came up a monster with a face between his feet; and as I was looking on, he raised himself on one leg in fuch a perpendicular posture, that the other grew in a direct line above his head. It afterwards twisted itself into the motions and wreathings of feveral different animals, and after great variety of fhapes and transformations went off the ftage in the figure of an human creature. The admiration, the applause, the fatisfaction of the audience, during this ftrange entertainment, is not to be expressed. I was very much out of counte nance for my dear countrimen, and looked about with fome apprehenfion, for fear any foreigner should be: prefent. Is it poffible (thought I) that human nature can rejoice in its difgrace, and take pleasure in feeing its own figure turned to ridicule, and distorted into forms that raise horror and averfion? There is fomething difingennous and immoral in the being able to bear fuch a fight. Men of elegant and noble minds, are fhocked at the feeing characters of perfons who deserve esteem for their virtue, knowledge, or fervices to their country, placed in wrong lights, and by mifrepresentation made the fubject of buffoonery. Such nice abhorrence is not indeed to be found among the vulgar; but methinks it is wonderful, that thofe, who have nothing but the outward figure to diftinguish them as men, fhould delight in seeing it abuted, vilified and disgraced.

I MUST confefs, there is nothing that more pleases me, in all that I read in books, or see among mankind, than fuch paffages as reprefent human nature in its proper dignity, As man is a creature made up of different extremes, he has fomething in him very great and very mean: a fkilful artist may draw an excellent picture of him in either of thefe views. The finest authors of antiquity have taken him on the more advantageous fide. They cultivate the natural grandeur of the foul, raife in her a generous ambition, teed her with hopes of immortality and perfection, and do all they can to widen the partition between the virtuous and the vicious, by making the difference betwixt them as great as between gods and brutes. In short, it

is impoffible to read a page in Plato, Tully, and a thoufand other antient moralifts, without being a greater and a better man fort it. On the contrary, I could never read any of our modifh French authors, or those of our own country, who are the imitators and admirers of that trifling nation, without being for fome time out of humour with myself, and at every thing about me, Their business is, to depreciate human nature, and confider it under its worst appearances. They give mean interpretations and bafe motives to the worthiest actions: they resolve virtue and vice into constitution. In fhort, they endeavour to make no distinction between man and man, or between the species of men and that of brutes, As an inttance of this kind of authors, among many others, let any one examine the celebrated Rochefaucault, who is the great philofopher for adminifiring of confolation to the idle, the envious, and worthlefs part of mankind..

I remember a young gentleman of moderate underftending but great vivacity, who by dipping into many authors of this nature, had got a little fmattering of knodwledge, juft enough to make an atheist or a freethinker, but not a philofopher or a man of fenfe. With thefe accomplishments, he went to vifit his father in the country, who was a plain, rough, honeft man, and wife, tho' not learned. The fon, who took all opportunities to fhew his learning, began to establish a new religión in the family, and to enlarge the narrowness of their country notions; in which he fucceeded fo well, that he had feduced the butler by his table-talk, and ftaggered his eldest fifter. The old gentleman began to be alarmed at the fchifms that arofe among his children, but did not yet believe his fon's doctrine to be fo pernicious as it really was, till one day talking of his fetting dog, the fon faid, he did not question but Trey was as immortal as any one of the family; and in the heat of the argument told his father, that for his own. part, he expected to die like a dog. Upon which, the old man ftarting up in a very great paffion, cried out: Then, firrah, you fhall live like one; and taking his cane in his hand, cudgelled him out of his fystem.

This had fo good an effect upon him, that he took up from that day, fell to reading good books, and is now a bencher in the Middle Temple.

I Do not mention this cudgelling part of the story with a defign to engage the fecular arm in matters of this nature; but certainly, if it ever exerts itself in affairs of opinion and fpeculation, it ought to do it en fuch fhallow and defpicable pretenders to knowledge, who endeavour to give man dark and uncomfortable profpects of his being, and deftroy thofe principles which are the fupport, happiness, and glory of all publick fo cieties, as well as private perfons.

I THINK it is one of Pythagoras's golden fayings, that a man fhould take care above all things to have a due refpect for bimfelf: and it is certain, that this licentious fort of authors, who are for depreciating mankind, eudeavour to disappoint and undo what the moft refined spirits have been labouring to advance fince the beginning of the world. The very defign of drefs, goodbreeding, outward ornaments and ceremony, were to lift up human nature, and fet it off to an advantage. Architecture, painting, and ftatuary, were invented with the fame defign; as indeed every art and feience contributes to the embellishment of life, and to the wearing off and throwing into fhades the mean and low parts of our nature, Poetry carries on this great end more than all the reit, as may be feen in the following paffage, taken out of Sir Francis Bacon's Advancement of Learning, which gives a truer and better account of this art than all the volumes that were ever written upon it.

"POETRY, especially heroical, feems to be raised altogether from a noble foundation, which makes "much for the dignity of man's nature. For feeing

this fenfible world is in dignity inferior to the foul of "man, poefy feems to endow human nature with that "which hiftory denies; and to give fatisfaction to the ❝mind, with at least the fhadow of things, where the "fubftance cannot be had. For if the matter be "thoroughly confidered, a ftrong argument may be drawn from poely, that a more ftately greatness of

R5

“things,

"things, a more perfect order, and a more beautiful "variety, delights the soul of man, than any way can "be found in nature fince the fall. Wherefore feeing "the acts and events, which are the subjects of true "hittory, are not of that amplitude as to content the "mind of man; poefy is ready at hand to feign acts more heroical. Because true hiftory reports the fuc"celles of bufinefs not proportionable to the merit of virtues and vices, poefy corrects it, und presents “events and fortunes according to defert, and accord"ing to the law of providence: because true hiftory, "through the frequent fatiety and fimilitude of things "works a distaste and mifprifion in the mind of man; "poefy cheareth and refresheth the foul, chanting "things rare and various, and full of viciffitudes. So (6 as poefy ferveth and conferreth to delectation, mag"nanimity and morality; and therefore it may feem "defervedly to have fome participation of divineness, "because it doth raise the mind, and exalt the spirit "with high raptures, by proportioning the fhews of "things to the defires of the mind, and not fubmitting "the mind to things as reafon and hiftory do. And "by these allurements and congruities, whereby it "cherif heth the foul of man, joined also with confort "of mufick, whereby it may more fweetly infinuate “ itself; it hath won fuch access, that it hath been in ❤ estimation even in rude times, and barbarous nations, "when our learning stood excluded."

BUT there is nothing which favours and falls in with this natural greatness and dignity of human na❤ ture fo much as religion, which does not only promise the entire refinement of the mind, but the glorifying • the body, and the immortality of both.

The

The Efficacy of Poetry upon the Mind,

[Tatler, N° 98.]

AN ingenious and worthy gentleman, my ancient

friend, fell into difcourfe 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 defired me to communicate to the youth of Great Britain in my effays; which I chuse to do in his own words,

I HAVE always been of opinion (fays he) that virtue finks deepest into the heart of man, when it comes recommended by the powerful charms of poetry. The molt 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. Our paffions and inclinations come over next; and our reafon furrenders itself with pleasure, in the end. Thus the whole foul is infenfibly betrayed into morality, by bribing the fancy with beautiful and agreeable images of thole very things, that in the books of the philofophers appear auftere, and have at the best but a kind of forbidden aspect. In a word, the poets do, as it were, ftrew the rough paths of virtue fo full of flowers, that we are not fenfible of the uneasiness of them, and imagine ourselves in the midit of pleasures, and the most bewitching allurements, at the time we are making a progrefs in the fevereft duties of life.

ALL men agree, that licentious poems do of all writings fooneft corrupt the heart; and why fhould we not be as univerfally perfwaded, that the grave and ferious performances of fuch as write in the most engaging manner, by a kind of divine impulfe, muft be the most effectual perfwafives to goodness? If therefore I were blessed with a Son, in order to the forming of