EPITAPHIUM VIVI AUTHORIS.

"Hic, O viator, sub lare parvulo
Couleius hic est conditus, hic jacet
Defunctus humani laboris
Sorte, supervacuaque vita;
Non indecora pauperie nitens,
Et non inerti nobilis otio,
Vanoque dilectis popello
Divitiis animosus hostis.
Possis ut illum dicere mortuum,
En terra jam nunc quantula sufficit!
Exempta sit curis, viator,

Terra sit illa levis, precare.

Hic sparge flores, sparge breves rosas,
Nam vita gaudet mortua floribus,
Herbisque odoratis corona

Vatis adhuc cinerem calentem."

THE LIVING AUTHOR'S EPITAPH,
"From life's superfluous cares enlarg'd,
His debt of human toil discharg'd
Here Cowley lies, beneath this shed,
To ev'ry worldly interest dead:
With descent poverty content:
His hours of ease not idly spent;
To fortune's goods a foe profess'd,
And hating wealth, by all caress'd.
'Tis sure, he's dead: for lo! how small
A spot of earth is now his all!

O! wish that earth may lightly lay,
And ev'ry care be far away!

Bring flow'rs, the short-liv'd roses bring,
To life deceas'd fit offering!

And sweets around the poet strow,
Whilst yet with life his ashes glow."

'DEAR MR. SPECTATOR,-I am a gentleman of a pretty good fortune, and of a temper impatient of any thing which I think an injury. However, I always quarrelled according to law, and instead of attacking my adversary by the dangerous method of sword and pistol, I made my assaults by that more secure one of writ or warrant. I cannot help telling you, that either by the justice of my causes, or the superiority of my counsel, I have been generally successful: and to my great satisfaction I can say it, that by three actions of slander, and half a dozen trespasses, I have for several years enjoyed a perfect tranquillity in my reputation and estate: by these means also I have been made known to the judges; the serjeants of our circuit are my intimate friends; and the ornamental counsel pay a very profound respect to one who has made so great a figure in the law. Affairs of consequence having brought me to town, I had the curiosity the other day to visit Westminsterhall; and having placed myself in one of the courts, expected to be most agreeably entertained. After the court and counsel were with due ceremony seated, up stands

The publication of these criticisms hav-a learned gentleman, and began, When this ing procured me the following letter from a very ingenious gentleman, I cannot forbear inserting it in the volume,* though it did not come soon enough to have a place in any of my single papers.

'MR. SPECTATOR,-Having read over in your paper, No. 551, some of the epigrams made by the Grecian wits, in commendation of their celebrated poets, I could not forbear sending you_another, out of the same collection; which I take to be as great a compliment to Homer as any that has yet been paid him.

Τις πολύ στον Τροίης πολεμον, &c.
"Who first transcrib'd the famous Trojan war,
And wise Ulysses' acts, O Jove, make known:
For since, 'tis certain thine these poems are,
No more let Homer boast they are his own."

If you think it worthy of a place in your
speculations, for aught I know, (by that
means) it may in time be printed as often
in English as it has already been in Greek.
I am, (like the rest of the world,) sir, your
great admirer,
G. R.

'4th Dec.'

matter was last "stirred" before your lordship; the next humbly moved to "quash" an indictment; another complained that his adversary had "snapped" a judgment; the next informed the court that his client was ged leave to acquaint his lordship they had "stripped," of his possessions; another begbeen "saddled" with costs. At last up got been "hung up" a whole term by a writ of a grave serjeant, and told us his client had error. At this I could bear it no longer, but came hither, and resolved to apply myself to your honour to interpose with these gentlemen, that they would leave off such low and unnatural expressions: for surely though the lawyers subscribe to hideous French and false Latin, yet they should let their clients have a little decent man that has a value for a good name would and proper English for their money. What like to have it said in a public court, that Mr. Such-a-one was stripped, saddled, or hung up? This being what has escaped your spectatorial observation, be pleased to correct such an illiberal cant among professed speakers, and you will infinitely oblige your humble servant,

PHILONICUS. Joe's Coffee-house, Nov. 28.'

The reader may observe, that the beauty of this epigram is different from that of the foregoing. An irony is looked upon as the finest palliative of praise; and very often conveys the noblest panegyric under the appearance of satire. Homer is here seem- No. 552.] Wednesday, December 3, 1712. ingly accused and treated as a plagiary; but what is drawn up in the form of an accusation is certainly, as my correspondent observes, the greatest compliment that could have been paid to that divine poet.

The translation of Cowley's epitaph, and all that follows except the concluding letter, signed Philonicus, was not printed in the Spectator in folio, but added in the 8vo. edition of 1712.

-Qui prægravat artes
Infra se positas, extinctus amabitur idem.
Hor. Ep. i. Lib. 2. 13.
For those are hated that excel the rest.
Although, when dead, they are belov'd and blest.
Creech.

As I was tumbling about the town the other day in a hackney-coach, and delight

'IN THE CELESTIAL GLOBE,

'Care shall be taken that the fixed stars be placed according to their true longitude and latitude, from the many and correct observations of Hevelius, Cassini, Mr. Flamstead, reg. astronomer; Dr. Halley, Savilian professor of geometry in Oxon; and from whatever else can be procured to render the globe more exact, instructive, and useful.

ing myself with busy scenes in the shops of and calamity, and a hope of endless rapeach side of me, it came into my head, with ture, joy, and hallelujah hereafter. no small remorse, that I had not been fre- When I am doing this justice, I am not quent enough in the mention and recom- to forget the best mechanic of my acquaintmendation of the industrious part of man-ance, that useful servant to science and kind. It very naturally, upon this occasion, knowledge, Mr. John Rowley; but I think touched my conscience in particular, that I lay a great obligation on the public, by I had not acquitted myself to my friend acquainting them with his proposals for a Mr. Peter Motteux. That industrious man pair of new globes. After his preamble he of trade, and formerly brother of the quill, promises in the said proposals that, has dedicated to me a poem upon tea. It would injure him, as a man of business, if I did not let the world know that the author of so good verses writ them before he was concerned in traffic. In order to expiate my negligence towards him, I immediately resolved to make him a visit. I found his spacious warehouses filled and adorned with tea, China and Indiaware. I could observe a beautiful ordonnance of the whole; and such different and considerable branches of trade carried on in the same house, I exulted in seeing disposed by a poetical head. In one place were exposed to view silks of various shades and colours, rich brocades, and the wealthiest products of foreign looms. Here you might see the finest laces held up by the fairest hands; and there, examined by the beauteous eyes of the buyers, the most delicate cambrics, muslins, and linens. I could not but congratulate my friend on the humble, but I hoped beneficial, use he had made of his talents, and wished I could be a patron to his trade, as he had been pleased to make me of his poetry. The honest man has, I know, the modest desire of gain which is peculiar to those who understand better things than riches; and, I dare say, he would be contented with much less than what is called wealth at that quarter of the town which he inhabits, and will oblige all his customers with demands agreeable to the moderation of his desires.

Among other omissions of which I have been also guilty, with relation to men of industry of a superior order, I must acknowledge my silence towards a proposal frequently enclosed to me by Mr. Renatus Harris, organ-builder. The ambition of this artificer is to erect an organ in St. Paul's cathedral, over the west door, at the entrance into the body of the church, which in art and magnificence shall transcend any work of that kind ever before invented. The proposal in perspicuous language sets forth the honour and advantage such a performance would be to the British name, as well as that it would apply the power of sounds in a manner more amazingly forcible than, perhaps, has yet been known, and I am sure to an end much more worthy. Had the vast sums which have been laid out upon operas, without skill or conduct, and to no other purpose but to suspend or vitiate our understandings, been disposed this way, we should now perhaps have an engine so formed as to strike the minds of half the people at once in a place of worship, with a forgetfulness of present care

'That all the constellations be drawn in a curious, new, and particular manner; each star in so just, distinct, and conspicuous a proportion, that its magnitude may be rea dily known by bare inspection, according to the different light and sizes of the stars. That the track or way of such comets as have been well observed, but not hitherto expressed in a globe, be carefully deline ated in this.

IN THE TERRESTRIAL GLOBE,

That by reason the descriptions for merly made, both in the English and Dutch great globe, are erroneous, Asia, Africa, and America, be drawn in a manner wholly new; by which means it is to be noted that the undertakers will be obliged to alter the latitude of some places in ten degrees, the longitude of others in twenty degrees; besides which great and necessary alterations, there be many remarkable countries, cities, towns, rivers, and lakes, omitted in other globes, inserted here according to the best discoveries made by our late navigators. Lastly, that the course of the trade-winds, the monsoons, and other winds periodically shifting between the tropics, be visibly expressed.

Now, in regard that this undertaking is of so universal use, as the advancement of the most necessary parts of the mathematics, as well as tending to the honour of the British nation, and that the charge of carrying it on is very expensive, it is desired that all gentlemen who are willing to promote so great a work will be pleased to subscribe on the following conditions.

1. The undertakers engage to furnish each subscriber with a celestial and terres trial globe, each of thirty inches diameter, in all respects curiously adorned, the stars gilded, the capital cities plainly distinguished, the frames, meridians, horizons, hour circles, and indexes, so exactly finished up, and accurately divided, that a pair of these globes will appear, in the judgment of any disinterested and intelligent person,

worth fifteen pounds more than will be de- | ters go on to my satisfaction, I may perhaps manded for them by the undertakers. put off the meeting to a farther day; but of 2. Whosoever will be pleased to sub-this, public notice shall be given. scribe, and pay twenty-five pounds in the manner following, for a pair of these globes, either for their own use, or to present them to any college in the universities, or any public library or schools, shall have his Coat of arms, name, title, seat, or place of residence, &c. inserted in some convenient place of the globe.

4. That a pair of these globes shall not hereafter be sold to any person but the sub-must be continued daily, or the same spots scribers under thirty pounds.

to the men of taste and leisure, and never
offensive to those of hurry and business.
You are never heard but at what Horace
calls dextro tempore, and have the happi-
ness to observe the politic rule, which the
same discerning author gave his friend
when he enjoined him to deliver his book
to Augustus:

"Si validus, si lætus erit, si denique poscet."
Ep. xiii. Lib. 1. 3.
-When vexing cares are fled,
When well, when merry, when he asks to read."
Creech.

You never begin to talk but when people are desirous to hear you; and I defy any one to be out of humour until you leave off. But I am led unawares into reflections foreign to the original design of this epistle; which was to let you know, that some unfeigned admirers of your inimitable papers, who could without any flattery, greet you with the salutation used to the eastern monarchs, viz. "O Spec, live for ever," have lately been under the same

have one manifest advantage over that re-
nowned society, with respect to Mr. Spec-
tator's company. For though they may
brag that you sometimes make your per-
sonal appearance amongst them, it is
impossible they should ever get a word
from you, whereas you are with us the
reverse of what Phædria would have his
mistress be in his rival's company, "pre-
sent in your absence." We make you
talk as much and as long as we please;
and, let me tell you, you seldom hold your
tongue for the whole evening. I promise
myself you will look with an eye of favour
upon a meeting which owes its original to
a mutual emulation among its members,
who shall show the most profound respect
for your paper; not but we have a very
great value for your person: and I dare say
you can no where find four more sincere
admirers, and humble servants, than
'T. F. G. S. J. T. E. T.’

apprehensions with Mr. Philo-Spec; that No. 554.] Friday, December 5, 1712.

-Tentanda via est, qua me quoque possim Tollere humo, victorque virum volitare per ora. Virg. Georg. iii. 9.

New ways I must attempt my grovelling name To raise aloft, and wing my flight to fame.-Dryden. I AM obliged for the following essay, as well as for that which lays down rules out of Tully for pronunciation and action, to the ingenious author of a poem just published, entitled, An Ode to the Creator of the World, occasioned by the Fragments of Orpheus.

It is a remark made, as I remember, by a celebrated French author, that ne man ever pushed his capacity as far as it was able to extend. I shall not inquire whether this assertion be strictly true. It may suffice to say, that men of the greatest application and acquirements can look back upon many vacant spaces, and neglected parts of time, which have slipped away from them unemployed; and there is hardly any one considering person in the world but is apt to fancy with himself, at some time or other, that if his life were to begin again he could fill it up better.

the haste you have made to despatch your best friends, portends no long duration to your own short visage. We could not, indeed, find any just grounds for complaint in the method you took to dissolve that venerable body: no, the world was not worthy of your Divine. Will Honeycomb could not, with any reputation, live single any longer. It was high time for the Templar to turn himself to Coke; and Sir Roger's dying was the wisest thing he ever did in his life. It was, however, matter of great grief to us, to think that we were in danger of losing so elegant and valuable an entertainment. And we could not, without sorrow, reflect that we were likely to have nothing to interrupt our sips in the morning, and to suspend our coffee in mid air, between our lips and right ear, but the ordinary trash of newspapers. We resolved, therefore, not to part with you SO. But since, to make use of your own allusion, the cherries began now to crowd the market, and their season was almost over, we consulted our future enjoyments, and endeavoured to make the exquisite pleasure that delicious fruit gave our taste as lasting as we could, and by drying them protract their stay beyond its natural date. We own that thus they have not a flavour equal to that of their juicy bloom; but yet, under this disadvantage, they pique the palate, and become a salver better than any other fruit at its first appearance. To One of the most extensive and improved speak plain, there are a number of us who geniuses we have had any instance of in our have begun your works afresh, and meet own nation, or in any other, was that of Sir two nights in the week in order to give Francis Bacon, lord Verulam. This great you a re-hearing. We never come together man, by an extraordinary force of nature, without drinking your health, and as sel- compass of thought, and indefatigable study, dom part without general expressions of had amassed to himself such stores of thanks to you for our night's improvement. knowledge as we cannot look upon without This we conceive to be a more useful insti- amazement. His capacity seemed to have tution than any other club whatever, not grasped all that was revealed in books beexcepting even that of Ugly Faces. Wefore his time; and, not satisfied with that,

The mind is most provoked to cast on itself this ingenuous reproach, when the examples of such men are presented to it as have far outshot the generality of their species in learning, arts, or any valuable improvements.

he began to strike out new tracts of science, too many to be travelled over by any one man in the compass of the longest life. These, therefore, he could only mark down, like imperfect coastings on maps, or supposed points of land to be farther discovered and ascertained by the industry of after ages, who should proceed upon his notices or conjectures.

tion of body. The instances of his strength are almost incredible. He is described to have been a well-formed person, and a master of all genteel exercises. And lastly, we are told that his moral qualities were agreeable to his natural and intellectual endowments, and that he was of an honest and generous mind, adorned with great sweetness of manners. I might break off the account of him here, but I imagine it will be an entertainment to the curiosity of

The excellent Mr. Boyle was the person who seems to have been designed by nature to succeed to the labours and in-my readers, to find so remarkable a chaquiries of that extraordinary genius I have just mentioned. By innumerable experiments, he in a great measure filled up those plans and outlines of science which his predecessor had sketched out. His life was spent in the pursuit of nature through a great variety of forms and changes, and in the most rational as well as devout adoration of its divine Author.

racter distinguished by as remarkable a circumstance at his death. The fame of his works having gained him an universal esteem, he was invited to the court of France, where, after some time, he fell sick; and Francis the First coming to see him, he raised himself in his bed to acknowledge the honour which was done him by that visit. The king embraced him, 'It would be impossible to name many and Leonardo, fainting in the same mopersons who have extended their capa-ment, expired in the arms of that great cities as far as these two, in the studies they monarch. pursued; but my learned readers on this Occasion will naturally turn their thoughts to a third, who is yet living, and is likewise the glory of our own nation. The improvements which others had made in natural and mathematical knowledge have so vastly increased in his hands, as to afford at once a wonderful instance how great the capacity is of a human soul, and inexhaustible the subject of its inquiries; so true is that remark in holy writ, that "though a wise man seek to find out the works of God from the beginning to the end, yet shall he not be able to do it."

'It is impossible to attend to such instances as these without being raised into a contemplation on the wonderful nature of a human mind, which is capable of such progressions in knowledge, and can contain such a variety of ideas without perplexity or confusion. How reasonable is it from hence to infer its divine original! And whilst we find unthinking matter endued with a natural power to last for ever, unless annihilated by Omnipotence, how absurd would it be to imagine that a being so much superior to it should not have the same privilege!

"At the same time it is very surprising, when we remove our thoughts from such instances as I have mentioned, to consider those we so frequently meet with in the accounts of barbarous nations among the Indians; where we find numbers of people who scarce show the first glimmerings of reason, and seem to have few ideas above those of sense and appetite. These, methinks, appear like large wilds, or vast uncultivated tracts of human nature; and, when we compare them with men of the most exalted characters in arts and learning, we find it difficult to believe that they are creatures of the same species.

I cannot help mentioning here one character more of a different kind indeed from these, yet such a one as may serve to show the wonderful force of nature and of application, and is the most singular instance of an universal genius I have ever met with. The person I mean is Leonardo da Vinci, an Italian painter, descended from a noble family in Tuscany, about the beginning of the sixteenth century. In his profession of history-painting he was so great a master, that some have affirmed he excelled all who went before him. It is certain that he raised the envy of Michael Angelo, who was his contemporary, and 'Some are of opinion that the souls of that from the study of his works Raphael men are all naturally equal, and that the himself learned his best manner of design- great disparity we so often observe, arises ing. He was a master too in sculpture and from the different organization or structure architecture, and skilful in anatomy, ma of the bodies to which they are united. But, thematics, and mechanics. The aqueduct whatever constitutes this first disparity, the from the river Adda to Milan is mentioned next great difference which we find beas a work of his contrivance. He had tween men in their several acquirements learned several languages, and was ac-is owing to accidental differences in their quainted with the studies of history, philo-education, fortunes, or course of life. The sophy, poetry, and music. Though it is soul is a kind of rough diamond, which renot necessary to my present purpose, I quires art, labour, and time to polish it. cannot but take notice, that all who have For want of which many a good-natured writ of him mention likewise his perfec-genius is lost, or lies unfashioned, like a jewel in the mine.

* Sir Isaac Newton. ↑ He was born in 1445, and died in 1520.

'One of the strongest incitements to excel in such arts and accomplishments as are in