"To tell you the plain truth, I know no pleasure but in being admired, and have yet never failed of attaining the approbation of the man whose regard I had a mind to. You see all the men who make a figure in the world (as wise a look as they are pleased to put upon the matter) are moved by the same vanity as I am. What is there in ambition, but to make other people's wills depend upon yours? This indeed is not to be aimed at by one who has a genius no higher than to think of being a very good housewife in a country gentleman's family. The care of poultry and pigs are great enemies to the countenance: the vacant look of a fine lady is not to be preserved, if she admits any thing to take up her thoughts but her own dear person. But I interrupt you too long from your cares, and myself from my conquests. I am, madam, your most humble servant.'

'Give me leave, Mr. Spectator, to add her friend's answer to this epistle, who is a very discreet ingenious woman.

"DEAR GATTY, I take your raillery in very good part, and am obliged to you for the free air with which you speak of your own gayeties. But this is but a barren superficial pleasure; for, indeed, Gatty, we are made for man; and in serious sadness I must tell you, whether you yourself know it or no, all these gallantries tend to no other end but to be a wife and a mother as fast as you can. I am, madam, your most obedient servant." T.

Of all the monstrous passions and opinions which have crept into the world, there is none so wonderful as that those who profess the common name of Christians, should pursue each other with rancour and hatred for difference in their way of following the example of their Saviour. It seems so natural that all who pursue the steps of any leader should form themselves after his manner, that it is impossible to account for effects so different from what we might expect from those who profess themselves followers of the highest pattern VOL. II.

36

The massacres to which the church of Rome has animated the ordinary people, are dreadful instances of the truth of this observation; and whoever reads the history of the Irish rebellion, and the cruelties which ensued thereupon, will be sufficiently convinced to what rage poor ignorants may be worked up by those who profess holiness and become incendiaries, and, under the dispensation of grace, promote evils abhorrent to nature.

The subject and catastrophe, which deserve so well to be remarked by the protestant world, will, I doubt not, be considered by the reverend and learned prelate that preaches to-morrow before many of the descendants of those who perished on that lamentable day, in a manner suitable to the occasion, and worthy his own great virtue and eloquence.

*

I shall not dwell upon it any farther, but only transcribe out of a little tract, called the Christian Hero, published in 1701, nowned hero, William III. who rescued that nation from the repetition of the same disasters. His late majesty, of glorious memory, and the most Christian king, are considered at the conclusion of that treatise as heads of the protestant and Romancatholic world in the following manner.

what I find there in honour of the re

'There were not ever, before the entrance of the Christian name into the world, men who have maintained a more renowned carriage, than the two great rivals who possess the full fame of the, present age, and will be the theme and examination of the future. They are exactly formed by nature for those ends to which heaven seems to have sent them amongst us. Both animated with a restless desire of glory, but pursue it by different means, and with different motives. To one it consists in an extensive undisputed empire over his subjects, to the other in their rational and voluntary obedience. Ones happiness is founded in their want of power, the others in their want of desire to oppose him. The one enjoys the summit of fortune with the luxury of a Persian, the other with the moderation of a Spartan. One is made to oppress, the other to relieve the oppressed. The one is satisfied with the pomp and ostentation of power to prefer and debase his inferiors; the other delighted only with the cause and foundation of it to cherish and protect them. To

* Steele, who was never insensible to his own faults

and follies, but who never had courage to correct them, is said to have written this little tract, while plunged in all the dissipation of a soldier's life, to serve the purposes of a private manual, and to have published it under the hope that it would compel him to something like an imitation of the character he had drawn; unfortunately for him, it failed of its effect, and served but to make his errors the more conspicuous.

one therefore religion is but a convenient disguise, to the other a vigorous motive of

action.

For, without such ties of real and solid honour, there is no way of forming a monarch, but after the Machiavelian scheme, by which a prince must seem to have all virtues, but really be master of none; he is to be liberal, merciful, and just, only as they serve his interests; while, with the noble art of hypocrisy, empire would be to be extended, and new conquests be made by new devices, by which prompt address his creatures might insensibly give law in the business of life, by leading men in the entertainment of it.

'Thus, when words and show are apt to pass for the substantial things they are only to express, there would need no more to enslave a country but to adorn a court; for while every man's vanity makes him believe himself capable of becoming luxury, enjoyments are a ready bait for sufferings, and the hopes of preferment invitations to servitude; which slavery would be coloured with all the agreements, as they call it, imaginable. The noblest arts and artists, the finest pens and most elegant minds, jointly employed to set it off with the various embellishments of sumptuous entertainments, charming assemblies, and polished discourses, and those apostate abilities of men, the adored monarch might profusely and skilfully encourage, while they flatter his virtue, and gild his vice at so high a rate, that he, without scorn of the one, or love of the other, would alternately and occasionally use both; so that his bounty should support him in his rapines, his mercy in his cruelties.

Nor is it to give things a more severe look, than is natural, to suppose such must be the consequences of a prince's having no other pursuit than that of his own glory; for if we consider an infant born into the world, and beholding itself the mightiest thing in it, itself the present admiration and future prospect of a fawning people, who profess themselves great or mean, according to the figure he is to make amongst them, what fancy would not be debauched to believe they were but what they professed themselves—his mere creatures; and use them as such by purchasing with their lives a boundless renown, which he, for want of a more just prospect, would place in the number of his slaves, and the extent of his territories? Such undoubtedly would be the tragical effects of a prince's living with no religion, which are not to be sur passed but by his having a false one.

If ambition were spirited with zeal, what would follow, but that his people should be converted into an army, whose swords can make right in power, and solve controversy in belief? And if men should be stiff-necked to the doctrine of that visible church, let them be contented with an oar and a chain, in the midst of stripes and anguish, to con

template on Him "whose yoke is easy and whose burden is light."

With a tyranny begun on his own subjects, and indignation that others draw their breath independent of his frown or smile, why should he not proceed to the seizure of the world? And if nothing but the thirst of sway were the motive of his actions, why should treatises be other than mere words, or solemn national compacts be any thing but a halt in the march of that army, who are never to lay down their arms until all men are reduced to the necessity of hanging their lives on his wayward will; who might supinely, and at leisure, expiate his own sins by other men's sufferings, while he daily meditates new slaughter and conquests?

For mere man, when giddy with unbridled power, is an insatiate idol, not to be appeased with myriads offered to his pride, which may be puffed up by the adulation of a base and prostrate world into an opinion that he is something more than human, by being something less: and, alas, what is there that mortal man will not believe of himself, when complimented with the attributes of God? He can then conceive thoughts of a power as omnipresent as his. But, should there be such a foe of mankind now upon earth, have our sins so far provoked Heaven, that we are left utterly naked to his fury? Is there no power, no leader, no genius, that can conduct and animate us to our death, or to our defence? Yes; our great God never gave one to reign by his permission, but he gave to another also to reign by his grace.

'All the circumstances of the illustrious life of our prince seem to have conspired to make him the check and bridle of tyranny; for his mind has been strengthened and confirmed by one continued struggle, and Heaven has educated him by adversity to a quick sense of the distresses and miseries of mankind, which he was born to redress. In just scorn of the trivial glories and light ostentations of power, that glorious instrument of Providence moves, like that, in a steady, calm, and silent course, independent either of applause or calumny; which renders him, if not in a political, yet in a moral, a philosophic, an heroic, and a Christian sense, an absolute monarch: who, satisfied with this unchangeable, just, and ample glory, must needs turn all his regards from himself to the service of others; for he begins his enterprise with his own share in the success of them; for integrity bears in itself its reward, nor can that which depends not on event, ever know disappointment.

With the undoubted character of a glorious captain, and (what he much more values than the most splendid titles,) that of a sincere and honest man, he is the hope and stay of Europe, an universal good; not to be engrossed by us only, for distant potentates implore his friendship, and injured

kindness to the old house-dog, that you know my poor master was so fond of. It would have gone to your heart to have heard the moans the dumb creature made on the day of my master's death. He has never joyed himself since; no more has any of us. It was the melancholiest day for the poor people that ever happened in Worcestershire. This being all from, honoured sir, your most sorrowful servant,

EDWARD BISCUIT.

'P. S. My master desired, some weeks before he died, that a book which comes up to you by the carrier, should be given to Sir Andrew Freeport in his name.'

an afternoon with great pleasure to yourself and to the public. It belongs to the church of Stebon-Heath, commonly called Stepney. Whether or no it be that the people. of that parish have a particular genius for an epitaph, or that there be some poet among them who undertakes that work by the great, I cannot tell; but there are more remarkable inscriptions in that place than in any other I have met with; and I may say, without vanity, that there is not a genstones than myself, my studies having laid tleman in England better read in tombvery much in church-yards. I shall beg leave to send you a couple of epitaphs, for a sample of those I have just now mentioned. They are written in a different manner; the first being in the diffused and luxuriant, the second in the close contracted style. The first has much of the simple and pathetic; the second is something light, but nervous. first is thus:

No. 518.] Friday, October 24, 1712.

-Miserum est alienæ incumbere famæ,
Ne collapsa ruant subductis recta columnis.
Juv. Sat. viii. 76.

"Tis poor relying on another's fame;
For, take the pillars but away, and all
The superstructure must in ruins fall.-Stepney.

THIS being a day of business with me, I must make the present entertainment like a treat at a house-warming, out of such presents as have been sent me by my guests. The first dish which I serve up is a letter come fresh to my hand.

'MR. SPECTATOR,-It is with inexpressible sorrow that I hear of the death of good Sir Roger, and do heartily condole with you upon so melancholy an occasion. I think you ought to have blackened the edges of a paper which brought us so ill news, and to have had it stamped likewise in black. It is expected of you that you should write his epitaph, and, if possible, fill his place in the club with as worthy and diverting a member. I question not but you will receive many recommendations from the public of such as will appear candidates for that post.

Here Thomas Sapper lies interr'd. Ah why!
Born in New England, did in London die;
Was the third son of eight, begot upon
His mother Martha, by his father John.
Much favour'd by his prince he 'gan to be,
But nipt by death at th' age of twenty-three.
Fatal to him was that we small-pox name,
By which his mother and two brethren came
Also to breathe their last, nine years before,
And now have left their father to deplore
The loss of all his children, with his wife,
Who was the joy and comfort of his life.”
'The second is as follows:

"Here lies the body of Daniel Saul,
Spittlefields weaver, and that's all."

'I will not dismiss you whilst I am upon this subject, without sending a short epitaph which I once met with, though I cannot possibly recollect the place. The thought of it is serious, and in my opinion the finest that I ever met with upon this occasion. You know, sir, it is usual, after having told us the name of the person who lies interred, to launch out into his praises. This epitaph takes a quite contrary turn, having been made by the person himself some time before his death.

"Hic jacet R. C. in expectatione diei supremi. Qualis erat dies iste indicabit.”

"Here lieth R. C. in expectation of the last day. What sort of a man he was, that day will discover."

'I am, sir, &c.'

The following letter is dated from Cambridge.

but the youth of this place, having not yet formed themselves by conversation, and the knowledge of the world, give their limbs and features their full play.

'As you have considered human nature in all its lights, you must be extremely well apprized, that there is a very close correspondence between the outward and the inward man; that scarce the least dawning, the least parturiency towards a thought can be stirring in the mind of man, without producing a suitable revolution in his exteriors, which will easily discover itself to an adept in the theory of the phiz. Hence it is that the intrinsic worth and merit of a son of Alma Mater is ordinarily calculated from the cast of his visage, the contour of his person, the mechanism of his dress, the disposition of his limbs, the manner of his gait and air, with a number of circumstances of equal consequence and information. The practitioners in this art often make use of a gentleman's eyes to give them light into the posture of his brains; take a handle from his nose to judge of the size of his intellects; and interpret the overmuch visibility and pertness of one ear as an infallible mark of reprobation, and a sign the owner of so saucy a member fears neither God nor man. In conformity to this scheme, a contracted brow, a lumpish downcast look, a sober sedate pace, with both hands dangling quiet and steady in lines exactly parallel to each lateral pocket of his galligaskins, is logic, metaphysics, and mathematics, in perfection. So likewise the belles-lettres, are typified by a saunter in the gait, a fall of one wing of the peruke backward, an insertion of one hand in the fob, and a negligent swing of the other, with a pinch of right fine Barcelona between finger and thumb, a due quantity of the same upon the upper lip, and a noddle case loaden with pulvil. Again, a grave solemn stalking pace is heroic poetry and politics; an unequal one, a genius for the ode, and the modern ballad; and an open breast, with an audacious display of the Holland shirt, is construed a fatal tendency to the art military.

I might be much larger upon these hints, but I know whom I write to. If you can graft any speculation upon them, or turn them to the advantage of the persons concerned in them, you will do a work very becoming the British Spectator, and oblige, your very humble servant,

TOM TWEER.'

No. 519.] Saturday, October 25, 1712. Inde hominum pecudumque genus, vit que volantum,

Et quæ marmoreo fert monstra sub æquore pontus. Virg. Æn. vi. 728. Hence men and beasts the breath of life obtain, And birds of air, and monsters of the main.

Dryden.

THOUGH there is a great deal of pleasure

which I mean that system of bodies into which nature has so curiously wrought the mass of dead matter, with the several relations which those bodies bear to one another; there is still, methinks, something more wonderful and surprising in contemplations on the world of life, by which I mean all those animals with which every part of the universe is furnished. The material world is only the shell of the Universe, the world of life are its inhabitants. If we consider those parts of the material world which lie the nearest to us, and are therefore subject to our observation and inquiries, it is amazing to consider the infinity of animals with which it is stocked. Every part of matter is peopled; every green leaf swarms with inhabitants. There is scarce a single humour in the body of a man, or of any other animal, in which our glasses do not discover myriads of living creatures. The surface of animals is also covered with other animals, which are in the same manner the basis of other animals that live upon it; nay, we find in the most solid bodies, as in marble itself, innumerable cells and cavities that are crowded with such imperceptible inhabitants as are too little for the naked eye to discover. On the other hand, if we look into the more bulky parts of nature, we see the seas, lakes, and rivers, teeming with numberless kinds of living creatures. We find every mountain and marsh, wilderness and wood, plenti fully stocked with birds and beasts; and every part of matter affording proper ne cessaries and conveniencies for the liveli hood of multitudes which inhabit it.

The author of the Plurality of Worlds draws a very good argument from this consideration for the peopling of every planet; as indeed it seems very probable, from the analogy of reason, that if no part of matter, which we are acquainted with, lies waste and useless, those great bodies which are at such a distance from us, should not be desert and unpeopled, but rather that they should be furnished with beings adapted to their respective situations.

Existence is a blessing to those beings only which are endowed with perception; and is in a manner thrown away upon dead matter, any farther than as it is subservient to beings which are conscious of their existence. Accordingly we find, from the bodies which lie under our observation, that matter is only made as the basis and support of animals, and that there is no more of the one than what is necessary for the existence of the other.

Infinite goodness is of so communicative a ferring of existence upon every degree of nature, that it seems to delight in the conperceptive being. As this is a speculation which I have often pursued with great pleasure to myself, I shall enlarge farther