"all habits will be reduced to a primitive fimplicity; "and whoever fhall be found to have perfevered in a "conftancy of drefs, in fpite of all the allurements of "prophane and heathen habits, fhall be rewarded with a never-fading doublet of a thoufand years. All points in the fyftem, which are doubted, shall be at"tefted by the Knight's extemporary oath, for the fatif"faction of his readers." 66 Will's Coffee-houfe, July 18. We were upon the heroic ftrain this evening, and the queftion was, What is the true Sublime? Many very good difcourfes happened thereupon; after which a gentleman at the table, who is, it seems, writing on that fubject, affumed the argument; and though he ran through many inftances of fublimity from the antient writers, faid, he had hardly known an occafion wherein the true greatnefs of Soul, which animates a General in action, is fo well reprefented, with regard to the perfon of whom it was spoken, and the time in which it was writ, as in a few lines in a modern poem: There is, continued he, nothing fo forced and conftrained, as what we frequently meet with in Tragedies; to make a man under the weight of great forrow, or full of meditation upon what he is foon to execute, caft about for a fimilè to what he himself is, or the thing which he is going to act: But there is nothing more proper and natural for a Poet, whose business it is to describe, and who is spectator of one in that circumftance, when his mind is working upon a great image, and that the ideas hurry upon his imagination; I fay, there is nothing fo natural, as for a Poet to relieve and clear himself from the burden of thought at that time, by uttering his conception in fimile and metaphor. The higheft act of the mind of man is to poffefs itfelf with tranquillity in imminent danger, and to have its thoughts fo free, as to act at that time without perplexity. The antient Authors have compared this fedate courage to a rock that remains imoveable amidst the rage of winds and waves; but that is too ftupid and inanimate a fimilitude, and could do no credit to the Hero. At other times they are all of them 259 them wonderfully obliged to a Lybian lion, which may give indeed very agreeable terrors to a defcription, but is no compliment to the perfon to whom it is applied : Eagles, tygers, and wolves, are made use of on the fame occafion, and very often with much beauty; but this is ftill an honour done to the brute rather than the Hero. Mars, Pallns, Bacchus, and Hercules, have each of them furnished very good fimiles in their time, and made, doubtless, a greater impreffion on the mind of a heathen, than they have on that of a modern reader. But the fublime image that I am talking of, and which I really think as great as ever entered into the thought of man, is in the Poem called, The Campaign; where the fimilè of a miniftering Angel fets forth the moft fedate and the moft active courage, engaged in an uproar of Nature, a confufion of elements, and a fcene of divine vengeance. Add to all, that thefe lines compliment the General and his Queen at the fame time, and have all the natural horrors heightened by the image that was ftill fresh in the mind of every reader. 'Twas then great Malbro's mighty foul was prov'd, The whole Poem is fo exquifitely noble and poetic, that I think it an honour to our nation and language. The Gentleman concluded his Critic on this work, by faying that he esteemed it wholly new, and a wonderful attempt to keep up the ordinary ideas of a march of an , army, juft as they happened, in fo warm and great a file, and yet be at once familiar and heroic. Such a performance is a chronicle as well as a poem, and will preferve the memory of our Hero, when all the edifices. and ftatutos erected to his honour are blended with common duft. N° 44. Thursday, July 21, 1709. -Nullis amor eft medicabilis herbis. No herb, alas can cure the pangs of love. White's Chocolate-houfe, July 19. Ovid. HIS day, paffing through Covent Garden, I was. ftopped in the piazza by Pacolet, to obferve what be called the triumph of Love and Youth. I turned to the object he pointed at, and there I faw a gay gilt cha riot drawn by fresh prancing horfes; the coachman with a new cockade, and the lacqueys with infolence and plenty in their countenances. I asked immediately, what young heir or lover owned that glittering equipage? Butmy companion interrupted: Do you not fee there the mourning fculapius? The mourning faid I. Yes, Ifaac, faid Pacolet, he is in deep mourning, and is the languishing hopeless Lover of the divine Hebe, the emblem of youth and beauty. The excellent and learned Sage you behold in that furniture is the ftrongeft inftance imaginable, that Love is the most powerful of all things. You are not fo ignorant as to be a stranger to the character of Afculapius, as the patron and most fuccefsful of all who profefs the art of Medicine. But as moft of his operations are owing to a natural fagacity or impulfe, he has very little troubled himself with the doctrine of drugs, but has always given Nature more room to help herself, than any of her learned affiftants; and, confequently *This was the famous Win Ratcliffe many whore whill and sub tg quently, has done greater wonders than is in the power of art to perform: For which reafon he is half deified by the people; and has ever been juttly courted by all the world, as if he were a feventh fon. It happened, that the charming Hebe was reduced, by a long and violent fever, to the most extreme danger of death; and when all skill failed, they went for Esculapius. The renowned artift was touched with the deepeft compaffion to fee the faded charms and faint bloom of Hebe; and had a generous concern in beholding a struggle, not between life, but rather between youth and death. All his skill and his paffion tended to the reco very of Hebe, beautiful even in fickness: but, alas! the unhappy Phyfician knew not, that in all his care he was only sharpening darts for his own deftruction. In a word, his fortune was the fame with that of the ftatuary, who fell in love with the image of his own making; and the unfortunate Æfculapius is become the patient of her whom he lately recovered. Long before this disaster, feulapius was far gone in the unneceffary and fuperfluous amusements of old age, in increafing unwieldy ftores, and providing, in the midst of an incapacity of enjoyment of what he had, for a fupply of more wants than he had calls for in youth itself. But thefe low confiderations are now no more, and Love has taken place of avarice, or rather is become an avarice of another kind, which ftill urges him to parfae what he does not want. But, behold the metamorphofis; the anxious mean cares of an ufurer are turned into the languishments and com plaints of a Lover. "Behold, fays the aged Efculapius, I fubmit; I own, great Love, thy empire: Pity, Hebe, the fop which you have made: What have I to do with gilding but on pills? Yet, O fair! for thee I fit amidst a croud of painted deities on my chariot, buttoned in gold, clafped in gold, without having 86 any value for that beloved metal, but as it adorns the perfon, and laces the hat of thy dying Lover. I ask "not to live, O Hebe! give me but gentle death: Euthanafia, Euthanafia, that is all I implore." When fculapius had finished his complaint, Pacolet went on in deep morals on the incertainty of riches, with this remarkable exclamation; wealth! how impotent art thou! thou! and how little doft thou fupply us with real happinefs, when the ufurer himself can forget thee for the love of what is as foreign to his felicity as thou art! Will's Coffee-houfe, July 19. The company here, who have all a delicate taste of theatrical reprefentations, had made a gathering to purchafe the moveables of the neighbouring playhouse, for the oncouragement of one which is fetting up in the HayMarket. But the proceedings at the auction, by which method the goods have been fold this evening, have been fo unfair, that this generous defign has been frustrated ; for the Imperial mantle made for Cyrus was miffing, as alfo the Chariot and two Dragons: But upon examination it was found, that a Gentleman of Hampshire had clandestinely bought them both, and is gone down to his -country feat; and that on Saturday last he paffed through Staines attired in that robe, and drawn by the faid Dragons, affifted by two only of his own horfes. This theatrical traveller has alfo left orders with Mr. Hall to fend the faded rainbow to the fcourer's, and when it comes home, to dispatch it after him. At the fame time Chriftopher Rich, Efquire, is invited to bring down his Setting-fun himself, and be box-keeper to a theatre erected by this Gentleman near Southampton. Thus there has been nothing but artifice in the management of this affair; for which reafon I beg pardon of the town, that I inferted the inventory in my Paper, and folemnly proteft, I knew nothing of this artful defign of vending thefe rarities: But I meant only the good of the world, in that and all other things which I divulge. And now I am upon this fubject, I must do myfelf juftice in relation to an article in a former Paper, wherein I made mention of a person who keeps a puppet-show in the town of Bath; I was tender of naming names, and only just hinted, that he makes larger promifes, when he invites people to his dramatic reprefentations, than he is able to perform: But I am credibly informed, that he makes a prophane lewd jefter, whom he calls Punch, fpeak to the difhonour of Ifaac Bickerstaff with great familiarity; and, before all my learned friends in that |