N° 238. Tuesday, October 17, 1710.

Tempeftas

Poëtica furget

Juv. Sat. 12. ver. 23

Thus dreadful rifes the poetic ftorm. R. WYNNE.

From my own Apartment, October 16.

TORMS at Sea are fo frequently defcribed by the ancient Poets, and copied by the moderns, that whenever I find the winds begin to rife in a new heroic Poem, I generally fkip a leaf or two until I come into fair weather. Virgil's tempeft is a master-piece in this kind, and is indeed fo naturally drawn, that one who has made a voyage, can fcarce read it without being fea-fick.

Land-fhowers are no lefs frequent among the Poets than the former, but I remember none of them which have not fallen in the country; for which reafon they are generally filled with the lowings of oxen, and the bleatings of fheep, and very often embellished with a rainbow.

Virgil's Land-fhower is likewife the best in its kind: It is indeed a flower of confequence, and contributes to the main defign of the Poem, by cutting off a tedious ceremonial, and bringing matters to a speedy conclufion between two potentates of different fexes. My ingenious Kinfman, Mr. Humphrey Wagstaff, who treats of every fubject after a manner that no author has done, and better than any other can do, has fent me the defcription of a City-fhower. I do not question but the reader remembers my cousin's defcription of the morning as it breaks in town, which is printed in the ninth Tatler, and is another exquifite piece of this local poetry.

Careful

Careful obfervers may foretel the hour,
By fure prognoftics, when to dread a Shower;
While rain depends, the penfive cat gives o'er
Her frolics, and purfues her tail no more.

Returning home at night, you'll find the fink
Strike your
offended fenfe with double ftink.
If you be wife, then go not far to dine,

You'll spend in coach-hire more than fave in wine.
A coming Show'r your fhooting corns prefage,
Old aches throb, your hollow tooth will rage.
Sauntring in coffee-houfe is Dulman feen ;
He damns the climate, and complains of fpleen.

Mean while the South, rifing with dabbled wings,
A fable cloud athwart the welkin flings,
That fwill'd more liquor than it could contain,
And like a drunkard gives it up again.
Brifk Sufan whips her linen from the rope,
While the first drizzling Show'r is borne aflope.
Such is that fprinkling which fome careless Quean
Flirts on you from her mop, but not fo clean.
You fly, invoke the gods; then turning, ftop
To rail; the finging, ftill whirls on her mop.
Not yet the duft had fhunn'd the unequal ftrife,
But aided by the wind fought ftill for life;
And wafted with its foe by violent guft,

"Twas doubtful which was rain, and which was duft.
Ah! where must needy Poet seek for aid,
When duft and rain at once his coat invade;
His only coat, where dust confus'd with rain
Roughen the nap, and leave a mingled ftain ?

Now in contiguous drops the flood comes down,
Threat'ning with deluge this devoted town.
To fhops in crouds the daggled Females fly,
Pretend to cheapen goods, but nothing buy.
The Templer fpruce, while ev'ry spout's abroach,
Stays till 'tis fair, yet feems to call a coach.
The tuck'd up fempftrefs walks with hafty ftrides,
While ftreams run down her oil'd umbrella's fides.
Here various kinds by various fortunes led,
Commence acquaintance underneath a shed.

Triumphant

Triumphant Tories, and defponding Whigs,
Forget their feuds, and join to fave their wigs.
Box'd in a chair the Beau impatient fits,

While spouts ran clatt'ring o'er the roof by fits;
And ever and anon with frightful din

The leather founds; he trembles from within.
So when Troy-chairmen bore the wooden steed,
Pregnant with Greeks, impatient to be freed,
Thofe bully Greeks, who, as the moderns do,
Inftead of paying chairmen, run them through;
Laoco'n ftruck the outside with his fpear,
And each imprifon'd hero quak'd for fear.

Now from all parts the fwelling kennels flow,
And bear their trophies with them as they go:
Filth of all hues and odours feem to tell

What ftreet they fail'd from, by their fight and smell.
They, as each torrent drives, with rapid force,
From Smithfield or St. Pulchre's fhape their course,
And in huge confluent join'd at Snow-hill ridge,
Fall from the conduit, prone to Helbourn-bridge.
Sweepings from butchers ftalls, dung, guts, and blood,
Drown'd puppies, ftinking fprats, all drench'd in
mud,

Dead cats and turnip-tops come tumbling down the
Flood.

N° 239. Thursday, October 19, 1710.

-Mecum certaffe feretur?

OVID. Met. lib. 13. ver. 20.

Shall he contend with me to get a name?

R. WYNNE.

From

I

From my own Apartment, October 18.

Tis ridiculous for any man to criticife on the works of another, who has not diftinguished himself by his own performances. A judge would make but an indifferent figure who had never been known at the bar. Cicero was reputed the greatest Orator of his age and country, before he wrote a book De Oratore; and Horace the greatest Poet, before he published his Art of Poetry. This obfervation arifes naturally in any one who cafts his eye upon this laft mentioned Author, where he will find the criticifms placed in the latter end of his book, that is, after the finest Odes and Satires in the Latin tongue.

A modern, whofe name I fhall not mention, because I would not make a filly Paper fell, was born a critic and an Examiner, and, like one of the race of the ferpent's teeth, came into the world with a fword in his hand. His works put me in mind of the ftory that is told of the German monk, who was taking a catalogue of a friend's library, and meeting with a Hebrew book in it, entered it under the title of, "A book that has "the beginning where the end fhould be." This Author, in the last of his crudities, has amaffed together a heap of quotations, to prove that Horace and Virgil were both of them modefter men than myfelf; and if his works were to live as long as mine, they might poffibly. give pofterity a notion, that Ifaac Bickerstaff was a very conceited old fellow, and as vain a man as either Tully or Sir Francis Bacon. Had this ferious Writer fallen upon me only, I could have overlooked it; but to fee Cicero abufed is, I must confefs, what I cannot bear. The cenfure he paffes upon this great man runs thus: "The itch of being very abufive is almoft infeparable "from.vain-glory. Tully has thefe two faults in fo high a degree, that nothing but his being the best Writer "in the world can make amends for them." The fourrilous wretch goes on to fay, that I am as bad as Tully. His words are thefe: "And yet the Tatler in his Paper "of September the twenty-fixth, has outdone him in "both. He speaks of himself with more arrogance,

66

and

"and with more infolence of others." I am afraid by his difcourfe, this Gentleman has no more read Plutarch, than he has Tully: If he had, he would have obferved a paffage in that hiftorian, wherein he has with great delicacy diftinguished between two paffions which are ufually complicated in human nature, and which an ordinary Writer would not have thought of feparating. Not hav ing my Greek fpectacles by me, I fhall quote the paffage word for word as I find it tranflated to my hand. "Nevertheless, though he was intemperately fond of "his own praife, yet he was very free from envying others, and moft liberally profufe in commending both "the ancients and his cotemporaries, as is to be under"ftood by his writings; and many of those sayings are "ftill recorded, as that concerning Ariftotle, that he was "a river of flowing gold: Of Plato's dialogue, that if "Jupiter were to fpeak, he would difcourfe as he did. "Theophraftus he was wont to call his peculiar delight; "and being asked, which of Demofthenes his orations he liked beft? He anfwered, The longeft.

"And as for the eminent men of his own time either "for eloquence or philofophy, there was not one of "them which he did not, by writing or fpeaking fa"vourably of, render more illuftrious."

Thus the critic tells us, that Cicero was exceffively vain-glorious and abufive; Plutarch, that he was vain, but not abufive. Let the Reader believe which of them he pleases.

After this he complains to the world, that I call him names, and that in my paffion I faid, he was a Flea, a Louse, an Owl, a Bat, a fmall Wit, a Scribbler, and a Nibbler. When he has thus bespoken the Reader's pity, he falls into that admirable vein of mirth, which I fhall fet down at length, it being an exquifite piece of raillery, and writ it in great gaiety of heart. After this lift of

"names," viz. Flea, Loufe, Owl, Bat, &c.

"I was

furprized to hear him fay, that he has hitherto kept "his temper pretty well; I wonder how he will write "when he has loft his temper? I fuppofe, as he now is 16 very angry and unmannerly, he will then be exceeding courteous and good humoured." If I can outlive this raillery, I fhall be able to bear any thing.

There