and I doubt Fabio will see himself so over-looked for Orson or Walter, as to turn his eyes on the modest passion and becoming languor in the countenance of Diana; it being my design to supply with the art of love all those who preserve the sincere passion of it.

WILL'S COFFEE-HOUSE, NOV. 23.

AN ingenious and worthy gentleman, my ancient friend, fell into discourse with me this evening, upon the force and efficacy which the writings of good poets have on the minds of their intelligent readers; and recommended to me his sense of the matter, thrown together in the following manner, which he desired me to communicate to the youth of Great Britain in my Essays; which I choose to do it in his own words.

Our

I have always been of opinion,' says he, that virtue sinks deepest into the heart of man, when it comes recommended by the powerful charms of poetry. The most active principle in our mind is the imagination: to it a good poet makes his court perpetually, and by this faculty takes care to gain it first. passions and inclinations come over next; and our reason surrenders itself, with pleasure, in the end. Thus the whole soul is insensibly betrayed into morality, by bribing the fancy with beautiful and agreeable images of those very things that in the books of the philosophers appear austere, and have at the best but a kind of forbidding aspect. In a word, the poets do, as it were, strew the rough paths of virtue so full of flowers, that we are not sensible of the uneasiness of them; and imagine ourselves in the midst of pleasures, and the most bewitching allurements, at the

* Probably Dr. Thomas Walker, head schoolmaster at the Chartreux, where Steele and Addison were his scholars; or perhaps Dr. Ellis, then master of the Chartreux.

time we are making a progress in the severest duties of life.

• All men agree, that licentious poems do, of all writings, soonest corrupt the heart. And why should we not be as universally persuaded, that the grave and serious performances of such as write in the most engaging manner, by a kind of divine impulse, must be the most effectual persuasives to goodness? If, therefore, I were blessed with a son, in order to the forming of his manners, which is making him truly my son, I should be continually putting into his hand some fine poet. The graceful sentences, and the manly sentiments, so frequently to be met with in every great and sublime writer, are, in my judgment, the most ornamental and valuable furniture that can be for a young gentleman's head; methinks they show like so much rich embroidery upon the brain. Let me add to this, that humanity and tenderness, without which there can be no true greatness in the mind, are inspired by the Muses' in such pathetical language, that all we find in prose-authors towards the raising and improving of these passions is, in comparison, but cold, or luke-warm at the best. There is besides a certain elevation of soul, a sedate magnanimity, and a noble turn of virtue, that distinguishes the hero from the plain honest man, to which verse can only raise us. The bold metaphors, and sounding numbers, peculiar to the poets, rouze up all our sleeping faculties, and alarm the whole powers of the soul, much like that excellent trumpeter mentioned by Virgil:

Quo non præstantior alter

Ere ciere viros, Martemque accendere cantu.

VIRG. Æn. vi, 165.

-None so renown'd

With breathing brass to kindle fierce alarms.

DRYDEN.

I fell into this train of thinking this evening, upon reading a passage in a masque writ by Milton', where two brothers are introduced seeking after their sister, whom they had lost in a dark night and thick wood. One of the brothers is apprehensive lest the wandering virgin should be overpowered with fears, through the darkness and loneliness of the time and place. This gives the other occasion to make the following reflections, which, as I read them, made me forget my age, and renewed in me the warm desires after virtue, so natural to uncorrupted youth.

'I do not think my sister so to seek,
Or so unprincipled in virtue's book,

And the sweet peace that goodness bosoms ever,
As that the single want of light and noise

(Not being in danger, as I trust she is not)
Could stir the constant mood of her calm thoughts,
And put them into misbecoming plight.

Virtue could see to do what virtue would

By her own radiant light, though sun and moon
Were in the flat sea sunk. And Wisdom's self
Oft seeks to sweet retired solitude:

y Milton's Comus' was originally set by Henry Lawes, and first published by him in 1637, with a dedication to lord Brackley, son and heir of the earl of Bridgewater. It was founded on the following real story :— 'The earl of Bridgewater being president of Wales, in 1634. had his residence at Ludlow-castle, in Shropshire; lord Brackley and Mr. Egerton, his sons, and lady Alice Egerton, his daughter, passing through a place called the Hay-wood Forest, in Herefordshire, were benighted, and the lady was for some short time lost. This accident being related to their father upon their arrival at his castle, furnished a subject which Milton wrought into one of the finest poems of the kind in any language. It was represented on Michaelmas night 1634, at Ludlow-castle, for the entertainment of the family, and the neighbouring nobility and gentry. Lawes himself performed in it the character of the attendant spirit, and towards the middle of the drama appears to the brothers habited like a shepherd, and is by them called Thyrsis. See the dedication of the original, printed in 1637, and Dr. Newton's edition of Milton's Poetical Works.' Sir John Hawkins's 'History of Music,' vol. iv. p. 52. Milton's Masque of Comus,' has been altered, first by Dr. Dalton, and afterwards by George Colman. See Biog. Dram. art. Comus, vol. ii. p. 62.

Where, with her best nurse, Contemplation,

She plumes her feathers, and lets grow her wings,
That in the various bustle of resort

Were all too ruffled, and sometimes impair'd:
He that has light within his own clear breast,
May sit i' th' centre, and enjoy bright day:
But he that hides a dark soul and foul thoughts,
Benighted walks under the mid-day sun;
Himself is his own dungeon.'

No. 99. SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 1709. *

-Spirat Tragicum satis, et feliciter audet. HOR. 2 Ep. i. 166.
He, fortunately bold, breathes true sublime.

WILL'S COFFEE-HOUSE, NOV. 25.

I HAVE been this evening recollecting what passages, since I could first think, have left the strongest impressions upon my mind; and, after strict inquiry, I am convinced that the impulses I have received from theatrical representations have had a greater effect than otherwise would have been wrought in me by the little occurrences of my private life. My old friends, Hart and Mohun, the one by his natural

* STEELE'S.

Hart was boy or apprentice to Robinson, at the playhouse in Black Friars, where he acted women's parts. When the civil wars broke out, and the stage was put down, many, indeed most of the players went into the royal army, and lost or exposed their lives for the king. Robinson was killed in the king's service, and Hart was a lieutenant of horse, under sir Thomas Dallison, in prince Rupert's regiment. After the Restoration, Hart lived about twenty years, at the head of a company of players, every whole sharer in which is said to have got 1000l. per annum. By the patent under which this company was established, women were first permitted to appear upon the stage, and taught to act their own parts. The play called The Parson's Wedding,' was played, it is said, by women only. Colley Cibber tells us, that Hart was as famous for playing the part of Othello, as Betterton was for acting Hamlet.

a Mohun was likewise bred up to the business of a player, for he also

and proper force, the other by his great skill and art, never failed to send me home full of such ideas as affected my behaviour, and made me insensibly more courteous and humane to my friends and acquaintance. It is not the business of a good play to make every man a hero; but it certainly gives him a livelier sense of virtue and merit, than he had when he entered the theatre.

This rational pleasure, as I always call it, has for many years been very little tasted: but I am glad to find that the true spirit of it is reviving again amongst us, by a due regard to what is presented, and by supporting only one playhouse. It has been within the observation of the youngest amongst us, that while there were two houses, they did not outvie each other by such representations as tended to the instruction and ornament of life, but by introducing mimical dances, and fulsome buffooneries. For when an excellent tragedy was to be acted in one house, the ladder-dancer carried the whole town to the other: and, indeed, such an evil as this must be the natural consequence of two theatres, as certainly as that there are more who can see than can think. Every one is sensible of the danger of the fellow on the ladder, and can see his activity in coming down safe; but very few are judges of the distress of a hero in a play, or of his manner of behaviour in those circumstances. Thus, to please the people, two houses must entertain them with what they can understand, and not with things which are designed to improve their understanding: and the readiest way to gain good audiences must be to offer such things as are most relished by the crowd; that is to say, immodest action,

was an apprentice, and played women's parts. During the civil wars, he was a captain, and when they ceased, he served in Flanders, and received pay as a major.