on a victory, I met with several fragments of it upon the next rejoicing day, which had been employed in squibs and crackers, and by that means celebrated its subject in a double сараcity. I once met with a page of Mr. Baxter under a christmas pye. Whether or no the pastry cook had made use of it through chance or waggery, for the defence of that superstitious viande, I know not; but, upon the perusal of it, I conceived so good an idea of the author's piety, that I bought the whole book. I have often profited by these accidental readings, and have sometimes found very curious pieces, that are either out of print, or not to be met with in the shops of our London booksellers. For this reason, when my friends take a survey of my library, they are very much surprised to find, upon the shelf of folios, two long band-boxes standing upright upon my books, till I let them see that they are both of them lined with deep erudition and abstruse literature. I might likewise mention a paper kite, from which I have received great improvement; and a hat-case, which I would not exchange for all the beavers in Great Britain. This my inquisitive temper, or rather impertinent humour of prying into all sorts of writing, with my natural aversion to loquacity, gives me a good deal of employment when I enter any house in the country; for I can not for my heart leave a room, before I have thoroughly studied the walls of it, and examined the several printed papers which are usually pasted upon them. The last piece that I met with upon this occasion gave me most exquisite pleasure. My reader will think I am not serious, when I ac

quaint him that the piece I am going to speak of was the old ballad of the Two Children in the Wood, which is one of the darling songs of the common people, and has been the delight of most Englishmen in some part of their age.

This song is a plain simple copy of nature, destitute of the helps and ornaments of art. The tale of it is a pretty, tragical story, and pleases for no other reason but because it is a copy of nature. There is even a despicable simplicity in the verse; and yet because the sentiments appear genuine and unaffected, they are able to move the mind of the most polite reader with inward meltings of humanity and compassion. The incidents grow out of the subject, and are such as are the most proper to excite pity; for which reason the whole narration has something in it very moving, notwithstanding the author of it (whoever he was) has delivered it in such an abject phrase and poorness of expression, that the quoting any part of it would look like a design of turning it into ridicule. But though the language is mean, the thoughts, as I have before said, from one end to the other, are natural, and therefore can not fail to please those who are not judges of language, or those who, notwithstanding they are judges of language, have a true and unprejudiced taste of nature. The condition, speech, and behaviour of the dying parents, with the age, innocence, and distress of the children, are set forth in such tender circumstances, that it is impossible for a reader of common humanity not to be affected with them. As for the circumstance of the Robin Red-breast, it is indeed a little poetical ornament; and to show

the genius of the author, amidst all his simplicity, it is just the same kind of fiction which one of the greatest of the Latin poets has made use of upon a parallel occasion; I mean that passage in Horace, where he describes himself, when he was a child, fallen asleep in a desert wood, and covered with leaves by the turtles that took pity on him. Me fabulosa Vulturæ in Apulo, Altricis extra limen Apuliæ, Ludo fatigatumque somno Fronde nova puerum palumbes

Texere

Od. 4. 1. 3. v. 9.

In lofty vulture's rising grounds,
Without my nurse Apulia's bounds,
When young and tir'd with sport and play,
And bound with pleasing sleep I lay,
Doves cover'd me with myrtle boughs.

CREECH.

I have heard that the late lord Dorset, who had the greatest wit tempered with the greatest candour, and was one of the finest critics, as well as the best poets of his age, had a numerous collection of old English ballads, and took a particular pleasure in the reading of them. I can affirm the same of Mr. Dryden, and know several of the most refined writers of our present age who are of the same humour.

I might likewise refer my reader to Moliere's thoughts on this subject, as he has expressed them in the character of the Misanthrope; but those only who are endowed with a true greatness of soul and genius can divest themselves of the little images of ridicule, and admire nature in her simplicity and nakedness. As for the little conceited wits of the age, who can only show their judgment by finding fault, they can not be

supposed to admire these productions which have nothing to recommend them but the beauties of nature, when they do not know how to relish even those compositions that, with all the beauties of nature, have also the additional advantages of art.

No. 86. FRIDAY, JUNE 8. By Addison. Hea quam difficile est crimen non prodere vultu!

How in the looks does conscious guilt appear! ADDISON.

THERE are several arts which all men are in some measure masters of, without having been at the pains of learning them. Every one that speaks or reasons is a grammarian and a logician, though he may be wholly unacquainted with the rules of grammar or logic, as they are delivered in books and systems. In the same manner every one is in some degree a master of that art which is generally distinguished by the name of Physiognomy; and naturally forms to himself the character or fortune of a stranger from the features and lineaments of his face. We are no sooner presented to any one we never saw before, but we are immediately struck with the idea of a proud, a reserved, an affable, or a good-natured man; and upon our first going into a company of strangers, our benevolence or aversion, awe or contempt, rises naturally towards several particular persons, before we have heard them speak a single word, or so much as know who they are.

Every passion gives a particular cast to the countenance, and is apt to discover itself in some

feature or other. I have seen an eye curse for half an hour together, and an eyebrow call a man a scoundrel. Nothing is more common than for lovers to complain, resent, languish, despair, and die in dumb show. For my own part, I am so apt to frame a notion of every man's humour or circumstances by his looks, that I have sometimes employed myself from Charing-Cross to the Royal Exchange in drawing the character of those who have passed by me. When I see a man with a sour rivelled face, I can not forbear pitying his wife; and when I meet with an open ingenuous countenance, think on the happiness of his friends, his family snd relations.

I can not recollect the author of a famous saying to a stranger who stood silent in his company, Speak, that I may see thee.' But with submission, I think we may be better known by our looks than by our words, and that a man's speech is much more easily disguised than his countenance. In this case, however, I think the air of the whole face is much more expressive than the lines of it: the truth of it is, the air is generally nothing else but the inward disposition of the mind made visible.

Those who have established Physiognomy into an art, and laid down rules of judging men's tempers by their faces, have regarded the features much more than the air. Martial has a pretty epigram on this subject:

Crine ruber, niger ore, brevis pede, lumine læsus:
Rem magnam præstas, Zoile, si bonus es.

Thy beard and head are of a diff'rent dye;
Short of one foot, distorted in an eye:
With all these tokens of a knave complete,

EPIG.

Should'st thou be honest, thou'rt a dev'lish cheat.