BUT notwithstanding Man's Effential Perfection is but very little, his Comparative Perfection may be very confiderable. If he looks upon himself in an abstracted Light, he has not much to boast of; but if he confiders himself with regard to others, he may find Occafion of glorying, if not in his own Virtues, at least in the Abfence of another's Imperfections. This gives a different Turn to the Reflexions of the Wife Man and the Fool. The first endeavours to fhine in himself, and the laft to outshine others. The first is humbled by the Sense of his own Infirmities, the laft is lifted up by the Discovery of those which he obferves in other Men. The Wife Man confiders what he wants, and the Fool what he abounds in. The Wife Man is happy when he gains his own Approbation, and the Fool when he recommends himself to the Applaufe of thofe about him,

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BUT however unreasonable and abfurd this Paffion for Admiration may appear in fuch a Creature as Man, it is not wholly to be difcouraged; fince it often produces very good Effects, not only as it reftrains him from doing any thing which is mean and contemptible, but as it pushes him to Actions which are great and glorious. The Principle may be defective or faulty, but the Confequences it produces are fo good, that, for the Benefit of Mankind, it ought not to be extinguished.

IT is obferved by Cicero, that Men of the greatest and the most fhining Parts are the most actuated by Ambltion; and if we look into the two Sexes, I believe we fhall find this Principle of Action ftronger in Women than

THE Paffion for Praife, which is fo very vehement in the Fair Sex, produces excellent Effects in Women of Senfe, who defire to be admired for that only which deferves Admiration: And I think we may observe, without a Compliment to them, that many of them do not only live in a more uniform Courfe of Virtue, but with an infinitely greater Regard to their Honour, than what we find in the generality of our own Sex. How many Inftances have we of Chaftity, Fidelity, Devotion? How many Ladies diftinguifh themfelves by the Education of their Children, Care of their Families, and Love of their Husbands, which are the great Qualities and Atchievements of Womankind: As the making of War, the carry

ing on of Traffick, the Adminiftration of Juftice, are those by which Men grow famous, and get themselves a Name..

BUT as this Paffion for Admiration, when it works according to Reafon, improves the beautiful Part of our Species in every thing that is Laudable; fo nothing is. more Destructive to them when it is governed by Vanity and Folly. What I have therefore here to fay, only regards the vain Part of the Sex, whom for certain Reasons, which the Reader will hereafter fee at large, I fhall distinguish by the Name of Idols. An Idol is wholly taken up in the Adorning of her Perfon. You fee in every Pofture of her Body, Air of her Face, and Motion of her Head, That it is her Business and Employment to gain Adorers. For this Reafon your Idols appear in all publick Places and · Affemblies, in order to feduce Men to their Worship. The Play-house is very frequently filled with Idols; feveral of them are carried in Proceffion every Evening about the Ring, and feveral of them fet up their Worship even in Churches. They are to be accofted in the Language proper to the Deity. Life and Death are in their Power: Joys of Heaven and Pains of Hell are at their Difpofal: Paradise is in their Arms, and Eternity in every Moment that you are prefent with them. Raptures, Tranfports, and Ecitafies are the Rewards which they confer: Sighs and Tears, Prayers and broken Hearts, are the Offerings which are paid to them. Their Smiles make Men happy; their Frowns drive them to Despair. I fhall only add under this Head, that Ovid's Book of the Art of Love is a kind of Heathen Ritual, which contains all the Forms of Worship which are made ufe of to an Idol.

IT would be as difficult a Task to reckon up thefe different kinds of Idols, as Milton's was to number those that were known in Canaan, and the Lands adjoining. Moft of them are worshipped, like Moloch, in Fire and Flames. Some of them, like Baal, love to fee their Votaries cut and flashed, and fhedding their Blood for them. Some of them, like the Idol in the Apocrypha, must have Treats and Collations prepared for them every Night. It has indeed been known, that fome of them have been used by their incenfed Worshippers like the Chinese Idols, who are Whipped and Scourged when they refufe to comply with the Prayers that are offered to them.

I must here obferve, that thofe Idolaters who devote them

N. 4

themfelves to the Idols I am here fpeaking of, differ very much from all other kinds of Idolaters. For as others fall out because they worship different Idols, these Idolaters quarrel because they worship the fame.

THE Intention therefore of the Idol is quite contrary to the Wishes of the Idolater; as the one defires to confine the Idol to himself, the whole Business and Ambition of the other is to multiply Adorers. This Humour of an Idol is prettily defcribed in a Tale of Chaucer: He reprefents one of them fitting at a Table with three of her Votaries about her, who are all of them courting her Favour, and paying their Adorations: She fmiled upon one, drank to another, and trod upon the other's Foot which was under the Table. Now which of these three, fays the old Bard, do you think was the Favourite? In troth, fays he, not one of all the three.

THE Behaviour of this old Idol in Chaucer, puts me in mind of the Beautiful Clarinda, one of the greatest Idols among the Moderns. She is worshipped once a Week by Candle-light, in the midft of a large Congregation, generally called an Affembly. Some of the gayeft Youths in the Nation endeavour to plant themselves in her Eye, while fhe fits in form with Multitudes of Tapers burning about her. To encourage the Zeal of her Idolaters, fhe bestows a Mark of her Favour upon every one of them, before they go out of her Prefence. She asks a Question of one, tells a Story to another, glances an Ogle upon a third, takes a Pinch of Snuff from the fourth, lets her Fan drop by accident to give the fifth an Occafion of taking it up. In fhort, every one goes away fatisfied wit his Succefs, and encouraged to renew his Devotions on the fame Canonical Hour that Day Sevennight.

AN Idol may be Undeified by many accidental Causes. Marriage in particular is a kind of Counter-Apotheofis, or a Deification inverted. When a Man becomes familiar with his Goddess, fhe quickly finks into a Woman.

OLD Age is likewife a great Decayer of your Idol: The truth of it is, there is not a more unhappy Being than a Superannuated Idol, especially when she has contracted fuch Airs and Behaviour as are only Graceful when her Worshippers are about her.

CONSIDERING therefore that in these and many other Cafes the Woman generally out-lives the Idol, I must

return

return to the Moral of this Paper, and defire my fair Readers to give a proper Direction to their Paffion for being admired; In order to which, they must endeavour to make themselves the Objects of a reasonable and lasting Admiration. This is not to be hoped for from Beauty, or Dress, or Fashion, but from those inward Ornaments which are not to be defaced by Time or Sickness, and which appear most amiable to those who are most acquainted with them. с

N° 74.

I

Friday, May 25.

—Pendent opera interrupta

The Works unfinish'd and neglected lie.

Virg. Æn.4. v. 88.

N my laft Monday's Paper I gave fome general Inftances of those beautiful Strokes which please the Reader in the old Song of Chevy-Chafe; I fhall here, according to my Promife, be more particular, and fhew that the Sentiments in that Ballad are extremely natural and poetical, and full of the majestick Simplicity which we admire in the greatest of the ancient Poets: For which Reafon I fhall quote feveral Paffages of it, in which the Thought is altogether the fame with what we meet in several Paffages of the Eneid; not that I would infer from thence, that the Poet (whoever he was) propofed to himself any Imitation of those Paffages, but that he was directed to them in general by the fame kind of Poetical Genius, and by the fame Copyings after Nature.

HÁD this old Song been filled with Epigrammatical Turns and Points of Wit, it might perhaps have pleased the wrong Tafte of fome Readers; but it would never have become the Delight of the common People, nor have warmed the Heart of Sir Philip Sidney like the Sound of a Trumpet; it is only Nature that can have this Effect, and please thofe Taftes which are the most unprejudiced or the most refined. I must however beg leave to diffent from fo great an Authority as that of Sir Philip Sidney, in the Judgment which he has paffed as to the rude Stile and evil Apparel of this Antiquated Song; for there are feveral Parts in it where not only the Thought but the Language is majestick, and the Numbers fonorous;

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at leaf, the Apparel is much more gorgeous

the Poets made use of in Queen Elizabeth's Time, as the Reader will fee in feveral of the following Quotations. WHAT can be greater than either the Thought or the Expression in that Stanza,

To drive the Deer with Hound and Horn
Earl Piercy took his Way;

The Child may rue that was unborn
The Hunting of that Day!

This way of confidering the Misfortunes which this Battle would bring upon Pofterity, not only on thofe who were born immediately after the Battle, and loft their Fathers in it, but on thofe alfo who perished in future Battles which took their rife from this Quarrel of the two Earls, is wonderfully beautiful, and conformable to the Way of Thinking among the ancient Poets.

Audiet pugnas vitio parentum

Rara juventus.

Hor. Od. 2.1.1.v. 23.

Pofterity, thinn'd by their Fathers Crimes,

Shall read, with Grief, the Story of their Times.

What can be more founding and poetical, or resemble more the majestick Simplicity of the Ancients, than the following Stanzas ?

The fout Earl of Northumberland

A Vow to God did make,

His Pleafure in the Scotish Woods
Three Summers Days to take.

With fifteen hundred Bowmen bold,
All chofen Men of Might,

Who knew full well, in time of Need,
To aim their Shafts aright.

The Hounds ran fwiftly thro' the Woods

The nimble Deer to take,

And with their Cries the Hills and Dales
An Echo fbrill did make.

Vocat ingenti Clamore Citharon

Taygetique canes, domitrixque Epidaurus equorum:

Et vox affenfu nemorum ingeminata remugit. Georg. 3. v.43.

Citheron loudly calls me to my Way;

Thy Hounds, Taygetus, open, and pursue the Prey: