who had gone before him, tells us that this Zoilus had a very long beard that hung down upon his breast, but no hair upon his head, which he always kept close shaved, regarding, it seems, the hairs of his head as so many suckers, which if they had been suffered to grow, might have drawn away the nourishment from his chin, and by that means have starved his beard.

I have read somewhere, that one of the popes refused to accept an edition of a saint's works, which were presented to him, because the saint, in his effigies before the book, was drawn without a beard.

We see by these instances what homage the world has formerly paid to beards; and that a barber was not then allowed to make those depredations on the faces of the learned, which have been permitted him of late years.

tinct treatise, which I keep by me in manuscript, upon the mustache.

If my friend Sir Roger's project of introducing beards should take effect, I fear the luxury of the present age would make it a very expensive fashion. There is no question but the beaux would soon provide themselves with false ones of the lightest colours and the most immoderate lengths. A fair beard of the tapestry size, which Sir Roger seems to approve, could not come under twenty guineas. The famous golden beard of Esculapius would hardly be more valuable than one made in the extravagance of the fashion.

Besides, we are not certain that the ladies would not come into the mode, when they take the air on horseback. They already appear in hats and feathers, coats and periwigs; and I see no reason why we may not suppose that they would have their ridingbeards on the same occasion. N. B. I may give the moral of this discourse in another paper.

Accordingly several wise nations have been so extremely jealous of the least ruffle offered to their beards, that they seem to have fixed the point of honour principally in that part. The Spaniards were wonderfully tender in this particular. Don Quevede, in his third vision on the last judgment, has carried the humour very far, when he No. 332.] Friday, March 21, 1712. tells us that one of his vainglorious countrymen, after having received sentence, was taken into custody by a couple of evil spirits; but that his guides happening to disorder his mustaches, they were forced to recompose them with a pair of curling-irons, before they could get him to file off.

If we look into the history of our own nation, we shall find that the beard flourished in the Saxon heptarchy, but was very much discouraged under the Norman line. It shot out, however, from time to time, in several reigns under different shapes. The last effort it made seems to have been in queen Mary's days, as the curious reader may find if he pleases to peruse the figures of Cardinal Pole and Bishop Gardiner: though, at the same time, I think it may be questioned, if zeal against popery has not induced our protestant painters to extend the beards of these two persecutors beyond their natural dimensions, in order to make them appear the more terrible.

I find but few beards worth taking notice of in the reign of King James the first.

During the civil wars there appeared one, which makes too great a figure in story to be passed over in silence: I mean that of the redoubted Hudibras, an account of which Butler has transmitted to posterity in the following lines:

'His tawny beard was th' equal grace Both of his wisdom and his face;

In cut and dye so like a tile,

A sudden view it would beguile;
The upper part thereof was whey,
The nether orange mixt with grey.'

The whisker continued for some time among us after the expiration of beards; but this is a subject which I shall not here enter upon, having discussed it at large in a dis

X.

-Minus aptus acutis
Naribus horum hominum-Hor. Sat. iii. Lib. 1. 29.
He cannot bear the raillery of the age. Creech.

'DEAR SHORT FACE,-In your specula-
tion of Wednesday last, you have given us
some account of that worthy society of
brutes the Mohocks, wherein you have par-
ticularly specified the ingenious perform-
ances of the lion-tippers, the dancing-mas-
ters, and the tumblers; but as you acknow-
ledged you had not then a perfect history of
the whole club, you might very easily omit
one of the most notable species of it, the
sweaters, which may be reckoned a sort of
dancing-masters too. It is, it seems, the
custom for half a dozen, or more, of these
well-disposed savages, as soon as they have
enclosed the person upon whom they design
the favour of a sweat, to whip out their
swords, and holding them parallel to the
horizon, they describe a sort of magic circle
round about him with the points. As soon
as this piece of conjuration is performed,
and the patient without doubt already be-
ginning to wax warm, to forward the opera-
tion, that member of the circle towards
whom he is so rude as to turn his back first,
runs his sword directly into that part of the
patient whereon school-boys are punished;
and as it is very natural to imagine this will
soon make him tack about to some other
point, every gentleman does himself the
same justice as often as he receives the af-
front. After this jig has gone two or three
times round, and the patient is thought to
have sweat sufficiently, he is very hand-
somely rubbed down by some attendants,
who carry with them instruments for that
purpose, and so discharged. This relation
I had from a friend of mine, who has lately

been under this discipline. He tells me he |
had the honour to dance before the emperor
himself, not without the applause and ac-
clamations both of his imperial majesty and
the whole ring; though I dare say, neither
I, nor any of his acquaintance, ever dreamt
he would have merited any reputation by
his activity.

being in a great doubt about the orthography of the word bagnio. I consulted several dictionaries, but found no relief: at last having recourse both to the bagnio in Newgate street, and to that in Chancery-lane, and finding the original manuscripts upon the sign-posts of each to agree literally with my own spelling, I returned home full of satisfaction in order to despatch this epistle.'

that fall within the occurrences of a retired life; in the afternoon we sometimes enjoy the good company of some friend or neightire to our chambers, and take leave of each bour, or else work or read: at night we reother for the whole night at ten o'clock. We take particular care never to be sick of a maids, but ambitious of characters which Sunday. Mr. Spectator, we are all very good we think more laudable, that of being very good wives. If any of your correspondents inquire for a spouse for an honest country gentleman, whose estate is not dipped, and wants a wife that can save half his revenue, neighbours of the same estate, with finer and yet make a better figure than any of his bred women, you shall have further notice from, sir, your courteous readers,

'I can assure you, Mr. Spectator, I was very near being qualified to have given you a faithful and painful account of this 'MR. SPECTATOR-As you have taken walking bagnio, if I may so call it, myself. most of the circumstances of human life into Going the other night along Fleet-street, your consideration, we the underwritten and having, out of curiosity, just entered thought it not improper for us also to reinto discourse with a wandering female who present to you our condition. We are three was travelling the same way, a couple of ladies who live in the country, and the fellows advanced towards us, drew their greatest improvement we make is by readswords, and cried out to each other, "Aing. We have taken a small journal of our sweat! a sweat!" Whereon, suspecting lives, and find it extremely opposite to your they were some of the ring-leaders of the last Tuesday's speculation. We rise by bagnio, I also drew my sword, and demand- seven, and pass the beginning of each day ed a parley; but finding none would be in devotion, and looking into those affairs granted me, and perceiving others behind them filing off with great diligence to take me in flank, I began to sweat for fear of being forced to it: but very luckily betaking myself to a pair of heels, which I had good reason to believe would do me justice, I instantly got possession of a very snug corner in a neighbouring alley that lay in my rear which post I maintained for above half an hour with great firmness and resolution, though not letting this success so far overcome me as to make me unmindful of the circumspection that was necessary to be observed upon my advancing again towards the street; by which prudence and good management I made a handsome and orderly retreat, having suffered no other damage in this action than the loss of my baggage, and the dislocation of one of my shoe heels, which last I am just now informed is in a fair way of recovery. These sweaters, by what I can learn from my friend, and by as near a view as I was able to take of them myself, seem to me to have at pre- No. 333.] Saturday, March 22, 1711-12. sent but a rude kind of discipline among them. It is probable, if you would take a little pains with them, they might be brought into better order. But I'll leave this to your own discretion; and will only add, that if you think it worth while to insert this by way of caution to those who have a mind to preserve their skins whole from this sort of cupping, and tell them at the same time the hazard of treating with night-walkers, you will perhaps oblige others, as well as your very humble servant,

'JACK LIGHTFOOT.

P. S. My friend will have me acquaint you, that though he would not willingly detract from the merit of that extraordinary strokesman Mr. Sprightly, yet it is his real opinion, that some of those fellows who are employed as rubbers to this new-fashioned bagnio, have struck as bold strokes as ever he did in his life.

I had sent this four-and-twenty hours sooner, if I had not had the misfortune of

T.

'MARTHA BUSIE,
'DEBORAH THRIFTY,
• ALICE EARLY.'

-vocat in certamina divos.-Virg. He calls embattled deities to arms.

WE are now entering upon the sixth book of Paradise Lost, in which the poet describes the battle of the angels; having raised his reader's expectation, and prepared him for it by several passages in the preceding books. I omitted quoting these passages in my observations on the former books, having purposely reserved them for the opening of this, the subject of which gave occasion to them. The author's imagination was so inflamed with this great scene of action, that wherever he speaks of it, he rises, if possible, above himself. Thus, where he mentions Satan in the beginning of his poem,

-Him the almighty Power

Hurl'd headlong flaming from th' ethereal sky,
With hideous ruin and combustion, down
To bottomless perdition, there to dwell
In adamantine chains and penal fire,
Who durst defy th' Omnipotent to arms.

We have likewise several noble hints of it | days' engagement, which does not appear

in the infernal conference:

O prince! O chief of many throned powers, That led the embattled seraphim to war,

Too well I see and rue the dire event,

That with sad overthrow and foul defeat

Hath lost us heav'n; and all this mighty host

In horrible destruction laid thus low.

But see! the angry victor has recall'd
His ministers of vengeance and pursuit

Back to the gates of heav'n. The sulphurous hail
Shot after us in storm, o'erblown, hath laid
The fiery surge, that from the precipice
Of heav'n received us falling; and the thunder,
Wing'd with red lightning and impetuous rage,
Perhaps has spent his shafts, and ceases now
To bellow through the vast and boundless deep.

There are several other very sublime images on the same subject in the first book,

as also in the second:

"What when we fled amain, pursued and struck
With heav'n's afflicting thunder, and besought
The deep to shelter us; this hell then seem'd
A refuge from those wounds-

In short, the poet never mentions any thing of this battle, but in such images of greatness and terror as are suitable to the subject. Among several others I cannot forbear quoting that passage where the Power, who is described as presiding over the chaos, speaks in the second book:

Thus Satan; and him thus the Anarch old,
With fault'ring speech and visage incompos'd,
Answer'd: "I know thee, stranger, who thou art,
That mighty leading angel, who of late
Made head against heav'n's King, though overthrown

I saw and heard; for such a numerous host
Fled not in silence through the frighted deep
With ruin upon ruin, rout on rout,
Confusion worse confounded; and heaven's gates
Pour'd out by millions her victorious bands
Pursuing-

natural, and agreeable enough to the ideas most readers would conceive of a fight between two armies of angels.

The second day's engagement is apt to startle an imagination which has not been raised and qualified for such a description by the reading of the ancient poets, and of Homer in particular. It was certainly a very bold thought in our author, to ascribe the first use of artillery to the rebel angels. But as such a pernicious invention may be well supposed to have proceeded from such authors, so it enters very properly into the scribed as aspiring to the majesty of his thoughts of that being, who is all along deMaker. Such engines were the only instru

ments he could have made use of to imitate those thunders, that in all poetry, both sacred and profane, are represented as the arms of the Almighty. The tearing up the hills was not altogether so daring a thought as the former. We are, in some measure, prepared for such an incident by the dewith among the ancient poets. What still scription of the giants' war, which we meet made this circumstance the more proper for the poet's use, is the opinion of many learned men, that the fable of the giants' war, which makes as great a noise in antiquity, and gave birth to the sublimest description in Hesiod's works, was an allegory founded upon this very tradition of a fight between the good and bad angels.

It may, perhaps, be worth while to consider with what judgment Milton, in this narration, has avoided every thing that is mean and trivial in the description of the It required great pregnancy of invention, Latin and Greek poets; and at the same and strength of imagination, to fill this bat-time improved every great hint which he tle with such circumstances as should raise and astonish the mind of the reader; and at the same time an exactness of judgment, to avoid every thing that might appear light or trivial. Those who look into Homer are surprised to find his battles still rising one above another, and improving in horror to the conclusion of the Iliad, Milton's fight of angels is wrought up with the same beauty. It is ushered in with such signs of wrath as are suitable to Omnipotence incensed. The first engagement is carried on under a cope of fire, occasioned by the flights of innumerable burning darts and arrows which are discharged from either host. The second onset is still more terrible, as it is filled with those artificial thunders, which seem to make the victory doubtful, and produce a kind of consternation even in the good angels. This is followed by the tearing up of mountains and promontories; till in the last place Messiah comes forth in the fulness of majesty and terror. The pomp of his appearance, amidst the roarings of his thunders, the flashes of his lightnings, and the noise of his chariot wheels, is described with the utmost flights of human imagination.

There is nothing in the first and last

met with in their works upon this subject. Homer, in that passage which Longinus has celebrated for its sublimeness, and which Virgil and Ovid have copied after him, tells us, that the giants threw Ossa upon Olympus, and Pelion upon Ossa. He adds an epithet to Pelion (QU) which very much swells the idea, by bringing up to the reader's imagination all the woods that grew upon it. There is further a greater beauty in his singling out by names these three remarkable mountains so well known to the Greeks. This last is such a beauty, as the scene of Milton's war could not possibly furnish him with. Claudian, in his fragment upon the giants' war, has given full scope to that wildness of imagination which was natural to him. He tells us that the giants tore up whole islands by the roots, and threw them at the gods. He describes one of them in particular taking up Lemnos in his arms, and whirling it to the skies, with all Vulcan's shop in the midst of it. Another tears up mount Ida, with the river Enipeus, which ran down the sides of it; but the poet, not content to describe him with this mountain upon his shoulders, tells us that the river flowed down his back as he held it up in that posture. It is visible

We have the full majesty of Homer in this I question not but Milton, in his descripshort description, improved by the imagi- tion of his furious Moloch flying from the nation of Claudian, without its puerilities. battle, and bellowing with the wound he I need not point out the description of the had received, had his eye on Mars in the fallen angels seeing the promontories hang-Iliad; who, upon his being wounded, is reing over their heads in such a dreadful presented as retiring out of the fight, and manner, with the other numberless beau-making an outcry louder than that of a ties in this book, which are so conspicuous, that they cannot escape the notice of the most ordinary reader,

As Homer has introduced into his battle of the gods every thing that is great and terrible in nature, Milton has filled his fight of good and bad angels with all the like circumstances of horror. The shout of armies, the rattling of brazen chariots, the hurling of rocks and mountains, the earthquake, the fire, the thunder, are all of them employed to lift up the reader's imagination, and give him a suitable idea of so great an action. With what art has the poet represented the whole body of the earth trembling, even before it was created!

All heav'n resounded; and had earth been then,
All earth had to its centre shook

In how sublime and just a manner does he afterwards describe the whole heaven shaking under the wheels of the Messiah's chariot, with that exception to the throne

of God!

-Under his burning wheels

The steadfast empyrean shook throughout,
All but the throne itself of God-

Notwithstanding the Messiah appears clothed with so much terror and majesty, the poet has still found means to make his readers conceive an idea of him beyond

what he himself is able to describe:

Homer afterwards describes Vulcan as pour-stance) shows the ill consequence of such ing down a storm of fire upon the river prepossessions. What I mean is the art, Xanthus, and Minerva as throwing a rock skill, accomplishment, or whatever you will at Mars; who, he tells us, covered seven call it, of dancing. I knew a gentleman of acres in his fall. great abilities, who bewailed the want of this part of his education to the end of a very honourable life. He observed that there was not occasion for the common use of great talents; that they are but seldom in demand; and that these very great talents were often rendered useless to a man for want of small attainments. A good mien (a becoming motion, gesture, and aspect) is natural to some men; but even these would be highly more graceful in their carriage, if what they do from the force of nature were confirmed and heightened from the force of reason. To one who has not at all considered it, to mention the force of reason on such a subject will appear fantastical; but when you have a little attended to it, an assembly of men will have quite another view; and they will tell you, it is evident from plain and infallible rules, why this man, with those beautiful features, and a well-fashioned person, is not so agreeable as he who sits by him without any of those advantages. When we read, we do it without the shape of the letters; but habit makes us any exerted act of memory that presents do it mechanically, without staying, like children, to recollect and join those letters. A man who has not had the regard of his gesture in any part of his education, will find himself unable to act with freedom before new company, as a child that is but now It is for the advancement of the pleasure learning would be to read without hesitation. we receive in being agreeable to each other in ordinary life, that one would wish dancing it really is, to a proper deportment in matwere generally understood, as conducive, as A man of learning and sense is distinguished ters that appear the most remote from it. from others as he is such, though he never runs upon points too difficult for the rest of of the arm, and the most ordinary motion, the world; in like manner the reaching out discovers whether a man ever learnt to know what is the true harmony and composure of his limbs and countenance. Whoever has seen Booth in the character of Pyrrhus, march to his throne to receive Orestes, is convinced that majestic and great conceptions are expressed in the very step; but, perhaps, though no other man could perform that incident as well as he does, he himself would do it with a yet greater elevation were he a dancer. This is so dangerous a subject to treat with gravity, that I shall not at present enter into it any further: but the It is very natural to take for our whole author of the following letter has treated it lives a light impression of a thing, which at in the essay he speaks of in such a manner, first fell into contempt with us for want of that I am beholden to him for a resolution, consideration. The real use of a certain that I will never hereafter think meanly of qualification (which the wiser part of man- any thing, till I have heard what they who kind look upon as at the best an indifferent have another opinion of it have to say in its thing, and generally a frivolous circum-defence.

Yet half his strength he put not forth, but check'd
His thunder in mid volley; for he meant
Not to destroy, but root them out of heaven.

In a word, Milton's genius, which was so great in itself, and so strengthened by all the helps of learning, appears in this book every way equal to his subject, which was the most sublime that could enter into the thoughts of a poet. As he knew all the arts of affecting the mind, he has given it certain resting-places and opportunities of recovering itself from time to time; several speeches, reflections, similitudes, and the like reliefs, being interspersed to diversify his narration, and ease the attention of the

reader.

L.

No. 334.] Monday, March 24, 1711-12.

-Voluisti, in suo genere, unumquemque nostrum quæ recta essent probari, quam quæ prava sunt fastidiis

quasi quendam esse Roscium, dixistique non tam ea

adhærescere.

Cic. de Gestu.

You would have each of us be a kind of Roscius in his way; and you have said, that fastidious men are not so much pleased with what is right, as disgusted at what

is wrong.