то Edward Wortley Mountague, Efq; SIR, W HEN I fend you this volume, I am rather to make you a request than a Dedication. I must defire, that if you think fit to throw away any moments on it, you would not do it after reading those excellent pieces with which you are usually converfant. The images which you will meet with here, will be very faint, after the perufal of the Greeks and Romans, who are your ordinary companions. I must confefs I am obliged to you for the taste of many of their excellencies, which I had not observed until you pointed them to me. I am very proud that there are fome things in these Papers which I know you pardon; and it is no fmall pleasure to have one's labours fuffered by the judgment of a man, who fo well understands the true charms of eloquence and poefy. But I direct this addrefs to you; not that I think I can entertain you with my Writings, but to thank you for the new delight I have, from your converfation, in thofe of other men.. May May you enjoy a long continuance of the true relish of the happiness heaven has bestowed upon you. I know not how to fay a more affectionate thing to you, than to wish that you may be always what you are; and that you may ever think, as I know you now do, that you have a much larger fortune than you want.. I am, SIR Your moft obedient, and! moft humble fervant,, ISAAC BIOKERSTAFF. THE TATL E R. N° 51. Saturday, August 6, 1709. F Quicquid agunt homines noftri farrago libelli. Juv. Sat. 1. v. 851 Whatever good is done, whatever ill White's Chocolate-house, Auguft 5. The hiftory of Orlando the Fair. Chap. II. ORTUNE being now propitious to the gay Orlando, he dreffed, he spoke, he moved as a man might be supposed to do in a nation of Pygmies, and had an equal value for our approbation or diflike. It is ufual for thofe, who profefs a contempt of the world, to fly from it and live in obfcurity; but Orlando, with a greater magnanimity, contemned it, and appeared in it to tell them fo. If therefore his exalted mien met with an unwelcome reception, he was fure always to double the caufe which gave the diftafte. You fee our Beauties affect a negligence in the ornament of their hair, and adjufting their head-dreffes, as confcious that they adorn whatever they wear. Orlando had not only this humour in common with other Beauties, but also had a neglect VOL. II. whether B whether things became him, or not, in a world he contemned. For this reafon, a noble particularity appear ed in all his œconomy, furniture, and equipage. And to convince the prefent little race, how unequal all their measures were to an Antediluvian, as he called himself, in respect of the infects which now appear for men, he fometimes rode in an open tumbril, of lefs fize than ordinary, to fhow the largenefs of his limbs, and the grandeur of his perfonage, to the greater advantage At other feafons, all his appointments had a magnificence, as if it were formed by the genius of Trimalchio of old, which fhewed itself in doing ordinary things with an air of pomp and grandeur. Orlando therefore called for Tea by heat of drum; his valet got ready to fhave him by a trumpet to horfe; and water was brought for his teeth, when the found was changed to boots and faddle. In all these glorious exceffes from the common practice, did the happy Orlando live and reign in an uninterrupted tranquillity, until an unlucky accident brought to his remembrance, that one evening he was married before he courted the nuptials of Villaria. Several fatal Memorandums were produced to revive the memory of this accident, and the unhappy Lover was for ever banifhed her prefence, to whom he owed the fupport of his juft renown and gallantry. But diftrefs does not debase noble minds; it only changes the fcene, and gives them new glory by that alteration. Orlando therefore now raves in a garret, and calls to his neighbour-fkies to pity his dolours, and to find redress for an unhappy Lover. All high Spirits, in any great agitation of mind, are inclined to relieve themfelves by poetry: The renowned porter of Oliver had not more volumes around his cell in the college of Bedlam, than Orlando in his prefent apartment. And though inferting poetry in the midft of profe be thought a licence among correct Writers not to be indulged, it is hoped the neceffity of doing it, to give a juft idea of the hero of whom we treat, will plead for liberty we fhall hereafter take, to print Orlando's foliloquies in verfe and profe, after the manner of great Wits, and fuch as those to whom they are near allied. |