verse in his head, sets up for a writer of songs, and resolves to immortalize his bottle or his mistress. What a world of insipid productions in this kind have we been pestered with since the revolution, to go no higher! This, no doubt, proceeds in a great measure from not forming a right judgment of the nature of these little compositions. It is true, they do not require an elevation of thought, nor any extraordinary capacity, nor an extensive knowledge; but then they demand great regularity, and the utmost nicety; an exact purity of style, with the most easy and flowing numbers; an elegant and unaffected turn of wit, with one uniform and simple design. Greater works cannot well be without some inequalities and oversights, and they are in them pardonable; but a song loses all its lustre if it be not polished with the greatest accuracy. The smallest blemish in it, like a flaw in a jewel, takes off the whole value of it. A song is, as it were, a little image in enamel, that requires all the nice touches of the pencil, a gloss and a smoothness, with those delicate finishing strokes, which would be superfluous and thrown away upon larger figures, where the strength and boldness of a masterly hand gives all the grace.

You

Since you may have recourse to the French and English translations, you will not accuse me of pedantry, when I tell you that Sappho, Anacreon, and Horace in some of his shorter lyrics, are the completest models for little odes or sonnets. will find them generally pursuing a single thought in their songs, which is driven to a point, without those interruptions and deviations so frequent in the modern writers of this order. To do justice to the French, there is no living language that abounds so much in good songs. The genius of the

people, and the idiom of their tongue, seems adapted to compositions of this sort. Our writers generally croud into one song, materials enough for several; and so they starve every thought, by endeavouring to nurse up more than one at a time. They give you a string of imperfect sonnets, instead of one finished piece, which is a fault Mr. Waller (whose beauties cannot be too much admired) sometimes falls into. But, of all our countrymen, none are more defective in their songs, through a redundancy of wit, than Dr. Donne, and Mr. Cowley. In them, one point of wit flashes so fast upon another, that the reader's attention is dazzled by the continual sparkling of their imagination; you find a new design started almost in every line, and you come to the end without the satisfaction of seeing any one of them executed.

A song should be conducted like an epigram; and the only difference between them is, that one does not require the lyric numbers, and is usually employed upon satirical occasions; whereas the business of the other, for the most part, is to express (as my lord Roscommon translates it from. Horace)

'Love's pleasing cares, and the free joys of wine.'

• I shall conclude what I have to say upon this subject, by observing, that the French do very often confound the song and the epigram, and take the one reciprocally for the other. An instance of which I shall give you in a remarkable epigram which passes current abroad for an excellent song.

• Tu parles mal par-tout de moi,
Je dis du bien par-tout de toi;
Quel malheur est le nôtre ?
L'on ne croit ni l'un ni l'autre.'

For the satisfaction of such of your friends as may not understand the original, I shall venture to translate it after my fashion, so as to keep strictly to the turn of thought, at the expence of losing something in the poetry and versification.

Thou speakest always ill of me,

I speak always well of thee:

But spite of all our noise and pother,
The world believes nor one nor t'other.'

Thus, madam, I have endeavoured to comply with your commands; not out of vanity of erecting myself into a critic, but out of an earnest desire of being thought, upon all occasions,

Your most obedient servant.'

N° 17. TUESDAY, MARCH 31, 1713.

—Minimumque libidine peccant.

Lust is the smallest sin they own.

JUV. Sat. vi. 134.

DRYDEN.

If it were possible to bear up against the force of ridicule, which fashion has brought upon people for acknowledging a veneration for the most sacred things, a man might say that the time we now are is set apart for humiliation; and all our actions should at present more particularly tend that way. I remember about thirty years ago an eminent divine, who was also most exactly well bred, told

in *

* Viz, Lent.

his congregation at Whitehall, that if they did not vouchsafe to give their lives a new turn, they must certainly go to a place which he did not think fit to name in that courtly audience. It is with me as with that gentleman. I would, if possible, represent the errors of life, especially those arising from what we call gallantry, in such a manner as the people of pleasure may read me. In this case I must not be rough to gentlemen and ladies, but speak of sin as a gentleman. It might not perhaps be amiss, if, therefore, I should call my present precaution A Criticism upon Fornication; and, by representing the unjust taste they have who affect that way of pleasure, bring a distaste upon it among all those who are judicious in their satisfactions. I will be bold then to lay it down for a rule, that he who follows this kind of gratification, gives up much greater delight in pursuing it, than he can possibly enjoy from it. As to the common women and the stews, there is no one but will allow this assertion at first sight; but if it will appear, that they who deal with those of the sex who are less profligate, descend to greater basenesses than if they frequented brothels, it should, methinks, bring this iniquity under some discountenance.

The

rake, who without sense of character or decency wallows and ranges in common houses, is guilty no farther than of prostituting himself, and exposing his health to diseases: but the man of gallantry cannot pursue his pleasures without treachery to some man he ought to love, and making despicable the woman he admires. To live in a continual deceit: to reflect upon the dishonour you do some husband, father, or brother, who does not deserve this of you, and whom you would destroy did you know they did the like towards you, are circum

stances which pall the appetite, and give a man of any sense of honour very painful mortification. What more need be said against a gentleman's delight, than that he himself thinks himself a base man in pursuing it; when it is thoroughly considered he gives up his very being as a man of integrity who commences gallant? Let him or her who is guilty this way but weigh the matter a little, and the criminal will find that those whom they most esteemed are of a sudden become the most disagreeable companions; nay, their good qualities are grown odious and painful. It is said, people who have the plague have a delight in communicating the infection; in like manner, the sense of shame, which is never wholly overcome, inclines the guilty this way to contribute to the destruction of others. And women are pleased to introduce more women into the same condition, though they can have no other satisfaction from it, than that the infamy is shared among greater numbers, which they flatter themselves eases the burden of each particular person.

It is a most melancholy consideration, that for momentary sensations of joy, obtained by stealth, men are forced into a constraint of all their words and actions in the general and ordinary occurrences of life. It is an impossibility in this case to be faithful to one person, without being false to all the rest of the world. The gay figures in which poetical men of loose morals have placed this kind of stealth are but feeble consolations, when a man is inclined to soliloquy or meditation upon his past life; flashes of wit can promote joy, but they cannot allay grief.

Disease, sickness, and misfortune, are what all men living are liable to; it is therefore ridiculous