to gratify the senses and imagination: in
very many places it intimates to us all the
happiness which the understanding can
possibly receive in that state, where all
things shall be revealed to us, and we shall
know even as we are known; the raptures
of devotion, of divine love, the pleasure of
conversing with our blessed Saviour, with
an innumerable host of angels, and with the
spirits of just men made perfect, are like-
wise revealed to us in several parts of the
holy writings. There are also mentioned
those hierarchies or governments in which
the blessed shall be ranged one above an-
other, and in which we may be sure a great
part of our happiness will likewise consist:
for it will not be there as in this world,
where every one is aiming at power and
superiority; but, on the contrary, every one No. 601.] Friday, October 1, 1714.
will find that station the most proper for
him in which he is placed, and will proba-
bly think that he could not have been so
happy in any other station. These, and
many other particulars, are marked in di-
vine revelation, as the several ingredients
of our happiness in heaven, which all imply
such a variety of joys, and such a gratifica-
tion of the soul in all its different faculties,
as I have been here mentioning.

it a being capable of receiving so much
bliss. He would never have made such
faculties in vain, and have endowed us with
powers that were not to be exerted on such
objects as are suited to them. It is very
manifest, by the inward frame and constitu-
tion of our minds, that he has adapted them
to an infinite variety of pleasures and grati-
fications which are not to be met with in
this life. We should therefore at all times
take care that we do not disappoint this his
gracious purpose and intention towards us,
and make those faculties, which he formed
as so many qualifications for happiness and
rewards, to be the instruments of pain and
punishment.

Some of the rabbins tell us, that the cherubims are a set of angels who know most, and the seraphims a set of angels who love most. Whether this distinction be not altogether imaginary, I shall not here examine; but it is highly probable that, among the spirits of good men, there may be some who will be more pleased with the employment of one faculty than of another; and this perhaps according to those innocent and virtuous habits or inclinations which have here taken the deepest root.

I might here apply this consideration to the spirits of wicked men, with relation to the pain which they shall suffer in every one of their faculties, and the respective miseries which shall be appropriated to each faculty in particular. But, leaving this to the reflection of my readers, I shall conclude with observing how we ought to be thankful to our great Creator, and rejoice in the being which he has bestowed upon us, for having made the soul susceptible of pleasure by so many different ways. We see by what a variety of passages joy and gladness may enter into the thoughts of man; how wonderfully a human spirit is framed, to imbibe its proper satisfactions, and taste the goodness of its Creator. We may therefore look into ourselves with rapture and amazement, and cannot sufficiently express our gratitude to Him who has encompassed us with such a profusion of blessings, and opened in us so many capacities of enjoying them.

There cannot be a stronger argument that God has designed us for a state of future nappiness, and for that heaven which he has revealed to us, than that he has thus naturally qualified the soul for it, and made

• Ο ανθρωπος ευερνετος περυκως.
Antonin. Lib. ix.

Man is naturally a beneficent creature. THE following essay comes from a hand which has entertained my readers once before.

'Notwithstanding a narrow contracted temper be that which obtains most in the world, we must not therefore conclude this to be the genuine characteristic of mankind; because there are some who delight in nothing so much as in doing good, and receive more of their happiness at second hand, or by rebound from others, than by direct and immediate sensation. Now, though these heroic souls are but few, and to appearance so far advanced above the grovelling multi tude as if they were of another order of beings, yet in reality their nature is the same; moved by the same springs, and endowed with all the same essential qualities, only cleared, refined, and cultivated. Water is the same fluid body in winter and in summer; when it stands stiffened in ice as when it flows along in gentle streams, gladdening a thousand fields in its progress. It is a property of the heart of man to be diffusive: its kind wishes spread abroad over the face of the creation; and if there be those, as we may observe too many of them, who are all wrapped up in their own dear selves, without any visible concern for their species, let us suppose that their good nature is frozen, and by the prevailing force of some contrary quality, restrained in its operation. I shall therefore endeavour to assign some of the principal checks upon this generous propension of the human soul, which will enable us to judge whether, and by what method, this most useful principle may be unfettered, and restored to its native freedom of exercise.

The first and leading cause is an unhappy complexion of body. The heathens, ignorant of the true source of moral evil, generally charged it on the obliquity of matter, which, being eternal and independent, was incapable of change in any of its

duce a change in the body, which the others not doing, must be maintained the same way they are acquired, by the mere dint of industry, resolution, and vigilance,

"Homo qui erranti comiter monstrat viam,
Quasi lumen de suo lumine accendat, facit,
Nihilominus ipsi luceat, cum illi accenderit."

properties, even by the Almighty Mind, who, when he came to fashion it into a world of beings, must take it as he found it. This notion, as most others of theirs, is a composition of truth and error. That matter is Another thing which suspends the opeeternal, that, from the first union of a soul rations of benevolence, is the love of the to it, it perverted its inclinations, and that world; proceeding from a false notion_mer. the ill influence it hath upon the mind is have taken up, that an abundance of the not to be corrected by God himself, are all world is an essential ingredient in the hapvery great errors, occasioned by a truth as piness of life. Worldly things are of such evident, that the capacities and dispositions a quality as to lessen upon dividing, so that of the soul depend, to a great degree, on the more partners there are the less must the bodily femper. As there are some fools, fall to every man's private share. The others are knaves by constitution; and par- consequence of this is, that they look upon ticularly it may be said of many, that they one another with an evil eye, each imaginare born with an illiberal cast of mind; the ing all the rest to be embarked in an inmatter that composes them is tenacious as terest that cannot take place but to his birdlime; and a kind of cramp draws their prejudice. Hence are those eager compehands and their hearts together, that they titions for wealth or power; hence one man's never care to open them, unless to grasp at success becomes another's disappointment; more. It is a melancholy lot this; but at- and, like pretenders to the same mistress, tended with one advantage above theirs, to they can seldom have common charity for whom it would be as painful to forbear good their rivals. Not that they are naturally offices as it is to these men to perform them; disposed to quarrel and fall out; but it is that whereas persons naturally beneficent natural for a man to prefer himself to all often mistake instinct for virtue, by reason others, and to secure his own interest first. of the difficulty of distinguishing when one If that which men esteem their happiness rules them and when the other, men of the were, like the light, the same sufficient and opposite character may be more certain of unconfined good, whether ten thousand enthe motive that predominates in every ac-joy the benefit of it or but one, we should tion. If they cannot confer a benefit with see men's good-will and kind endeavours that ease and frankness which are neces- would be as universal. sary to give it a grace in the eye of the world, in requital, the real merit of what they do is enhanced by the opposition they surmount in doing it. The strength of their virtue is seen in rising against the weight of nature; and every time they have the resolution to discharge their duty, they make a sacrifice of inclination to conscience, 'But, unluckily, mankind agree in making which is always too grateful to let its fol- choice of objects which inevitably engage lowers go without suitable marks of its ap- them in perpetual differences. Learn, thereprobation. Perhaps the entire cure of this fore, like a wise man, the true estimate of ill quality is no more possible than of some things. Desire not more of the world than distempers that descend by inheritance. is necessary to accommodate you in passing However, a great deal may be done by a through it; look upon every thing beyond, course of beneficence obstinately persisted not as useless only, but burdensome. Place in; this, if any thing, being a likely way of not your quiet in things which you cannot establishing a moral habit, which shall be have without putting others beside them, somewhat of a counterpoise to the force of and thereby making them your enemies; mechanism. Only it must be remembered and which, when attained, will give you that we do not intermit, upon any pretence more trouble to keep than satisfaction in whatsoever, the custom of doing good, in the enjoyment. Virtue is a good of a nobler regard, if there be the least cessation, na-kind; it grows by communication; and so ture will watch the opportunity to return, little resembles earthly riches, that the and in a short time to recover the ground it more hands it is lodged in, the greater is was so long in quitting: for there is this dif- every man's particular stock. So, by proference between mental habits and such as pagating and mingling their fires, not only have their foundation in the body; that all the lights of a branch together cast a these last are in their nature more forcible more extensive brightness, but each single and violent; and, to gain upon us, need only light burns with a stronger flame. And not to be opposed; whereas the former must lastly, take this along with you, that if be continually reinforced with fresh sup- wealth be an instrument of pleasure, the plies, or they will languish and die away. greatest pleasure it can put into your power And this suggests the reason why good is that of doing good. It is worth considerhabits in general require longer time foring, that the organs of sense act within a their settlement than bad, and yet are sooner displaced; the reason is, that vicious habits, as drunkenness for instance, pro

"To direct a wanderer in the right way, is to light another man's candle by one's own, which loses none of its light by what the other gains."

narrow compass, and the appetites will soon say they have enough. Which of the two therefore is the happier man-he who,

confining all his regard to the gratification | talked of, though it be for the particular of his appetites, is capable but of short fits cock of his hat, or for prating aloud in the of pleasure-or the man who, reckoning boxes at a play, is in a fair way of being a himself a sharer in the satisfactions of others, favourite. I have known a young fellow especially those which come to them by his make his fortune by knocking down a conmeans, enlarges the sphere of his happi- stable; and may venture to say, though it ness? may seem a paradox, that many a fair one has died by a duel in which both the combatants have survived.

.

"The last enemy to benevolence I shall mention is uneasiness of any kind. A guilty or a discontented mind, a mind ruffled by 'About three winters ago, I took notice of ill-fortune, disconcerted by its own passions, a young lady at the theatre, who conceived soured by neglect, or fretting at disappoint- a passion for a notorious rake that headed ments, hath not leisure to attend to the ne-a party of catcalls; and am credibly incessity or unreasonableness of a kindness formed that the emperor of the Mohocks desired, nor a taste for those pleasures married a rich widow within three weeks which wait on beneficence, which demand after having rendered himself formidable in a calm and unpolluted heart to relish them. the cities of London and Westminster. The most miserable of all beings is the Scouring and breaking of windows have most envious; as, on the other hand, the done frequent execution upon the sex. But most communicative is the happiest. And there is no set of these male charmers who if you are in search of the seat of perfect make their way more successfully than love and friendship, you will not find it until those who have gained themselves a name you come to the region of the blessed, for intrigue, and have ruined the greatest where happiness, like a refreshing stream, number of reputations. There is a strange flows from heart to heart in an endless cir- curiosity in the female world to be acquaintculation, and is preserved sweet and un-ed with the dear man who has been loved tainted by the motion. It is old advice, if you have a favour to request of any one, to observe the softest times of address, when the soul, in a flash of good humour, takes a pleasure to show itself pleased. Persons conscious of their own integrity, satisfied with themselves and their condition, and full of confidence in a Supreme Being, and the hope of immortality, survey all about them with a flow of good-will; as trees which, like their soil, shoot out in expressions of kindness, and bend beneath their own precious load, to the hand of the gatherer. Now, if the mind be not thus easy, it is an infallible sign that it is not in its natural state: place the mind in its right posture, it will immediately discover its innate propension to beneficence.'

No. 602.] Monday, October 4, 1714.
Facit hoc illos hyacinthos

Juv. Sat. vi. ver. 110.

This makes them hyacinths.

THE following letter comes from a gentleman who I find is very diligent in making nis observations, which I think too material not to be communicated to the public.

'SIR,-In order to execute the office of the love casuist of Great Britain, with which I take myself to be invested by your paper of September 8, I shall make some farther observations upon the two sexes in general, beginning with that which always ought to have the upper hand. After having observed, with much curiosity, the accomplishments which are apt to captivate female hearts, I find that there is no person so irresistible as one who is a man of importance, provided it be in matters of no consequence. One who makes himself

by others, and to know what it is that makes him so agreeable. His reputation does more than half his business. ~ Every one that is ambitious of being a woman of fashion, looks out for opportunities of being in his company; so that, to use the old proverb, "When his name is up he may lie a-bed."

'I was very sensible of the great advantage of being a man of importance upon these occasions on the day of the king's entry, when I was seated in a balcony behind a cluster of very pretty country ladies, who had one of these showy gentlemen in the midst of them. The first trick I caught him at was bowing to several persons of quality whom he did not know; nay, he had the impudence to hem at a blue garter who had a finer equipage than ordinary; and seemed a little concerned at the impertinent huzzas of the mob, that hindered his friend from taking notice of him. There was indeed one who pulled off his hat to him; and, upon the ladies asking who it was, he told them it was a foreign minister that he had been very merry with the night before; whereas in truth it was the city common hunt,

'He was never at a loss when he was asked any person's name, though he seldom knew any one under a peer. He found dukes and earls among the aldermen, very good-natured fellows among the privycounsellors, with two or three agreeable old rakes among the bishops and judges.

In short, I collected from his whole discourse, that he was acquainted with every body, and knew nobody. At the same time, I am mistaken if he did not that day make more advances in the affections of his mistress, who sat near him, than he could have done in half a year's courtship.

'Ovid has finely touched this method of

making love, which I shall here give my | My fair one is gone, and my joys are all drown'd, reader in Mr. Dryden's translation.

* Mr. John Byron, author of the two papers on dreaming, No. 586 and 593.

"It has been said, on good authority, that the Phœbe of this pastoral was Joanna, the daughter of Dr. Bentley, and that it was written, not so much from affection to the daughter, as with the aim of securing the interest of the doctor, in promoting the author's views with regard to the fellowship for which, at the period of its composition, he was a candidate."

Drake's Essays, vol. iii. p. 6. Ansty made a most happy parody of these two lines m his Bath Guide.

"My time, my dear mother's, been wretchedly spent, With a gripe or a hickup wherever I went."

THE desire of knowing future events, is | along, and I found in myself a strong inclione of the strongest inclinations in the mind nation to mingle in the train. My eyes of man. Indeed, an ability of foreseeing quickly singled out some of the most probable accidents is what, in the language splendid figures. Several in rich caftans of men, is called wisdom and prudence: but, and glittering turbans bustled through the not satisfied with the light that reason holds throng, and trampled over the bodies of out, mankind hath endeavoured to penetrate those they threw down; until, to my great more compendiously into futurity. Magic, surprise, I found that the great pace they oracles, omens, lucky hours, and the various went only hastened them to a scaffold or arts of superstition, owe their rise to this a bow-string. Many beautiful damsels on powerful cause. As this principle is founded the other side moved forward with great in self-love, every man is sure to be solici- gayety; some danced until they fell all tous in the first place about his own fortune, along; and others painted their faces until the course of his life, and the time and man- they lost their noses. A tribe of creatures ner of his death. with busy looks falling into a fit of laughter at the misfortunes of the unhappy ladies, I turned my eyes upon them. They were each of them filling his pockets with gold and jewels, and when there was no room left for more, these wretches, looking round with fear and horror, pined away before my face with famine and discontent.

If we consider that we are free agents, we shall discover the absurdity of such inquiries. One of our actions, which we might have performed or neglected, is the cause of another that succeeds it, and so the whole chain of life is linked together. Pain, poverty, or infamy, are the natural product of vicious and imprudent acts; as the contrary blessings are of good ones; so that we cannot suppose our lot to be determined without impiety. A great enhancement of pleasure arises from its being unexpected; and pain is doubled by being foreseen. Upon all these, and several other accounts, we ought to rest satisfied in this portion bestowed on us; to adore the hand that hath fitted every thing to our nature, and hath not more displayed his goodness in our knowledge than in our ignorance.

The prospect of human misery struck me dumb for some miles. Then it was, that to disburden my mind, I took pen and ink, and did every thing that has since happened under my office as Spectator. While I was employing myself for the good of mankind, I was surprised to meet with very unsuitable returns from my fellowcreatures. Never was poor author so beset by pamphleteers, who sometimes marched directly against me, but oftener shot at me from strong bulwarks, or rose up suddenly It is not unworthy observation, that super- in ambush. They were of all characters stitious inquiries into future events prevail and capacities, some with ensigns of digmore or less, in proportion to the improve-nity, and others in liveries;* but what most ment of liberal arts and useful knowledge surprised me was to see two or three in in the several parts of the world. Accord-black gowns among my enemies. It was no ingly, we find that magical incantations remain in Lapland; in the more remote parts of Scotland they have their second sight; and several of our own countrymen have seen abundance of fairies. In Asia this credulity is strong; and the greatest part of refined learning there consists in the knowledge of amulets, talismans, occult numbers, and the like.

When I was at Grand Cairo, I fell into the acquaintance of a good-natured mussulman, who promised me many good offices which he designed to do me when he became the prime minister, which was a fortune bestowed on his imagination by a doctor very deep in the curious sciences. At his repeated solicitations I went to learn my destiny of this wonderful sage. For a small sum I had his promise, but was desired to wait in a dark apartment until he had run through the preparatory ceremonies. Having a strong propensity, even then, to dreaming, I took a nap upon the sofa where I was placed, and had the following vision, the particulars whereof I picked up the other day among my papers.

I found myself in an unbounded plain, where methought the whole world, in several habits and with different tongues, was assembled. The multitude glided swiftly

small trouble to me, sometimes to have a man come up to me with an angry face, and reproach me for having lampooned him, when I had never seen or heard of him in my life. With the ladies it was otherwise: many became my enemies for not being particularly pointed out; as there were others who resented the satire which they imagined I had directed against them. My great comfort was in the company of half a dozen friends, who, I found since, were the club which I have so often mentioned in my papers. I laughed often at Sir Roger in my sleep, and was the more diverted with Will Honeycomb's gallantries, (when we afterwards became acquainted,) because I had foreseen his marriage with a farmer's daughter. The regret which arose in my mind upon the death of my companions, my anxieties for the public, and the many calamities still fleeting before my eyes, made me repent my curiosity; when the magician entered the room, and awakened me, by telling me (when it was too late,) that he was just going to begin.

*This is pointed at the hirelings employed by the swift, Prior, Atterbury, Dr. Friend, Dr. King, Mr. Oldsministry in the last years of the queen's reign; Dr. worth, Mrs. Manley, &c