The Spectator, Volume 2. eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 1,123 pages of information about The Spectator, Volume 2..

The Spectator, Volume 2. eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 1,123 pages of information about The Spectator, Volume 2..
in which he followed the critical fashion of the day, he was praised into regarding as a masterpiece.  He was continually polishing it, and during his lifetime it was reissued with frequent variations.  It is polished quartz, not diamond; a short piece of about 360 lines, which has something to say of each of the chief forms of poetry, from songs to epics.  Sheffield shows most natural force in writing upon plays, and here in objecting to perfect characters, he struck out the often-quoted line

  A faultless monster which the world ne’er saw.

When he comes to the epics he is, of course, all for Homer and Virgil.

Read Homer once, and you can read no more; For all books else appear so mean, so poor, Verse will seem Prose; but still persist to read, And Homer will be all the Books you need.

And then it is supposed that some Angel had disclosed to M. Bossu, the French author of the treatise upon Epic Poetry then fashionable, the sacred mysteries of Homer.  John Sheffield had a patronizing recognition for the genius of Shakespeare and Milton, and was so obliging as to revise Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar and confine the action of that play within the limits prescribed in the French gospel according to the Unities.  Pope, however, had in the Essay on Criticism reckoned Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham, among the sounder few

Who durst assert the juster ancient Cause And have restored Wits Fundamental Laws.  Such was the Muse, whose Rules and Practice tell, Natures chief Masterpiece is writing well.

With those last words which form the second line in the Essay on Poetry Popes citation has made many familiar.  Addison paid young Pope a valid compliment in naming him as a critic in verse with Roscommon, and, what then passed on all hands for a valid compliment, in holding him worthy also to be named as a poet in the same breath with the Lord Chamberlain.]

* * * * *

No. 254.  Friday, December 21, 1711.  Steele.

  [Greek:  Semnos eros aretaes, ho de kypridos achos ophellei.]

When I consider the false Impressions which are received by the Generality of the World, I am troubled at none more than a certain Levity of Thought, which many young Women of Quality have entertained, to the Hazard of their Characters, and the certain Misfortune of their Lives.  The first of the following Letters may best represent the Faults I would now point at, and the Answer to it the Temper of Mind in a contrary Character.

  My dear Harriot,

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The Spectator, Volume 2. from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.