Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

and kit, he must have been contented with a less

payment.

But the doctor we were talking of, adds to his long voyages the testimony of some people "that has been thirty years lame." When I received my paper, a sagacious fellow took one at the same time, and read until he came to the thirty years' confinement of his friends, and went off very well convinced of the doctor's sufficiency. You have many of these prodigious persons, who have had some extraordinary accident at their birth, or a great disaster in some part of their lives. Anything, however foreign from the business the people want of you, will convince them of your ability in that you profess. There is a doctor in Mouse Alley, near Wapping, who sets up for curing cataracts upon the credit of having, as his bill sets forth, lost an eye in the emperor's service. His patients come in upon this, and he shows his musterroll, which confirms that he was in his imperial majesty's troops; and he puts out their eyes with great

success.

Who would believe that a man should be a doctor for the cure of bursten children, by declaring that his father and grandfather were born bursten? But Charles Ingoltson, next door to the Harp in Barbican, has made a pretty penny by that asseveration. The generality go upon their first conception, and think no further; all the rest is granted. They take it that there is something uncommon in you, and give you credit for the rest. You may be sure it is upon that I go, when, sometimes, let it be to the purpose or not, I keep a Latin sentence in my front; and I was not a little pleased when I observed one of my readers say,

casting his eye on my twentieth paper, "More Latin still? What a prodigious scholar is this man?" But as I have here taken much liberty with this learned doctor, I must make up all I have said by repeating what he seems to be in earnest in, and honestly promise to those who will not receive him as a great man, to wit, "That from eight to twelve, and from two till six, he attends for the good of the public to bleed for threepence."

ADDISON.

(1672-1719.)

[JOHNSON's eulogium upon the prosc style of ADDISON has almost passed into a proverb. "Whoever," says he, "wishes to attain an English style, familiar but not coarse, and elegant but not ostentatious, must give his days and nights to the volumes of Addison." Addison wrote a Tragedy, under the title of Cato, which obtained considerable celebrity. He was the author also of several other poems. His fame however rests chiefly upon his prose writings and particularly upon his periodical Essays. He is, by general consent, the prince of English Essayists. The Spectator is regarded as a classic in the language, as much as the Faery Queen, or the Canterbury Tales. Notwithstanding its quiet and contemplative character, there is the fullest evidence that it created a remarkable change, amounting almost to a revolution, both in manners and taste. Some of these admirable papers are indeed criticisms upon absurdities which have since passed away. But very many of them are of a general character, and are read with as much interest and profit now as they were a century ago.]

The Vision of Mirza.

On the fifth day of the moon, which, according to the custom of my forefathers, I always keep holy, after having washed myself, and offered up my morn

ing devotions, I ascended the high hills of Bagdat, in order to pass the rest of the day in meditation and prayer. As I was here airing myself on the tops of the mountains, I fell into a profound contemplation on the vanity of human life; and passing from one thought to another, Surely, said I, man is but a shadow and life a dream. Whilst I was thus musing, I cast my eyes toward the summit of a rock that was not far from me, where I discovered one in the habit of a shepherd, with a little musical instrument in his hand. As I looked upon him, he applied it to his lips, and began to play upon it. The sound of it was exceedingly sweet, and wrought into a variety of tunes that were inexpressibly melodious, and altogether different from anything I had ever heard. They put me in mind of those heavenly airs that are played to the departed souls of good men upon their first arrival in paradise, to wear out the impressions of the last agonies, and qualify them for the pleasures of that happy place. My heart melted away in secret raptures.

I had been often told that the rock before me was the haunt of a genius, and that several had been entertained with music who had passed by it, but never heard that the musician had before made himself visible. When he had raised my thoughts by those transporting airs which he played, to taste the pleasures of his conversation, as I looked upon him like one astonished, he beckoned to me, and by the waving of his hand directed me to approach the place where I drew near with that reverence which is due to a superior nature; and as my heart was entirely subdued by the captivating strains I had heard,

he sat.

I fell down at his feet and wept. The genius smiled upon me with a look of compassion and affability that familiarised him to my imagination, and at once dispelled all the fears and apprehensions with which I approached him. He lifted me from the ground, and taking me by the hand, "Mirza," said he, "I have. heard thee in thy soliloquies; follow me."

66

He then led me to the highest pinnacle of the rock, and placing me on the top of it, "Cast thine eyes eastward," said he, "and tell me what thou seest." "I see," said I, "a huge valley, and a prodigious tide of water rolling through it." "The valley that thou seest," said he "is the vale of misery, and the tide of water that thou seest is part of the great tide of eternity." "What is the reason," said I, "that the tide I see rises out of a thick mist at one end, and again loses itself in a thick mist at the other?" "What thou seest," said he, "is that portion of eternity which is called Time, measured out by the sun, and reaching from the beginning of the world to its consummation. Examine now," said he, "this sea that is bounded with darkness at both ends, and tell me what thou discoverest in it." "I see a bridge," said I, "standing in the midst of the tide." "The bridge thou seest," said he, "is Human Life; consider it attentively." Upon a more leisurely survey of it, I found that it consisted of threescore and ten entire arches, with several broken arches, which added to those that were entire, made up the number to about a hundred. As I was counting the arches, the genius told me that this bridge consisted at first of a thousand arches, but that a great flood swept away the rest, and left the bridge in the ruinous condition I now beheld it.

"But tell me further," said he, "what thou discoverest on it." I see multitudes of people passing over it," said I, “and a black cloud hanging on each end of it.” As I looked more attentively, I saw several of the passengers dropping through the bridge into the great tide that flowed underneath it; and upon further examination, perceived there were innumerable trapdoors that lay concealed in the bridge, which the passengers no sooner trod upon, but that they fell through them into the tide, and immediately disappeared. These hidden pitfalls were set very thick at the entrance of the bridge, so that the throngs of people no sooner broke through the cloud, but many of them fell into them. They grew thinner towards the middle, but multiplied and lay closer together towards the end of the arches that were entire.

There were indeed some persons, but their number was very small, that continued a kind of hobbling march on the broken arches, but fell through one after another, being quite tired and spent with so long a walk.

I passed some time in the contemplation of this wonderful structure, that the great variety of objects which it presented. My heart was filled with a deep melancholy to see several dropping unexpectedly in the midst of mirth and jollity, and catching at everything that stood by them to save themselves. Some were looking up towards the heavens in a thoughtful posture, and, in the midst of a speculation, stumbled, and fell out of sight. Multitudes were very busy in the pursuit of bubbles that glittered in their eyes and danced before them; but often when they thought themselves within the reach of them, their footing

« AnteriorContinuar »