142

The country of the Scotch warriors, described in these two last verses, has a fine romantic situation, and affords a couple of smooth words for verse. If the reader compares the foregoing six lines of the song with the following Latin verses, he 5 will see how much they are written in the spirit of Virgil.

Adversi campo apparent, hastasque reductis
Protendunt longe dextris; et spicula vibrant :
Quique altum Præneste viri, quique arva Gabinæ
Junonis, gelidumque Anienem, et roscida rivis
Hernica saxa colunt :-qui rosea rura Velini,
Qui Tetricæ horrentes rupes, montemque Severum,
Casperiamque colunt, Forulosque et flumen Himellæ :
Qui Tiberim Fabarimque bibunt.

But to proceed.

Earl Douglas on a milk-white steed,

Most like a baron bold,

Rode foremost of the company,

Whose armour shown like gold,

Turnus ut antevolans tardum præcesserat agmen, etc.
Vidisti, quo Turnus equo, quibus ibat in armis
Aureus.

Our English archers bent their bows,
Their hearts were good and true;

At the first flight of arrows sent,
Full threescore Scots they slew.

They closed full fast on every side,
No slackness there was found:

And many a gallant gentleman
Lay gasping on the ground.

With that there came an arrow keen

Out of an English bow,

Which struck Earl Douglas to the heart

A deep and deadly blow.

Eneas was wounded after the same manner by an unknown hand in the midst of a parley.

Has inter voces, media inter talia verba,

Ecce viro stridens alis allapsa sagitta est,
Incertum qua pulsa manu.

But of all the descriptive parts of this song, there are none more beautiful than the four following 5 stanzas, which have a great force and spirit in them, and are filled with very natural circumstances. The thought in the third stanza was never touched by any other poet, and is such an one as would have shined in Homer or in Virgil.

So thus did both these nobles die,
Whose courage none could stain:
An English archer then perceived
The noble Earl was slain.

He had a bow bent in his hand,
Made of a trusty tree,
An arrow of a cloth-yard long
Unto the head drew he.

Against Sir Hugh Montgomery
So right his shaft he set,

The gray goose wing that was thereon
In his heart-blood was wet.

This fight did last from break of day
Till setting of the sun;

For when they rung the evening bell

The battle scarce was done.

One may observe likewise, that in the catalogue of the slain the author has followed the example of the greatest ancient poets, not only in giving a long list of the dead, but by diversifying it with little characters of particular persons.

And with Earl Douglas there was slain

Sir Hugh Montgomery,

Sir Charles Carrel, that from the field
One foot would never fly:

Sir Charles Murrel of Ratcliff too,

His sister's son was he,

Sir David Lamb, so well esteemed,
Yet saved could not be.

5

The familiar sound in these names destroys the majesty of the description; for this reason I do not mention this part of the poem but to show the natural cast of thought which appears in it, as the two last verses look almost like a translation 10 of Virgil.

Cadit et Ripheus, justissimus unus

Qui fuit in Teucris et servantissimus æqui,
Diis aliter visum est.

7

In the catalogue of the English who fell, Witherington's behaviour is in the same manner particularized very artfully, as the reader is prepared for it by that account which is given of him in the be- 15 ginning of the battle; though I am satisfied your little buffoon readers (who have seen that passage

ridiculed in Hudibras) will not be able to take the beauty of it for which reason I dare not so much as quote it.

Then stept a gallant squire forth,

Witherington was his name,
Who said, I would not have it told
To Henry our King for shame,

That e'er my captain fought on foot
And I stood looking on.

We meet with the same heroic sentiment in Virgil.

Non pudet, O Rutuli, cunctis pro talibus unam

Objectare animam ? numerone an viribus æqui
Non sumus?

5 What can be more natural or more moving, than the circumstances in which he describes the behaviour of those women who had lost their husbnads on this fatal day?

Next day did many widows come,

Their husbands to bewail;

They washed their wounds in brinish tears,

But all would not prevail.

Their bodies bathed in purple blood,

They bore with them away;

They kissed them dead a thousand times,
When they were clad in clay.

Thus we see how the thoughts of this poem, which 10 naturally arise from the subject, are always simple, and sometimes exquisitely noble; that the language is often very sounding, and that the whole is written with a true poetical spirit,

ΙΟ

If this song had been written in the Gothic manner, which is the delight of all our little wits, whether writers or readers, it would not have hit the taste of so many ages, and have pleased the readers of all ranks and conditions. I shall only 5 beg pardon for such a profusion of Latin quotations; which I should not have made use of, but that I feared my own judgment would have looked too singular on such a subject, had not I supported it by the practice and authority of Virgil.

No. 81.

SATURDAY, JUNE 2. [1711.]

Qualis ubi audito venantum murmure tigris
Horruit in maculas.-STATIUS.

ΙΟ

ABOUT the middle of last winter I went to see an opera at the theatre in the Haymarket, where I could not but take notice of two parties of very fine women, that had placed themselves in the opposite sideboxes, and seemed drawn up in a kind of 15 battle array one against another. After a short survey of them, I found they were patched differently; the faces, on one hand, being spotted on the right side of the forehead, and those 1 upon the other on the left: I quickly perceived that they cast hostile 20 glances upon one another; and that their patches were placed in those different situations, as party signals to distinguish friends from foes. In the middle boxes, between these two opposite bodies, were several ladies who patched indifferently on 25 both sides of their faces, and semed to sit there with