Ipsi lætitiâ voces ad sidera jactant Virg. Ecl. v. 63. The mountain-tops unshorn, the rocks rejoice; ually shot up into groves, woods, and forests, | No. 585.] Wednesday, Angust 25, 1714. The habitations of Shalum looked every year more beautiful in the eyes of Hilpa, who, after the space of seventy autumns, was wonderfully pleased with the distant prospect of Shalum's hills, which were then covered with inumerable tufts of trees and gloomy scenes, that gave a magnificence to the place, and converted it into one of the finest landscapes the eye of man could behold. THE SEQUEL OF THE STORY OF SHALUM AND THE letter inserted in my last had so good an effect upon Hilpa, that she answered it in less than twelve months, after the following manner : Hilpa, Mistress of the Valleys, to Shalum 'In the 789th year of the creation. 'What have I to do with thee, O Shalum? Thou praiseth Hilpa's beauty, but art thou not secretly enamoured with the verdure of her The Chinese record a letter which Shalum is meadows? Art thou not more affected with said to have written to Hilpa in the eleventh the prospect of her green valleys than thou year of her widowhood. I shall here translate wouldest be with the sight of her person? The it, without departing from that noble simplici-lowings of my herds, and the bleatings of my ty of sentiments and plainness of manners flocks, make a pleasant echo in thy mountains, which appear in the original. and sound sweetly in thy ears. What though I am delighted with the wavings of thy forests, and those breezes of perfumes which flow from the top of Tirzah, are these like the riches of the valley? and Shalum was at this time one hundred and eighty years old, and Hiipa one hundred seventy. *I Shalum, Master of Mount Tirsah, to Hilpa, Mistress of the Valleys. one ? I know thee, O Shalum; thou art more wise and happy than any of the sons of men. Thy dwellings are among the cedars; 'In the 788th year of the creation thou searchest out the diversity of soils, thou understandest the influences of the stars, and 'What have I not suffered, O thou daughter markest the change of seasons. Can a woof Zilpa, since thou gavest thyself away in woman appear lovely in the eyes of such a marriage to my rival? I grew weary of the Disquiet me not, O Shalum; let me light of the sun, and have been ever since co-alone, that I may enjoy those goodly possesvering myself with woods and forests. These sions which are fallen to my lot. Win me threescore and ten years have I bewaild the not by thy enticing words. loss of thee on the top of mount Tirzah, and increase and multiply; mayest thou add wood May thy trees soothed my melancholy among a thousand to wood, and shade to shade: but tempt not gloomy shades of my own raising. My dwell- Hilpa to destroy thy solitude, and make thy ings are at present as the garden of God: every retirement populous.' part of them is filled with fruits, and flowers, and fountains. The whole mountain is perfumed for thy reception. Come up into it, my beloved, and let us people this spot of the new world with a beautiful race of mortals: let us multiply exceedingly among these delightful shades, and fill every quarter of them with sons and daughters. Remember, Oh thou daughter of Zilpah, that the age of man is but a thousand years; that beauty is the admiration but of a few centuries. It flourishes as a mountain oak, or as a cedar on the top of Tir-way equal Shalum. zah, which in three or four hundred years will fade away, and never be thought of by posterity, unless a young wood springs from its Think well on this, and remember thy neighbour in the mountains.' rots. she accepted of a treat in one of the neighThe Chinese say, that a little time afterwards bouring hills to which Shalum had invited her. This treat lasted for two years, and is said to have cost Shalum five hundred antelopes, two thousand ostriches, and a thousand tons of milk; but what most of all recommended it, herbs, in which no person then living could any was that variety of delicious fruits and pot planted amidst the wood of nightingales.— He treated her in the bower which he had This wood' was made up of such fruit-trees and plants as are most agreeable to the several kinds of singing birds; so that it had drawn into it all the music of the country, and was filled from one end of the year to Having here inserted this letter, which I the other with the most agreeable concert in look upon as the only antediluvian billet-season. doux now extant, I shall in my next paper He showed her every day some beautiful give the answer to it, and the sequel of this and surprising scene in this new region of wood-lands; and, as by this means he had story. all the opportunities he could wish for of No. 586.] Friday, August 27, 1714. -Quæ in vita usurpant homines, cogitant, curant, vi- The things which employ men's waking thoughts and actions recur to their imaginations in sleep. She had not been long among her own people in the valleys, when she received new By the last post, I received the following letter overtures, and at the same time a most splendid visit from Mishpach, who was a mighty which is built upon a thought that is new, and man of old, and had built a great city, which very well carried on; for which reason I shall be called after his own name. Every house give it to the public without alteration, addition, or amendment. 'SIR, was made for at least a thousand years; nay, there were some that were leased out for three lives; so that the quantity of stone and timber consumed in this building is scarce to 'It was a good piece of advice which Pybe imagined by those who live in the present thagoras gave to his scholars-that every age of the world. This great man entertain- night before they slept they should examine ed her with the voice of musical instruments what they had been doing that day, and se which had been lately invented, and danced discover what actions were worthy of pursuit before her to the sound of the timbrel. He to-morrow, and what little vices were to be also presented her with several domestic prevented from slipping unawares into a hautensils wrought in brass and iron which had bit. If I might second the philosopher's adbeen newly found out for the convenience of vice, it should be mine, that, in a morning, life. In the mean time Shalum grew very before my scholar rose, he should consider uneasy with himself, and was sorely dis- what he had been about that night, and pleased at Hilpa for the reception which with the same strictness, as if the condition she had given to Mishpach, insomuch that he has believed himself to be in was real. be never wrote to her or spoke of her dur- Such a scrutity into the actions of his fancy, ing a whole revolution of Saturn; but, find- must be of considerable advantage; for this ing that this intercourse went no further reason, because the circumstances which a than a visit, he again renewed his addresses man imagines himself in during sleep are to her; who, during his long silence, is said generally such as entirely favour his inclinavery often to have cast a wishing eye upon tions, good or bad, and give him imaginary' mount Tirzah. opportunities of pursuing them to the utHer mind continued wavering about twenty most; so that his temper will lie fairly open years longer between Shalum and Mishpach; to his view, while he considers how it is for though her inclinations favoured the for- moved when free from those constraints mer, her interest pleaded very powerfully for which the accidents of real life put it under. the other. While her heart was in this un- Dreams are certainly the result of our waking settled condition, the following accident hap- thoughts, and our daily hopes and fears are pened, which determined her choice. A high what give the mind such nimble relishes of tower of wood that stood in the city of Mish-pleasure, and such severe touches of pain in pach having caught fire by a flash of light- its midnight rambles. A man that murders ning, in a few days reduced the whole town his enemy, or deserts his friend, in a dream, to ashes. Mishpach resolved to rebuild the had need to guard his temper against replace whatever it should cost him; and, venge and ingratitude, and take heed that having already destroyed all the timber of he be not tempted to do a vile thing in the the country, he was forced to have recourse pursuit of false, or the neglect of true hoto Shalum, whose forests were now two hun-nour. For my part, I seldom receive a bedred years old. He purchased these woods nefit, but in a night or two's time I make with so many herds of cattle and flocks of most noble returns for it; which, though my sheep, and with such a vast extent of fields benefactor is not a whit the better for, yet and pastures, that Shalum was now grown it pleases me to think that it was from a more wealthy than Mishpach; and there- principle of gratitude in me that my mind fore appeared so charming in the eyes of was susceptible of such generous transport, Zilpah's daughter, that she no longer refused while I thought myself repaying the kindness him in marriage. On the day in which he of my friend: and I have often been ready to brought her up into the mountains, he raised beg pardon, instead of returning an injury, a most prodigious pile of cedar, and of every after considering that, when the offender was sweet-smelling wood, which reached above in my power, I had carried my resentments three hundred cubits in height he also cast much too far. into the pile bundles of myrrh, and sheaves 'I think it has been observed in the course of spikenard, enriching it with every spicy of your papers, how much one's happiness or shrub, and making it fat with the gums of misery may depend upon the imagination : his plantations. This was the burnt offering of which truth those strange workings of which Shalum offered in the day of his es- fancy in sleep are no inconsiderable instanpousals: the smoke of it ascended up to hea- ces; so that not only the advantage a man ven, and filled the whole country with incense has of making discoveries of himself, but a and perfume. regard to his own ease or disquiet, may in. 45 VOL. II. duce him to accept of my advice. Such as glad I am not possessed ofthose extraordinary are willing to comply with it, I shall put qualities. into a way of doing it with pleasure, by ob- Lastly, Mr. Spectator, I have been a great serving only one maxim which I shall give correspondent of yours, and have read many them, viz. "To go to bed with a mind entirely of my letters in your paper which I never free from passion, and a body clear of the least wrote you. If you have a mind I should really intemperance.' be so, I have got a parcel of visions and other miscellanies in my noctuary, which I shall send you to enrich your paper on proper occasions. 'I am, &c. 'Oxford, Aug. 20. 'JOHN SHADOW.' Intus, et in cute novi. Pers. Sat iii. 30. I know thee to thy bottom; from within They, indeed, who can sink into sleep with their thoughts less calm or innocent than they should be, do but plunge themselves into scenes of guilt and misery; or they who are willing to purchase any midnight disquietudes for the satisfaction of a full meal, or a skin No. 587.] Monday, August 30, 1714. full of wine; these I have nothing to say to, as not knowing how to invite them to reflections full of shame and horror; but those that will observe this rule, I promise them they shall awake into health and cheerfulness, and be capable of recounting, with delight, those glorious moments, wherein the mind has been is unknown to me, I am apt to think it may be indulging itself in such luxury of thought, such the work of that ingenious gentleman, who noble hurry of imagination. Suppose a man's promised me, in the last paper, some extracts going supperless to bed should introduce him out of his noctuary. to the table of some great prince or other, where he shall be entertained with the noblest marks of honour and plenty, and do so much I was the other day reading the life of business after, that he shall rise with as good Mahomet. Among many other extravagana stomach for his breakfast as if he had fasted cies, I find it recorded of that impostor, that, all night long: or, suppose he should see his in the fourth year of his age, the angel Gabriel dearest friends remain all night in great dis- caught him up while he was among his playtresses, which he could instantly have disen-fellows; and, carrying him aside, cut open his gaged them from, could be have been content breast, plucked out his heart, and wrung out to have gone to bed without the other bottle; of it that black drop of blood, in which, say believe me these effects of fancy are no con- the Turkish divines, is contained the fomes temptible consequences of commanding or in- peccati. so that he was free from sin ever after. dulging one's appetite. I immediately said to myself, Though this SIR, I forbear recommending my advice upon story be a fiction, a very good moral may be many other accounts, until I hear how you drawn from it, would every man but apply and your readers relish what I have already it to himself, and endeavour to squeeze out said; among whom, if there be any that may of his heart whatever sins or ill qualities he pretend it is useless to them, because they finds in it. never dream at all, there may be others per- While my mind was wholly taken up with haps who do little else all day long. Were this contemplation, insensibly fell into a every one as sensible as I am what happens to most pleasing slumber, when methought two him in his sleep, it would be no dispute whether porters entered my chamber carrying a large we pass so considerable a portion of our time chest between them. After having set it in the condition of stocks and stones, or whe-down in the middle of the room, they departther the soul were not perpetually at work ed. I immediately endeavoured to open what upon the psinciple of thought. However, it is was sent me, when a shape, like that in which an honest endeavour of mine to persuade my we paint our angels, appeared before me, and countrymen to reap some advantage from so many unregarded hours, and as such you will encourage it. 'I shall conclude with giving you a sketch or two of my way of proceeding. If I have any business of conseqnence to do to-morrow, I am scarce dropt asleep tonight but I am in the midst of it; and when awake, I consider the whole procession of the affair, and get the advantage of the next day's experience before the sun has risen upon it. There is scarcely a great post but what I have some time or other been in; but my behaviour while I was master of a college pleases me so well, that whenever there is a province of that nature vacant, I intend to step in as soon as I can. forbade me. "Enclosed," said he, "are the hearts of several of your friends and acquaintance; but, before you can be qualified to see and animadvert on the failings of others, you must be pure yourself;" whereupon he drew out his incision knife, cut me open, took out my heart, and began to squeeze it. I was in a great confusion to see how many things, which I had always cherished as virtues, issued out of my heart on this occasion. In short after it had been thoroughly squeezed, it looked like an empty bladder; when the phantom, breathing a fresh particle of divine air into it, restored it safe to its former repository; and, having sewed me up, we began to examine the chest. The hearts were all enclosed in transpaI have done many things that would not parent phials, and preserved in liquor which pass examination, when I have had the art of looked liked spirits of wine. The first which flying or being invisible; for which reason Iam I cast my eye upon I was, afraid would have broke the glass which contained it. It shot up happiness to know the person to whom it beand down, with incredible swiftness, through longs." He then put into my hand a large the liquor in which it swam, and very fre-chrystal glass, that enclosed an heart, in quently bounced against the side of the phial. which, though I examined it with the utmost The fomes, or spot in the middle of it, was not nicety, I could not perceive any blemish. I large, but of a red fiery colour, and seemed made no scruple to affirm that it must be the to be the cause of these violent agitations. heart of Seraphina; and was glad, but not That," says my instructor, "is the heart of surprised, to find that it was so. "She is inTom Dreadnought, who behaved himself well deed," continued my guide, "the ornament, in the late wars, but has for these ten years as well as the envy, of her sex." At these last last past been aiming at some post of honour words he pointed to the hearts of several of to no purpose. He is lately retired into the her female acquaintance which lay in different country, where, quite choked up with spleen phials, and had very large spots in them, all and choler, he rails at better men than him- of a deep blue. "You are not to wonder," self, and will be for ever uneasy, because it says he, "that you see no spot in an heart is impossible he should think his merits suffi- whose innocence has been proof against all ciently rewarded." The next heart that I ex- the corruptions of a depraved age. If it has amined was remarkable for its smallness; it any blemish, it is too small to be discovered lay still at the bottom of the phial, and I could by human eyes. hardly perceive that it beat at all. The fomes 'I laid it down, and took up the hearts of was quite black, and had almost diffused itself other females, in all of which the fomes ran over the whole heart. "This," says my in-in several veins, which were twisted together, terpreter, "is the heart of Dick Gloomy, who and made a very perplexed figure. I asked never thirsted after any thing but money. Not- the meaning of it, and was told it represented withstanding all his endeavours, he is still deceit. poor. This has flung him into a most de- 'I should have been glad to have examined plorable state of melancholy and despair. the hearts of several of my acquaintance, He is a composition of envy and idleness; whom 1 knew to be particularly addicted to hates mankind, but gives thein their revenge drinking, gaming, intriguing, &c. but my interby being more uneasy to himself than to any preter told me, I must let that alone until anone else." other opportunity, and flung down the cover "The phial I looked upon next contained a of the chest with so much violence as immedilarge fair heart, which beat very strongly.ately awoke me.' The fomes or spot in it was exceedingly small; Dicitis, omnis in imbecilitate est et gratia, et caritas. Cicero. but I could not help observing that, which way No. 588.] Wednesday, September 1, 1714. soever I turned the phial, it always appeared uppermost, and in the strongest point of light "The heart you are examining," says my companion," belongs to Will Worthy. He has, indeed, a most noble soul, and is posses-ed in weakness. sed of a thousand good qualities. The speck which you discover is vanity." You pretend that all kindness and benevolence is found MAN may be considered in two views, as a reasonable and as a social being; capable of "Here," says the angel, "is the heart of Freelove, your intimate friend." "Freelove becoming himself either happy or miserable, and I," said I, "are at present very cold to and of contributing to the happiness or misery one another, and I do dot care for looking on of his fellow-creatures. Suitably to this douthe heart of a man which I fear is overcast ble capacity, the Contriver of human nature with ran cour." My teacher commanded me hath wisely furnished it with two principles of to look upon it; I did so, and, to my unspeak-action, self-love and benevolence; designed able surprise, found that a small swelling spot, one of them to render man wakeful to his own which at first took to be ill-will towards me, personal interest, the other to dispose him for was only passion; and that upon my nearer giving his utmost assistance to all engaged in inspection it wholly disappeared; upon which the same pursuit. This is such an account the phantom told me Freelove was one of the of our frame, so agreeable to reason, so much best-natured men alive. for the honour of our Maker, and the credit This," says my teacher, "is a female of our species, that it may appear somewhat heart of your acquaintance." I found the unaccountable what should induce men to refomes in it of the largest size, and of an hun-present human nature as they do, under chadred different colours, which were still vary-racters of disadvantage; or having drawn it ing every moment. Upon my asking to whom with a little sordid aspect, what pleasure they it belonged, I was informed that it was the can possibly take in such a picture. Do they heart of Coquetilla. reflect that it is their own; and, if we would 'I set it down, and drew out another, in believe themselves, is not more odious than the which I took the fomes at first sight to be very original? One of the first that talked in this small, but was amazed to find that, as I looked lofty strain of our nature was Epicurus. Benesteadfastly upon it, it grew still larger. It ficence, would his followers say, is all founded was the heart of Melissa, a noted prude, who in weakness; and, whatever be pretended, the lives the next door to me. kindness that passeth between men and men "I show you this," says the phantom, "be-is by every man directed to himself. This, it cause it is indeed a rarity, and you have the must be confessed, is of a piece with the rest. of that hopeful philosophy, which, having its affections and its understanding? Or could patched man up out of the four elements, at- a society of such creatures, with no other bottributes his being to chance, and derives all tom but self-love on which to maintain a comhis actions from an unintelligible declination merce, ever flourish? Reason, it is certain, of atoms. And for these glorious discoveries, would oblige every man to pursue the general the poet is beyond measure transported in happiness as the means to procure and estab the praises of his hero, as if he must needs be lish his own; and yet, if, besides this consisomething more than man, only for an en-deration, there were not a natural instinct endeavour to prove than man is in nothing prompting men to desire the welfare and sasuperior to beasts. In this school was Mr. tisfaction of others, self-love, in defiance of Hobbes instructed to speak after the same the admonitions of reason, would quickly run manner, if he did not rather draw his know- all things into a state of war and confusion. ledge from an observation of his own tem- As nearly interested as the soul is in the fate per; for he somewhere unluckily lays down of the body, our provident Creator saw it ne this as a rule, That from the similitudes of cessary, by the constant returns of hunger thoughts and passions of one man to the and thirst, those importunate appetites, to thoughts and passions of another, whosoever put it in mind of its charge: knowing that if looks into himself, and considers what he doth we should eat and drink no oftener than cold when he thinks, hopes, fears, &c. and upon abstracted speculation should put us upon these what grounds, he shall hereby read and know exercises, and then leave it to reason to prewhat are the thoughts and passions of all scribe the quantity, we should soon refine ourother men upon the like occasions. Now selves out of this bodily life. And, indeed, we will allow Mr. Hobbes to know best how it is obvious to remark, that we follow nothing he was inclined; but, in earnest, I should be heartily unless carried to it by inclinations heartily out of conceit with myself, if I thought which anticipate our reason, and, like a bias, myself of this unamiable temper, as he affirms, draw the mind strongly towards it. In order, and should have as little kindness for myself therefore, to establish a perpetual intercourse as for any body in the world. Hitherto I al- of benefits amongst mankind, their Maker ways imagined that kind and benevolent would not fail to give them this generous prepropensions were the original growth of the possession of benevolence, if, as I have said, heart of man; and, however checked and it were possible. And from whence can we overtopped by counter inclinations, that have go about to argue its impossibility? Is it insince sprung up within us, have still some consistent with self-love? Are their motions force in the worst of tempers, and a conside-contrary? No more than the diurnal rotation rable influence on the best. And, methinks, of the earth is opposed to its annual, or, its it is a fair step towards the proof of this, that motion round its own centre, which might be the most beneficent of all beings is he who improved as an illustration of self-love, to that hath an absolute fulness of perfection in him- which whirls it about the common centre of self; who gave existence to the universe, and the world, answering to universal benevoso cannot be supposed to want that which he lence. Is the force of self-love abated, or its communicated, without diminishing from the interest prejudiced, by benevolence? So far plenitude of his own power and happiness. from it, that benevolence, though a distinct The philosophers before mentioned have indeed principle, is extremely serviceable to self-love, done all that in them lay to invalidate this ar- and then doth most service when it is least degument; for, placing the gods in a state of signed. the most elevated blessedness, they describe But, to descend from reason to matter of them as selfish as we poor miserable mortals fact; the pity which arises on sight of persons can be, and shut them out from all concern in distress, and the satisfaction of mind which for mankind, upon the score of their having is the consequence of having removed them no need of us. But if He that sitteth in the into a happier state, are instead of a thousand heavens wants not us, we stand in continual arguments to prove such a thing as a disinteneed of him; and surely, next to the survey rested benevolence. Did pity proceed from a of the immense treasures of his own mind, reflection we make upon our liableness to the the most exalted pleasures he receives is from same ill accidents we see befall others, it were beholding millions of creatures, lately drawn nothing to the present purpose; but this is asout of the gulf of non-existence, rejoicing in signing an artificial cause of a natural passion, the various degrees of being and happiness and can by no means be admitted as a tolerimparted to them. And as this is the true, able account of it, because children and perthe glorious character of the Deity, so in for- sons most thoughtless about their own coudiming a reasonable creature he would not, if tion, and incapable of entering into the prospossible, suffer his image to pass out of his pects of futurity, feel the most violent touches hands unadorned with a resemblance of him- of compassion. And then, as to that charming self in this most lovely part of his nature. For delight which immediately follows the giving what complacency could a mind, whose love joy to another, as relieving his sorrow, and is, is as unbounded as his knowledge, have in a when the objects are numerous, and the kindwork so unlike himself; a creature that should ness of importance, really inexpressible, what be capable of knowing and conversing with a can this be owing to but consciousness of a vast circle of objects, and love none but him- man's having done something praise-worthy, self? What proportion would there be between and expressive of a great soul? Whereas, if in the head and the heart of such a creature, all this he only sacrificed to vanity and self |