which had been circulated by the friends of Evander, he was at once struck with a sense of his good fortune; and was so affected by a retrospect of his danger, that he could scarce believe it to be past. How providential,' said he, was it, that I did not stay to drink another dish of tea at breakfast, that I found a hackney-coach at the end of the street, and that I met with no stop by the way!' What an alteration was produced in Agenor's conception of the advantage of his situation, and the means by which it was obtained! And yet at last he had gained nothing more than he expected; his danger was not known time enough to alarm his fear; the value of his acquisition was not increased; nor had Providence interposed further than to exclude chance from the government of the world. But Agenor did not before reflect that any gratitude was due to Providence but for a miracle; he did not enjoy his preferment as a gift, nor estimate his gain but by the probability of loss. As success and disappointment are under the influence of imagination, so are ease and health; each of which may be considered as a kind of negative good, that may either degenerate into wearisomeness and discontent, or be improved into complacency and enjoyment. About three weeks ago I paid an afternoon visit to Curio. Curio is the proprietor of an estate which produces three thousand pounds a year, and the husband of a lady remarkable for her beauty and her wit; his age is that in which manhood is said to be complete, his constitution is vigorous, his person graceful, and his understanding strong. I found him in full health, lolling in an easy chair; his countenance was florid, he was gaily dressed, and surrounded with all the means of happiness which wealth well used could bestow. After the first ceremonies had passed, he threw himself again back in his chair upon my having refused it, looked wistfully at his fingers' ends, crossed his legs, inquired the news of the day, and, in the midst of all possible advantages, seemed to possess life with a listless indifference, which, if he could have preserved in contrary circumstances, would have invested him with the dignity of a Stoic. It happened that yesterday I paid Curio another visit. I found him in his chamber; his head was swathed in flannel, and his countenance was pale. I was alarmed at these appearances of disease; and inquired with an honest solicitude how he did. The moment he heard my question, he started from his seat, sprang towards me, caught me by the hand, and told me, in an ecstasy, that he was in heaven. What difference in Curio's circumstances produced this difference in his sensations and behaviour? What prodigious advantage had now accrued to the man, who before had ease and health, youth, affluence, and beauty? Curio, during the ten days that preceded my last visit, had been tormented with the toothache; and had, within the last hour, been restored to ease, by having the tooth drawn. And is human reason so impotent, and imagination so perverse, that ease cannot be enjoyed till it has been taken away? Is it not possible to improve negative into positive happiness, by reflection? Can he, who possesses ease and health, whose food is tasteful, and whose sleep is sweet, remember, without exultation and delight, the seasons in which he has pined in the languor of inappetence, and counted the watches of the night with restless anxiety? Is an acquiescence in the dispensations of Unerring Wisdom, by which some advantage appears to be denied, without recalling trivial and accidental circumstances that can only aggravate disappointment, impossible to reasonable beings? And is a sense of the divine bounty necessarily languid, in proportion as that bounty appears to be less doubtful and interrupted? Every man, surely, would blush to admit these suppositions; let every man, therefore, deny them by his life. He, who brings imagination under the dominion of reason, will be able to diminish the evil of life, and to increase the good; he will learn to resign with complacency, to receive with gratitude, and possess with cheerfulness: and as in this conduct there is not only wisdom but virtue, he will under every calamity be able to rejoice in hope, and to anticipate the felicity of that state, in which the spirits of the just shall be made perfect.' No. 97. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 9, 1753. Χρὴ δὲ καὶ ἐν τοῖς ἤθεσιν ὥσπερ καὶ ἐν τῇ τῶν πραγμάτων συστάσει, ἀεὶ ζητεῖν ἢ τὸ ἀναγκαῖον, ἢ τὸ εἰκός. ARIST. POET. KEQ. “'. As well in the conduct of the manners as in the constitution of the fable, we must always endeavour to produce either what is necessary or what is probable. 'WHOEVER Ventures,' says Horace, to form a character totally original, let him endeavour to preserve it with uniformity and consistency; but the formation of an original character is a work of great difficulty and hazard.' In this arduous and uncommon task, however, Shakspeare has wonderfully succeeded in his Tempest: the monster Caliban is the creature of his own imagination, in the formation of which he could derive no assistance from observation or experience. Caliban is the son of a witch, begotten by a demon: the sorceries of his mother were so terrible, that her countrymen banished her into this desert island as unfit for human society: in conformity, therefore, to this diabolical propagation, he is represented as a prodigy of cruelty, malice, pride, ignorance, idleness, gluttony, and lust. He is introduced, with great propriety, cursing Prospero, and Miranda, whom he had endeavoured to defile; and his execrations are artfully contrived to have reference to the occupation of his mother: As wicked dew, as e'er my mother brush'd -All the charms Of Sycorax, toads, beetles, bats, light on you! His kindness is afterwards expressed as much in character as his hatred, by an enumeration of offices that could be of value only in a desolate island, and in the estimation of a savage: I pr'ythee, let me bring thee where crabs grow; I'll show thee the best springs: I'll pluck thee berries; Which last is, indeed, a circumstance of great use in a place, where to be defended from the cold was neither easy nor usual; and it has a further peculiar beauty, because the gathering wood was the occupation to which Caliban was subjected by Prospero, who, therefore, deemed it a service of high import ance. The gross ignorance of this monster is represented with delicate judgement; he knew not the names of the sun and moon, which he calls the bigger light and the less; and he believes that Stephano was the man in the moon, whom his mistress had often shown him and when Prospero reminds him that he first taught him to pronounce articulately, his answer is full of malevolence and rage: : You taught me language; and my profit on't the properest return for such a fiend to make for such a favour. The spirits whom he supposes to be employed by Prospero perpetually to torment him, and the many forms and different methods they take for this purpose, are described with the utmost liveliness and force of fancy: Sometimes like apes, that moe and chatter at me, It is scarcely possible for any speech to be more expressive of the manners and sentiments, than that in which our poet has painted the brutal barbarity and unfeeling savageness of this son of Sycorax, by making him enumerate, with a kind of horrible delight, the various ways in which it was possible for the drunken sailors to surprise and kill his master: -There thou mayst brain him, Having first seized his books; or with a log He adds, in allusion to his own abominable attempt, 'Above all, be sure to secure the daughter; whose beauty,' he tells them, is incomparable.' The charms of Miranda could not be more exalted, than Miranda |