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difficulties, that I scarce know what side has the better of it, until I am informed by the tower guns that tlie place is surrendered. I do indeed make some allowances for this part of the war, fortifications have been foreign inventions, and upon that account abounding in foreign terms. But when we have won battles which may be described in our own language, why are our papers filled with so many unintelligible exploits, and the French obliged to lend us a part of their tongue before we can know how they are conquered? They must be made accessary to their own disgrace, as the Britons were formerly so artificially wrought in the curtain of the Roman theatre, that they seemed to draw it up in order to give the spectators an opportunity of seeing their own defeat celebrated upon the stage: for so Mr. Dryden has translated that verse in Virgil:

Purpurea intexti tollunt aulæa Britanni.

GEORG. iii. 25.

Which interwoven Britons seem to raise,
And shew the triumph that their shame displays.

The histories of all our former wars are trans mitted to us in our vernacular idiom, to use the phrase of a great modern critic *. I do not find in any of our chronicles, that Edward the Third ever reconnoitred the enemy, though he often discoverea the posture of the French, and as often vanquished them in battle. The Black Prince passed many a river without the help of pontoons, and filled a ditch with faggots as successfully as the generals of our times do it with fascines. Our commanders lose half their praise, and our people half their joy, by

* Dr. Richard Bentley.

means of those hard words and dark expressions in which our news-papers do so much abound. I have seen many a prudent citizen, after having read every article, inquire of his next neighbour what news the mail had brought.

I remember, in that remarkable year when our country was delivered from the greatest fears and apprehensions, and raised to the greatest height of gladness it had ever felt since it was a nation, I mean the year of Blenheim, I had the copy of a letter sent me out of the country, which was written from a young gentleman in the army to his father, a man of good estate and plain sense. As the letter was very modishly chequered with this modern military eloquence, I shall present my reader with a copy of it.

6 SIR,

'UPON the junction of the French and Bavarian armies they took post behind a great morass which they thought impracticable. Our general the next day sent a party of horse to "reconnoitre" them from a little " hauteur," at about a quarter of an hour's distance from the army, who returned again to the camp unobserved through several " defiles," in one of which they met with a party of French that had been "marauding," and made them all prisoners at discretion. The day after a drum arrived at our camp, with a message which he would communicate to none but the general; he was followed by a trumpet, who they say behaved himself very saucily, with a message from the Duke of Bavaria. The next morning our army being divided into two corps," made a movement towards the enemy. You will hear in the public prints how we treated them, with the other circumstances of that glorious

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161 day. I had the good fortune to be in that regiment that pushed the " gens d'armes." Several French battalions, which some say were a 66 corps de reserve," made a shew of resistance; but it only proved a gasconade," for upon our preparing to fill up a little "fossé," in order to attack them, they beat the "chamade," and sent us a "charte blanche." Their "commandant," with a great many other general officers, and troops without number, are made prisoners of war, and will, I believe, give you a visit in England, the " cartel" not being yet settled. Not questioning but these particulars will be very welcome to you, I congratulate you upon them, and am your most dutiful son, &c.'

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The father of the young gentleman upon the perusal of the letter found it contained great news, but could not guess what it was. He immediately communicated it to the curate of the parish, who upon the reading of it, being vexed to see any thing he could not understand, fell into a kind of a passion, and told him, that his son had sent him a letter that was neither fish, flesh, nor good red-herring. 'I wish,' says he, the captain may be " compos mentis," he talks of a saucy trumpet, and a drum that carries messages; then who is this "charte blanche ?" He must either banter us, or he is out of his senses.' The father, who always looked upon the curate as a learned man, began to fret inwardly at his son's usage, and producing a letter which he had written to him about three posts before, 'You see here,' says he, when he writes for money he knows how to speak intelligibly enough; there is no man in England can express himself clearer, when he wants a new furniture for his horse.' In short, the old man was so puzzled upon the point, that it might have

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fared ill with his son, had he not seen all the prints about three days after filled with the same terms of art, and that Charles only writ like other

men.

L.

N° 166, MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 1711.

Quod nec Jovis ira, nec ignis,

Nec poterit ferrum, nec edax abolere vetustas.

-Which nor dreads the rage

OVID. Met. xv. 871.

Of tempests, fire, or war, or wasting age,

WELSTED.

ARISTOTLE tells us that the world is a copy or transcript of those ideas which are in the mind of the first Being, and that those ideas which are in the mind of man, are a transcript of the world. To this we may add, that words are the transcript of those ideas which are in the mind of man, and that writing or printing are the transcript of words.

As the Supreme Being has expressed, and as it were printed his ideas in the creation, men express their ideas in books, which by this great invention of these latter ages may last as long as the sun and moon, and perish only in the general wreck of nature. Thus Cowley in his poem on the Resurrection, mentioning the destruction of the universe, has those admirable lines:

Now all the wide extended sky,

And all th' harmonious worlds on high,
And Virgil's sacred work shall die.

There is no other method of fixing those thoughts which arise and disappear in the mind of man, and transmitting them to the last periods of time; no other method of giving a permanency to our ideas, and preserving the knowledge of any particular person, when his body is mixed with the common mass of matter, and his soul retired into the world of spirits. Books are the legacies that a great genius leaves to mankind, which are delivered down from generation to generation, as presents to the posterity of those who are yet unborn.

All other arts of perpetuating our ideas continue but a short time. Statues can last but a few thousands of years, edifices fewer, and colours still fewer than edifices. Michael Angelo, Fontana, and Raphael, will hereafter be what Phidias, Vitruvius, and Apelles are at present; the names of great statuaries, architects, and painters, whose works are lost. The several arts are expressed in mouldering materials. Nature sinks under them, and is not able to support the ideas which are imprest upon it.

The circumstance which gives authors an advantage above all the great masters, is this, that they can multiply their originals: or rather can make copies of their works, to what number they please, which shall be as valuable as the originals themselves. This gives a great author something like a prospect of eternity, but at the same time deprives him of those other advantages which artists meet with. The artist finds greater returns in profit, as the author in fame. What an inestimable price would a Virgil or a Homer, a Cicero or an Aristotle bear, were their works, like a statue, a building, or a picture, to be confined only in one place, and made the property of a single person!

If writings are thus durable, and may pass from

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