.6

he employs. They have conftant intelligence with cane-fhops, perfumers, toymen, coach-makers, and china-houfes. From these feveral places thefe undertakers for marriages have as conftant and regular correfpondence, as the funeral-men have with vintners " and apothecaries. All bachelors are under their immediate infpection, and my friend produced to me a report given into their board, wherein an old uncle of mine who came to town with me, and myself, were inferted, and we flood thus; the uncle fmoky, rotten, poor; the nephew raw, but no fool, found at prefent, very rich. My information did not end here, but my 'friend's advices are fo good, that he could fhew me a copy of the letter fent to the young lady who is to have me; which I inclofe to you.

• Madam,

ΤΗ

HIS is to let you know, that you are to be married to a beau that comes out on Thursday fix in the evening. Be at the Park. You cannot but know a virgin fap; they have a mind to look faucy, but are out of countenance. The board has denied him to feveral good families. I wish you joy.

• Corinna.'

What makes my correfpondent's cafe the more deplorable, is, that as I find by the report from my cenfor of marriages, the friend he speaks of is employed by the inquifition to take him in, as the phrafe is. After all that is told him, he has information only of one woman that is laid for him, and that the wrong one; for the lady commiffioners have devoted him to another than the perfon against whom they have employed their agent his friend to alarm him. The plot is laid fo well about this young gentleman, that he has no friend to retire to, no place to appear in, or part of the kingdom to fly into, but he must fall into the notice, and be fubject to the power of the inquifition. They have their emiffaries and fubftitutes in all parts of this united kingdom. The firft ftep they usually take, is to fnd from a correfpondence, by their, meffengers and

4.

whisperers,

whifperers, with fome domeftic of the bachelor, who is to be hunted into the toils they have laid for him, what are his manners, his familiarities, his good qualities or vices; not as the good in him is a recommendation, or the ill a diminution, but as they affect or contribute to the main inquiry, What eftate he has in him? When this point is well reported to the board, they can take in a wild roaring fox-hunter, as easily as a foft, gentle young fop of the town. The way is to make all places unealy to him, but the fcenes in which they have allotted him to act. His brother huntfien, bottle-companions, his fraternity of fops, fhall be brought into the confpiracy against him. Then this matter is not laid in fo bare-faced a manner before him as to have it intimated, Mrs. Such-a-one would make him a very proper wife; but by the force of their correfpondence they fhall make it, as Mr. Waller faid of the marriage of the dwarfs, as impracticable to have any woman befides her they defign him, as it would have been in Adam to have refufed Eve. The man named by the commiffion for Mrs. Such-a-cne, fhall neither be in fashion, nor dare ever to appear in company, fhould he attempt to evade their determination.

The female fex wholly govern domeftic life; and by this means, when they think fit, they can fow diffenfions between the dearest friends, nay make father and fon irreconcileable enemies in fpite of all the ties of gratitude on one part, and the duty of protection to be paid on the other. The ladies of the inquifition understand this perfectly well; and where love is not a motive to a man's choofing one whom they allot, they can with very much art, infinuate ftories to the difadvantage of his honesty or courage, until the creature is too much difpirited to bear up against a general ill reception, which he every where meets with, and in due time falls into their appointed wedlock for fhelter. I have a long let ter bearing date the fourth inftant, which gives me a large account of the policies of this court; and find there is now before them a very refractory perfon, who has escaped all their machinations for two years last past: but they have prevented two fucceffive matches which

N. 3

were

were of his own inclination, the one by a report that his miftrefs was to be married, and the very day apFointed, wedding-clothes bought, and all things ready for her being given to another; the fecond time by infinuating to all his mistress's friends and acquaintance, that he had been falfe to feveral other women, and the like. The poor man is now reduced to profefs he defigns to lead a fingle life; but the inquifition give out to all his acquaintance, that nothing is intended but the gentleman's own welfare and happinefs. When this is urged, he talks ftill more humbly, and protefts he aims only at a life without pain or reproach; pleasure, honour, and riches, are things for which he has no taste. But notwithstanding all this, and what else he may defend himfelf with, as that the lady is too old or too young, of a fuitable humour, or the quite contrary, and that it is impoffible they can ever do other than wrangle from June to January, every body tells him all this is fpleen, and he must have a wife; while all the members of the inquifition are unanimous in a certain woman for him, and they think they all together are better able to judge, than he or any other private perfon whatsoever.

SIR,

Temple, March 3, 1711.

OUR fpeculation this day on the fubject of idlenefs has employed me, ever fince I read it, in forrowful reflexions on my having loitered away the term, or rather the vacation, of ten years in this place, and unhappily fuffered a good chamber and study to lie idle as long. My books, except thofe I have taken to fleep upon, have been totally neglected, and my Lord Coke and other venerable authors were never fo flighted in their lives, I fpend most of the day at a neighbouring coffee-houfe, where we have what I may call a lazy club. We generally come in night-gowns, with our ftockings about our heels, and fometimes but one on. Our falutation at entrance is a yawn and a ftretch, and then without more ceremony we take our place at the lolling-table, where our difcourfe is, what I fear you would not read out, therefore shall not in⚫fert. But I affure you, Sir, I heartily lament this lofs

of

of time, and am now refolved, if poffible, with double diligence, to retrieve it, being effectually awakened by the arguments of Mr. Slack out of the fenfeless ftupidity that has fo long poffeffed me. And to demon⚫ftrate that penitence accompanies my confeffion, and ⚫ conftancy my refolutions, I have locked my door for a ⚫ year, and defire you would let my companions know I am not within. I am with great respect,

Sir, your most obedient fervant,

T

No 321

Saturday, March 8.

• N. B."

Nec fatis eft pulchra effe poemata, dulcia funto.

Hor. Ars Poet. ver. 99.

"Tis not enough a poem's finely writ; It muft affect and captivate the foul.

ROSCOMMON.

THO HOSE, who know how many volumes have been written on the poems of Homer and Virgil, will eafily pardon the length of my difcourfe upon Milton. The Paradife Loft is looked upon by the best judges, as the greatest production, or at leaft the nobleft work of genius in our language, and therefore deferves to be fet before an English reader in its full beauty. For this reafon, though I have endeavoured to give a general idea of its graces and imperfections in my fix firft papers, I thought myself obliged to beítow one upon every book in particular. The first three books I have already dif patched, and am now entering upon the fourth. I need not acquaint my reader that there are multitudes of Beauties in this great author, efpecially in the defcriptive parts of this poem, which I have not touched upon, it being my intention to point out thofe only, which appear to me the moft exquifite, or those which are not fo obvious to ordinary readers. Every one that has read the

N 4

the critics who have written upon the Odyffey, the Iliad, and the Eneid, knows very well, that though they agree in the opinions of the great beauties in thofe poems, they have nevertheless each of them difcovered several mafter-ftrokes, which have efcaped the obfervation of the reft. In the fame manner, I queftion not but any writer, who fhall treat of this fubject after me, may find feveral beauties in Milton, which I have not taken notice of. I muft likewife obferve, that as the greatest mafters of critical learning differ among one another, as to fome particular points in an epic poem, I have not bound myself fcrupulously to the rules which any one of them has laid down upon that art, but have taken the liberty fometimes to join with one, and fometimes with another, and fometimes to differ from all of them, when I have thought that the reafon of the thing was on my fide.

We may confider the beauties of the fourth book under three heads. In the firft are thofe pictures of ftilllife, which we meet with in the defcription of Eden, Paradife, Adam's bower, &c. In the next are the machines, which comprehend the fpeeches and behaviour of the good and bad angels. In the laft is the conduct of Adam and Eve, who are the principal actors in the poem.

In the defcription of Paradife, the poet has observed Ariftotle's rule of lavishing all the ornaments of diction on the weak unactive parts of the fable, which are not fupported by the beauty of fentiments and characters. Accordingly the reader may obferve, that the expreffions are more florid and elaborate in thefe defcriptions, than in moft other parts of the poem. I muft further add, that though the drawings of gardens, rivers, rainbows, and the like dead pieces of nature are juftly cenfured in an heroic poem, when they run out into an unneceffary length; the defcription of Paradife would have been faulty, had not the poet been very particular in it, not only as it is the fcene of the principal action, but as it is requifite to give us an idea of that happinefs from which our firft parents fell. The plan of it is wonderfully beautiful, and formed upon the short fketch which we have of

it