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..
’This is to give Notice, That Brooke and Hellier have not all the New Port Wines this Year, nor above one half, the Vintners having bought 130 Pipes of Mr. Thomas Barlow and others, which are all natural, and shall remain Genuine, on which all Gentlemen and others may depend.  Note.—­Altho’ Brooke and Hellier have asserted in several Papers that they had 140 Pipes of New Oporto Wines coming from Bristol, it now appears, since their landing, that they have only 133 Pipes, I Hhd. of the said Wines, which shews plainly how little what they say is to be credited.’

Then follows their long advertisement, which ends with a note that Their New Ports, just landed, being the only New Ports in Merchants Hands, and above One Half of all that is in London, will begin to be sold at the old prices the I2th inst. (April) at all their Taverns and Cellars.]

* * * * *

No. 363.  Saturday, April 26, 1712.  Addison.

  ’—­Crudelis ubique
  Luctus, ubique pavor, et plurima Mortis
  Imago.’

  Virg.

Milton has shewn a wonderful Art in describing that variety of Passions which arise in our first Parents upon the Breach of the Commandment that had been given them.  We see them gradually passing from the Triumph of their Guilt thro Remorse, Shame, Despair, Contrition, Prayer, and Hope, to a perfect and compleat Repentance.  At the end of the tenth Book they are represented as prostrating themselves upon the Ground, and watering the Earth with their Tears:  To which the Poet joins this beautiful Circumstance, that they offerd up their penitential Prayers, on the very Place where their Judge appeared to them when he pronounced their Sentence.

 —­They forthwith to the place
  Repairing where he judg’d them, prostrate fell
  Before him Reverent, and both confess’d
  Humbly their Faults, and Pardon begg’d, with Tears
  Watering the Ground—­

[There is a Beauty of the same kind in a Tragedy of Sophocles, where OEdipus, after having put out his own Eyes, instead of breaking his Neck from the Palace-Battlements (which furnishes so elegant an Entertainment for our English Audience) desires that he may be conducted to Mount Cithoeron, in order to end his Life in that very Place where he was exposed in his Infancy, and where he should then have died, had the Will of his Parents been executed.]

As the Author never fails to give a poetical Turn to his Sentiments, he describes in the Beginning of this Book the Acceptance which these their Prayers met with, in a short Allegory, formd upon that beautiful Passage in holy Writ:  And another Angel came and stood at the Altar, having a golden Censer; and there was given unto him much Incense, that he should offer it with the Prayers of all Saints upon the Golden Altar, which was before the Throne:  And the Smoak of the Incense which came with the Prayers of the Saints, ascended up before God.

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