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When these brave men had distinguished themselves in the battle and in single combat with each other, in the midst of a generous parley, full of heroic sentiments, the Scotch earl falls; and with his dying words encourages his men to revenge his death, representing to them, as the most bitter circumstance of it, that his rival saw him fall.

With that there came an arrow keen

Out of an English bow,

Which struck Earl Douglas to the heart A deep and deadly blow.

Who never spoke more words than these,
Fight on my merry men all,
For why, my life is at an end,
Lord Percy sees my fall.

Merry men, in the language of those times, is no more than a cheerful word for companions and fellow soldiers. A passage in the eleventh book of Virgil's Eneids is very much to be admired, where Camilla in her last agonies, instead of weeping over the wound she had received, as one might have expected from a warrior of her sex, considers only (like the hero of whom we are now speaking) how the battle should be continued after her death.

Tum sic expirans, &c.

A gathering mist o'erclouds her cheerful eyes;
And from her cheeks the rosy color flies,
Then, turns to her, whom, of her female train
She trusted most, and thus she speaks with pain.
Acca, 'tis past! He swims before my sight,
Inexorable death; and claims his right.
Bear my last words to Turnus, fly with speed,
And bid him timely to my charge succeed:
Repel the Trojans, and the town relieve:
Farewell.-

Turnus did not die in so heroic a manner; though our poet seems to have had his eye upon Turnus's speech in the last

verse.

Lord Percy sees my fall.

-Vicisti, et victum tendere palmas Ausonii videre-1

You have conquered, and the Ausonians have seen me, vanquished, hold out my palms.

Earl Percy's lamentation over his enemy is generous, beautiful, and passionate; I must only caution the reader not to let the simplicity of the style, which one may well pardon in so old a poet, prejudice him against the greatness of the thought.

Then, leaving life, Earl Percy took
The dead man by the hand,
And said, Earl Douglas for thy life
Would I had lost my land.

O Christ! My very heart doth bleed
With sorrow for thy sake;

For sure a more renowned knight
Mischance did never take.

That beautiful line Taking the dead man by the hand, will put the reader in mind of Eneas's behavior toward Lausus, whom he himself had slain as he came to the rescue of his aged father.

At vero ut vultum vidit morientis, et ora,
Ora modis Anchisiades pallentia miris,
Ingemuit, miserans graviter, dextramque teten-
dit, &c.

The pious prince beheld young Lausus dead;
He griev'd, he wept; then grasp'd his hand, and
said,

Poor hapless Youth! What praises can be paid To worth so great -!

I shall take another opportunity to consider the other parts of this old song.

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Censure, says a late ingenious author, is the tax a man pays to the public for being eminent. It is a folly for an eminent man to think of escaping it, and a weakness to be affected with it. All the illustrious persons of antiquity, and indeed of every age in the world, have passed through this fiery persecution. There is no defense against reproach but obscurity; it is a kind of concomitant to greatness, as satires and invectives were an essential part of a Roman triumph.

If men of eminence are exposed to censure on one hand, they are as much liable to flattery on the other. If they receive reproaches which are not due to them, they likewise receive praises which they do not deserve. In a word, the man in a high post is never regarded with an indifferent eye, but always considered as a friend or an enemy. For this reason, persons in great stations have seldom their true characters drawn till several years after their deaths. Their personal friendships and enmities must cease, and the parties they were engaged in be at an end, before their faults or their virtues can have justice done them. writers have the least opportunity of knowing the truth, they are in the best disposition to tell it.

When

It is therefore the privilege of posterity to adjust the characters of illustrious persons, and to set matters right between those antagonists who by their rivalry for greatness divided a whole age into factions. We can now allow Cæsar to be a great man, without derogating from Pompey; and celebrate the virtues of Cato, without detracting from those of Cæsar. Every one that has been long dead has a due proportion of praise allotted him, in which whilst he lived his friends were too profuse and his enemies too sparing.

According to Sir Isaac Newton's calculations, the last comet that made its appearance in 1680 imbibed so much heat

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by its approaches to the sun that it would have been two thousand times hotter than red hot iron, had it been a globe of that metal; and that supposing it as big as the earth, and at the same distance from the sun, it would be fifty thousand years in cooling, before it recovered its natural temper. In the like manner, if an Englishman considers the great ferment into which our political world is thrown at present, and how intensely it is heated in all its parts, he cannot suppose that will cool again in less than three hundred years. In such a tract of time, it is possible that the heats of the present age may be extinguished, and our several classes of great men represented under their proper characters. Some eminent historian may then probably arise that will not write recentibus odiis 1 (as Tacitus expresses it), with the passions and prejudices of a contemporary author, but make an impartial distribution of fame among the great men of the present age. I cannot forbear entertaining myself very often with the idea of such an imaginary historian describing the reign of Anne the First, and introducing it with a preface to his reader, that he is now entering upon the most shining part of the English story. The great rivals in fame will be then distinguished according to their respective merits, and shine in their proper points of light. Such an one (says the historian), though variously represented by the writers of his own age, appears to have been a man of more than ordinary abilities, great application, and uncommon integrity: Nor was such an one (though of an opposite party and interest) inferior to him in any of these respects. The several antagonists, who now endeavor to depreciate one another, and are celebrated or traduced by different parties, will then have the same body of admirers, and appear illustrious in the

1 with recent hatreds

opinion of the whole British nation. The deserving man, who can now recommend himself to the esteem of but half his countrymen, will then receive the approbations and applauses of a whole age.

Among the several persons that flourish in this glorious reign, there is no question but such a future historian as the person of whom I am speaking will make mention of the men of genius and learning, who have now any figure in the British nation. For my own part, I often flatter myself with the honorable mention which will then be made of me; and have drawn up a paragraph in my own imagination, that I fancy will not be altogether unlike what will be found in some page or other of this imaginary historian.

It was under this reign, says he, that the Spectator published those little diurnal essays which are still extant. We know very little of the name or person of this author, except only that he was a man of a very short face, extremely addicted to silence, and so great a lover of knowledge that he made a voyage to Grand Cairo for no other reason but to take the measure of a pyramid. His chief friend was one Sir Roger de Coverley, a whimsical country knight, and a Templar whose name he has not transmitted to us. He lived as a lodger at the house of a widow woman, and was a great humorist in all parts of his life. This is all we can affirm with any certainty of his person and character. As for his speculations, notwithstanding the several obsolete words and obscure phrases of the age in which he lived, we still understand enough of them to see the diversions and characters of the English nation in his time: Not but that we are to make allowance for the mirth and humor of the author, who has doubtless strained many representations of things beyond the truth. For if we interpret his words in their literal meaning, we must suppose

that women of the first quality used to pass away whole mornings at a puppet show: That they attested their principles by their patches: That an audience would sit out an evening to hear a dramatical performance written in a language which they did not understand: That chairs and flower pots were introduced as actors upon the British stage: That a promiscuous assembly of men and women were allowed to meet at midnight in masks within the verge of the court; with many improbabilities of the like nature. We must, therefore, in these and the like. cases, suppose that these remote hints and allusions aimed at some certain follies which were then in vogue, and which at present we have not any notion of. We may guess by several passages in the speculations that there were writers who endeavored to detract from the works of this author; but as nothing of this nature is come down to us, we cannot guess at any objections that could be made to his paper. If we consider his style with that indulgence which we must show to old English writers, or if we look into the variety of his subjects, with those several critical dissertations, moral reflections. *

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The following part of the paragraph is so much to my advantage, and beyond any thing I can pretend to, that I hope my reader will excuse me for not inserting it.

THE FAN DRILL [Spectator, No. 102. Addison. Wednesday, June 27, 1711.]

-Lusus animo debent aliquando dari, Ad cogitandum melior ut redeat sibi.1 -Phædrus.

I do not know whether to call the following letter a satire upon coquettes or

1 Diversion should sometimes be given to the mind, that it may be better for thinking when it returns to itself.

a representation of their several fantastical accomplishments, or what other title to give it; but as it is I shall communicate it to the public. It will sufficiently explain its own intentions, so that I shall give it my reader at length, without 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 practiced 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 show 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 enclosed 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 herself 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 yours 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 misspend 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 filled with so many zephyrs and gentle breezes as are very refreshing in that season of the year, though 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 the 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 disciplined 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 coquette, 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 own scholars, entitled The Passions of the Fan; which I will communicate to you, if you think it may be of use to the public. I shall have a general review on Thursday next, to which you shall be very welcome if you will honor 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 expense."

SIR ROGER AT CHURCH

[Spectator, No. 112. Addison. Monday, July 9, 1711.]

̓Αθανάτους μὲν πρῶτα θεούς, νόμῳ ὡς διάκειται,
Τίμα.
-Pythagoras.

I am always very well pleased with a country Sunday, and think, if keeping holy the seventh day were only a human. institution, it would be the best method that could have been thought of for the polishing and civilizing of mankind. It is certain the country people would soon degenerate into a kind of savages and barbarians, were there not such frequent returns of a stated time, in which the whole village meet together with their best faces, and in their cleanliest habits, to converse with one another upon indifferent subjects, hear their duties explained to them, and join together in adoration of the Supreme Being. Sunday clears away the rust of the whole week, not only as it refreshes in their minds the notions of

1 First then honor the immortal gods, as it is or dained in the law,

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