uilty in this kind. It was excellently well said,
that this folly had no temptation to excuse it, no man being born of a
swearing constitution. In a word, a few rumbling words and consonants
clapped together, without any sense, will make an accomplished swearer:
and it is needless to dwell long upon this blustering impertinence,
which is already banished out of the society of well-bred men, and can
be useful only to bullies and ill tragic writers, who would have sound
and noise pass for courage and sense.

_St. James's Coffee-house, February 22._

There arrived a messenger last night from Harwich, who left that place
just as the Duke of Marlborough was going on board. The character of
this important general going out by the command of his Queen, and at the
request of his country, puts me in mind of that noble figure which
Shakespeare gives Harry the Fifth upon his expedition against France.
The poet wishes for abilities to represent so great a hero:

"_Oh for a muse of fire!" says he,
"Then should the warlike Harry, like himself,
Assume the port of Mars; and at his heels,
Leashed in, like hounds, should Famine, Sword and Fire
Crouch for employment._"[109]

A conqueror drawn like the god of battle, with such a dreadful leash of
hell-hounds at his command, makes a picture of as much majesty and
terror as is to be met with in any poet.

Shakespeare understood the force of this particular allegory so well,
that he had it in his thoughts in another passage, which is altogether
as daring and sublime as the former. What I mean, is in the tragedy of
"Julius Caesar," where Antony, after having foretold the bloodshed and
destruction that should be brought upon the earth by the death of that
great man; to fill up the horror of his description, adds the following
verses:

"_And Caesar's spirit ranging for revenge,
With Ate by his side, come hot from Hell,
Shall in these confines, with a monarch's voice,
Cry 'Havoc'; and let slip the dogs of war._"[110]

I do not question but these quotations will call to mind in my readers
of learning and taste, that imaginary person described by Virgil with
the same spirit. He mentions it upon the occasion of a peace which was
restored to the Roman Empire, and which we may now hope for from the
departure of that great man who has given occasion to these reflections.
"The Temple of Janus," says he, "shall be shut, and in the midst of it
Military Fury