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great Creator, and rejoice in the being which he has bestowed upon us, for having made the soul susceptible of pleasure by so many different ways. We see by what a variety of pas sages joy and gladness may enter into the thoughts of man. How wonderfully a human spirit is framed, to imbibe its proper satisfactions, and taste the goodness of its Creator! We may, therefore, look into ourselves with rapture and amazement, and cannot sufficiently express our gratitude to him, who has encompassed us with such profusion of blessings, and opened in us so many capacities of enjoying them.

There cannot be a stronger argument that God has designed us for a state of future happiness, and for that heaven which he has revealed to us, than that he has thus naturally qualified the soul for it, and made it a being capable of receiving so much bliss. He would never have made such faculties in vain, and have endowed us with powers that were not to be exerted on such objects as are suited to them. It is very manifest, by the inward frame and constitution of our minds, that he has adapted them to an infinite variety of pleasures and gratifications, which are not to be met with in this life. We should therefore, at all times, take care that we do not disappoint this his gracious purpose and intention towards us, and make those faculties which he formed as so many qualifications for happiness and rewards, to be the instruments of pain and punishment.1

The speculations, from No. 557, that is, from the time when the Spectatorial Club was dissolved, are extremely well written; but we may observe of them all, that they turn on general subjects, and are such as might have found a place in any other paper, as well as this. So that it was high time to drop the name of Spectator, and to continue these essays on a different plan.

SWIFT'S WORKS, VOL. XVII.

-now

Letter 68. Dr. Swift to Mrs. Dingley. Lond. Aug. 7, 1712. every single half-sheet pays a halfpenny to the queen. The Observator is fallen; the Medleys are jumbled together with the Flying Post; the Examiner is deadly sick; the Spectator keeps up and doubles its price.". p. 224.

Letter 87. Dr. Swift to Mrs. Dingley. Lond. Mar. 21, 1712-13. p. 357. (Apr. 1st.) "Did I tell you that Steele has begun a new daily paper, called the Guardian? they say good for nothing.—I have not seen it."

VOL. XX.

Letter 6. London, Oct. 10, 1710. Dr. Swift to Mrs. Johnson.

66

- Mr.

Mr. Addison's election has passed easy and undisputed; and, I believe, if he had a mind to be chosen king, he would hardly be refused." Letter 11. London, Dec. 9, 1710. Dr. S. to Mrs. Johnson. Addison and I are different as black and white, and I believe our friendship will go off, by this damned business of party: he cannot bear seeing me fall in so with this ministry; but I love him still, as well as ever though we seldom meet."-p. 136.

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Letter 12. London, Dec. 23, 1710. Dr. S. to Mrs. Johnson. Steele's last Tatler came out to-day you will see it before this comes to you; and how he takes leave of the world. He never told so much as Mr. Addison of it, who was surprised as much as I; but to say the truth, it was time, for he grew dull and dry."-p. 167.

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Letter 14. Lond. Mar. 10, 1710-11. Dr. S. to Mrs. J. you seen the Spectator yet, a paper that comes out every day? 'Tis written by Mr. Steele, who seems to have gathered new life, and have a new fund of wit; it is in the same nature as his Tatlers, and they have all of them had something pretty.-I believe Addison and he club."-p. 259. Letter 21. Lond. Apr. 14, 1711. Dr. S. to Mrs. Johnson. "The Spectator is written by Steele, with Addison's help: 'tis often very pretty. Yesterday it was made of a noble hint I gave him long ago for his Tatlers, about an Indian supposed to write his Travels into England. I repent he ever had it. I intended to have written a book on that subject. I believe he has spent it all in that paper, and all the under-hints there are mine too; but I never see him or Addison."-p. 312.

VOL. XXI.

"This

Letter 30. Windsor, Sept. 8, 1711. Dr. S. to Mrs. Johnson. evening I met Addison and Pastoral Phillips, in the Park, and supped with them at Addison's lodgings: we were very good company, and yet know no man half so agreeable to me as he is."-p. 60.

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Letter 33. Lond. Oct. 23, 1711. Dr. S. to Mrs. Johnson. The Spectators are likewise printing in a larger and a smaller volume: so I believe they are going to leave them off, and, indeed, people grow weary of them, though they are often prettily written."-p. 118. Nov. 2, in the Journal.

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Letter 40. Lond. Jan. 26, 1711-12. Dr. S. to Mrs. Johnson. will not meddle with the Spectator, let him fair-sex it to the world's end."―p. 236.

For Member of Parliament.

THE GUARDIAN,

BY

NESTOR IRONSIDE, ESQ.

No. 67. THURSDAY, MAY 28, 1713.

-Ne fortè pudori

Sit tibi musa lyræ solers, et cantor Apollo. HOR.

IT has been remarked, by curious observers, that poets are generally long-lived, and run beyond the usual age of man, if not cut off by some accident or excess, as Anacreon, in the midst of a very merry old age, was choked with a grape-stone. The same redundancy of spirits that produces the poetical flame, keeps up the vital warmth, and administers uncommon fuel to life. I question not but several instances will occur to my reader's memory, from Homer down to Mr. Dryden. I shall only take notice of two who have excelled in lyrics, the one an ancient and the other a modern. The first gained an immortal reputation by celebrating several jockeys in the Olympic games; the last has signalized himself on the same occasion, by the ode that begins with—“To horse, brave boys, to Newmarket, to horse." My reader

The part which Mr. Addison took in the Guardian seems to have been accidental, and owing to the desire he had of serving poor D'Urfey: for his first appearance is on that occasion, at No. 67, though, when he had once broken through his reserve, for this good purpose, we afterwards find his hand very frequently in it.

2 Run beyond. i. e. Their lives run beyond: so that the substantive is understood to be contained in the adjective, long-lived. This way of speaking is very incorrect. It should be, and outlast the usual age of man, that is-the poets outlast.

will, by this time, know that the two poets I have mentioned are Pindar and Mr. D'Urfey. The former of these is, long since, laid in his urn, after having many years together endeared himself to all Greece, by his tuneful compositions. Our countryman is still living, and in a blooming old age, that still promises many musical productions; for, if I am not mistaken, our British swan will sing to the last. The best judges, who have perused his last song on the Moderate Man, do not discover any decay in his parts, but think it deserves a place among the works with which he obliged the world in his more early years.

I am led into this subject by a visit which I lately received from my good old friend and contemporary. As we both flourished together in King Charles the Second's reign, we diverted ourselves with the remembrance of several particulars that passed in the world before the greatest part of my readers were born, and could not but smile to think how insensibly we were grown into a couple of venerable old gentlemen. Tom observed to me, that after having written more odes than Horace, and about four times as many comedies as Terence, he was reduced to great difficulties, by the importunities of a set of men, who, of late years, had furnished him with the accommodations of life, and would not, as we say, be paid with a song. In order to extricate1 my old friend, I immediately sent for the three directors of the playhouse, and desired them that they would, in their turn, do a good office for a man, who, in Shakspeare's phrase, had often filled their mouths, I mean with pleasantry and popular conceits. They very generously listened to my proposal, and agreed to act the Plotting Sisters, (a very taking play of my old friend's composing.) on the 15th of the next month, for the benefit of the author.

My kindness to the agreeable Mr. D' Urfey will be imperfect, if, after having engaged the players in his favour, I do not get the town to come into it. I must, therefore, heartily recommend to all the young ladies, my disciples, the case of my old friend, who has often made their grandmothers merry, and whose sonnets have perhaps lulled asleep many a present toast, when she lay in her cradle.

I have already prevailed upon my Lady Lizard to be at 1 Extricate is not used absolutely: he should have said, to extricate my old friend out of his difficulties.

the house in one of the front boxes, and design, if I am in town, to lead her in myself, at the head of her daughters. The gentleman I am speaking of, has laid obligations on so many of his countrymen, that I hope they will think this but a just return to the good service of a veteran poet.

I myself remember King Charles the Second leaning on Tom D'Urfey's shoulder more than once, and humming over a song with him. It is certain that monarch was not a little supported by "Joy to great Cæsar," which gave the Whigs such a blow as they were not able to recover that whole reign. My friend afterwards attacked Popery with the same success, having exposed Bellarmine and Porto-Carrero more than once in short satirical compositions, which have been in everybody's mouth. He has made use of Italian tunes and sonatas for promoting the Protestant interest, and turned a considerable part of the pope's music against himself. In short, he has obliged the court with political sonnets, the country with dialogues and pastorals, the city with descriptions of a lord-mayor's feast, not to mention his little ode upon Stool-ball, with many others of the like nature.

Should the very individuals he has celebrated make their appearance together, they would be sufficient to fill the playhouse. Pretty Peg of Windsor, Gilian of Croydon, with Dolly and Molly, and Tommy and Johnny, with many others to be met with in the musical miscellanies, entitled "Pills to purge Melancholy," would make a good benefit night.

As my friend, after the manner of the old lyrics, accompanies his works with his own voice, he has been the delight of the most polite companies and conversations, from the beginning of King Charles the Second's reign to our present times. Many an honest gentleman has got a reputation in his country, by pretending to have been in company with Tom D'Urfey.

;

I might here mention several other merits in my friend as his enriching our language with a multitude of rhymes, and bringing words together, that, without his good offices, would never have been acquainted with one another, so long as it had been a tongue. But I must not omit that my old friend angles for a trout the best of any man in England. May flies come in late this season, or I myself should, before now, have had a trout of his hooking.

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