humor that when he pleased was delicate and delightful. He had a satire that was good-natured or caustic, Horace or Juvenal, Swift or Rabelais, at his pleasure. He had talents for irony, allegory, and fable, that he could adapt with great skill to the promotion of moral and political truth. He was master of that infantine simplicity which the French call naivete which never fails to charm in Phaedrus and La Fontaine, from the cradle to the grave. Had he been blessed with the same advantages of scholastic education in his early youth, and pursued a course of studies as unembarrassed with occupations of public and private life as Sir Isaac Newton, he might have emulated the first philosopher. Although I am not ignorant that most of his positions and hypotheses have been controverted, I cannot but think he has added much to the mass of natural knowledge, and contributed largely to the progress of the human mind, both by his own writings and by the controversies and experiments he has excited in all parts of Europe. He had abilities for investigating statistical questions, and in some parts of his life has written pamphlets and essays upon public topics with great ingenuity and success; but after my acquaintance with him, which commenced in Congress in 1775, his excellence as a legislator, a politician, or a negotiator most certainly never appeared. No sentiment more weak and superficial was ever avowed by the most absurd philosopher than some of his, particularly one that he procured to be inserted in the first constitution of Pennsylvania, and for which he had such a fondness as to insert it in his will. I call it weak, for so it must have been, or hypocritical; unless he meant by one satiric touch to ridicule his own republic, or throw it into everlasting contempt.

I must acknowledge, after all, that nothing in life has mortified or grieved me more than the necessity which compelled me to oppose him so often as I have. He was a man with whom I always wished to live in friendship, and for that purpose omitted no demonstration of respect, esteem, and veneration in my power, until I had unequivocal proofs of his hatred, for no other reason under the sun but because I gave my judgment in opposition to his in many points which materially affected the interests of our country, and in many more which essentially concerned our happiness, safety, and well-being. I could not and would not sacrifice the clearest dictates of my understanding and the purest principles of morals and policy in compliance to Dr. Franklin.



JOHN QUINCY ADAMS

(1767-1848)

The chief distinction in character between John Adams and his son is the strangest one imaginable, when one remembers that to the fiery, combative, bristling Adams blood was added an equal strain from the gay, genial, affectionate Abigail Smith. The son, though of deep inner affections, and even hungering for good-will if it would come without his help, was on the surface incomparably colder, harsher, and thornier than his father, with all the socially repellent traits of the race and none of the softer ones. The father could never control his tongue or his temper, and not always his head; the son never lost the bridle of either, and much of his terrible power in debate came from his ability to make others lose theirs while perfectly keeping his own. The father had plenty of warm friends and allies,—at the worst he worked with half a party; the son in the most superb part of his career had no friends, no allies, no party except the group of constituents who kept him in Congress. The father's self-confidence deepened in the son to a solitary and even contemptuous gladiatorship against the entire government of the country, for long years of hate and peril. The father's irritable though generous vanity changed in the son to an icy contempt or white-hot scorn of nearly all around him. The father's spasms of acrimonious judgment steadied in the son to a constant rancor always finding new objects. But only John Quincy Adams could have done the work awaiting John Quincy Adams, and each of his unamiable qualities strengthened his fibre to do it. And if a man is to be judged by his fruits, Mr. Morse is justified in saying that he was "not only pre-eminent in ability and acquirements, but even more to be honored for profound, immutable honesty of purpose, and broad, noble humanity of aims."



It might almost be said that the sixth President of the United States was cradled in statesmanship. Born July 11th, 1767, he was a little lad of ten when he accompanied his father on the French mission. Eighteen months elapsed before he returned, and three months later he was again upon the water, bound once more for the French capital. There were school days in Paris, and other school days in Amsterdam and in Leyden; but the boy was only fourteen,—the mature old child!—when he went to St. Petersburg as private secretary and interpreter to Francis Dana, just appointed minister plenipotentiary to the court of the Empress Catherine. Such was his apprenticeship to a public career which began in earnest in 1794, and lasted, with slight interruptions, for fifty-four years. Minister to the United Netherlands, to Russia, to Prussia, and to England; commissioner to frame the Treaty of Ghent which ended the war of 1812; State Senator, United States Senator; Secretary of State, a position in which he made the treaty with Spain which conceded Florida, and enunciated the Monroe Doctrine before Monroe and far more thoroughly than he; President, and then for many years Member of the National House of Representatives,—it is strange to find this man writing in his later years, "My whole life has been a succession of disappointments. I can scarcely recollect a single instance of success to anything that I ever undertook."

It is true, however, that his successes and even his glories always had some bitter ingredient to spoil their flavor. As United States Senator he was practically "boycotted" for years, even by his own party members, because he was an Adams. In 1807 he definitely broke with the Federalist party—for what he regarded as its slavish crouching under English outrages, conduct which had been for years estranging him—by supporting Jefferson's Embargo, as better than no show of resistance at all; and was for a generation denounced by the New England Federalists as a renegade for the sake of office and a traitor to New England. The Massachusetts Legislature practically censured him in 1808, and he resigned.

His winning of the Presidency brought pain instead of pleasure: he valued it only as a token of national confidence, got it only as a minority candidate in a divided party, and was denounced by the Jacksonians as a corrupt political bargainer. And his later Congressional career, though his chief title to glory, was one long martyrdom (even though its worst pains were self-inflicted), and he never knew the immense victory he had actually won. The "old man eloquent," after ceasing to be President, was elected in 1830 by his home district a Representative in Congress, and regularly re-elected till his death. For a long time he bore the anti-slavery standard almost alone in the halls of Congress, a unique and picturesque figure, rousing every demon of hatred in his fellow-members, in constant and envenomed battle with them, and more than a match for them all. He fought single-handed for the right of petition as an indefeasible right, not hesitating to submit a petition from citizens of Virginia praying for his own expulsion from Congress as a nuisance. In 1836 he presented a petition from one hundred and fifty-eight ladies, citizens of Massachusetts, "for, I said, I had not yet brought myself to doubt whether females were citizens." After eight years of persistent struggle against the "Atherton gag law," which practically denied the right of petition in matters relating to slavery, he carried a vote rescinding it, and nothing of the kind was again enacted. He had a fatal stroke of paralysis on the floor of Congress February 21st, 1848, and died two days later.

As a writer he was perspicuous, vigorous, and straightforward. He had entered Harvard in the middle of the college course, and been graduated with honors. He had then studied and practiced law. He was Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory at Harvard from 1806 to 1809, and was well drilled in the use of language, but was too downright in his temper and purposes to spend much labor upon artistic effects. He kept an elaborate diary during the greater part of his life,—since published in twelve volumes of "Memoirs" by his son Charles Francis Adams; a vast storehouse of material relating to the political history of the country, but, as published, largely restricted to public affairs. He delivered orations on Lafayette, on Madison, on Monroe, on Independence, and on the Constitution; published essays on the Masonic Institution and various other matters; a report on weights and measures, of enormous labor and permanent value; Lectures on Rhetoric and Oratory; a tale in verse on the Conquest of Ireland, with the title 'Dermot MacMorrogh'; an account of Travels in Silesia; and a volume of 'Poems of Religion and Society.' He had some facility in rhyme, but his judgment was not at fault in informing him that he was not a poet. Mr. Morse says that "No man can have been more utterly void of a sense of humor or an appreciation of wit"; and yet he very fairly anticipated Holmes in his poem on 'The Wants of Man,' and hits rather neatly a familiar foible in the verse with which he begins 'Dermot MacMorrogh':—

"'Tis strange how often readers will indulge Their wits a mystic meaning to discover; Secrets ne'er dreamt of by the bard divulge, And where he shoots a cluck, will find a plover; Satiric shafts from every line promulge, Detect a tyrant where he draws a lover: Nay, so intent his hidden thoughts to see, Cry, if he paint a scoundrel—'That means me.'"

Selections from Letters and Memoirs used by permission of J.B. Lippincott Company.

LETTER TO HIS FATHER

(At the Age of Ten)

DEAR SIR,—I love to receive letters very well; much better than I love to write them. I make but a poor figure at composition, my head is too fickle, my thoughts are running after birds eggs play and trifles, till I get vexed with myself. Mamma has a troublesome task to keep me steady, and I own I am ashamed of myself. I have but just entered the third volume of Smollett, tho' I had designed to have got it half through by this time. I have determined this week to be more diligent, as Mr. Thaxter will be absent at Court, and I cannot pursue my other studies. I have Set myself a Stent and determine to read the 3rd volume Half out. If I can but keep my resolution, I will write again at the end of the week and give a better account of myself. I wish, Sir, you would give me some instructions, with regard to my time, and advise me how to proportion my Studies and my Play, in writing, and I will keep them by me, and endeavor to follow them. I am, dear Sir, with a present determination of growing better, yours.

P.S.—Sir, if you will be so good as to favor me with a Blank Book, I will transcribe the most remarkable occurances I meet with in my reading, which will serve to fix them upon my mind.

FROM THE MEMOIRS

(At the Age of Eighteen)

April 26th, 1785.—A letter from Mr. Gerry of Feb. 25th Says that Mr. Adams is appointed Minister to the Court of London.

I believe he will promote the interests of the United States, as much as any man, but I fear his duty will induce him to make exertions which may be detrimental to his health. I wish however it may be otherwise. Were I now to go with him, probably my immediate satisfaction might be greater than it will be in returning to America. After having been traveling for these seven years almost all over Europe, and having been in the World, and among company, for three; to return to spend one or two years in the pale of a College, subjected to all the rules which I have so long been freed from; then to plunge into the dry and tedious study of the Law for three years; and afterwards not expect (however good an opinion I may have of myself) to bring myself into notice under three or four years more; if ever! It is really a prospect somewhat discouraging for a youth of my ambition (for I have ambition, though I hope its object is laudable). But still

"Oh! how wretched Is that poor Man, that hangs on Princes' favors"

or on those of anybody else. I am determined that so long as I shall be able to get my own living in an honorable manner, I will depend upon no one. My Father has been so much taken up all his lifetime with the interests of the public, that his own fortune has suffered by it; so that his children will have to provide for themselves, which I shall never be able to do, if I loiter away my precious time in Europe and shun going home until I am forced to it. With an ordinary share of Common sense which I hope I enjoy, at least in America I can live independent and free; and rather than live otherwise I would wish to die before the time when I shall be left at my own discretion. I have before me a striking example of the distressing and humiliating situation a person is reduced to by adopting a different line of conduct, and I am determined not to fall into the same error.

FROM THE MEMOIRS

JANUARY 14TH, 1831.—I received a letter from John C. Calhoun, now Vice-President of the United States, relating to his present controversy with President Jackson and William H. Crawford. He questions me concerning the letter of General Jackson to Mr. Monroe which Crawford alleges to have been produced at the Cabinet meetings on the Seminole War, and asks for copies, if I think proper to give them, of Crawford's letter to me which I received last summer, and of my answer. I answered Mr. Calhoun's letter immediately, rigorously confining myself to the direct object of his inquiries. This is a new bursting out of the old and rancorous feud between Crawford and Calhoun, both parties to which, after suspending their animosities and combining together to effect my ruin, are appealing to me for testimony to sustain themselves each against the other. This is one of the occasions upon which I shall eminently need the direction of a higher power to guide me in every step of my conduct. I see my duty to discard all consideration of their treatment of me; to adhere, in everything that I shall say or write, to the truth; to assert nothing positively of which I am not absolutely certain; to deny nothing upon which there remains a scruple of doubt upon my memory; to conceal nothing which it may be lawful to divulge, and which may promote truth and justice between the parties. With these principles, I see further the necessity for caution and prudence in the course I shall take. The bitter enmity of all three of the parties—Jackson, Calhoun, and Crawford—against me, an enmity the more virulent because kindled by their own ingratitude and injustice to me; the interest which every one of them, and all their partisans, have in keeping up that load of obloquy and public odium which their foul calumnies have brought down upon me; and the disfavor in which I stand before a majority of the people, excited against me by their artifices;—their demerits to me are proportioned to the obligations to me—Jackson's the greatest, Crawford's the next, Calhoun's the least of positive obligation, but darkened by his double-faced setting himself up as a candidate for the Presidency against me in 1821, his prevarications between Jackson and me in 1824, and his icy-hearted dereliction of all the decencies of social intercourse with me, solely from the terror of Jackson, since the 4th of March, 1829. I walk between burning ploughshares; let me be mindful where I place my foot.

FROM THE MEMOIRS

JUNE 7TH, 1833.—The first seedling apple-tree that I had observed on my return here just out of the ground was on the 22d of April. It had grown slowly but constantly since, and had put out five or six leaves. Last evening, after my return from Boston, I saw it perfectly sound. This morning I found it broken off, leaving one lobe of the seed-leaves, and one leaf over it. This may have been the work of a bug, or perhaps of a caterpillar. It would not be imaginable to any person free from hobby-horse or fanciful attachments, how much mortification such an incident occasions. St. Evremond, after removing into the country, returned to a city life because he found himself in despair for the loss of a pigeon. His conclusion was, that rural life induced exorbitant attachment to insignificant objects. My experience is conformable to this. My natural propensity was to raise trees, fruit and forest, from the seed. I had it in early youth, but the course of my life deprived me of the means of pursuing the bent of my inclination. One shellbark-walnut-tree in my garden, the root of which I planted 8th October, 1804, and one Mazzard cherry-tree in the grounds north of the house, the stone of which I planted about the same time, are the only remains of my experiments of so ancient a date. Had my life been spent in the country, and my experiments commenced while I was at College, I should now have a large fruit garden, flourishing orchards of native fruit, and very valuable forests; instead of which I have a nursery of about half an acre of ground, half full of seedlings, from five years to five days old, bearing for the first time perhaps twenty peaches, and a few blossoms of apricots and cherries; and hundreds of seedlings of the present year perishing from day to day before my eyes.

FROM THE MEMOIRS

SEPTEMBER 9TH, 1833.—Cold and cloudy day, clearing off toward evening. In the multitudinous whimseys of a disabled mind and body, the thick-coming fancies often come to me that the events which affect my life and adventures are specially shaped to disappoint my purposes. My whole life has been a succession of disappointments. I can scarcely recollect a single instance of success to anything that I ever undertook. Yet, with fervent gratitude to God, I confess that my life has been equally marked by great and signal successes which I neither aimed at nor anticipated. Fortune, by which I understand Providence, has showered blessings upon me profusely. But they have been blessings unforeseen and unsought. "Non nobis Domine, non nobis, sed nomini tuo da gloriam!" I ought to have been taught by it three lessons:—1. Of implicit reliance upon Providence. 2. Of humility and humiliation; the thorough conviction of my own impotence to accomplish anything. 3. Of resignation; and not to set my heart upon anything which can be taken from me or denied.

THE MISSION OF AMERICA

From his Fourth of July Oration at Washington, 1821

And now, friends and countrymen, if the wise and learned philosophers of the older world, the first observers of nutation and aberration, the discoverers of maddening ether and invisible planets, the inventors of Congreve rockets and shrapnel shells, should find their hearts disposed to inquire, What has America done for mankind? let our answer be this:—America, with the same voice which spoke herself into existence as a nation, proclaimed to mankind the inextinguishable rights of human nature, and the only lawful foundations of government. America, in the assembly of nations, since her admission among them, has invariably, though often fruitlessly, held forth to them the hand of honest friendship, of equal freedom, of generous reciprocity. She has uniformly spoken among them, though often to heedless and often to disdainful ears, the language of equal liberty, equal justice, and equal rights. She has, in the lapse of nearly half a century, without a single exception, respected the independence of other nations, while asserting and maintaining her own. She has abstained from interference in the concerns of others, even when the conflict has been for principles to which she clings, as to the last vital drop that visits the heart. She has seen that probably for centuries to come, all the contests of that Aceldama, the European World, will be contests between inveterate power and emerging right. Wherever the standard of freedom and independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions, and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own. She will recommend the general cause, by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example. She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself, beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom. The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force. The frontlet upon her brows would no longer beam with the ineffable splendor of freedom and independence; but in its stead would soon be substituted an imperial diadem, flashing in false and tarnished lustre the murky radiance of dominion and power. She might become the dictatress of the world; she would no longer be the ruler of her own spirit.

THE RIGHT OF PETITION

Quoted in Memoir by Josiah Quincy.

Sir, it is ... well known that, from the time I entered this house, down to the present day, I have felt it a sacred duty to present any petition, couched in respectful language, from any citizen of the United States, be its object what it may,—be the prayer of it that in which I could concur, or that to which I was utterly opposed. I adhere to the right of petition; and let me say here that, let the petition be, as the gentleman from Virginia has stated, from free negroes, prostitutes, as he supposes,—for he says there is one put on this paper, and he infers that the rest are of the same description,—that has not altered my opinion at all. Where is your law that says that the mean, the low, and the degraded, shall be deprived of the right of petition, if their moral character is not good? Where, in the land of free-men, was the right of petition ever placed on the exclusive basis of morality and virtue? Petition is supplication—it is entreaty—it is prayer! And where is the degree of vice or immorality which shall deprive the citizen of the right to supplicate for a boon, or to pray for mercy? Where is such a law to be found? It does not belong to the most abject despotism. There is no absolute monarch on earth who is not compelled, by the constitution of his country, to receive the petitions of his people, whosoever they may be. The Sultan of Constantinople cannot walk the streets and refuse to receive petitions from the meanest and vilest in the land. This is the law even of despotism; and what does your law say? Does it say, that, before presenting a petition, you shall look into it and see whether it comes from the virtuous, and the great, and the mighty? No, sir; it says no such thing. The right of petition belongs to all; and so far from refusing to present a petition because it might come from those low in the estimation of the world, it would be an additional incentive, if such an incentive were wanting.

NULLIFICATION

From his Fourth of July Oration at Quincy, 1831

Nullification is the provocation to that brutal and foul contest of force, which has hitherto baffled all the efforts of the European and Southern American nations, to introduce among them constitutional governments of liberty and order. It strips us of that peculiar and unimitated characteristic of all our legislation—free debate; it makes the bayonet the arbiter of law; it has no argument but the thunderbolt. It were senseless to imagine that twenty-three States of the Union would suffer their laws to be trampled upon by the despotic mandate of one. The act of nullification would itself be null and void. Force must be called in to execute the law of the Union. Force must be applied by the nullifying State to resist its execution—

"Ate, hot from Hell, Cries Havoc! and lets slip the dogs of war."

The blood of brethren is shed by each other. The citizen of the nullifying State is a traitor to his country, by obedience to the law of his State; a traitor to his State, by obedience to the law of his country. The scaffold and the battle-field stream alternately with the blood of their victims. Let this agent but once intrude upon your deliberations, and Freedom will take her flight for heaven. The Declaration of Independence will become a philosophical dream, and uncontrolled, despotic sovereignties will trample with impunity, through a long career of after ages, at interminable or exterminating war with one another, upon the indefeasible and unalienable rights of man.

The event of a conflict of arms, between the Union and one of its members, whether terminating in victory or defeat, would be but an alternative of calamity to all. In the holy records of antiquity, we have two examples of a confederation ruptured by the severance of its members; one of which resulted, after three desperate battles, in the extermination of the seceding tribe. And the victorious people, instead of exulting in shouts of triumph, "came to the House of God, and abode there till even before God; and lifted up their voices, and wept sore, and said,—O Lord God of Israel, why is this come to pass in Israel, that there should be to-day one tribe lacking in Israel?" The other was a successful example of resistance against tyrannical taxation, and severed forever the confederacy, the fragments forming separate kingdoms; and from that day, their history presents an unbroken series of disastrous alliances and exterminating wars—of assassinations, conspiracies, revolts, and rebellions, until both parts of the confederacy sunk in tributary servitude to the nations around them; till the countrymen of David and Solomon hung their harps upon the willows of Babylon, and were totally lost among the multitudes of the Chaldean and Assyrian monarchies, "the most despised portion of their slaves."

In these mournful memorials of their fate, we may behold the sure, too sure prognostication of our own, from the hour when force shall be substituted for deliberation in the settlement of our Constitutional questions. This is the deplorable alternative—the extirpation of the seceding member, or the never-ceasing struggle of two rival confederacies, ultimately bending the neck of both under the yoke of foreign domination, or the despotic sovereignty of a conqueror at home. May Heaven avert the omen! The destinies of not only our posterity, but of the human race, are at stake.

Let no such melancholy forebodings intrude upon the festivities of this anniversary. Serene skies and balmy breezes are not congenial to the climate of freedom. Progressive improvement in the condition of man is apparently the purpose of a superintending Providence. That purpose will not be disappointed. In no delusion of national vanity, but with a feeling of profound gratitude to the God of our Fathers, let us indulge the cheering hope and belief, that our country and her people have been selected as instruments for preparing and maturing much of the good yet in reserve for the welfare and happiness of the human race. Much good has already been effected by the solemn proclamation of our principles, much more by the illustration of our example. The tempest which threatens desolation, may be destined only to purify the atmosphere. It is not in tranquil ease and enjoyment that the active energies of mankind are displayed. Toils and dangers are the trials of the soul. Doomed to the first by his sentence at the fall, man, by his submission, converts them into pleasures. The last are since the fall the condition of his existence. To see them in advance, to guard against them by all the suggestions of prudence, to meet them with the composure of unyielding resistance, and to abide with firm resignation the final dispensation of Him who rules the ball,—these are the dictates of philosophy—these are the precepts of religion—these are the principles and consolations of patriotism; these remain when all is lost—and of these is composed the spirit of independence—the spirit embodied in that beautiful personification of the poet, which may each of you, my countrymen, to the last hour of his life, apply to himself:—

"Thy spirit, Independence, let me share, Lord of the lion heart and eagle eye! Thy steps I follow, with my bosom bare, Nor heed the storm that howls along the sky."

In the course of nature, the voice which now addresses you must soon cease to be heard upon earth. Life and all which it inherits, lose of their value as it draws toward its close. But for most of you, my friends and neighbors, long and many years of futurity are yet in store. May they be years of freedom—years of prosperity—years of happiness, ripening for immortality! But, were the breath which now gives utterance to my feelings, the last vital air I should draw, my expiring words to you and your children should be, INDEPENDENCE AND UNION FOREVER!



SARAH FLOWER ADAMS

(1805—1848)

This English poet, whose hymn, 'Nearer, my God, to Thee,' is known wherever the English language is spoken, was born at Great Harlow, Essex, England, in 1805. She was the daughter of Benjamin Flower, who in 1799 was prosecuted for plain speaking in his paper, the Cambridge Intelligencer. From the outcome of his trial is to be dated the liberty of political discussion in England. Her mother was Eliza Gould, who first met her future husband in jail, whither she had gone on a visit to assure him of her sympathy. She also had suffered for liberal opinions. From their parents two daughters inherited a distinguished nobility and purity of character. Eliza excelled in the composition of music for congregational worship, and arranged a musical service for the Unitarian South Place Chapel, London. Sarah contributed first to the Monthly Repository, conducted by W.J. Fox, her Unitarian pastor, in whose family she lived after her father's death. In 1834 she married William Bridges Adams. Her delicate health gave way under the shock of her sister's death in 1846, and she died of decline in 1848.

Her poetic genius found expression both in the drama and in hymns. Her play, 'Vivia Perpetua' (1841), tells of the author's rapt aspiration after an ideal, symbolized in a pagan's conversion to Christianity. She published also 'The Royal Progress,' a ballad (1845), on the giving tip of the feudal privileges of the Isle of Wight to Edward I.; and poems upon the humanitarian interests which the Anti-Corn-Law League endeavored to further. Her hymns are the happiest expressions of the religious trust, resignation, and sweetness of her nature.

'Nearer, my God, to Thee,' was written for the South Place Chapel service. There are stories of its echoes having been heard from a dilapidated log cabin in Arkansas, from a remote corner of the north of England, and from the Heights of Benjamin in the Holy Land. But even its devotion and humility have not escaped censure—arising, perhaps, from denominational bias. The fault found with it is the fault of Addison's 'How are thy servants blessed, O Lord,' and the fault of the Psalmody begun by Sternhold and Hopkins, which, published in Geneva in 1556, electrified the congregation of six thousand souls in Elizabeth's reign,—it has no direct reference to Jesus. Compilers of hymn-books have sought to rectify what they deem a lapse in Christian spirit by the substitution of a verse begining "Christ alone beareth me." But the quality of the interpolated verse is so inferior to the lyric itself that it has not found general acceptance. Others, again, with an excess of zeal, have endeavored to substitute "the Cross" for "a cross" in the first stanza.

An even share of its extraordinary vogue must in bare justice be credited to the tune which Dr. Lowell Mason has made an inseparable part of it; though this does not detract in the least from its own high merit, or its capacity to satisfy the feelings of a devout soul. A taking melody is the first condition of even the loveliest song's obtaining popularity; and this hymn was sung for many years to various tunes, including chants, with no general recognition of its quality. It was Dr. Mason's tune, written about 1860, which sent it at once into the hearts of the people.

HE SENDETH SUN, HE SENDETH SHOWER

He sendeth sun, he sendeth shower, Alike they're needful to the flower; And joys and tears alike are sent To give the soul fit nourishment. As comes to me or cloud or sun, Father! thy will, not mine, be done.

Can loving children e'er reprove With murmurs, whom they trust and love? Creator, I would ever be A trusting, loving child to thee: As comes to me or cloud or sun, Father! thy will, not mine, be done.

Oh, ne'er will I at life repine,— Enough that thou hast made it mine. When falls the shadow cold of death, I yet will sing with parting breath, As comes to me or cloud or sun, Father! thy will, not mine, be done.

NEARER, MY GOD, TO THEE

Nearer, my God, to thee, Nearer to thee! E'en though it be a cross That raiseth me; Still all my song shall be,— Nearer, my God, to thee, Nearer to thee!

Though, like a wanderer, The sun gone down, Darkness be over me, My rest a stone; Yet in my dreams I'd be Nearer, my God, to thee, Nearer to thee!

There let the way appear Steps unto heaven; All that thou sendest me In mercy given; Angels to beckon me Nearer, my God, to thee, Nearer to thee!

Then with my waking thoughts Bright with thy praise, Out of my stony griefs Bethel I'll raise; So by my woes to be Nearer, my God, to thee, Nearer to thee!

Or if on joyful wing, Cleaving the sky, Sun, moon, and stars forgot, Upward I fly; Still all my song shall be,— Nearer, my God, to thee, Nearer to thee!

From 'Adoration, Aspiration, and Belief.'



JOSEPH ADDISON

(1672-1719)

BY HAMILTON WRIGHT MABIE

There are few figures in literary history more dignified and attractive than Joseph Addison; few men more eminently representative, not only of literature as a profession, but of literature as an art. It has happened more than once that literary gifts of a high order have been lodged in very frail moral tenements; that taste, feeling, and felicity of expression have been divorced from general intellectual power, from intimate acquaintance with the best in thought and art, from grace of manner and dignity of life. There have been writers of force and originality who failed to attain a representative eminence, to identify themselves with their art in the memory of the world. There have been other writers without claim to the possession of gifts of the highest order, who have secured this distinction by virtue of harmony of character and work, of breadth of interest, and of that fine intelligence which instinctively allies itself with the best in its time. Of this class Addison is an illustrious example. His gifts are not of the highest order; there was none of the spontaneity, abandon, or fertility of genius in him; his thought made no lasting contribution to the highest intellectual life; he set no pulses beating by his eloquence of style, and fired no imagination by the insight and emotion of his verse; he was not a scholar in the technical sense: and yet, in an age which was stirred and stung by the immense satiric force of Swift, charmed by the wit and elegance of Pope, moved by the tenderness of Steele, and enchanted by the fresh realism of De Foe, Addison holds the most representative place. He is, above all others, the Man of Letters of his time; his name instantly evokes the literature of his period.



Born in the rectory at Milston, Wiltshire, on May Day, 1672, it was Addison's fortune to take up the profession of Letters at the very moment when it was becoming a recognized profession, with a field of its own, and with emoluments sufficient in kind to make decency of living possible, and so related to a man's work that their acceptance involved loss neither of dignity nor of independence. He was contemporary with the first English publisher, Jacob Tonson. He was also contemporary with the notable reorganization of English prose which freed it from exaggeration, complexity, and obscurity; and he contributed not a little to the flexibility, charm, balance, and ease which have since characterized its best examples. He saw the rise of polite society in its modern sense; the development of the social resources of the city; the enlargement of what is called "the reading class" to embrace all classes in the community and all orders in the nation. And he was one of the first, following the logic of a free press, an organized business for the sale of books, and the appearance of popular interest in literature, to undertake that work of translating the best thought, feeling, sentiment, and knowledge of his time, and of all times, into the language of the drawing-room, the club, and the street, which has done so much to humanize and civilize the modern world.

To recognize these various opportunities, to feel intuitively the drift of sentiment and conviction, and so to adjust the uses of art to life as to exalt the one, and enrich and refine the other, involved not only the possession of gifts of a high order, but that training which puts a man in command of himself and of his materials. Addison was fortunate in that incomparably important education which assails a child through every sense, and above all through the imagination—in the atmosphere of a home, frugal in its service to the body, but prodigal in its ministry to the spirit. His father was a man of generous culture: an Oxford scholar, who had stood frankly for the Monarchy and Episcopacy in Puritan times; a voluminous and agreeable writer; of whom Steele says that he bred his five children "with all the care imaginable in a liberal and generous way." From this most influential of schools Addison passed on to other masters: from the Grammar School at Lichfield, to the well-known Charter House; and thence to Oxford, where he first entered Queen's College, and later, became a member of Magdalen, to the beauty of whose architecture and natural situation the tradition of his walks and personality adds no small charm. He was a close student, shy in manner, given to late hours of work. His literary tastes and appetite were early disclosed, and in his twenty-second year he was already known in London, had written an 'Account of the Greatest English Poets,' and had addressed some complimentary verses to Dryden, then the recognized head of English Letters.

While Addison was hesitating what profession to follow, the leaders of the political parties were casting about for men of literary power. A new force had appeared in English politics—the force of public opinion; and in their experiments to control and direct this novel force, politicians were eager to secure the aid of men of Letters. The shifting of power to the House of Commons involved a radical readjustment, not only of the mechanism of political action, but of the attitude of public men to the nation. They felt the need of trained and persuasive interpreters and advocates; of the resources of wit, satire, and humor. It was this very practical service which literature was in the way of rendering to political parties, rather than any deep regard for literature itself, which brought about a brief but brilliant alliance between groups of men who have not often worked together to mutual advantage. It must be said, however, that there was among the great Whig and Tory leaders of the time a certain liberality of taste, and a care for those things which give public life dignity and elegance, which were entirely absent from Robert Walpole and the leaders of the two succeeding reigns, when literature and politics were completely divorced, and the government knew little and cared less for the welfare of the arts. Addison came on the stage at the very moment when the government was not only ready but eager to foster such talents as his. He was a Whig of pronounced although modern type, and the Whigs were in power.

Lord Somers and Charles Montagu, better known later as Lord Halifax, were the heads of the ministry, and his personal friends as well. They were men of culture, lovers of Letters, and not unappreciative of the personal distinction which already stamped the studious and dignified Magdalen scholar. A Latin poem on the Peace of Ryswick, dedicated to Montagu, happily combined Virgilian elegance and felicity with Whig sentiment and achievement. It confirmed the judgment already formed of Addison's ability; and, setting aside with friendly insistence the plan of putting that ability into the service of the Church, Montagu secured a pension of L300 for the purpose of enabling Addison to fit himself for public employment abroad by thorough study of the French language, and of manners, methods, and institutions on the Continent. With eight Latin poems, published in the second volume of the 'Musae Anglicanae,' as an introduction to foreign scholars, and armed with letters of introduction from Montagu to many distinguished personages, Addison left Oxford in the summer of 1699, and, after a prolonged stay at Blois for purposes of study, visited many cities and interesting localities in France, Italy, Switzerland, Austria, Germany, and Holland. The shy, reticent, but observing young traveler was everywhere received with the courtesy which early in the century had made so deep an impression on the young Milton. He studied hard, saw much, and meditated more. He was not only fitting himself for public service, but for that delicate portraiture of manners which was later to become his distinctive work. Clarendon had already drawn a series of lifelike portraits of men of action in the stormy period of the Revolution: Addison was to sketch the society of his time with a touch at once delicate and firm; to exhibit its life in those aspects which emphasize individual humor and personal quality, against a carefully wrought background of habit, manners, usage, and social condition. The habit of observation and the wide acquaintance with cultivated and elegant social life which was a necessary part of the training for the work which was later to appear in the pages of the Spectator, were perhaps the richest educational results of these years of travel and study; for Addison the official is a comparatively obscure figure, but Addison the writer is one of the most admirable and attractive figures in English history.

Addison returned to England in 1703 with clouded prospects. The accession of Queen Anne had been followed by the dismissal of the Whigs from office; his pension was stopped, his opportunity of advancement gone, and his father dead. The skies soon brightened, however: the support of the Whigs became necessary to the Government; the brilliant victory of Blenheim shed lustre not only on Marlborough, but on the men with whom he was politically affiliated; and there was great dearth of poetic ability in the Tory ranks at the very moment when a notable achievement called for brave and splendid verse. Lord Godolphin, that easy-going and eminently successful politician of whom Charles the Second once shrewdly said that he was "never in the way and never out of it," was directed to Addison in this emergency; and the story goes that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, afterward Lord Carleton, who was sent to express to the needy scholar the wishes of the Government, found him lodged in a garret over a small shop. The result of this memorable embassy from politics to literature was 'The Campaign': an eminently successful poem of the formal, "occasional" order, which celebrated the victor of Blenheim with tact and taste, pleased the ministry, delighted the public, and brought reputation and fortune to its unknown writer. Its excellence is in skillful avoidance of fulsome adulation, in the exclusion of the well-worn classical allusions, and in a straightforward celebration of those really great qualities in Marlborough which set his military career in brilliant contrast with his private life. The poem closed with a simile which took the world by storm:—

"So when an angel, by divine command, With rising tempests shakes a guilty land, (Such as of late o'er pale Britannia passed,) Calm and serene he drives the furious blast; And, pleased the Almighty's orders to perform, Rides in the whirlwind and directs the storm."

"Addison left off at a good moment," says Thackeray. "That simile was pronounced to be the greatest ever produced in poetry. That angel, that good angel, flew off with Mr. Addison, and landed him in the place of Commissioner of Appeals—vice Mr. Locke, providentially promoted. In the following year Mr. Addison went to Hanover with Lord Halifax, and the year after was made Under-Secretary of State. O angel visits! You come 'few and far between' to literary gentlemen's lodgings! Your wings seldom quiver at the second-floor windows now!"

The prize poem was followed by a narrative of travel in Italy, happily written, full of felicitous description, and touched by a humor which, in quality and manner, was new to English readers. Then came one of those indiscretions of the imagination which showed that the dignified and somewhat sober young poet, the "parson in a tye-wig," as he was called at a later day, was not lacking in gayety of mood. The opera 'Rosamond' was not a popular success, mainly because the music to which it was set fell so far below it in grace and ease. It must be added, however, that Addison lacked the qualities of a successful libretto writer. He was too serious, and despite the lightness of his touch, there was a certain rigidity in him which made him unapt at versification which required quickness, agility, and variety. When he attempted to give his verse gayety of manner, he did not get beyond awkward simulation of an ease which nature had denied him:—

"Since conjugal passion Is come into fashion, And marriage so blest on the throne is, Like a Venus I'll shine, Be fond and be fine, And Sir Trusty shall be my Adonis."

Meantime, in spite of occasional clouds, Addison's fortunes were steadily advancing. The Earl of Wharton was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and Addison accepted the lucrative post of Secretary. Spenser had found time and place, during a similar service in the same country, to complete the 'Faery Queene'; although the fair land in which the loveliest of English poems has its action was not unvexed by the chronic turbulence of a mercurial and badly used race. Irish residence was coincident in Addison's case, not only with prosperous fortunes and with important friendships, but also with the beginning of the work on which his fame securely rests. In Ireland the acquaintance he had already made in London with Swift ripened into a generous friendship, which for a time resisted political differences when such differences were the constant occasion of personal animosity and bitterness. The two men represented the age in an uncommonly complete way. Swift had the greater genius: he was, indeed, in respect of natural endowment, the foremost man of his time; but his nature was undisciplined, his temper uncertain, and his great powers quite as much at the service of his passions as of his principles. He made himself respected, feared, and finally hated; his lack of restraint and balance, his ferocity of spirit when opposed, and the violence with which he assailed his enemies, neutralized his splendid gifts, marred his fortune, and sent him into lonely exile at Dublin, where he longed for the ampler world of London. Few figures in literary history are more pathetic than that of the old Dean of St. Patrick's, broken in spirit, failing in health, his noble faculties gone into premature decay, forsaken, bitter, and remorseful. At the time of Addison's stay in Ireland, the days of Swift's eclipse were, however, far distant; both men were in their prime. That Swift loved Addison is clear enough; and it is easy to understand the qualities which made Addison one of the most deeply loved men of his time. He was of an eminently social temper, although averse to large companies and shy and silent in their presence. "There is no such thing," he once said, "as real conversation but between two persons." He was free from malice, meanness, or jealousy, Pope to the contrary notwithstanding. He was absolutely loyal to his principles and to his friends, in a time when many men changed both with as little compunction as they changed wigs and swords. His personality was singularly winning; his features regular, and full of refinement and intelligence; his bearing dignified and graceful; his temper kindly and in perfect control; his character without a stain; his conversation enchanting, its charm confessed by persons so diverse in taste as Pope, Swift, Steele, and Young. Lady Mary Montagu declared that he was the best company she had ever known. He had two faults of which the world has heard much: he loved the company of men who flattered him, and at times he used wine too freely. The first of these defects was venial, and did not blind his judgment either of himself or his friends; the second defect was so common among the men of his time that Addison's occasional over-indulgence, in contrast with the excesses of others, seems like temperance itself.

The harmony and symmetry of this winning personality has, in a sense, told against it; for men are prone to call the well-balanced nature cold and the well-regulated life Pharisaic. Addison did not escape charges of this kind from the wild livers of his own time, who could not dissociate genius from profligacy nor generosity of nature from prodigality. It was one of the great services of Addison to his generation and to all generations, that in an age of violent passions, he showed how a strong man could govern himself. In a time of reckless living, he illustrated the power which flows from subordination of pleasure to duty. In a day when wit was identified with malice, he brought out its power to entertain, surprise, and delight, without taking on the irreverent levity of Voltaire, the bitterness of Swift, or the malice of Pope.

It was during Addison's stay in Ireland that Richard Steele projected the Tatler, and brought out the first number in 1709. His friendship for Addison amounted almost to a passion; their intimacy was cemented by harmony of tastes and diversity of character. Steele was ardent, impulsive, warm-hearted, mercurial; full of aspiration and beset by lamentable weaknesses,—preaching the highest morality and constantly falling into the prevalent vices of his time; a man so lovable of temper, so generous a spirit, and so frank a nature, that his faults seem to humanize his character rather than to weaken and stain it. Steele's gifts were many, and they were always at the service of his feelings; he had an Irish warmth of sympathy and an Irish readiness of humor, with great facility of inventiveness, and an inexhaustible interest in all aspects of human experience. There had been political journals in England since the time of the Revolution, but Steele conceived the idea of a journal which should comment on the events and characteristics of the time in a bright and humorous way; using freedom with judgment and taste, and attacking the vices and follies of the time with the light equipment of wit rather than with the heavy armament of the formal moralist. The time was ripe for such an enterprise. London was full of men and women of brilliant parts, whose manners, tastes, and talk presented rich material for humorous report and delineation or for satiric comment. Society, in the modern sense, was fast taking form, and the resources of social intercourse were being rapidly developed. Men in public life were intimately allied with society and sensitive to its opinion; and men of all interests—public, fashionable, literary—gathered in groups at the different chocolate or coffee houses, and formed a kind of organized community. It was distinctly an aristocratic society: elegant in dress, punctilious in manner, exacting in taste, ready to be amused, and not indifferent to criticism when it took the form of sprightly badinage or of keen and trenchant satire. The informal organization of society, which made it possible to reach and affect the Town as a whole, is suggested by the division of the Tatler:—

"All accounts of Gallantry, Pleasure, and Entertainment, shall be under the article of White's Chocolate-House; Poetry under that of Will's Coffee-House; Learning under the title of Grecian; Foreign and Domestic News you will have from St. James's Coffee-House; and what else I have to offer on any other subject shall be dated from my own apartment."

So wrote Steele in his introduction to the readers of the new journal, which was to appear three times a week, at the cost of a penny. Of the coffee-houses enumerated, St. James's and White's were the headquarters of men of fashion and of politics; the Grecian of men of legal learning; Will's of men of Letters. The Tatler was successful from the start. It was novel in form and in spirit; it was sprightly without being frivolous, witty without being indecent, keen without being libelous or malicious. In the general license and coarseness of the time, so close to the Restoration and the powerful reaction against Puritanism, the cleanness, courtesy, and good taste which characterized the journal had all the charm of a new diversion. In paper No. 18, Addison made his appearance as a contributor, and gave the world the first of those inimitable essays which influenced their own time so widely, and which have become the solace and delight of all times. To Addison's influence may perhaps be traced the change which came over the Tatler, and which is seen in the gradual disappearance of the news element, and the steady drift of the paper away from journalism and toward literature. Society soon felt the full force of the extraordinary talent at the command of the new censor of contemporary manners and morals. There was a well-directed and incessant fire of wit against the prevailing taste of dramatic art; against the vices of gambling and dueling; against extravagance and affectation of dress and manner: and there was also criticism of a new order.

The Tatler was discontinued in January, 1711, and the first number of the Spectator appeared in March. The new journal was issued daily, but it made no pretensions to newspaper timeliness or interest; it aimed to set a new standard in manners, morals, and taste, without assuming the airs of a teacher. "It was said of Socrates," wrote Addison, in a memorable chapter in the new journal, "that he brought Philosophy down from heaven to inhabit among men; and I shall be happy to have it said of me that I have brought Philosophy out of closets and libraries, schools and colleges, to dwell in clubs and assemblies, at tea-tables and in coffee-houses." For more than two years the Spectator discharged with inimitable skill and success the difficult function of chiding, reproving, and correcting, without irritating, wounding, or causing strife. Swift found the paper too gentle, but its influence was due in no small measure to its persuasiveness. Addison studied his method of attack as carefully as Matthew Arnold, who undertook a similar educational work in our own time, studied his means of approach to a public indifferent or hostile to his ideas. The two hundred and seventy-four papers furnished by Addison to the columns of the Spectator may be said to mark the full development of English prose as a free, flexible, clear, and elegant medium of expressing the most varied and delicate shades of thought. They mark also the perfection of the essay form in our literature; revealing clear perception of its limitations and of its resources; easy mastery of its possibilities of serious exposition and of pervading charm; ability to employ its full capacity of conveying serious thought in a manner at once easy and authoritative. They mark also the beginning of a deeper and more intelligent criticism; for their exposition of Milton may be said to point the way to a new quality of literary judgment and a new order of literary comment. These papers mark, finally, the beginnings of the English novel; for they contain a series of character-studies full of insight, delicacy of drawing, true feeling, and sureness of touch. Addison was not content to satirize the follies, attack the vices, and picture the manners of his times: he created a group of figures which stand out as distinctly as those which were drawn more than a century later by the hand of Thackeray, our greatest painter of manners. De Foe had not yet published the first of the great modern novels of incident and adventure in 'Robinson Crusoe,' and Richardson, Fielding, and Smollett were unborn or unknown, when Addison was sketching Sir Roger de Coverley and Will Honeycomb, and filling in the background with charming studies of life in London and in the country. The world has instinctively selected Sir Roger de Coverley as the truest of all the creations of Addison's imagination; and it sheds clear light on the fineness of Addison's nature that among the four characters in fiction whom English readers have agreed to accept as typical gentlemen,—Don Quixote, Sir Roger de Coverley, Henry Esmond, and Colonel Newcombe,—the old English baronet holds a secure place.

Finished in style, but genuinely human in feeling, betraying the nicest choice of words and the most studied care for elegant and effective arrangement, and yet penetrated by geniality, enlivened by humor, elevated by high moral aims, often using the dangerous weapons of irony and satire, and yet always well-mannered and kindly,—these papers reveal the sensitive nature of Addison and the delicate but thoroughly tempered art which he had at his command.

Rarely has literature of so high an order had such instant success; for the popularity of the Spectator has been rivaled in English literature only by that of the Waverley novels or of the novels of Dickens. Its influence was felt not only in the sentiment of the day, and in the crowd of imitators which followed in its wake, but also across the Channel. In Germany, especially, the genius and methods of Addison made a deep and lasting impression.

No man could reach such eminence in the first quarter of the last century without being tempted to try his hand at play-writing; and the friendly fortune which seemed to serve Addison at every turn reached its climax in the applause which greeted the production of 'Cato.' The motive of this tragedy, constructed on what were then held to be classic lines, is found in the two lines of the Prologue: it was an endeavor to portray

"A brave man struggling in the storms of fate, And greatly falling with a falling State."

The play was full of striking lines which were instantly caught up and applied to the existing political situation; the theatre was crowded night after night, and the resources of Europe in the way of translations, plaudits, and favorable criticisms were exhausted in the endeavor to express the general approval. The judgment of a later period has, however, assigned 'Cato' a secondary place, and it is remembered mainly on account of its many felicitous passages. It lacks real dramatic unity and vitality; the character of Cato is essentially an abstraction; there is little dramatic necessity in the situations and incidents. It is rhetorical rather than poetic, declamatory rather than dramatic. Johnson aptly described it as "rather a poem in dialogue than a drama, rather a succession of just sentiments in elegant language than a representation of natural affections, or of any state probable or possible in human life."

Addison's popularity touched its highest point in the production of 'Cato.' Even his conciliatory nature could not disarm the envy which such brilliant success naturally aroused, nor wholly escape the bitterness which the intense political feeling of the time constantly bred between ambitious and able men. Political differences separated him from Swift, and Steele's uncertain character and inconsistent course blighted what was probably the most delightful intimacy of his life. Pope doubtless believed that he had good ground for charging Addison with jealousy and insincerity, and in 1715 an open rupture took place between them. The story of the famous quarrel was first told by Pope, and his version was long accepted in many quarters as final; but later opinion inclines to hold Addison guiltless of the grave accusations brought against him. Pope was morbidly sensitive to slights, morbidly eager for praise, and extremely irritable. To a man of such temper, trifles light as air became significant of malice and hatred. Such trifles unhappily confirmed Pope's suspicions; his self-love was wounded, sensitiveness became animosity, and animosity became hate, which in the end inspired the most stinging bit of satire in the language:—

"Should such a one, resolved to reign alone, Bear, like the Turk, no brother near the throne, View him with jealous yet with scornful eyes, Hate him for arts that caused himself to rise, Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer, And, without sneering, teach the rest to sneer; Alike unused to blame or to commend, A timorous foe and a suspicious friend, Fearing e'en fools, by flatterers besieged, And so obliging that he ne'er obliged; Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike."

There was just enough semblance of truth in these inimitable lines to give them lasting stinging power; but that they were grossly unjust is now generally conceded. Addison was human, and therefore not free from the frailties of men of his profession; but there was no meanness in him.

Addison's loyalty to the Whig party and his ability to serve it kept him in intimate relations with its leaders and bound him to its fortunes. He served the Whig cause in Parliament, and filled many positions which required tact and judgment, attaining at last the very dignified post of Secretary of State. A long attachment for the Countess of Warwick culminated in marriage in 1716, and Addison took up his residence in Holland House; a house famous for its association with men of distinction in politics and letters. The marriage was not happy, if report is to be trusted. The union of the ill-adapted pair was, in any event, short-lived; for three years later, in 1719, Addison died in his early prime, not yet having completed his forty-eighth year. On his death-bed, Young tells us, he called his stepson to his side and said, "See in what peace a Christian can die." His body was laid in Westminster Abbey; his work is one of the permanent possessions of the English-speaking race; his character is one of its finest traditions. He was, as truly as Sir Philip Sidney, a gentleman in the sweetness of his spirit, the courage of his convictions, the refinement of his bearing, and the purity of his life. He was unspoiled by fortune and applause; uncorrupted by the tempting chances of his time; stainless in the use of gifts which in the hands of a man less true would have caught the contagion of Pope's malice or of Swift's corroding cynicism.

Hamilton W. Mabie

SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY AT THE PLAY

From the Spectator, No. 335

My friend Sir Roger de Coverley, when we last met together at the Club, told me, that he had a great mind to see the new Tragedy with me, assuring me at the same time that he had not been at a Play these twenty Years. The last I saw, said Sir Roger, was the Committee, which I should not have gone to neither, had not I been told beforehand that it was a good Church-of-England Comedy. He then proceeded to enquire of me who this Distrest Mother was; and upon hearing that she was Hector's Widow, he told me that her Husband was a brave Man, and that when he was a Schoolboy he had read his Life at the end of the Dictionary. My friend asked me in the next place, if there would not be some danger in coming home late, in case the Mohocks[1] should be Abroad. I assure you, says he, I thought I had fallen into their Hands last Night; for I observed two or three lusty black Men that follow'd me half way up Fleet-street, and mended their pace behind me, in proportion as I put on to get away from them. You must know, continu'd the Knight with a Smile, I fancied they had a mind to hunt me; for I remember an honest Gentleman in my Neighbourhood, who was served such a trick in King Charles the Second's time; for which reason he has not ventured himself in Town ever since. I might have shown them very good Sport, had this been their Design; for as I am an old Fox-hunter, I should have turned and dodg'd, and have play'd them a thousand tricks they had never seen in their Lives before. Sir Roger added, that if these gentlemen had any such Intention, they did not succeed very well in it: for I threw them out, says he, at the End of Norfolk street, where I doubled the Corner, and got shelter in my Lodgings before they could imagine what was become of me. However, says the Knight, if Captain Sentry will make one with us to-morrow night, and if you will both of you call upon me about four a Clock, that we may be at the House before it is full, I will have my own Coach in readiness to attend you, for John tells me he has got the Fore-Wheels mended.

[Footnote 1: London "bucks" who disguised themselves as savages and roamed the streets at night, committing outrages on persons and property.]

The Captain, who did not fail to meet me there at the appointed Hour, bid Sir Roger fear nothing, for that he had put on the same Sword which he made use of at the Battel of Steenkirk. Sir Roger's Servants, and among the rest my old Friend the Butler, had, I found, provided themselves with good Oaken Plants, to attend their Master upon this occasion. When he had placed him in his Coach, with my self at his Left-Hand, the Captain before him, and his Butler at the Head of his Footmen in the Rear, we convoy'd him in safety to the Play-house, where, after having marched up the Entry in good order, the Captain and I went in with him, and seated him betwixt us in the Pit. As soon as the House was full, and the Candles lighted, my old Friend stood up and looked about him with that Pleasure, which a Mind seasoned with Humanity naturally feels in its self, at the sight of a Multitude of People who seem pleased with one another, and partake of the same common Entertainment. I could not but fancy to myself, as the old Man stood up in the middle of the Pit, that he made a very proper Center to a Tragick Audience. Upon the entring of Pyrrhus, the Knight told me that he did not believe the King of France himself had a better Strut. I was indeed very attentive to my old Friend's Remarks, because I looked upon them as a Piece of natural Criticism, and was well pleased to hear him at the Conclusion of almost every Scene, telling me that he could not imagine how the Play would end. One while he appeared much concerned for Andromache; and a little while after as much for Hermione: and was extremely puzzled to think what would become of Pyrrhus.

When Sir Roger saw Andromache's obstinate Refusal to her Lover's importunities, he whisper'd me in the Ear, that he was sure she would never have him; to which he added, with a more than ordinary Vehemence, You can't imagine, Sir, what 'tis to have to do with a Widow. Upon Pyrrhus his threatning afterwards to leave her, the Knight shook his Head, and muttered to himself, Ay, do if you can. This Part dwelt so much upon my Friend's Imagination, that at the close of the Third Act, as I was thinking of something else, he whispered in my Ear, These Widows, Sir, are the most perverse Creatures in the World. But pray, says he, you that are a Critick, is this Play according to your Dramatick Rules, as you call them? Should your People in Tragedy always talk to be understood? Why, there is not a single Sentence in this Play that I do not know the Meaning of.

The Fourth Act very luckily begun before I had time to give the old Gentleman an Answer: Well, says the Knight, sitting down with great Satisfaction, I suppose we are now to see Hector's Ghost. He then renewed his Attention, and, from time to time, fell a praising the Widow. He made, indeed, a little Mistake as to one of her Pages, whom at his first entering, he took for Astyanax; but he quickly set himself right in that Particular, though, at the same time, he owned he should have been very glad to have seen the little Boy, who, says he, must needs be a very fine Child by the Account that is given of him. Upon Hermione's going off with a Menace to Pyrrhus, the Audience gave a loud Clap; to which Sir Roger added, On my Word, a notable young Baggage!

As there was a very remarkable Silence and Stillness in the Audience during the whole Action, it was natural for them to take the Opportunity of these Intervals between the Acts, to express their Opinion of the Players, and of their respective Parts. Sir Roger hearing a Cluster of them praise Orestes, struck in with them, and told them, that he thought his Friend Pylades was a very sensible Man; as they were afterwards applauding Pyrrhus, Sir Roger put in a second time; And let me tell you, says he, though he speaks but little, I like the old Fellow in Whiskers as well as any of them. Captain Sentry seeing two or three Waggs who sat near us, lean with an attentive Ear towards Sir Roger, and fearing lest they should Smoke the Knight, pluck'd him by the Elbow, and whisper'd something in his Ear, that lasted till the Opening of the Fifth Act. The Knight was wonderfully attentive to the Account which Orestes gives of Pyrrhus his Death, and at the Conclusion of it, told me it was such a bloody Piece of Work, that he was glad it was not done upon the Stage. Seeing afterwards Orestes in his raving Fit, he grew more than ordinary serious, and took occasion to moralize (in his way) upon an Evil Conscience, adding, that Orestes, in his Madness, looked as if he saw something.

As we were the first that came into the House, so we were the last that went out of it; being resolved to have a clear Passage for our old Friend, whom we did not care to venture among the justling of the Crowd. Sir Roger went out fully satisfied with his Entertainment, and we guarded him to his Lodgings in the same manner that we brought him to the Playhouse; being highly pleased, for my own part, not only with the Performance of the excellent Piece which had been Presented, but with the Satisfaction which it had given to the good old Man. L.

A VISIT TO SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY

From the Spectator, No. 106

Having often received an Invitation from my Friend Sir Roger de Coverley to pass away a Month with him in the Country, I last Week accompanied him thither, and am settled with him for some time at his Country-house, where I intend to form several of my ensuing Speculations. Sir Roger, who is very well acquainted with my Humour, lets me rise and go to Bed when I please, dine at his own Table or in my Chamber as I think fit, sit still and say nothing without bidding me be merry. When the Gentlemen of the Country come to see him, he only shews me at a distance: As I have been walking in his Fields I have observed them stealing a Sight of me over an Hedge, and have heard the Knight desiring them not to let me see them, for that I hated to be stared at.

I am the more at Ease in Sir Roger's Family, because it consists of sober and staid Persons: for as the Knight is the best Master in the World, he seldom changes his Servants; and as he is beloved by all about him, his Servants never care for leaving him: by this means his Domesticks are all in years, and grown old with their Master. You would take his Valet de Chambre for his Brother, his Butler is grey-headed, his Groom is one of the Gravest men that I have ever seen, and his Coachman has the Looks of a Privy-Counsellor. You see the Goodness of the Master even in the old House-dog, and in a grey Pad that is kept in the Stable with great Care and Tenderness out of Regard to his past Services, tho' he has been useless for several Years.

I could not but observe with a great deal of pleasure the Joy that appeared in the Countenances of these ancient Domesticks upon my Friend's Arrival at his Country-Seat. Some of them could not refrain from Tears at the Sight of their old Master; every one of them press'd forward to do something for him, and seemed discouraged if they were not employed. At the same time the good old Knight, with a Mixture of the Father and the Master of the Family, tempered the Enquiries after his own Affairs with several kind Questions relating to themselves. This Humanity and good Nature engages every Body to him, so that when he is pleasant upon any of them, all his Family are in good Humour, and none so much as the Person whom he diverts himself with: On the contrary, if he coughs, or betrays any Infirmity of old Age, it is easy for a Stander-by to observe a secret Concern in the Looks of all his Servants.

My worthy Friend has put me under the particular Care of his Butler, who is a very prudent Man, and, as well as the rest of his Fellow-Servants, wonderfully desirous of pleasing me, because they have often heard their Master talk of me as of his particular Friend.

My chief Companion, when Sir Roger is diverting himself in the Woods or the Fields, is a very venerable man who is ever with Sir Roger, and has lived at his House in the Nature of a Chaplain above thirty Years. This Gentleman is a Person of good Sense and some Learning, of a very regular Life and obliging Conversation: He heartily loves Sir Roger, and knows that he is very much in the old Knight's Esteem, so that he lives in the Family rather as a Relation than a Dependent.

I have observed in several of my Papers, that my Friend Sir Roger, amidst all his good Qualities, is something of an Humourist; and that his Virtues, as well as Imperfections, are as it were tinged by a certain Extravagance, which makes them particularly his, and distinguishes them from those of other Men. This Cast of Mind, as it is generally very innocent in it self, so it renders his Conversation highly agreeable, and more delightful than the same Degree of Sense and Virtue would appear in their common and ordinary Colours. As I was walking with him last Night, he asked me how I liked the good Man whom I have just now mentioned? and without staying for my Answer told me, That he was afraid of being insulted with Latin and Greek at his own Table; for which Reason he desired a particular Friend of his at the University to find him out a Clergyman rather of plain Sense than much Learning, of a good Aspect, a clear Voice, a sociable Temper, and, if possible, a Man that understood a little of Back-Gammon. My Friend, says Sir Roger, found me out this Gentleman, who, besides the Endowments required of him, is, they tell me, a good Scholar, tho' he does not show it. I have given him the Parsonage of the Parish; and because I know his Value have settled upon him a good Annuity for Life. If he outlives me, he shall find that he was higher in my Esteem than perhaps he thinks he is. He has now been with me thirty Years; and tho' he does not know I have taken Notice of it, has never in all that time asked anything of me for himself, tho' he is every Day soliciting me for something in behalf of one or other of my Tenants his Parishioners. There has not been a Law-suit in the Parish since he has liv'd among them: If any Dispute arises they apply themselves to him for the Decision, if they do not acquiesce in his Judgment, which I think never happened above once or twice at most, they appeal to me. At his first settling with me, I made him a Present of all the good Sermons which have been printed in English, and only begg'd of him that every Sunday he would pronounce one of them in the Pulpit. Accordingly, he has digested them into such a Series, that they follow one another naturally, and make a continued System of practical Divinity.

As Sir Roger was going on in his Story, the Gentleman we were talking of came up to us; and upon the Knight's asking him who preached to morrow (for it was Saturday Night) told us, the Bishop of St. Asaph in the Morning, and Dr. South in the Afternoon. He then shewed us his List of Preachers for the whole Year, where I saw with a great deal of Pleasure Archbishop Tillotson, Bishop Saunderson, Doctor Barrow, Doctor Calamy, with several living Authors who have published Discourses of Practical Divinity. I no sooner saw this venerable Man in the Pulpit, but I very much approved of my Friend's insisting upon the Qualifications of a good Aspect and a clear Voice; for I was so charmed with the Gracefulness of his Figure and Delivery, as well as with the Discourses he pronounced, that I think I never passed any Time more to my Satisfaction. A Sermon repeated after this Manner, is like the Composition of a Poet in the Mouth of a graceful Actor.

I could heartily wish that more of our Country Clergy would follow this Example; and in stead of wasting their Spirits in laborious Compositions of their own, would endeavour after a handsome Elocution, and all those other Talents that are proper to enforce what has been penned by greater Masters. This would not only be more easy to themselves, but more edifying to the People.

THE VANITY OF HUMAN LIFE

'The Vision of Mirzah,' from the Spectator, No. 159

When I was at Grand Cairo, I picked up several Oriental Manuscripts, which I have still by me. Among others I met with one entitled, The Visions of Mirzah, which I have read over with great Pleasure. I intend to give it to the Publick when I have no other entertainment for them; and shall begin with the first Vision, which I have translated Word for Word as follows.

On the fifth Day of the Moon, which according to the Custom of my Forefathers I always keep holy, after having washed my self, and offered up my Morning Devotions, I ascended the high hills of Bagdat, in order to pass the rest of the Day in Meditation and Prayer. As I was here airing my self on the Tops of the Mountains, I fell into a profound Contemplation on the Vanity of human Life; and passing from one Thought to another, Surely, said I, Man is but a Shadow and Life a Dream. Whilst I was thus musing, I cast my eyes towards the Summit of a Rock that was not far from me, where I discovered one in the Habit of a Shepherd, with a little Musical Instrument in his Hand. As I looked upon him he applied it to his Lips, and began to play upon it. The sound of it was exceeding sweet, and wrought into a Variety of Tunes that were inexpressibly melodious, and altogether different from any thing I had ever heard. They put me in mind of those heavenly Airs that are played to the departed Souls of good Men upon their first Arrival in Paradise, to wear out the Impressions of the last Agonies, and qualify them for the Pleasures of that happy Place. My Heart melted away in secret Raptures.

I had been often told that the Rock before me was the Haunt of a Genius; and that several had been entertained with Musick who had passed by it, but never heard that the Musician had before made himself visible. When he had raised my Thoughts by those transporting Airs which he played, to taste the Pleasures of his Conversation, as I looked upon him like one astonished, he beckoned to me, and by the waving of his Hand directed me to approach the Place where he sat. I drew near with that Reverence which is due to a superior Nature; and as my heart was entirely subdued by the captivating Strains I heard, I fell down at his Feet and wept. The Genius smiled upon me with a Look of Compassion and Affability that familiarized him to my Imagination, and at once dispelled all the Fears and Apprehensions with which I approached him. He lifted me from the Ground, and taking me by the hand, Mirzah, said he, I have heard thee in thy Soliloquies; follow me.

He then led me to the highest Pinnacle of the Rock, and placing me on the Top of it, Cast thy Eyes Eastward, said he, and tell me what thou seest. I see, said I, a huge Valley, and a prodigious Tide of Water rolling through it. The Valley that thou seest, said he, is the Vale of Misery, and the Tide of Water that thou seest is part of the great Tide of Eternity. What is the Reason, said I, that the Tide I see rises out of a thick Mist at one End, and again loses itself in a thick Mist at the other? What thou seest, said he, is that Portion of Eternity which is called Time, measured out by the Sun, and reaching from the Beginning of the World to its Consummation. Examine now, said he, this Sea that is bounded with darkness at both Ends, and tell me what thou discoverest in it. I see a Bridge, said I, standing in the Midst of the Tide. The Bridge thou seest, said he, is human Life, consider it attentively. Upon a more leisurely Survey of it, I found that it consisted of threescore and ten entire Arches, with several broken Arches, which added to those that were entire, made up the Number about an hundred. As I was counting the Arches, the Genius told me that this Bridge consisted at first of a thousand Arches; but that a great Flood swept away the rest, and left the Bridge in the ruinous Condition I now beheld it: But tell me further, said he, what thou discoverest on it. I see Multitudes of People passing over it, said I, and a black Cloud hanging on each End of it. As I looked more attentively, I saw several of the Passengers dropping thro' the Bridge, into the great Tide that flowed underneath it; and upon farther Examination, perceived there were innumerable Trap-doors that lay concealed in the Bridge, which the Passengers no sooner trod upon, but they fell thro' them into the Tide and immediately disappeared. These hidden Pit-falls were set very thick at the Entrance of the Bridge, so that the Throngs of People no sooner broke through the Cloud, but many of them fell into them. They grew thinner towards the Middle, but multiplied and lay closer together toward the End of the Arches that were entire. There were indeed some Persons, but their number was very small, that continued a kind of a hobbling March on the broken Arches, but fell through one after another, being quite tired and spent with so long a Walk.

I passed some Time in the Contemplation of this wonderful Structure, and the great Variety of Objects which it presented. My heart was filled with a deep Melancholy to see several dropping unexpectedly in the midst of Mirth and Jollity, and catching at every thing that stood by them to save themselves. Some were looking up towards the Heavens in a thoughtful Posture, and in the midst of a Speculation stumbled and fell out of Sight. Multitudes were very busy in the Pursuit of Bubbles that glittered in their Eyes and danced before them; but often when they thought themselves within the reach of them their Footing failed and down they sunk. In this Confusion of Objects, I observed some with Scymetars in their Hands, and others with Urinals, who ran to and fro upon the Bridge, thrusting several Persons on Trap-doors which did not seem to lie in their way, and which they might have escaped had they not been forced upon them.

The Genius seeing me indulge my self in this melancholy Prospect, told me I had dwelt long enough upon it: Take thine Eyes off the Bridge, said he, and tell me if thou yet seest any thing thou dost not comprehend. Upon looking up, What mean, said I, those great Flights of Birds that are perpetually hovering about the Bridge, and settling upon it from time to time? I see Vultures, Harpyes, Ravens, Cormorants, and among many other feather'd Creatures several little winged Boys, that perch in great Numbers upon the middle Arches. These, said the Genius, are Envy, Avarice, Superstition, Despair, Love, with the like Cares and Passions that infest human Life.

I here fetched a deep Sigh, Alas, said I, Man was made in vain! How is he given away to Misery and Mortality! tortured in Life, and swallowed up in Death! The Genius being moved with Compassion towards me, bid me quit so uncomfortable a Prospect: Look no more, said he, on Man in the first Stage of his Existence, in his setting out for Eternity; but cast thine Eye on that thick Mist into which the Tide bears the several Generations of Mortals that fall into it. I directed my Sight as I was ordered, and (whether or no the good Genius strengthened it with any supernatural Force, or dissipated Part of the Mist that was before too thick for the Eye to penetrate) I saw the Valley opening at the farther End, and spreading forth into an immense Ocean, that had a huge Rock of Adamant running through the Midst of it, and dividing it into two equal parts. The Clouds still rested on one Half of it, insomuch that I could discover nothing in it: But the other appeared to me a vast Ocean planted with innumerable Islands, that were covered with Fruits and Flowers, and interwoven with a thousand little shining Seas that ran among them. I could see Persons dressed in glorious Habits with Garlands upon their Heads, passing among the Trees, lying down by the Side of Fountains, or resting on Beds of Flowers; and could hear a confused Harmony of singing Birds, falling Waters, human Voices, and musical Instruments. Gladness grew in me upon the Discovery of so delightful a Scene. I wished for the Wings of an Eagle, that I might fly away to those happy Seats; but the Genius told me there was no Passage to them, except through the Gates of Death that I saw opening every Moment upon the Bridge. The Islands, said he, that lie so fresh and green before thee, and with which the whole Face of the Ocean appears spotted as far as thou canst see, are more in number than the Sands on the Sea-shore; there are Myriads of Islands behind those which thou here discoverest, reaching further than thine Eye, or even thine Imagination can extend it self. These are the Mansions of good Men after Death, who according to the Degree and Kinds of Virtue in which they excelled, are distributed among these several Islands, which abound with Pleasures of different Kinds and Degrees, suitable to the Relishes and Perfections of those who are settled in them; every Island is a Paradise accommodated to its respective Inhabitants. Are not these, O Mirzah, Habitations worth contending for? Does Life appear miserable, that gives thee Opportunities of earning such a Reward? Is Death to be feared, that will convey thee to so happy an Existence? Think not Man was made in vain, who has such an Eternity reserved for him. I gazed with inexpressible Pleasure on these happy Islands. At length, said I, shew me now, I beseech thee, the Secrets that lie hid under those dark Clouds which cover the Ocean on the other side of the Rock of Adamant. The Genius making me no Answer, I turned about to address myself to him a second time, but I found that he had left me; I then turned again to the Vision which I had been so long contemplating; but Instead of the rolling Tide, the arched Bridge, and the happy Islands, I saw nothing but the long hollow Valley of Bagdat, with Oxen, Sheep, and Camels grazing upon the Sides of it.

AN ESSAY ON FANS

From the Spectator, No. 102

I do not know whether to call the following Letter a Satyr upon Coquets, or a Representation of their several fantastical Accomplishments, or what other Title to give it; but as it is I shall communicate it to the Publick. It will sufficiently explain its own Intentions, so that I shall give it my Reader at Length, without either Preface or Postscript.

Mr. Spectator:

Women are armed with Fans as Men with Swords, and sometimes do more Execution with them. To the end therefore that Ladies may be entire Mistresses of the Weapon which they bear, I have erected an Academy for the training up of young Women in the Exercise of the Fan, according to the most fashionable Airs and Motions that are now practis'd at Court. The Ladies who carry Fans under me are drawn up twice a-day in my great Hall, where they are instructed in the Use of their Arms, and exercised by the following Words of Command,

Handle your Fans, Unfurl your Fans, Discharge your Fans, Ground your Fans, Recover your Fans, Flutter your Fans.

By the right Observation of these few plain Words of Command, a Woman of a tolerable Genius, who will apply herself diligently to her Exercise for the Space of but one half Year, shall be able to give her Fan all the Graces that can possibly enter into that little modish Machine.

But to the end that my Readers may form to themselves a right Notion of this Exercise, I beg leave to explain it to them in all its Parts. When my Female Regiment is drawn up in Array, with every one her Weapon in her Hand, upon my giving the Word to handle their Fans, each of them shakes her Fan at me with a Smile, then gives her Right-hand Woman a Tap upon the Shoulder, then presses her Lips with the Extremity of her Fan, then lets her Arms fall in an easy Motion, and stands in a Readiness to receive the next Word of Command. All this is done with a close Fan, and is generally learned in the first Week.

The next Motion is that of unfurling the Fan, in which are comprehended several little Flirts and Vibrations, as also gradual and deliberate Openings, with many voluntary Fallings asunder in the Fan itself, that are seldom learned under a Month's Practice. This part of the Exercise pleases the Spectators more than any other, as it discovers on a sudden an infinite Number of Cupids, [Garlands,] Altars, Birds, Beasts, Rainbows, and the like agreeable Figures, that display themselves to View, whilst every one in the Regiment holds a Picture in her Hand.

Upon my giving the Word to discharge their Fans, they give one general Crack that may be heard at a considerable distance when the Wind sits fair. This is one of the most difficult parts of the Exercise; but I have several ladies with me who at their first Entrance could not give a Pop loud enough to be heard at the further end of a Room, who can now discharge a Fan in such a manner that it shall make a Report like a Pocket-Pistol. I have likewise taken care (in order to hinder young Women from letting off their Fans in wrong Places or unsuitable Occasions) to shew upon what Subject the Crack of a Fan may come in properly: I have likewise invented a Fan, with which a Girl of Sixteen, by the help of a little Wind which is inclosed about one of the largest Sticks, can make as loud a Crack as a Woman of Fifty with an ordinary Fan.

When the Fans are thus discharged, the Word of Command in course is to ground their Fans. This teaches a Lady to quit her Fan gracefully, when she throws it aside in order to take up a Pack of Cards, adjust a Curl of Hair, replace a falling Pin, or apply her self to any other Matter of Importance. This Part of the Exercise, as it only consists in tossing a Fan with an Air upon a long Table (which stands by for that Purpose) may be learned in two Days Time as well as in a Twelvemonth.

When my Female Regiment is thus disarmed, I generally let them walk about the Room for some Time; when on a sudden (like Ladies that look upon their Watches after a long Visit) they all of them hasten to their Arms, catch them up in a Hurry, and place themselves in their proper Stations upon my calling out Recover your Fans. This Part of the Exercise is not difficult, provided a Woman applies her Thoughts to it.

The Fluttering of the Fan is the last, and indeed the Masterpiece of the whole Exercise; but if a Lady does not mis-spend her Time, she may make herself Mistress of it in three Months. I generally lay aside the Dog-days and the hot Time of the Summer for the teaching this Part of the Exercise; for as soon as ever I pronounce Flutter your Fans, the Place is fill'd with so many Zephyrs and gentle Breezes as are very refreshing in that Season of the Year, tho' they might be dangerous to Ladies of a tender Constitution in any other.

There is an infinite variety of Motions to be made use of in the Flutter of a Fan. There is an Angry Flutter, the modest Flutter, the timorous Flutter, the confused Flutter, the merry Flutter, and the amorous Flutter. Not to be tedious, there is scarce any Emotion in the Mind which does not produce a suitable Agitation in the Fan; insomuch, that if I only see the Fan of a disciplin'd Lady, I know very well whether she laughs, frowns, or blushes. I have seen a Fan so very Angry, that it would have been dangerous for the absent Lover who provoked it to have come within the Wind of it; and at other times so very languishing, that I have been glad for the Lady's sake the Lover was at a sufficient Distance from it. I need not add, that a Fan is either a Prude or Coquet according to the Nature of the Person who bears it. To conclude my Letter, I must acquaint you that I have from my own Observations compiled a little Treatise for the use of my Scholars, entitled The Passions of the Fan; which I will communicate to you, if you think it may be of use to the Publick. I shall have a general Review on Thursday next; to which you shall be very welcome if you will honour it with your Presence.

I am, &c.

P.S. I teach young Gentlemen the whole Art of Gallanting a Fan.

N.B. I have several little plain Fans made for this Use, to avoid Expence.

L.

HYMN

From the Spectator, No. 465

The Spacious Firmament on high With all the blue Etherial Sky, And Spangled Heav'ns, a Shining Frame, Their great Original proclaim: Th' unwearied Sun, from Day to Day, Does his Creator's Pow'r display, And publishes to every Land The Work of an Almighty Hand.

Soon as the Evening Shades prevail, The Moon takes up the wondrous Tale, And nightly to the list'ning Earth, Repeats the Story of her Birth: While all the Stars that round her burn, And all the Planets in their Turn, Confirm the Tidings as they rowl, And spread the Truth from Pole to Pole.

What though, in solemn Silence, all Move round the dark terrestrial Ball? What tho' nor real Voice nor Sound Amid their radiant Orbs be found? In Reason's Ear they all rejoice, And titter forth a glorious Voice, For ever singing, as they shine, "The Hand that made us is Divine."



AELIANUS CLAUDIUS

(Second Century A.D.)

According to his 'Varia Historia,' Aelianus Claudius was a native of Praeneste and a citizen of Rome, at the time of the emperor Hadrian. He taught Greek rhetoric at Rome, and hence was known as "the Sophist." He spoke and wrote Greek with the fluency and ease of a native Athenian, and gained thereby the epithet of "the honey-tongued". He lived to be sixty years of age, and never married because he would not incur the responsibility of children.

The 'Varia Historia' is the most noteworthy of his works. It is a curious and interesting collection of short narratives, anecdotes, and other historical, biographical, and antiquarian matter, selected from the Greek authors whom he said he loved to study. And it is valuable because it preserves scraps of works now lost. The extracts are either in the words of the original, or give the compiler's version; for, as he says, he liked to have his own way and to follow his own taste. They are grouped without method; but in this very lack of order—which shows that "browsing" instinct which Charles Lamb declared to be essential to a right feeling for literature—the charm of the book lies. This habit of straying, and his lack of style, prove Aelianus more of a vagabond in the domain of letters than a rhetorician.