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myself a little in good company, I threw as much of the Trumpet into my conversation, as was possible for a man of an impetuous temper; by which mixture of different musics I look upon myself, during the course of many years, to have resembled a Tabor and Pipe. I have since very much endeavoured at the sweetness of the Lute; but, in spite of all my resolutions, I must confess, with great confusion, that I find myself daily degenerating into a Bagpipe; whether it be the effect of my old age, or of the company I keep, I know not. All that I can do, is to keep a watch over my conversation, and to silence the Drone as soon as I find it begin to hum in my discourse, being determined rather to hear the notes of others, than to play out of time, and encroach upon their parts in the consort by the noise of so tiresome an in

strument.

I shall conclude this paper with a letter which I received last night from a friend of mine, who knows very well my notions upon this subject, and invites me to pass the evening at his house, with a select company of friends, in the following words:

DEAR ISAAC,-I intend to have a consort at my house this evening, having by great chance got a Harpsichord, which I am sure will entertain you very agreeably. There will be likewise two Lufes and a Trumpet: let me beg you to put yourself in tune; and believe me your very faithful servant,

No. 151.]

NICHOLAS HUMDRUM.'*

Tuesday, April 4, 1710.

Virg. Æn. vi. 100.

Obscuris vera involvens.
Involving truth in terms obscure.

From my own Apartment, April 3.

We have already examined Homer's descrip. tion of a future state, and the condition in which he hath placed the souls of the deceased. I shall, in this paper, make some observations on the account which Virgil hath given us of the same subject, who, besides a greatness of genius, had all the lights of philosophy and human learning to assist and guide him in his

has likewise his habitation in these quarters; and describes in them a huge gloomy elm-treo, which seems a very proper ornament for the place, and is possessed by an innumerable swarm of dreams, that hang in clusters under every leaf of it. He then gives us a list of imaginary persons, who very naturally lie within the shadow of the dream-trce, as being of the same kind of make in themselves, and the materials, or, to use Shakspeare's phrase, 'the stuff of which dreams are made.' Such are the shades of a giant with a hundred hands, and of his brother with three bodies; of the double shaped Centaur and Scylla; the Gorgon with snaky hair; the Harpy with a woman's face and lion's talons; the seven-headed Hydra; and the Chimura, which breathes forth a flame, and is a compound of three animals. These several mixed natures, the creatures of imagination, are not only introduced with great art after the dreams, but, as they are planted at the very entrance, and within the very gates of those regions, do probably denote the wild deliriums and extravagances of fancy, which the soul usually falls into when she is just upon the verge of death.

Thus far Eneas travels in an allegory. The rest of the description is drawn with great exactness, according to the religion of the heaphy. I shall not trouble my reader with a comthens, and the opinions of the Platonic philosomon dull story, that gives an account why the heathens first of all supposed a ferry-man in hell, and his name to be Charon; but must not pass over in silence the point of doctrine which Virgil hath very much insisted upon in this book. That the souls of those who are unburied, " are not permitted to go over into their respective places of rest, until they have wandered a hundred years upon the banks of Styx. This was probably an invention of the heathen priesthood, to make the people extremely careful of performing proper rites and ceremonies to the memory of the dead. I shall not, however, with the infamous seribblers of the age, take an occasion from such a circumstance, to run into declamations against priestcraft, but rather look upon it, even in this light, as a religious artifice, to raise in the minds of men an esteem for the memory of their forefathers,,and a desire to recommend themselves to that of posterity; as the virtues of the deceased, and to keep alive in also to excite in them an ambition of imitating their thoughts the sense of the soul's immorUpon the confines of the dead, and before the tality, In a word, we may say in defence of the very grates of this infernal world, Virgil describes severe opinions relating to the shades of unbugeveral inhabitants, whose natures are wonder-ried persons, what hath been said by some of our fully suited to the situation of the place, as being either the occasions or resemblances of death. Of the first kind are the shadows of Sickness, Old Age, Fear, Famine, and Poverty; apparitions very terrible to behold, with several others, as Toil, War, Contention, and Discord, which contribute all of them to people this common receptacle of human souls. As this was likewise a very proper residence for every thing that resembles death, the poet tells us, that Sleep, whom he represents as a near relation to death,

discoveries.

Encas is represented as descending into the empire of death, with a prophetess by his side, who instructs him in the secrets of those lower regions.

*Sce Tatler 157.

divines in regard to the rigid doctrines concerning the souls of such who die without being initiated into our religion, that supposing they should be erroneous, they can do no hurt to the dead, and will have a good effect upon the living, in making them cautious of neglecting such

necessary solemnities.

headed dog laid asleep, but Æneas makes his Charon is no sooner appeased, and the tripleentrance into the dominions of Pluto. There situate on the borders; and I can give no rea are three kinds of persons described, as being son for their being stationed there in so particu

lar a manner, but because none of them seem to have had a proper right to a place among the dead, as not having run out the whole thread of their days, and finished the terin of life that had been allotted them upon earth. The first of these are the souls of infants, who are snatched away by untimely ends. The second are of those who are put to death wrongfully, and by an unjust sentence; and the third, of those who grew weary of their lives, and laid violent hands upon themselves. As for the second of these, Virgil adds, with great beauty, that Minos, the judge of the dead, is employed in giving them a rehearing, and assigning them their several quarters suitable to the parts they acted in life. The poet, after having mentioned the souls of those unhappy men who destroyed themselves, breaks out into a fine exclamation. Oh! how gladly,' says he, would they now endure life with all its miseries! but the destinies forbid their return to earth, and the waters of Styx surround them with nine streams that are unpassable.' It was very remarkable, that Virgil, notwithstanding self-murder was so frequent among the heathens, and had been practised by some of the greatest men in the very age before him, hath here represented it as so heinous a crime. But in this particular he was guided by the doctrines of his great master Plato; who says on this subject, that a man is placed in his station of life, like a soldier in his proper post, which he is not to quit, whatever may happen, until he is called off by his commander who planted him in it.

There is another point in the Platonic philosophy, which Virgil has made the groundwork of the greatest part, in the piece we are now examining; having with wonderful art and beauty materialized, if I may so call it, a scheme of abstracted notions, and clothed the most nice refined conceptions of philosophy in sensible images, and poetical representations. The Platonists tell us, that the soul, during her residence in the body, contracts many virtuous and vicious habits, so as to become a beneficent, mild, charitable; or an angry, malicious, revengeful being: a substance inflamed with lust, avarice, and pride; or, on the contrary, brightened with pure, generous, and humble dispositions: that these and the like habits of virtue and vice growing into the very essence of the soul, survive and gather strength in her after her dissolution: that the torments of a vicious soul in a future state arise principally from those importunate passions which are not capable of being gratified without a body; and that, on the contrary, the happiness of virtuous minds very much consists in their being employed in sublime speculations, innocent diversions, sociable affections, and all the ecstacies of passion and rapture which are agreeable to reasonable natures, and of which they gained a relish in this life.

Upon this foundation the poet raises that beautiful description of the secret haunts and walks, which, he tells us, are inhabited by deceased lovers.

choly. In these there grows a forest of myrtle, divided into many shady retirements and covered walks, and inhabited by the souls of those who pined away with love. The passion, says he, continues with them after death. He then gives a list of this languishing tribe, in which his own Dido makes the principal figure, and is described as living in this soft romantic scene with the shade of her first husband Sichæus.

The poet, in the next place, mentions another plain that was peopled with the ghosts of warriors, as still delighting in each other's company, and pleased with the exercise of arms. He there represents the Grecian generals and common soldiers who perished in the siege of Troy, as drawn up in squadrons, and terrified at the approach of Æneas, which renewed in them those impressions of fear they had before received in battle with the Trojans. He afterwards likewise, upon the same notions, gives a view of the Trojan heroes who lived in former ages, amidst a visionary scene. of chariots and arms, flowery meadows, shining spears, and generous steeds, which he tells us were their pleasures upon earth, and now make up their happiness in Elysium. For the same reason also, he mentions others as singing Pæans, and songs of triumph, amidst a beautiful grove of laurel. The chief of the consort was the poet Museus; who stood inclosed with a circle of admirers, and rose by the head and shoulders above the throng of shades that surrounded him. The habitations of unhappy spirits, to show the duration of their torments, and the desperate condition they are in, are represented as guarded by a fury, moated round with a lake of fire, strengthened with towers of iron, encompassed with a triple wall, and fortified with pillars of adamant, which all the gods together are not able to heave from their foundations. The noise of stripes, the clank of chains, and the groans of the tortured, strike the pious Eneas with a kind of horror. The poet afterwards divides the criminals into two classes. The first and blackest catalogue consists of such as were guilty of outrages against the gods; and the next, of such who were convicted of injustice between man and man; the greatest number of whom, says the poet, are those who followed the dictates of avarice.

It was an opinion of the Platonists, that the souls of men having contracted in the body great stains and pollutions of vice and ignorance, there were several purgations and cleansings necessary to be passed through, both here and hereafter, in order to refine and purify them.

Virgil, to give this thought likewise a clothing of poetry, describes some spirits as bleaching in the winds, others as cleansing under great falls of waters, and others as purging in fire, to recover the primitive beauty and purity of their natures.

It was likewise an opinion of the same sect of philosophers, that the souls of all men exist in a separate state, long before their union with their bodies; and that, upon their immersion into flesh, they forget every thing which passed in Not far from hence, says he, lies a great waste the state of pre-existence; so that what we here of plains, that are called the Fields of Mclan-call knowledge, is nothing else but memory, or

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the recovery of those things which we knew | walking in St. James's park, I heard somebody before.

In pursuance of this scheme, Virgil gives us a view of several souls, who, to prepare themselves for living upon earth, flock about the banks of the river Lethe, and swill themselves with the waters of oblivion.

at a distance hemming after me; and who should it be but my old neighbour the upholsterer? I saw he was reduced to extreme poverty, by certain shabby superfluities in his dress: for, notwithstanding that it was a very sultry day for the time of the year, he wore a loose great coat and a muff, with a long campaign

The same scheme gives him an opportunity of making a noble compliment to his country-wig out of curl, to which he had added the ornamen, where Anchises is represented taking a survey of the long train of heroes that are to descend from him, and giving his son Eneas an account of all the glories of his race.

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From my own Apartment, April 5.

ment of a pair of black garters buckled under
the knee. Upon his coming up to me, I was
going to inquire into his present circumstances;
but was prevented by his asking me, with a
whisper,Whether the last letters brought any
accounts that one might rely upon from Ben-
der?' I told him, 'None that I heard of;' and
asked him, whether he had yet married his
eldest daughter?' He told me, no.
But pray,'
says he, tell me sincerely, what are your
thoughts of the king of Sweden?' For though
his wife and children were starving, I found his
chief concern at present was for this great
monarch. I told him, that I looked upon him
as one of the first heroes of the age.' 'But pray,'
says he, do you think there is any truth in the
story of his wound?' And finding me surprised
at the question, Nay,' says he, I only propose
it to you.' I answered, that I thought there
was no reason to doubt of it.' But why in the
heel,' says he, more than in any other part
of the body? Because,' said I, 'the bullet
chanced to light there.'

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This extraordinary dialogue was no sooner ended, but he began to launch out into a long THERE lived some years since, within my dissertation upon the affairs of the North; and neighbourhood, a very grave person, an uphol- after having spent some time on them, he told sterer, who seemed a man of more than ordi- me, he was in a great perplexity how to renary application to business. He was a very concile the Supplement with the English Post, early riser, and was often abroad two or three and had been just now examining what the hours before any of his neighbours. He had a other papers say upon the same subject. The particular carefulness in the knitting of his Daily Courant,' says he, has these words. brows, and a kind of impatience in all his mo-"We have advices from very good hands, that tions, that plainly discovered he was always in- a certain prince has some matters of great imtent on matters of importance. Upon my in-portance under consideration." This is very quiry into his life and conversation, I found him to be the greatest newsmonger in our quarter: that he rose before day to read the Post-man; and that he would take two or three turns to the other end of the town before his neighbours were up, to see if there were any Dutch mails come in. He had a wife and several children; but was much more inquisitive to know what passed in Poland than in his own family, and was in greater pain and anxiety of mind for king Augustus's welfare than that of his near. est relations. He looked extremely thin in a dearth of news, and never enjoyed himself in a westerly wind. This indefatigable kind of life was the ruin of his shop; for, about the time that his favourite prince left the crown of Poland, he broke and disappeared.

This man and his affairs had been long out of my mind, until about three days ago, as I was

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mysterious: but the Post-boy leaves us more in the dark; for he tells us, "That there are private intimations of measures taken by a certain prince, which time will bring to light." Now the Post-man,' says he, who uses to be very clear, refers to the same news in these words: "The late conduct of a certain prince affords great matter of speculation." This certain prince,' says the upholsterer, whom they are all so cautious of naming, I take to be.' Upon which, though there was nobody near us, he whispered something in my car, which I did not hear, or think worth my while to make him repeat.

We were now got to the upper end of the Mall, where were three or four very odd fellows sitting together upon the bench. These I found were all of them politicians, who used to sun themselves in that place every day about dinner-time. Observing them to be curiosities in their kind, and my friend's acquaintance, I sat down among them.

The chief politician of the bench was a great asserter of paradoxes. He told us, with a seeming concern, that, by some news he had lately

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read from Muscovy, it appeared to him that | there was a storm gathering in the Black-sea, which might in time do hurt to the naval forces of this nation.' To this he added, that for his part, he could not wish to see the Turk driven out of Europe, which he believed could not but be prejudicial to our woollen manufacture.' He then told us, that he looked upon those extraordinary revolutions which had lately happened in those parts of the world, to have risen chiefly from two persons who were not much talked of; and those,' says he, are prince Menzikoff, and the dutchess of Mirandola.' He backed his assertions with so many broken hints, and such a show of depth and wisdom, that we gave ourselves up to his opinions.

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The discourse at length fell upon a point which seldom escapes a knot of true-born Englishmen, whether, in case of a religious war, the Protestants would not be too strong for the Papists? This we unanimously determined on the Protestant side. One who sat on my right hand, and, as I found by his discourse, had been in the West Indies, assured us, that it would be a very easy matter for the Protestants to beat the pope at sea; and added, 'that whenever such a war does break out, it must turn to the good of the Leeward Islands.' Upon this, one who sat at the end of the bench, and, as I afterwards found, was the geographer of the company, said, 'that in case the Papists should drive the Protestants from these parts of Europe, when the worst came to the worst, it would be impossible to beat them out of Norway and Greenland, provided the northern crowns hold together, and the czar of Muscovy stand neuter.' He further told us, for our comfort, 'that there were vast tracts of lands about the pole, inhabited neither by Protestants nor Papists, and of greater extent than all the Roman catholic dominions in Europe.'

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From my own Apartment, April 7.

WE have already described out of Homer the voyage of Ulysses to the infernal shades, with the several adventures that attended it. If we look into the beautiful romance published not many years since by the archbishop of Cambray, we may see the son of Ulysses bound on the same expedition, and after the same manner making his discoveries among the regions of the dead. The story of Telemachus is formed altogether in the spirit of Homer, and will give an unlearned reader a notion of that great poet's manner of writing, more than any translation of him can possibly do. As it was written for the instruction of a young prince who may one day sit upon the throne of France, the author took care to suit the several parts of his story, and particularly the description we are now entering upon, to the character and quality of his pupil. For which reason, he insists very much on the misery of bad, and the happiness of good kings, in the account he hath given of punishments and rewards in the other world.

We may however observe, notwithstanding the endeavours of this great and learned author, to copy after the style and sentiments of Homer, that there is a certain tincture of Christianity running through the whole relation. The prelate in several places mixes himself with the poet; so that his future state puts me in mind of Michael Angelo's 'Last Judgment;' where Charon and his boat are represented as bearing a part in the dreadful solemnities of that great day.

When we had fully discussed this point, my friend the upholsterer began to exert himself Telemachus, after having passed through the upon the present negotiations of peace; in which dark avenues of Death in the retinue of Merhe deposed princes, settled the bounds of king-cury, who every day delivers up a certain tale of doms, and balanced the power of Europe, with great justice and impartiality.

I at length took my leave of the company, and was going away; but had not gone thirty yards, before the upholster hemmed again after me. Upon his advancing towards me with a whisper, I expected to hear some secret piece of news, which he had not thought fit to communicate to the bench; but instead of that, he desired me in my ear to lend him half-a-crown. In compassion to so needy a statesman, and to dissipate the confusion I found he was in, I told him, if he pleased, I would give him five shil. lings, to receive five pounds of him when the great Turk was driven out of Constantinople;' which he very readily accepted, but not before he had laid down to me the impossibility of such an event, as the affairs of Europe now

stand.

This paper I design for the particular benefit of those worthy citizens who live more in a coffee-house than in their shops, and whose thoughts are so taken up with the affairs of the allies, that they forget their customers.

ghosts to the ferryman of Styx, is admitted to the infernal bark. Among the companions of his voyage is the shade of Nabopharzan, a king of Babylon, and tyrant of all the East. Among the ceremonies and pomps of his funeral there were four slaves sacrificed, according to the custom of the country, in order to attend him among the shades. The author, having described this tyrant in the most odious colours of pride, insolence, and cruelty, tells us, that his four slaves, instead of serving him after death, were perpetually insulting him with reproaches and affronts for his past usage; that they spurned him as he lay upon the ground, and forced him to show his face, which he would fain have covered, as lying under all the confusion of guilt and infamy; and in short, that they kept him bound in a chain, in order to drag him before the tribunal of the dead.

Telemachus, upon looking out of the bark, sees all the strand covered with an innumerable multitude of shades, who, upon his jumping ashore, immediately vanished. He then pursues his course to the palace of Pluto, who is described as seated on his throne in terrible

majesty, with Proserpine by his side. At the foot and the odours of a thousand different plants. of his throne was the pale hideous spectre, who, These groves are represented as rising among by the ghastliness of his visage, and the nature a great many flowery meadows, and watered of the apparitions that surround him, discovers with streams that diffuse a perpetual freshness, himself to be Death. His attendants are, Melan- in the midst of an eternal day, and a nevercholy, Distrust, Revenge, Hatred, Avarice, Des-fading spring. This, says the author, was the pair, Ambition, Envy, Impiety, with frightful habitation of those good princes who were Dreams, and waking Cares, which are all drawn very naturally in proper actions and postures. The author, with great beauty, places near his frightful dreams an assembly of phantoms, which are often employed to terrify the living, by appearing in the shape and likeness of the dead.

friends of the gods, and parents of the people. Among these, Telemachus converses with the shade of one of his ancestors, who makes a most agreeable relation of the joys of Elysium, and the nature of its inhabitants. The residence of Sesostris among these happy shades, with his character and present employment, is drawn in a very lively manner, and with a great elevation of thought.

The description of that pure and gentle light, which overflows these happy regions, and clothes the spirits of these virtuous persons, hath something in it of that enthusiasm which this author was accused of by his enemies in the church of Rome; but, however it may look in religion, it makes a very beautiful figure in poetry.

The young hero, in the next place, takes a survey of the different kinds of criminals, that lay in torture among clouds of sulphur, and torrents of fire. The first of these were such as had been guilty of impietics which every one hath a horror for: to which is added a catalogue of such offenders that scarce appear to be faulty in the eyes of the vulgar. Among these, says the author, are malicious critics, that have en deavoured to cast a blemish upon the perfections of others; with whom he likewise places such The rays of the sun, says he, are darkness in as have often hurt the reputation of the inno- comparison with this light, which rather decent, by passing a rash judgment on their ac- serves the name of glory, than that of light. tions, without knowing the occasion of them. It pierces the thickest bodies in the same manThese crimes, says he, are more severely pun-ner as the sunbeams pass through crystal. It ished after death, because they generally meet strengthens the sight instead of dazzling it; and with impunity upon earth. nourishes, in the most inward recesses of the Telemachus, after having taken a survey of mind, a perpetual serenity that is not to be exseveral other wretches in the same circumstan-pressed. It enters and incorporates itself with ces, arrives at that region of torments in which the very substance of the soul: the spirits of wicked kings are punished. There are very the blessed feel it in all their senses, and in all fine strokes of imagination in the description their perceptions. It produces a certain source which he gives of this unhappy multitude. He of peace and joy that arises in them, for ever tells us, that on one side of them there stood a running through all the faculties, and refreshrevengeful fury, thundering in their ears inces-ing all the desires of the soul. External pleasant repetitions of all the crimes they had com-sures and delights, with all their charms and mitted upon earth, with the aggravations of am- allurements, are regarded with the utmost inbition, vanity, hardness of heart, and all those secret affections of mind that enter into the composition of a tyrant. At the same time, she holds up to them a large mirror, in which every one sees himself represented in the natural horror and deformity of his character. On the other side of them stands another fury, that, with an insulting derision, repeats to them all I have here only mentioned some masterthe praises that their flatterers had bestowed touches of this admirable piece, because the upon them while they sat upon their respective original itself is understood by the greater part thrones. She too, says the author, presents a of my readers. I must confess, I take a parti-. mirror before their eyes, in which every one cular delight in these prospects of futurity, sees himself adorned with all those beauties whether grounded upon the probable sugges and perfections, in which they had been drawn tions of a fine imagination, or the more severe by the vanity of their own hearts, and the flat- conclusions of philosophy; as a man loves to tery of others. To punish them for the wan- hear all the discoveries or conjectures relating tonness of the cruelty which they formerly ex- to a foreign country which he is, at some time, ercised, they are now delivered up to be treated to inhabit. Prospects of this nature lighten the according to the fancy and caprice of several burden of any present evil, and refresh us under slaves, who have here an opportunity of tyrannizing in their turns.

The author, having given us a description of these ghastly spectres, who, says he, are always calling upon Death, and are placed under the distillation of that burning vengeance which falls upon them drop by drop, and is never to be exhausted, leads us into a pleasing scene of groves, filled with the melody of birds,

difference and neglect by these happy spirits, who have this great principle of pleasure within them, drawing the whole mind to itself, calling off their attention from the most delightful objects, and giving them all the transports of inebriation, without the confusion and the folly of it.

the worst and lowest circumstances of mortality. They extinguish in us both the fear and envy of human grandeur. Insolence shrinks its head, power disappears; pain, poverty, and death fly before them. In short, the mind that is habituated to the lively sense of a hereafter, can hope for what is the most terrifying to the generality of mankind, and rejoice in what is the mo aflicting

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