ell pardon in so old a Poet, prejudice him
against the Greatness of the Thought.

_Then leaving Life, Earl Piercy took
The dead Man by the Hand,
And said, Earl Douglas, for thy Life
Would I had lost my Land.

O Christ! my very heart doth bleed
With Sorrow for thy Sake;
For sure a more renowned Knight
Mischance did never take_.

That beautiful Line, _Taking the dead Man by the Hand_, will put the
Reader in mind of _AEneas's_ Behaviour towards _Lausus_, whom he himself
had slain as he came to the Rescue of his aged Father.

_At vero ut vultum vidit morientis, et ora,
Ora modis Anchisiades, pallentia miris;
Ingemuit, miserans graviter, dextramque tetendit, &c.

The pious Prince beheld young Lausus dead;
He grieved, he wept; then grasped his Hand, and said,
Poor hapless Youth! What Praises can be paid
To worth so great ..._

I shall take another Opportunity to consider the other Part of this old
Song.

[Footnote 1: a little]

[Footnote 2: that]

[Footnote 3: Besides the old woman, Moliere is said to have relied on
the children of the Comedians, read his pieces to them, and corrected
passages at which they did not show themselves to be amused.]

[Footnote 4: 'Defence of Poesy'.]

[Footnote 5: The author of Chevy Chase was not contemporary with the
dissensions of the Barons, even if the ballad of the 'Hunting of the
Cheviot' was a celebration of the Battle of Otterbourne, fought in 1388,
some 30 miles from Newcastle. The battle of Chevy Chase, between the
Percy and the Douglas, was fought in Teviotdale, and the ballad which
moved Philip Sidney's heart was written in the fifteenth century. It may
have referred to a Battle of Pepperden, fought near the Cheviot Hills,
between the Earl of Northumberland and Earl William Douglas of Angus, in
1436. The ballad quoted by Addison is not that of which Sidney spoke,
but a version of it, written after Sidney's death, and after the best
plays of Shakespeare had been written.]

[Footnote 6: that]

[Footnote 7: that]

[Footnote 8: received]

[Footnote 9: by a single Combat.]

* * * * *

No. 71. Tuesday, May 22, 1711. Steele.

'... Scribere jussit Amor.'

Ovid.

The entire Conquest of our Passions is so difficult a Work, that they
who despair of it should think of a less difficult Task, and only
attempt to Regulate