rime-scheme? Has the verse dignity? Harmony? Variety? Prove by quotations.

7. As an elegy, compare the poem with “Lycidas." Which is the simpler? Which has the more permanent interest? Which is the more personal? The more democratic? Which seems to you the more beautiful poem? Always quote to establish your opinion.

8. If you cannot memorize all of this elegy, memorize at least a section. Give good reasons for your choice, and deliver it before the class.

THE CASTAWAY

WILLIAM COWPER

Obscurest night involved the sky,
The Atlantic billows roared,
When such a destined wretch as I,
Washed headlong from on board,
Of friends, of hope, of all bereft,
His floating home forever left.

No braver chief could Albion boast
Than he with whom he went,
Nor ever ship left Albion's coast
With warmer wishes sent.
He loved them both, but both in vain,
Nor him beheld, nor her again.

Not long beneath the whelming brine,
Expert to swim, he lay;

Nor soon he felt his strength decline, Or courage die away;

But waged with death a lasting strife, Supported by despair of life.

50.

40

45

50

50

10

15

past, a reference to his temporary insanity. The Castaway. 7. Albion, the ancient name of England; now its poetic name.

last I must own to you is so great an absurdity that I should be ashamed to confess it, were not I in hopes of correcting it very speedily. I am observed to have my box oftener in my hand than those that have been used to one these twenty years, for I can't forbear taking it out of my pocket whenever I think of Mr. Dashwood. 10 You know Mr. Bays recommends snuff as a great provocative to wit, but you may produce this letter as a standing evidence against him. against him. I have since the beginning of it taken above a dozen pinches, and still find myself much more inclined to sneeze than to jest. From whence I conclude that wit and tobacco are not inseparable, or to make a pun 20 of it, though a man may be master of a snuffbox,

SIR RICHARD STEELE

June 20, 1717 DEAR PRUE: I have yours of the 14th, and am infinitely obliged to you for the length of it. I do not know another whom I could commend for that circumstance; but where we entirely love, the continuance of anything they do to please us is a pleasure.

10. Mr. Bays, the principal figure in a burlesque comedy The Rehearsal (1671), satirizing Dryden. 22. Non cuicumque, etc., it is not given to everyone to have a nose. 26 Horace (65-8 B.C.), a Latin poet, from whom many quotations are taken.

As for your relations, once for all, pray take it for granted that my regard and 40 conduct toward all and singular of them shall be as you direct.

I hope, by the grace of God, to continue what you wish me, every way an honest man. My wife and my children are the objects that have wholly taken up my heart; and as I am not invited or encouraged in anything which regards the public, I am easy under that neglect or envy of my past 50 actions, and cheerfully contract that diffusive spirit within the interests of my own family. You are the head of us; and I stooped to a female reign as being naturally made the slave of beauty. But to prepare for our manner of living when we are again together, give me leave to say, while I am here at leisure, and come to lie at Chelsea, what I think may contribute 60 to our better way of living. I very much approve Mrs. Evans and her husband, and if you take my advice, I would have them have a being at our house, and Mrs. Clark the care and inspection of the nursery. I would have you entirely at leisure to pass your time with me in diversions, in books, in entertainments, and no manner of business intrude upon us but at 70 stated times. For, though you are made to be the delight of my eyes, and food of all my senses and faculties, yet a turn of care and housewifery, and I know not what prepossession against conversation-pleasures, robs me of the witty and the handsome woman to a

degree not to be expressed. I will work my brains and fingers to procure us plenty of all things, and demand so nothing of you but to take delight in agreeable dresses, cheerful discourses, and gay sights, attended by me. This may be done by putting the kitchen and the nursery in the hands I propose; and I shall have nothing to do but to pass as much time at home as I pos

sibly can, in the best company in the world. We cannot tell here what to think of the trial of my Lord Oxford; if the ministry are in earnest in that and I should see it will be extended to a length of time, I will leave them to themselves, and wait upon you. Miss Moll grows a mighty beauty, and she shall be very prettily dressed, as like10 wise shall Betty and Eugene; and if I throw away a little money in adorning my brats, I hope you will forgive me. They are, I thank God, all very well; and the charming form of their mother has tempered the likeness they bear to their rough sire, who is, with the greatest fondness, your most obliged and most obedient husband, RICH. STEELE.

20

TO HIS SON, PHILIP STANHOPE

THE EARL OF CHESTERFIELD

September 5, 1748 As women are a considerable, or at least a pretty numerous, part of company, and as their suffrages go a great way toward establishing a man's character in the fashionable part of the world-which is of great importance to the fortune and figure he proposes to make in it—it is necessary to please them. I will therefore, upon this 30 subject, let you into certain arcana, that will be very useful for you to know, but which you must with the utmost care conceal, and never seem to know. Women, then, are only children of a larger growth; they have an entertaining tattle and sometimes wit, but for solid, reasoning good sense, I never in my life knew one that had it, or acted consequentially for

3. Lord Oxford, Robert Harley (1661-1724), a prominent politician who in 1715 was impeached for treason. He was acquitted shortly after this letter was written. 30. arcana, secrets. 39. consequentially, logically.

four-and-twenty hours together. Some 40 little passion or humor always breaks in upon their best resolutions. Their beauty neglected or controverted, their age increased, or their supposed understandings depreciated instantly kindles their little passions, and overturns any system of consequential conduct that in their most reasonable moments they might have been capable of forming. A man of sense only trifles with them, 50 plays with them, humors and flatters then, as he does with a sprightly, forward child; but he neither consults them about, nor trusts them with, serious matters, though he often makes them believe that he does both-which is the thing in the world that they are proud of; for they love mightily to be dabbling in business—which, by the way, they always spoil-and, being 60 justly distrustful that men in general look upon them in a trifling light, they almost adore that man who talks more seriously to them, and who seems to consult them-I say, who seems, for weak men really do, but wise ones only seem to do it. No flattery is either too high or too low for them. They will greedily swallow the highest, and gratefully accept of the lowest; and 70 you may safely flatter any woman, from her understanding down to the exquisite taste of her fan. Women who are either indisputably beautiful or indisputably ugly are best flattered upon the score of their understandings; but those who are in a state of mediocrity are best flattered upon their beauty, or at least their graces; for every woman who is not absolutely 80 ugly thinks herself handsome, but, not hearing often that she is so, is the more grateful and the more obliged to the few who tell her so; whereas a decided and conscious beauty looks upon every tribute paid to her beauty only as her due, but wants to shine and to be considered on the side of her under

standing; and a woman who is ugly enough to know that she is so, knows that she has nothing left but her understanding, which is consequently and probably in more senses than one -her weak side.

But these are secrets that you must keep inviolably, if you would not, like Orpheus, be torn to pieces by the 10 whole sex. On the contrary, a man who thinks of living in the great world must be gallant, polite, and attentive to please the women. They have, from the weakness of men, more or less influence in all courts; they absolutely stamp every man's character in the beau monde, and made it either current, or cry it down and stop it in payments. It is, therefore, absolutely 20 necessary to manage, please, and flatter them, and never to discover the least marks of contempt, which is what they never forgive. .

TO THE EARL OF CHESTER

FIELD

SAMUEL JOHNSON

February 7, 1755

du vainqueur de la terre;-that I might obtain that regard for which I saw the world contending. But I found my attendance so little encouraged that neither pride nor modesty would suffer me to continue it. When I had once addressed your Lordship in public, I had exhausted all the art of pleasing which a retired and uncourtly scholar can possess. I had done all that I 50 could; and no man is well pleased to have his all neglected, be it ever so little.

Seven years, my Lord, have now passed since I waited in your outward rooms, or was repulsed from your door; during which time I have been pushing on my work through difficulties, of which it is useless to complain, and have brought it, at last, to 60 the verge of publication, without one act of assistance, one word of encouragement, or one smile of favor. Such treatment I did not expect, for I never had a patron before.

The shepherd in Vergil grew at last acquainted with Love, and found him a native of the rocks.

Is not a patron, my Lord, one who looks with unconcern on a man strug- 70 gling for life in the water, and, when he has reached ground, encumbers him with help? The notice which you have been pleased to take of my labors, had it been early, had been kind; but it has been delayed till I am indifferent, and cannot enjoy it; till I am solitary, and cannot impart it; till I am known, and do not want it. I

terms to acknowledge.

When, upon some slight encouragement, I first visited your Lordship, I was overpowered, like the rest of mankind, by the enchantment of your address, and could not forbear to wish 40 that I might boast myself Le rainqueur

9. Orpheus. See note on line 61, page 245. 17. beau monde, fashionable world. 40. Le vainqueur, etc., the conqueror of the conqueror of the world.

to confess obligations where no benefit has been received, or to be unwilling that the public should consider me as owing that to a patron, which Providence has enabled me to do for myself.

with so little obligation to any favorer Having carried on my work thus far of learning, I shall not be disappointed

66. shepherd in Vergil, in Eclogue viii.