[Footnote 1: First published in 1690.]
[Footnote 2: Dryden accounted among critics the greatest of his age to
be Boilean and Rapin. Boileau was the great master of French criticism.
René Rapin, born at Tours in 1621, taught Belles Lettres with
extraordinary success among his own order of Jesuits, wrote famous
critical works, was one of the best Latin poets of his time, and died at
Paris in 1687. His Whole Critical Works were translated by Dr. Basil
Kennett in two volumes, which appeared in 1705. The preface of their
publisher said of Rapin that
he has long dictated in this part of letters. He is acknowledged as
the great arbitrator between the merits of the best writers; and
during the course of almost thirty years there have been few appeals
from his sentence.
(See also a note on p. 168, vol. i. [Footnote 3 of No. 44.]) René le
Bossu, the great French authority on Epic Poetry, born in 1631, was a
regular canon of St. Genevieve, and taught the Humanities in several
religious houses of his order. He died, subprior of the Abbey of St.
Jean de Cartres, in 1680. He wrote, besides his Treatise upon Epic
Poetry, a parallel between the philosophies of Aristotle and Descartes,
which appeared a few months earlier (in 1674) with less success. Another
authority was Father Bouhours, of whom see note on p. 236, vol. i.
[Footnote 4 of No. 62.] Another was Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle.
called by Voltaire the most universal genius of his age. He was born at
Rouen in 1657, looking so delicate that he was baptized in a hurry, and
at 16 was unequal to the exertion of a game at billiards, being caused
by any unusual exercise to spit blood, though he lived to the age of a
hundred, less one month and two days. He was taught by the Jesuits, went
to the bar to please his father, pleaded a cause, lost it, and gave up
the profession to devote his time wholly to literature and philosophy.
He went to Paris, wrote plays and the Dialogues of the Dead, living
then with his uncle, Thomas Corneille. A discourse on the Eclogue
prefixed to his pastoral poems made him an authority in this manner of
composition. It was translated by Motteux for addition to the English
translation of Bossu on the Epic, which had also appended to it an Essay
on Satire by another of these French critics, André Dacier. Dacier, born
at Castres in 1651, was educated at Saumur under Taneguy le Févre, who
was at the same time making a scholar of his own daughter Anne. Dacier
and the young lady became warmly attached to one another, married,
united in abjuring Protestantism, and were for forty years, in the
happiest concord, man and wife and fellow-scholars. Dacier and his wife,
as well as Fontenelle, were alive when the Spectator was appearing; his
wife dying, aged 69, in 1720, the husband, aged 71, in 1722. André
Dacier translated and annotated the Poetics of Aristotle in 1692, and
that critical work was regarded as his best performance.]
[Footnote 3: Annus Mirabilis, st. 39.]
[Footnote 4: Ad Brutum. Orator. Towards the beginning:
Facile est enim verbum aliquod ardens (ut ita dicam) notare, idque
restinctis jam animorum incendiis, irridere.]
[Footnote 5: On the Sublime, § 36.]
[Footnote 6: Trajan Boccalini, born at Rome in 1554, was a satirical
writer famous in Italy for his fine criticism and bold satire. Cardinals
Borghese and Cajetan were his patrons. His Ragguagli di Parnasso and
la Secretaria di Parnasso, in which Apollo heard the complaints of the
world, and dispensed justice in his court on Parnassus, were received
with delight. Afterwards, in his Pietra di Parangone, he satirized the
Court of Spain, and, fearing consequences, retired to Venice, where in
1613 he was attacked in his bed by four ruffians, who beat him to death
with sand-bags. Boccalini's Ragguagli di Parnasso has been translated
into English, in 1622, as News from Parnassus. Also, in 1656, as
Advertisements from Parnassus, by H. Carey, Earl of Monmouth. This
translation was reprinted in 1669 and 1674, and again in 1706 by John
Hughes, one of the contributors to the Spectator.]
[Footnote 7: To this number of the Spectator, and to several numbers
since that for January 8, in which it first appeared, is added an
advertisement that, The First and Second Volumes of the SPECTATOR in 8vo
are now ready to be delivered to the subscribers by J. Tonson, at
Shakespeare's Head, over-against Catherine Street in the Strand.]
* * * * *
No. 292. Monday, February 4, 1712.
Illam, quicquid agit, quoquo Vestigia flectit,
Componit furlim, subsequiturque decor.
Tibull. L. 4.
As no one can be said to enjoy Health, who is only not sick, without he
feel within himself a lightsome and invigorating Principle, which will
not suffer him to remain idle, but still spurs him on to Action: so in
the Practice of every Virtue, there is some additional Grace required,
to give a Claim of excelling in this or that particular Action. A
Diamond may want polishing, though the Value be still intrinsically the
same; and the same Good may be done with different Degrees of Lustre. No
man should be contented with himself that he barely does well, but he
should perform every thing in the best and most becoming Manner that he
is able.
Tully tells us he wrote his Book of Offices, because there was no Time
of Life in which some correspondent Duty might not be practised; nor is
there a Duty without a certain Decency accompanying it, by which every
Virtue tis join'd to will seem to be doubled. Another may do the same
thing, and yet the Action want that Air and Beauty which distinguish it
from others; like that inimitable Sun-shine Titian is said to have
diffused over his Landschapes; which denotes them his, and has been
always unequalled by any other Person.
There is no one Action in which this Quality I am speaking of will be
more sensibly perceived, than in granting a Request or doing an Office
of Kindness. Mummius, by his Way of consenting to a Benefaction, shall
make it lose its Name; while Carus doubles the Kindness and the
Obligation: From the first the desired Request drops indeed at last, but
from so doubtful a Brow, that the Obliged has almost as much Reason to
resent the Manner of bestowing it, as to be thankful for the Favour it
self. Carus invites with a pleasing Air, to give him an Opportunity of
doing an Act of Humanity, meets the Petition half Way, and consents to a
Request with a Countenance which proclaims the Satisfaction of his Mind
in assisting the Distressed.
The Decency then that is to be observed in Liberality, seems to consist
in its being performed with such Cheerfulness, as may express the
God-like Pleasure is to be met with in obliging ones Fellow-Creatures;
that may shew Good-nature and Benevolence overflowed, and do not, as in
some Men, run upon the Tilt, and taste of the Sediments of a grutching
uncommunicative Disposition.
Since I have intimated that the greatest Decorum is to be preserved in
the bestowing our good Offices, I will illustrate it a little by an
Example drawn from private Life, which carries with it such a Profusion
of Liberality, that it can be exceeded by nothing but the Humanity and
Good-nature which accompanies it. It is a Letter of Pliny's[1] which I
shall here translate, because the Action will best appear in its first
Dress of Thought, without any foreign or ambitious Ornaments.
PLINY to QUINTILIAN.
Tho I am fully acquainted with the Contentment and just Moderation of
your Mind, and the Conformity the Education you have given your
Daughter bears to your own Character; yet since she is suddenly to be
married to a Person of Distinction, whose Figure in the World makes it
necessary for her to be at a more than ordinary Expence in Cloaths and
Equipage suitable to her Husbands Quality; by which, tho her
intrinsick Worth be not augmented, yet will it receive both Ornament
and Lustre: And knowing your Estate to be as moderate as the Riches of
your Mind are abundant, I must challenge to my self some part of the
Burthen; and as a Parent of your Child. I present her with Twelve
hundred and fifty Crowns towards these Expences; which Sum had been
much larger, had I not feared the Smallness of it would be the
greatest Inducement with you to accept of it. Farewell.
Thus should a Benefaction be done with a good Grace, and shine in the
strongest Point of Light; it should not only answer all the Hopes and
Exigencies of the Receiver, but even out-run his Wishes: Tis this happy
manner of Behaviour which adds new Charms to it, and softens those Gifts
of Art and Nature, which otherwise would be rather distasteful than
agreeable. Without it, Valour would degenerate into Brutality, Learning
into Pedantry, and the genteelest Demeanour into Affectation. Even
Religion its self, unless Decency be the Handmaid which waits upon her,
is apt to make People appear guilty of Sourness and ill Humour: But this
shews Virtue in her first original Form, adds a Comeliness to Religion,
and gives its Professors the justest Title to the Beauty of Holiness. A
Man fully instructed in this Art, may assume a thousand Shapes, and
please in all: He may do a thousand Actions shall become none other but
himself; not that the Things themselves are different, but the Manner of
doing them.
If you examine each Feature by its self, Aglaura and Callidea are
equally handsome; but take them in the Whole, and you cannot suffer the
Comparison: Tho one is full of numberless nameless Graces, the other of
as many nameless Faults.
The Comeliness of Person, and Decency of Behaviour, add infinite Weight
to what is pronounced by any one. Tis the want of this that often makes
the Rebukes and Advice of old rigid Persons of no Effect, and leave a
Displeasure in the Minds of those they are directed to: But Youth and
Beauty, if accompanied with a graceful and becoming Severity, is of
mighty Force to raise, even in the most Profligate, a Sense of Shame. In
Milton, the Devil is never described ashamed but once, and that at the
Rebuke of a beauteous Angel.
So spake the Cherub, and his grave Rebuke,
Severe in youthful Beauty, added Grace
Invincible: Abash'd the Devil stood,
And felt how awful Goodness is, and saw
Virtue in her own Shape how lovely I saw, and pin'd
His Loss. [2]
The Care of doing nothing unbecoming has accompanied the greatest Minds
to their last Moments. They avoided even an indecent Posture in the very
Article of Death. Thus Cæsar gathered his Robe about him, that he might
not fall in a manner unbecoming of himself: and the greatest Concern
that appeared in the Behaviour of Lucretia, when she stabbed her self,
was, that her Body should lie in an Attitude worthy the Mind which had
inhabited it.
Ne non procumbat honeste
Extrema hæc etiam cura, cadentis erat. [3]
Twas her last Thought, How decently to fall.
Mr. SPECTATOR,
I am a young Woman without a Fortune; but of a very high Mind: That
is, Good Sir, I am to the last degree Proud and Vain. I am ever
railing at the Rich, for doing Things, which, upon Search into my
Heart, I find I am only angry because I cannot do the same my self. I
wear the hooped Petticoat, and am all in Callicoes when the finest are
in Silks. It is a dreadful thing to be poor and proud; therefore if
you please, a Lecture on that Subject for the Satisfaction of
Your Uneasy Humble Servant,
JEZEBEL.