of the countries through which I passed; for it is impossible that any thing should be universally tasted and approved by a multitude, though they are only the rabble of a nation, which hath not in it some peculiar aptness to please and gratify the mind of man. Human nature is the same in all reasonable creatures; and whatever falls in with it will meet with admirers amongst readers of all qualities and conditions. Moliere, as we are told by Monsieur Boileau, used to read all his comedies to an old woman who was his housekeeper, as she sat with him at her work by the chimney corner; and could foretell the success of his play in the theater from the reception it met at his fireside. For he tells us the audience always followed the old woman and never failed to laugh in the same place. I know nothing which more shows the essential and inherent perfection of simplicity of thought, above that which I call the Gothic manner in writing, than this, that the first pleases all kinds of palates, and the latter only such as have formed to themselves a wrong, artificial taste upon little fanciful authors and writers of epigram. Homer, Virgil, or Milton, so far as the language of their poems is understood, will please a reader of plain common sense, who would neither relish nor comprehend an epigram of Martial or a poem of Cowley. So, on the contrary, an ordinary song or ballad that is the delight of the common people cannot fail to please all such readers as are rot unqualified for the entertainment by their affectation or ignorance; and the reason is plain, because the same paintings of nature which recommend it to the most ordinary reader will appear beautiful to the most refined. The old song of Chevy Chase is the favorite ballad of the common people of England; and Ben Jonson used to say Printed above, p. 125. he had rather have been the author of it than of all his works. Sir Philip Sidney in his Discourse of Poetry speaks of it in the following words: "I never heard the old song of Percy and Douglas, that I found not my heart more moved than with a trumpet; and yet it is sung by some blind crowder 2 with no rougher voice than rude style; which being so evil appareled in the dust and cobweb of that uncivil age, what would it work trimmed in the gorgeous eloquence of Pindar?" For my own part, I am so professed an admirer of this antiquated song that I shall give my reader a critic upon it without any further apology for so doing. The greatest modern critics have laid it down as a rule that an heroic poem should be founded upon some important precept of morality, adapted to the constitution of the country in which the poet writes. Homer and Virgil have formed their plans in this view. As Greece was a collection of many governments who suffered very much among themselves and gave the Persian emperor, who was their common enemy, many advantages over them by their mutual jealousies and animosities, Homer, in order to establish among them an union, which was SO necessary for their safety, grounds his poem upon the discords of the several Grecian princes who were engaged in a confederacy against an Asiatic prince, and the several advantages which the enemy gained by such their discords. At the time the poem we are now treating of was written, the dissensions of the barons, who were then so many petty princes, ran very high, whether they quarreled among themselves, or with their neighbors, and produced unspeakable calamities to the country: The poet, to deter men from such unnatural contentions, describes a bloody battle and dreadful scene 2 fiddler of death, occasioned by the mutual feuds which reigned in the families of an English and Scotch nobleman. That he designed this for the instruction of his poem, we may learn from his four last lines, in which, after the example of the modern tragedians, he draws from it a precept for the benefit of his readers. God save the King, and bless the land The next point observed by the greatest heroic poets hath been to celebrate persons and actions which do honor to their country: thus Virgil's hero was the founder of Rome, Homer's a prince of Greece; and for this reason Valerius Flaccus and Statius, who were both Romans, might be justly derided for having chosen the expedition of the Golden Fleece, and the Wars of Thebes, for the subjects of their epic writings. The poet before us has not only found out an hero in his own country, but raises the reputation of it by several beautiful incidents. The English are the first who take the field, and the last who quit it. The English bring only fifteen hundred to the battle, the Scotch, two thousand. The English keep the field with fifty-three: The Scotch retire with fiftyfive: all the rest on each side being slain in battle. But the most remarkable circumstance of this kind, is the different manner in which the Scotch and English kings receive the news of this fight, and of the great men's deaths who commanded in it. This news was brought to Edinburgh, Where Scotland's King did reign, That brave Earl Douglas suddenly Was with an arrow slain. O heavy news, King James did say, I have not any captain more Like tidings to King Henry came Now God be with him, said our King, I trust I have within my realm Yet shall not Scot nor Scotland say And be revenged on them all This vow full well the King perform'd In one day fifty knights were slain And of the rest of small account Did many thousands die, &c. At the same time that our poet shows a laudable partiality to his countrymen, he represents the Scots after a manner not unbecoming so bold and brave a people. Earl Douglas on a milk-white steed, His sentiments and actions are every way suitable to an hero. One of us two, says he, must die; I am an earl as well as yourself, so that you can have no pretense for refusing the combat: however, says he, 'tis pity, and indeed would be a sin, that so many innocent men should perish for our sakes; rather let you and I end our quarrel in single fight. E'er thus I will out-braved be, I know thee well, an Earl thou art, But trust me, Percy, pity it were, And great offense, to kill Any of these our harmless men, For they have done no ill. Let thou and I the battle try, And set our men aside; Accurst be he, Lord Percy said, By whom this is deny'd. 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 Who never spoke more words than these, 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; 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 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 O Christ! My very heart doth bleed For sure a more renowned knight That beautiful line Taking the dead man by the hand, will put the reader in mind of Æneas'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, The pious prince beheld young Lausus dead; 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. 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 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 odiis1 (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. |