No. 377. TUESDAY, MAY 13, 1712.

Quid quisque vitet, nunquam homini satis
Cautum est in horas.

HOR. CAR. ii. 13. 13.

What each should fly, is seldom known;
We unprovided are undone.

CREECH.

LOVE was the mother of poetry, and still produces, among the most ignorant and barbarous, a thousand imaginary distresses and poetical complaints. It makes a footman talk like Óroondates, and converts a brutal rustic into a gentle swain. The most ordinary plebeian or mechanic in love bleeds and pines away with a certain elegance and tenderness of sentiments which this passion naturally inspires.

These inward languishings of a mind infected with this softness have given birth to a phrase which is made use of by all the melting tribe, from the highest to the lowest-I mean that of dying for love.'

Romances, which owe their very being to this passion, are full of these metaphorical deaths. Heroes and heroines, knights, squires, and damsels, are all of them in a dying condition. There is the same kind of mortality in our modern tragedies, where every one gasps, faints, bleeds, and dies. Many of the poets, to describe the execution which is done by this passion, represent the fair sex as basilisks, that destroy with their eyes; but I think Mr. Cowley has, with greater justness of thought, compared a beautiful woman to a porcupine, that sends an arrow from every part.

I have often thought that there is no way so effectual for the cure of this general infirmity, as a man's

reflecting upon the motives that produce it. When the passion proceeds from the sense of any virtue or perfection in the person beloved, I would by no means discourage it; but if a man considers that all his heavy complaints of wounds and deaths rise from some little affectations of coquetry, which are improved into charms by his own fond imagination, the very laying before himself the cause of his distemper may be sufficient to effect the cure of it.

It is in this view that I have looked over the several bundles of letters which I have received from dying people, and composed out of them the following bill of mortality, which I shall lay before my reader without any further preface, as hoping that it may be useful to him in discovering those several places where there is most danger, and those fatal arts which are made use of to destroy the heedless and unwary.

Lysander, slain at a puppet-show on the third of September.

Thyrsis shot from a casement in Piccadilly.

T. S. wounded by Zelinda's scarlet stocking, as she was stepping out of a coach.

Will Simple, smitten at the opera by the glance of an eye that was aimed at one who stood by him. Tho. Vainlove, lost his life at a ball.

Tim. Tattle, killed by the tap of a fan on his left shoulder by Coquetilla, as he was talking carelessly with her in a bow-window.

Sir Simon Softly, murdered at the play-house in Drury-lane by a frown.

Philander, mortally wounded by Cleora, as she was adjusting her tucker.

Ralph Gapely, esq. hit by a random-shot at the

F. R. caught his death upon the water, April the 1st.

W. W. killed by an unknown hand that was playing with the glove off upon the side of the front box in Drury-lane.

Sir Christopher Crazy, Bart. hurt by the brush of a whale-bone petticoat.

Sylvius, shot through the sticks of a fan at St. James's church.

Damon, struck through the heart by a diamond necklace.

Thomas Trusty, Francis Goosequill, William Meanwell, Edward Callow, Esqrs. standing in a row, fell all four at the same time, by an ogle of the widow Trapland.

Tom Rattle, chancing to tread upon a lady's tail as he came out of the playhouse, she turned full upon him, and laid him dead upon the spot.

Dick Tastewell, slain by a blush from the queen's box in the third act of the Trip to the Jubilee.

Samuel Felt, haberdasher, wounded in his walk to Islington, by Mrs. Susanna Cross-stitch, as she was clambering over a stile.

R. F. T. W. S. I. M. P. &c. put to death in the last birth-day massacre.

Roger Blinko, cut off in the twenty-first year of his age by a white-wash.

Musidorus, slain by an arrow that flew out of a dimple in Belinda's left cheek.

Ned Courtly, presenting Flavia with her glove, which she had dropped on purpose, she received it, and took away his life with a courtesy.

John Gosselin, having received a slight hurt from a pair of blue eyes, as he was making his escape, was despatched by a smile.

Strephon killed by Clarinda as she looked down into the pit.

Composed of several pussures of Istith the Prophet;

WRITEEN NIIN IF WARM & POLIJO.

Ys rempus à Sama be the song =
I heaveny nenes simimer strains belong.
The nossa imams, mit e TTL shades,
The freams of Prius, ami a Acman maids,

Pipe. See No. 534.

Delight to more-0 Thou my voice inspire.
Who touch'd Istan's talew'd lips with fire!
Rapt into future times, the band begun :
A virgin shall conceive, a virgin bear a sen!
From Jesse's root benoid a branch arise,
Whose sacred fewer with ingrance is the skies:
Th' ethereal Spirit o'er its leaves shall move,
And on its top descends the mystic Deve.
Ye heavens! from high the dewy nectar peur,
And in soft silence shed the kindly shower!
The sick and weak the healing plant shall aid,
From storms a shelter, and from heat a shade.
All crimes shall cease, and ancient fraud shall fail;
Returning justice lift aloft her scale;

Peace o'er the world her cäve wand extend,
And white-robed innocence from heaven descend.
Swift fly the years, and rise the expected morn!
Oh spring to light, auspicious Babe, be born!
See nature hastes her earliest wreaths to bring,
With all the incense of the breathing spring:
See lofty Lebanon his head advance,
See nodding forests on the mountains dance;
See spicy clouds from lowly Sharon rise,
And Carmel's flowery top perfumes the skies!
Hark! a glad voice the lonely desert cheers:
Prepare the way! a God, a God appears;
A God! a God! the vocal hills reply,
The rocks proclaim th' approaching Deity.
Lo! earth receives him from the bending skies!
Sink down, ye mountains; and ye valleys rise!
With heads declined, ye cedars, homage pay;
Be smooth, ye rocks, ye rapid floods, give way!
The SAVIOUR Comes! by ancient bards foretold!
Hear him, ye deaf; and all ye blind, behold!
He from thick films shall purge the visual ray,
And on the sightless eye-ball pour the day.
'Tis He th'obstructed paths of sound shall clear,
And bid new music charm th'unfolding ear:
The dumb shall sing, the lame his crutch forego,
And leap exulting like the bounding roe;
No sigh, no murmur, the wide world shall hear,
From every face he wipes off every tear.
In adamantine chains shall Death be bound,
And hell's grim tyrant feel th' eternal wound.

Isa. x 1.

xlii. 18.

XXXV. 5, 6.

xxv. 8.