1 poraries. In short, we all of us beg leave to subscribe ourselves, Most venerable Nestor, Your humble servants and sisters.' I am very well pleased with this approbation of my good sisters. I must confess I have always looked on the tucker to be the decus et tutamen*,, the ornament and defence, of the female neck. My good old lady, the lady Lizard, condemned this fashion from the beginning, and has observed to me, with some concern, that her sex at the same time they are letting down their stays, are tucking up their petticoats, which grow shorter and shorter every day. The leg discovers itself in proportion with the neck. But I may possibly take another occasion of handling this extremity, it being my design to keep a watchful eye over every part of the female sex, and to regulate them from head to foot. In the mean time I shall fill up my paper with a letter which comes to me from another of my obliged correspondents. · Dear Guardee, THIS comes to you from one of those untuckered ladies whom you were so sharp upon on Monday was se'nnight. I think myself mightily beholden to you for the reprehension you then gave us. You must know I am a famous olive beauty. But though this complexion makes a very good face when there are a couple of black sparkling fo eyes set in it, it makes but a very indifferent neck. Your fair women therefore thought by this fashion st th * The words milled on the larger silver and gold coins of this mt kingdom. my Die Bb 2 to insult the olives and the brunettes. They know very well, that a neck of ivory does not make so fine a show as one of alabaster. It is for this reason, Mr. Ironside, that they are so liberal in their discoveries. We know very well, that a woman of the whitest neck in the world, is to you no more than a woman of snow; but Ovid, in Mr. Duke's translation of him, seems to look upon it with another eye, when he talks of Corinna, aad mentions 16 -her heaving breast, Courting the hand, and suing to be prest." • Women of my complexion ought to be more modest, especially since our faces debar us from all artificial whitenings. Could you examine many of these ladies who present you with such beautiful snowy chests, you wonld find they are not all of a piece. Good father Nestor, do not let us alone until you have shortened our necks, and reduced them to their ancient standard. I am, Your most obliged humble servant, OLIVIA.' I shall have a just regard to Olivia's remonstrance, though at the same time I cannot but observe that her modesty seems to be intirely the result of her complexion. 13. N° 110. FRIDAY, JULY 17, 1715. -Non ego paucis Offenda maculis, quas aut incuria fudit Aut humana parum cavit natura HOR. Ars Poet. 351. I will not quarrel with a slight mistake, a caviller. ROSCOMMON. THE candour which Horace shows in the motto of my paper, is that which distinguishes a critic from He declares that he is not offended with those little faults in a poetical composition, which may be imputed to inadvertency, or to the imperfection of human nature. The truth of it is, there can be no more a perfect work in the world, than a perfect man. To say of a celebrated piece that there are faults in it, is in effect to say no more, than that the author of it was a man. For this reason I consider every critic that attacks an author in high reputation, as the slave in the Roman triumph, who was to call out to the conqueror, Remember, sir, that you are a man.' I speak this in relation to the following letter, which criticises the works of a great poet, whose very faults have more beauty in them than the most elaborate compositions of many more correct writers. The remarks are very curious and just, and introduced by a compliment to the work of an author, who I am sure would not care for being praised at the ex2 pence of another's reputation. I must therefore desire my correspondent to excuse me, if I do not publish either the preface or conclusion of his letter, but only the critical part of it. QUR tragedy writers have been notoriously defective in giving proper sentiments to the persons they introduce. Nothing is more common than to hear an heathen talking of angels and devils, the joys of heaven, and the pains of hell, according to the christian system. Lee's Alexander discovers himself to be a Cartesian in the first page of Edipus ; -The sun's sick too, Shortly he'll be an earth As Dryden's Cleomenes is acquainted with the Copernican hypothesis two thousand years before its invention. "I am pleas'd with my own work; Jove was not more With infant nature, when his spacious hand Had rounded his huge ball of earth and seas, To give it the first push, and see it roll Along the vast abyss I have now Mr. Dryden's Don Sebastian before me, in which I find frequent allusions to ancient history, and the old mythology of the heathen. It is not very natural to suppose a king of Portugal would be borrowing thoughts out of Ovid's Metamorphoses when he talk'd even to those of his own court; but to allude to these Roman fables when he talks to an emperor of Barbary, seems very extraordinary. But observe how he desires him out of the classics, in the following lines: "Why didst not thou engage me man to man, To stare me into statue?" • Almeyda at the same time is more book learned than Don Sebastian. She plays an hydra upon the emperor that is full as good as the Gorgon. "O that I had the fruitful heads of hydra, That one might bourgeon where another fell! Still would I give thee work, still, still, thou tyrant, She afterwards, in allusion to Hercules, bids him "lay down the lion's skin, and take the distaff;" and in the following speech utters her passion still more learnedly. "No, were we join'd, even tho' it were in death, The prodigy of Thebes wou'd be renew'd, The emperor of Barbary shews himself acquainted with the Roman poets as well as either of his prisoners, and answers the foregoing speech in the same classic strain : "Serpent, I will engender poison with thee; Ovid seems to have been Muley Molock's favorite author, witness the lines that follow: "She still inexorable, still imperious And loud, as if like Bacchus born in thunder." |