From Thursday, Nov. 3, to Saturday, Nov. 5, 1709.

----Amoto quÆramus seria ludo.—Hor., 1 Sat. i. 27.

Will's Coffee-house, Nov. 4.

The passion of love happened to be the subject of discourse between two or three of us at the table of the poets this evening; and among other observations, it was remarked, that the same sentiment on this passion had run through all languages and nations. Menmius, who has a very good taste, fell into a little sort of dissertation on this occasion. "It is," said he, "remarkable, that no passion has been treated by all who have touched upon it with the same bent of design but this. The poets, the moralists, the painters, in all their descriptions, allegories, and pictures, have represented it as a soft torment, a bitter sweet, a pleasing pain, or an agreeable distress, and have only expressed the same thought in a different manner. The[267] joining of pleasure and pain together in such devices, seems to me the only pointed thought I ever read which is natural; and it must have proceeded from its being the universal sense and experience of mankind, that they have all spoken of it in the same manner. I have in my own reading remarked a hundred and three epigrams, fifty odes, and ninety-one sentences tending to this sole purpose. It is certain, there is no other passion which does produce such contrary effects in so great a degree: but this may be said for love, that if you strike it out of the soul, life would be insipid, and our being but half animated. Human nature would sink into deadness and lethargy, if not quickened with some active principle; and as for all others, whether ambition, envy, or avarice, which are apt to possess the mind in the absence of this passion, it must be allowed that they have greater pains, without the compensation of such exquisite pleasures as those we find in love. The great skill is to heighten the satisfactions, and deaden the sorrows of it, which has been the end of many of my labours, and shall continue to be so for the service of the world in general, and in particular of the fair sex who are always the best or the worst part of it. It is pity that a passion which has in it a capacity of making life happy, should not be cultivated to the utmost advantage. Reason, prudence, and good-nature, rightly applied, can thoroughly accomplish this great end, provided they have always a real and constant love to work upon. But this subject I shall treat more at large in the history of my married sister; and in the meantime, shall conclude my reflection on the pains and pleasures which attend this passion with one of the finest allegories which I think I have ever read. It is invented by the divine Plato, and to show the opinion he himself had of it, ascribed by him to his admired Socrates, whom he represents as discoursing with his friends, and giving the history of love in the following manner:

"At the birth of Beauty," says he, "there was a great feast made, and many guests invited: among the rest was the god Plenty, who was the son of the goddess Prudence, and inherited many of his mother's virtues. After a full entertainment, he retired into the garden of Jupiter, which was hung with a great variety of ambrosial fruits, and seems to have been a very proper retreat for such a guest. In the meantime an unhappy female, called Poverty, having heard of this great feast, repaired to it in hopes of finding relief. The first place she lights upon was Jupiter's garden, which generally stands open to people of all conditions. Poverty enters, and by chance finds the god Plenty asleep in it. She was immediately fired with his charms, laid herself down by his side, and managed matters so well that she conceived a child by him. The world was very much in suspense upon the occasion, and could not imagine to themselves what would be the nature of an infant that was to have its original from two such parents. At the last, the child appears; and who should it be but Love. This infant grew up, and proved in all his behaviour what he really was, a compound of opposite beings. As he is the son of Plenty (who was the offspring of Prudence), he is subtle, intriguing, full of stratagems and devices; as the son of Poverty, he is fawning, begging, serenading, delighting to lie at a threshold or beneath a window. By the father, he is audacious, full of hopes, conscious of merit, and therefore quick of resentment: by the mother, he is doubtful, timorous, mean-spirited, fearful of offending, and abject in submissions. In the same hour you may see him transported with raptures, talking of immortal pleasures, and appearing satisfied as a god; and immediately after, as the mortal mother prevails in his composition, you behold him pining, languishing, despairing, dying."

I have been always wonderfully delighted with fables, allegories, and the like inventions, which the politest and the best instructors of mankind have always made use of: they take off from the severity of instruction, and enforce it at the same time that they conceal it. The supposing Love to be conceived immediately after the birth of Beauty, the parentage of Plenty, and the inconsistency of this passion with itself so naturally derived to it, are great master-strokes in this fable; and if they fell into good hands, might furnish out a more pleasing canto than any in Spenser.

From my own Apartment, Nov. 4.

I came home this evening in a very pensive mood; and to divert me, took up a volume of Shakespeare, where I chanced to cast my eye upon a part in the tragedy of "Richard the Third," which filled my mind with a very agreeable horror. It was the scene in which that bold but wicked prince is represented as sleeping in his tent the night before the battle in which he fell. The poet takes that occasion to set before him in a vision a terrible assembly of apparitions, the ghosts of all those innocent persons whom he is said to have murdered. Prince Edward, Henry VI., the Duke of Clarence, Rivers, Gray, and Vaughan, Lord Hastings, the two young princes, sons to Edward IV., his own wife, and the Duke of Buckingham rise up in their blood before him, beginning their speeches with that dreadful salutation, "Let me sit heavy on thy soul to-morrow;" and concluding with that dismal sentence, "Despair and die." This inspires the tyrant with a dream of his past guilt, and of the approaching vengeance. He anticipates the fatal day of Bosworth, fancies himself dismounted, weltering in his own blood; and in the agonies of despair (before he is thoroughly awake), starts up with the following speech:

A scene written with so great strength of imagination indisposed me from further reading, and threw me into a deep contemplation. I began to reflect upon the different ends of good and bad kings; and as this was the birthday of our late renowned monarch,[269] I could not forbear thinking on the departure of that excellent prince, whose life was crowned with glory, and his death with peace. I let my mind go so far into this thought, as to imagine to myself, what might have been the vision of his departing slumbers. He might have seen confederate kings applauding him in different languages, slaves that had been bound in fetters lifting up their hands and blessing him, and the persecuted in their several forms of worship imploring comfort on his last moments. The reflection upon this excellent prince's mortality had been a very melancholy entertainment to me, had I not been relieved by the consideration of the glorious reign which succeeds it.

We now see as great a virtue as ever was on the British throne, surrounded with all the beauty of success. Our nation may not only boast of a long series of great, regular, and well-laid designs, but also of triumphs and victories; while we have the happiness to see our sovereign exercise that true policy which tends to make a kingdom great and happy, and at the same time enjoy the good and glorious effect of it.