the gentleman who writ the epilogue, has to my knowledge so much of greater moment to value himself upon, that he will easily forgive me for publishing the exceptions made against gaiety at the end of serious entertainments, in the following letter. I should be more unwilling to pardon him than anybody, a practice which cannot have any ill consequence, but from the abilities of the person who is guilty of it.

'Mr. SPECTATOR,

'I HAD the happiness the other night of sitting very near you and your worthy friend Sir Roger, at the acting of the new tragedy, which you have in a late paper or two so justly recommended.' I was highly pleased with the advantageous situation fortune had given me, in placing me so near two gentlemen, from one of which I was sure to hear such reflections on the several incidents of the play as pure nature suggested, and from the other such as flowed from the exactest art and judgment: though I must confess that my curiosity led me so much to observe the knight's reflections, that I was not so well at leisure to improve myself by yours. Nature, I found, played her part in the knight pretty well, until at the last concluding lines she entirely forsook him. You must know, sir, that it is always my custom, when I have been well entertained at a new tragedy, to make my retreat before the facetious epilogue enters; not but that those pieces are often very well writ, but having paid down my half-crown, and made a fair purchase of as much of the pleasing melancholy as the

1 No. 335.

1

poet's art can afford me, or my own nature admit of, I am willing to carry some of it home with me; and can't endure to be at once tricked out of all, though by the wittiest dexterity in the world. However, I kept my seat t'other night, in hopes of finding my own sentiments of this matter favoured by your friends; when, to my great surprise, I found the knight entering with equal pleasure into both parts, and as much satisfied with Mrs. Oldfield's gaiety, as he had been before with Andromache's greatness. Whether this were no other than an effect of the knight's peculiar humanity, pleased to find at last, that after all the tragical doings, everything was safe and well, I don't know. But for my own part, I must confess I was so dissatisfied that I was sorry the poet had saved Andromache, and could heartily have wished that he had left her stone dead upon the stage. For you cannot imagine, Mr. Spectator, the mischief she was reserved to do me. I found my soul, during the action, gradually worked up to the highest pitch; and felt the exalted passion which all generous minds conceive at the sight of virtue in distress. The impression, believe me, sir, was so strong upon me, that I am persuaded, if I had been let alone in it, I could at an extremity have ventured to defend yourself and Sir Roger against half-a-score of the fiercest Mohocks : but the ludicrous epilogue in the close extinguished

1 Mrs. Anne Oldfield (1683-1730), who was possessed of many personal attractions, was admirable both in tragedy and comedy. She created leading parts in Steele's Funeral, Lying Lover,' and Tender Husband,' and among many other characters she was the original Marcia in Addison's Cato, Andromache in Philips's play, and Lady Townly in Vanbrugh's Provoked Husband.'

all my ardour, and made me look upon all such noble achievements as downright silly and romantic. What the rest of the audience felt, I can't so well tell. For myself, I must declare, that at the end of the play I found my soul uniform, and all of a piece; but at the end of the epilogue it was so jumbled together, and divided between jest and earnest, that if you will forgive me an extravagant fancy, I will here set it down. I could not but fancy, if my soul had at that moment quitted my body, and descended to the poetical shades in the posture it was then in, what a strange figure it would have made among them. They would not have known what to have made of my motley spectre, half comic and half tragic, all over resembling a ridiculous face, that at the same time laughs on one side and cries on t'other. The only defence, I think, I have ever heard made for this, as it seems to me, the most unnatural tack of the comic tail to the tragic head, is this, that the minds of the audience must be refreshed, and gentlemen and ladies not sent away to their own homes with too dismal and melancholy thoughts about them: for who knows the consequence of this? We are much obliged indeed to the poets for the great tenderness they express for the safety of our persons, and heartily thank them for it. But if that

be all, pray, good sir, assure them that we are none of us like to come to any great harm; and that, let them do their best, we shall in all probability live out the length of our days, and frequent the theatres more than ever. What makes me more desirous to have some reformation of this matter, is because of an ill consequence or two attending it for a great many of our church musicians being

related to the theatre, they have, in imitation of
these epilogues, introduced in their farewell volun-
taries a sort of music quite foreign to the design
of Church services, to the great prejudice of well-
disposed people. Those fingering gentlemen should
be informed, that they ought to suit their airs to
the place and business; and that the musician is
obliged to keep to the text as much as the preacher.
For want of this, I have found by experience a great
deal of mischief: for when the preacher has often,
with great piety and art enough, handled his subject,
and the judicious clerk has with utmost diligence
culled out two staves proper to the discourse, and
I have found in myself, and in the rest of the pew,
good thoughts and dispositions, they have been all
in a moment dissipated by a merry jig from the
organ-loft. One knows not what further ill effects
the epilogues I have been speaking of may in time
produce. But this I am credibly informed of, that
Paul Lorrain has resolved upon a very sudden
reformation in his tragical dramas; and that at the
next monthly performance, he designs, instead of
a penitential psalm, to dismiss his audience with an
excellent new ballad of his own composing. Pray,
sir, do what you can to put a stop to these growing
evils, and you will very much oblige
Your humble Servant,

1 The ordinary of Newgate. Lorrain, who died in 1719, compiled accounts of the dying speeches of criminals, and commonly represented them as dying penitents; whence they were called Lorrain's Saints' in No. 63 of the Tatler. In a letter from Pope and Bolingbroke to Swift (1725) Lorrain is described ironically as the great historiographer.'

2 See Budgell's reply in No. 341.

r

No. 339.

L

Saturday, March 29, 1712

[ADDISON.

Ut his exordia primis
Omnia, et ipse tener mundi concreverit orbis.
Tum durare solum et discludere Nerea ponto
Cœperit, et rerum paulatim sumere formas.
-VIRG., Ecl. vi. 33.1

2

ONGINUS has observed that there may be a loftiness in sentiments where there is no passion, and brings instances out of ancient authors to support this his opinion. The pathetic, as that great critic observes, may animate and inflame the sublime, but is not essential to it. Accordingly, as he further remarks,3 we very often find that those who excel most in stirring up the passions very often want the talent of writing in the great and sublime manner; and so on the contrary. Milton has shown himself a master in both these ways of writing. The seventh book, which we are now entering upon, is an instance of that sublime which is not mixed and worked up with passion. The author appears in a kind of composed and sedate majesty; and though the sentiments do not give so great an emotion as those in the former book, they abound with as magnificent ideas. The sixth book, like a troubled ocean, represents greatness in confusion; the seventh affects the imagination like the ocean in a calm, and fills the mind of the reader, without producing in it anything like tumult or agitation.*

1 The original editions give a wrong reference to Ovid. 2 On the Sublime,' sec. 8. 3 Ibid., sects. 13, 14. 4 In the Review for March 29, 1712, Defoe wrote: anything could heighten the imagination or move the passions

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