[Footnote 1: Poetics, cap. x. Addison got his affected word implex by
reading Aristotle through the translation and notes of André Dacier.
Implex was the word used by the French, but the natural English
translation of Aristotle's [Greek: haploì] and [Greek: peplegménoi] is
into simple and complicated.]
[Footnote 2: [Stories of Achilles, Ulysses, and Æneas.]]
[Footnote 3: Poetics, cap. xi.]
[Footnote 4: that]
[Footnote 5: Dediction of the Æneid; where, after speaking of small
claimants of the honours of the Epic, he says,
Spencer has a better for his "Fairy Queen" had his action been
finished, or been one; and Milton if the Devil had not been his hero,
instead of Adam; if the giant had not foiled the knight, and driven
him out of his stronghold, to wander through the world with his
lady-errant; and if there had not been more machining persons that
human in his poem.]
[Footnote 6: [or]]
[Footnote 7: [Episode]]
[Footnote 8: [greater]]
[Footnote 9: Poetics, cap. xxv. The reason he gives is that when the
Poet speaks in his own person he is not then the Imitator. Other Poets
than Homer, Aristotle adds,
ambitious to figure throughout themselves, imitate but little and
seldom. Homer, after a few preparatory lines, immediately introduces a
man or woman or some other character, for all have their character.
Of Lucan, as an example of the contrary practice, Hobbes said in his
Discourse concerning the Virtues of an Heroic Poem:
No Heroic Poem raises such admiration of the Poet, as his hath done,
though not so great admiration of the persons he introduceth.]
[Footnote 10: Letters to Atticus, Bk. xiii., Ep. 44.]
[Footnote 11: Poetices, Lib. iii. cap. 25.]
[Footnote 12: [of]]
[Footnote 13: [which]]
[Footnote 14: Rhetoric, iii. ch. II, where he cites such verbal jokes
as, You wish him [Greek: pérsai] (i.e. to side with Persia--to ruin
him), and the saying of Isocrates concerning Athens, that its
sovereignty [Greek: archàe] was to the city a beginning [Greek: archàe]
of evils. As this closes Addison's comparison of Milton's practice with
Aristotle's doctrine (the following papers being expressions of his
personal appreciation of the several books of Paradise Lost), we may
note here that Milton would have been quite ready to have his work tried
by the test Addison has been applying. In his letter to Samuel Hartlib,
sketching his ideal of a good Education, he assigns to advanced pupils
logic and then
rhetoric taught out of the rules of Plato, Aristotle, Phalereus,
Cicero, Hermogenes, Longinus. To which poetry would be made
subsequent, or, indeed, rather precedent, as being less subtile and
fine, but more simple, sensuous, and passionate. I mean not here the
prosody of a verse, which they could not but have hit on before among
the rudiments of grammar; but that sublime art which in Aristotle's
Poetics, in Horace, and the Italian commentaries of Castelvetro,
Tasso, Mazzoni, and others, teaches what the laws are of a true epic
poem, what of a dramatic, what of a lyric, what decorum is, which is
the grand masterpiece to observe. This would make them soon perceive
what despicable creatures our common rhymers and play-writers be; and
show them what religious, what glorious and magnificent use might be
made of poetry, both in divine and human things.]
[Footnote 15: [in]]
[Footnote 16: [Saturdays Paper]]
* * * * *
No. 298. Monday, February 11, 1712. Steele.
Nusquam Tuta fides.
Virg.
London, Feb. 9, 1711-12.
Mr. SPECTATOR,
I am a Virgin, and in no Case despicable; but yet such as I am I must
remain, or else become, tis to be feared, less happy: for I find not
the least good Effect from the just Correction you some time since
gave, that too free, that looser Part of our Sex which spoils the Men;
the same Connivance at the Vices, the same easie Admittance of
Addresses, the same vitiated Relish of the Conversation of the
greatest of Rakes (or in a more fashionable Way of expressing ones
self, of such as have seen the World most) still abounds, increases,
multiplies.
The humble Petition therefore of many of the most strictly virtuous,
and of my self, is, That you'll once more exert your Authority, and
that according to your late Promise, your full, your impartial
Authority, on this sillier Branch of our Kind: For why should they be
the uncontroulable Mistresses of our Fate? Why should they with
Impunity indulge the Males in Licentiousness whilst single, and we
have the dismal Hazard and Plague of reforming them when married?
Strike home, Sir, then, and spare not, or all our maiden Hopes, our
gilded Hopes of nuptial Felicity are frustrated, are vanished, and you
your self, as well as Mr. Courtly, will, by smoothing over immodest
Practices with the Gloss of soft and harmless Names, for ever forfeit
our Esteem. Nor think that I'm herein more severe than need be: If I
have not reason more than enough, do you and the World judge from this
ensuing Account, which, I think, will prove the Evil to be universal.
You must know then, that since your Reprehension of this Female
Degeneracy came out, I've had a Tender of Respects from no less than
five Persons, of tolerable Figure too as Times go: But the Misfortune
is, that four of the five are professed Followers of the Mode. They
would face me down, that all Women of good Sense ever were, and ever
will be, Latitudinarians in Wedlock; and always did, and will, give
and take what they profanely term Conjugal Liberty of Conscience.
The two first of them, a Captain and a Merchant, to strengthen their
Argument, pretend to repeat after a Couple, a Brace of Ladies of
Quality and Wit, That Venus was always kind to Mars; and what Soul
that has the least spark of Generosity, can deny a Man of Bravery any
thing? And how pitiful a Trader that, whom no Woman but his own Wife
will have Correspondence and Dealings with? Thus these; whilst the
third, the Country Squire, confessed, That indeed he was surprized
into good Breeding, and entered into the Knowledge of the World
unawares. That dining tother Day at a Gentleman's House, the Person
who entertained was obliged to leave him with his Wife and Nieces;
where they spoke with so much Contempt of an absent Gentleman for
being slow at a Hint, that he had resolved never to be drowsy,
unmannerly, or stupid for the future at a Friends House; and on a
hunting Morning, not to pursue the Game either with the Husband
abroad, or with the Wife at home.
The next that came was a Tradesman, [no [1]] less full of the Age
than the former; for he had the Gallantry to tell me, that at a late
Junket which he was invited to, the Motion being made, and the
Question being put, twas by Maid, Wife and Widow resolved nemine
contradicente, That a young sprightly Journeyman is absolutely
necessary in their Way of Business: To which they had the Assent and
Concurrence of the Husbands present. I dropped him a Curtsy, and gave
him to understand that was his Audience of Leave.
I am reckoned pretty, and have had very many Advances besides these;
but have been very averse to hear any of them, from my Observation on
these above-mentioned, till I hoped some Good from the Character of
my present Admirer, a Clergyman. But I find even amongst them there
are indirect Practices in relation to Love, and our Treaty is at
present a little in Suspence, till some Circumstances are cleared.
There is a Charge against him among the Women, and the Case is this:
It is alledged, That a certain endowed Female would have appropriated
her self to and consolidated her self with a Church, which my Divine
now enjoys; (or, which is the same thing, did prostitute her self to
her Friends doing this for her): That my Ecclesiastick, to obtain the
one, did engage himself to take off the other that lay on Hand; but
that on his Success in the Spiritual, he again renounced the Carnal.
I put this closely to him, and taxed him with Disingenuity. He to
clear himself made the subsequent Defence, and that in the most solemn
Manner possible: That he was applied to and instigated to accept of a
Benefice: That a conditional Offer thereof was indeed made him at
first, but with Disdain by him rejected: That when nothing (as they
easily perceived) of this Nature could bring him to their Purpose,
Assurance of his being entirely unengaged before-hand, and safe from
all their After-Expectations (the only Stratagem left to draw him in)
was given him: That pursuant to this the Donation it self was without
Delay, before several reputable Witnesses, tendered to him gratis,
with the open Profession of not the least Reserve, or most minute
Condition; but that yet immediately after Induction, his insidious
Introducer (or her crafty Procurer, which you will) industriously
spread the Report, which had reached my Ears, not only in the
Neighbourhood of that said Church, but in London, in the University,
in mine and his own County, and where-ever else it might probably
obviate his Application to any other Woman, and so confine him to this
alone: And, in a Word, That as he never did make any previous Offer of
his Service, or the least Step to her Affection; so on his Discovery
of these Designs thus laid to trick him, he could not but afterwards,
in Justice to himself, vindicate both his Innocence and Freedom by
keeping his proper Distance.
This is his Apology, and I think I shall be satisfied with it. But I
cannot conclude my tedious Epistle, without recommending to you not
only to resume your former Chastisement, but to add to your Criminals
the Simoniacal Ladies, who seduce the sacred Order into the Difficulty
of either breaking a mercenary Troth made to them whom they ought not
to deceive, or by breaking or keeping it offending against him whom
they cannot deceive. Your Assistance and Labours of this sort would be
of great Benefit, and your speedy Thoughts on this Subject would be
very seasonable to,
SIR, Your most obedient Servant,
Chastity Loveworth.