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rit that is either contracted or dilated by the benignity or inclemency of the season.

'MR. SPECTATOR,

'THE translations which you have lately given us from the Greek, in some of your last papers, have been the occasion of my looking into some of those authors; among whom I chanced on a collection of letters which pass under the name of Aristænetus. Of all the remains of antiquity, I believed there can be nothing produced of an air so gallant and polite; each letter contains a little novel or adventure, which is told with all the beauties of language, and heightened with a luxuriance of wit. There are several of them translated:* but with such wide deviations from the original, and in a style so far differing from the author's that the translator seems rather to have taken hints for the expressing his own sense and thoughts, than to have endeavoured to render those of Aristænetus. In the following transla tion, I have kept as near the meaning of the Greek as I could, and have only added a few words to make the sentences in English sit together, a little better than they would otherwise have done. The story seems to be taken from that of Pygmalion and the statue in Ovid: some of the thoughts are of the same turn, and the whole is written in a kind of poetical prose.'

PHILOPINAX TO CHROMATION.

'NEVER was a man more overcome with so fantastical a passion as mine, I have painted a beautiful woman, and am despairing, dying for the picture. My own skill has undone me; it is not the dart of Venus, but my own pencil has thus

* By Tom Brown and others. See his Works, 4 vols. 12mo.

wounded me. Ah, me! with what anxiety am I necessitated to adore my own idol! How miserable am I, whilst every one must as much pity the painter as he praises the picture, and own my torment more than equal to my art. But why do I thus complain? Have there not been more unhappy and unnatural passions than mine? Yes, I have seen the representations of Phædra, Narcissus, and Pasiphae. Phædra was unhappy, in her love; that of Pasiphae was monstrous; and whilst the other caught at his beloved likeness, he destroyed the watery image, which ever eluded his embraces. The fountain represented Narcissus to himself, and the picture both that and him, thirsting after his adored image. But I am yet less unhappy, I enjoy her presence continually, and if I touch her, I destroy not the beauteous form, but she looks pleased, and a sweet smile sits in the charming space which divides her lips. One would swear that voice and speech were issuing out, and that one's ears felt the melodious sound. How often have I, deceived by a lover's credulity, hearkened if she had not something to whisper me? and when frustrated of my hopes, how often have I taken my revenge in kisses from her cheeks and eyes, and softly wooed her to my embrace, whilst she (as to me it seemed) only withheld her tongue the more to enflame me. But, madman that I am, shall I be thus taken with the representation only of a beauteous face, and flowing hair, and thus waste myself and melt to tears for a shadow? Ah, sure it is something more, it is a reality; for see her beauties shine out with new lustre, and she seems to upbraid me with unkind reproaches. Oh, may I have a living mistress of this form, that when I shall compare the work of nature with that of art, I may be still at a loss

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which to choose, and be long perplexed with the pleasing uncertainty."

T.

No. 239. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 4, 1711.

Bella, horrida bella!

VIRG. En. vi. 86.

Wars, horrid wars!

DRYDEN.

I HAVE Sometimes amused myself with consider. ing the several methods of managing a debate which have obtained in the world.

The first races of mankind used to dispute, as our ordinary people do now-a-days, in a kind of wild logic uncultivated by rules of art.

Socrates introduced a catechetical method of arguing. He would ask his adversary question upon question, until he had convinced him out of his own mouth, that his opinions were wrong, This way of debating drives an enemy up into a corner, seizes all the passes through which he can make an escape, and forces him to surrender at discretion.

Aristotle changed this method of attack, and invented a great variety of little weapons, called syllogisms. As in the Socratic way of dispute you agree to every thing your opponent advances; in the Aristotelic, you are still denying and contradicting some part or other of what he says. Socrates conquers you by stratagem, Aristotle by force. The one takes the town by sap, the other sword in hand.

The universities of Europe, for many years, carried on their debates by syllogism, insomuch

that we see the knowledge of several centuries laid out into objections and answers, and all the good sense of the age cut and minced into almost an infinitude of distinctions.

When our universities found there was no end of wrangling this way, they invented a kind of argument, which is not reducible to any mood or figure in Aristotle. It was called the Argumentum Basilinum (others write it Bacilinum or Baculinum) which is pretty well expressed in our English word club-law. When they were not able to confute their antagonist they knocked him down. It was their method in these polemical debates, first to discharge their syllogisms, and afterwards to betake themselves to their clubs, until such time as they had one way or other confounded their gainsayers. There is in Oxford a narrow defile, (to make use of a military term) where the partisans used to encounter; for which reason it still retains the name of Logic-lane. I have heard an old gentleman, a physician, make his boasts, that when he was a young fellow he marched several times at the head of a troop of Scotists, and cudgelled a body of Smiglesians,t half the length of High-street, until they had dispersed themselves for shelter into their respective garrisons.

*

This humour, I find, went very far in Erasmus's time. For that author tells us, that upon the revival of Greek letters, most of the universities in Europe were divided into Greeks and Trojans.

* The followers of Duns Scotus, a celebrated doctor of the schools, who flourished about the year 1500, and from his opposing some favourite doctrines of Thomas Aquinas, gave rise to a new party called Scotists, in opposition to the Thomists, or followers of the other.

The followers of Martin Smiglecius, a famous logician of the 16th century.

The latter were those who bore a mortal enmity to the language of the Grecians, insomuch that if they met with any who understood it, they did not fail to treat him as a foe Erasmus himself had, it seems, the misfortune to fall into the hands of a party of Trojans, who laid him on with so many blows and buffets that he never forgot their hostilities to his dying day.

There is a way of managing an argument not much unlike the former, which is made use of by states and communities, when they draw up a hundred thousand disputants on each side, and convince one another by dint of sword. A certain grand monarch* was so sensible of his strength in this way of reasoning, that he writ upon his great guns-Ratio ultima regum, 'The logic of kings; but, God be thanked, he is now pretty well baffled at his own weapons. When one has to do with a philosopher of this kind, one should remember the old gentleman's saying, who had been engaged in an argument with one of the Roman emperors.† Upon his friend's telling him that he wondered he would give up the question, when he had visibly the better of the dispute; I am never ashamed,' says he, to be confuted by one who is master of fifty legions.'

6

I shall but just mention another kind of reasoning, which may be called arguing by poll; and another which is of equal force, in which wagers are made use of as arguments, according to the celebrated line in Hudibras.‡

But the most notable way of managing a controversy, is that which we may call arguing by torture. This is a method of reasoning which has been made use of with the poor refugees, and The Emperor Adrian.

*Lewis XIV. of France.

Part 2. c. 1. v. 297.

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