SPATIO BREVI

HOR. OD. II. L. I. v. 6.

WE

neca,

and yet have much more than we know what to do with. Our lives,' fays he, are ipent either in doing nothing at all, or in doing nothing that we ought to do: we are always complaining our days are few, and acting as though there would be no end of them. That noble philofopher has defcribed our inconfiftency with our felves in this particular, by all those various turns of expreffion and thought which are peculiar to his writings.

I often confider mankind as wholly inconfiftent with itself in a point that bears fome affinity to the former. Though we feem grieved at the shortnefs of life in general, we are wifhing every period of it at an end. The minor longs to be at age, then to be a man of business, then to make up an estate, then to arrive at honours, then to retire. Thus, although the whole of life is allowed by every one to be fhort, the feveral divifions of it appear long and tedious. We are for lengthening our fpan in general, but would fain contract the parts of which it is compofed. The ufurer would be very well satisfied to have all the time annihilated that lies between the prefent moment and next quarter-day. The politician would be contented to lose three years in his life, could he place things in the pofture which he fancies they will ftand in after fuch a revolution of time. The lover would be glad to strike out of his exiftence all the moments that are to pafs away before the happy meeting. Thus, as fast as our time runs, we should be very glad in most parts of our lives, that it ran much fafter than it does. Several hours of the day hang upon our hands, azy we with away whole years; and tra

CREECH.

vel through time as through a country

which we would fain hurry over, that we may arrive at thofe feveral little fettlements or imaginary points of rest which are difperfed up and down in it.

If we divide the life of moft men into twenty parts, we shall find that at leak nineteen of them are mere gaps and chafms, which are neither filled with pleasure nor bufinefs. I do not however include in this calculation the life of thofe men who are in a perpetual hurry of affairs, but of thofe only who are not always engaged in fcenes of action; and I hope I fhall not do an unacceptable piece of service to these perfons if I point out to them certain methods for the filling up their empty fpaces of life. The methods I shall propofe to them are as follow.

The first is the exercise of virtue in the most general acceptation of the word. That particular fcheme which comprehends the focial virtues, may give employment to the most induftrious temper, and find a man in bufinefs more than the most active station of life. To advife the ignorant, relieve the needy, comfort the afflicted, are duties that fall in our way almost every day of our lives. A man has frequent opportunities of mitigating the fierceness of a party; of doing justice to the character of a deferving man; of foftening the envious, quieting the angry, and rectifying the prejudiced; which are all of them employments fuited to a reasonable nature, and bring great fatisfaction to the perfon who can bufy himself in them with difcretion.

There is another kind of virtue that may find employment for thofe retired hours in which we are altogether left to ourselves, and deftitute of company and

2 A 2 converfation;

conversation; I mean that intercourfe and communication which every reafonable creature ought to maintain with the great Author of his being. The man who lives under an habitual fenfe of the Divine prefence keeps up a perpetual chearfulness of temper, and enjoys every moment the fatisfaction of thinking himfelf in company with his dearest and beft of friends. The time never lies heavy upon him; it is impoffible for him to be alone. His thoughts and paffions are the most bufied at fuch hours when those of other men are the moft unactive; he no fooner fteps out of the world but his heart burns with devotion, fwells with hope, and triumphs in the confcioufnefs of that prefence which every where furrounds him; or, on the contrary, pours out it's fears, it's forrows, it's apprehenfions, to the great Supporter of it's existence.

I have here only confidered the neceffity of a man's being virtuous, that he may have fomething to do; but if we confider further, that the exercife of virtue is not only an amufement for the time it lafts, but that it's influence extends to thofe parts of our existence which lie beyond the grave, and that our whole Eternity is to take it's colour from those hours which we here employ in virtue or in vice, the argument redoubles upon us, for putting in practice this method of paling away our time.

When a man has but a little flock to improve, and has opportunities of turning it all to good account, what shall we think of him if he fuffers nineteen parts of it to lie dead, and perhaps employs even the twentieth to his ruin or difadvantage? But because the mind cannot be always in it's fervours, nor trained up to a pitch of virtue, it is ncceflary to find out proper employments for it in it's relaxations.

The next method therefore that I would propofe to fill up our time, fhould be useful and innocent diverfions. I -muft confefs I think it is below reafonable creatures to be altogether converfant in fuch diverfions as are merely innocent, and have nothing elfe to recommend them, but that there is no hurt in them. Whether any kind of gaming has even thus much to lay for itself, I shall not determine; but I think it is very wonderful to fee perfons of the beft fente palling away a dozen hours

together in fhuffling and dividing a pack of cards, with no other converfation but what is made up of a few game phrafes, and no other ideas but thofe of black or red fpots ranged together in different figures. Would not a man laugh to hear any one of this fpecies complaining that life is fhort?

The ftage might be made a perpetual fource of the most noble and useful entertainments, were it under proper regulations.

But the mind never unbends itself fo agreeably as in the converfation of a well-chofen friend. There is indeed no bleffing of life that is any way compara. ble to the enjoyment of a difcreet and virtuous friend. It eafes and unloads the mind, clears and improves the underftanding, engenders thoughts and knowledge, animates virtue and good refolution, foothes and allays the paffions, and finds employment for mott of the vacant hours of life.

Next to fuch an intimacy with a particular perfon, one would endeavour after a more general converfation with fuch as are able to entertain and improve those with whom they converfe, which are qualifications that feldom go afunder.

There are many other useful amufements of life, which one would endeavour to multiply, that one might on all occafions have recourfe to fomething rather than fuffer the mind to lie idle, or run adrift with any paffion that chances to rife in it.

A man that has a tafte in mufic, painting, or architecture, is like one that has another fense when compared with fuch as have no relish of thofe arts. The florist, the planter, the gardener, the husbandman, when they are only as accomplishments to the man of fortune, are great reliefs to a country life, and many ways useful to those who are poffeffed of them.

But of all the diverfions of life, there is none fo proper to fill up it's empty fpaces, as the reading of ufeful and entertaining authors. But this I fhail only touch upon, because it in fome meafure interferes with the third method, which I fhall propofe in another paper, for the employment of our dead unactive bodies, and which I fhall only mention in general to be the pursuit of knowledge.

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N. XCIV.

HOC EST

MART. EPIG. XXIII. L. 10.

HE lat method which I propofed

Tin my Saturday's paper, for fill

ing up thole empty spaces of life which are fo tedious and burdenfome to idle people, is the employing ourselves in the purfuit of knowledge. I remember Mr. Boyle, fpeaking of a certain mineral, tells us, that a man may confume his whole life in the study of it, without arriving at the knowledge of all it's qualities. The truth of it is, there is not a single science, or any branch of it, that might not furnish a man with bufinefs for life, though it were much longer than it is.

I fhall not here engage on those beaten fubjects of the usefulness of knowledge, nor of the pleafure and perfection it gives the mind, nor on the methods of attaining it, nor recommend any particular branch of it, all which have been the topics of many other writers; but fhall indulge myself in a fpeculation that is more uncommon, and may therefore perhaps be more entertaining.

I have before fhewn how the unemployed parts of life appear long and tedious, and fhall here endeavour to thew how those parts of life which are exercifed in ftudy, reading, and the purfuits of knowledge, are long but not tedious, and by that means difcover a method of lengthening our lives, and at the fame time of turning all the parts of them to our advantage.

Mr. Locke obferves, that we get the idea of time, or duration, by reflecting on that train of ideas which fucceed one another in our minds: that for this reafon when we fleep foundly without dreaming, we have no perception of time, or the length of it, whilst we fleep; and that the moment wherein we leave off to think, until the moment we begin to think again, feems to have no diftance. To which the author adds And fo I doubt not but it would be to a waking man, if it were poffible for him to keep only one idea in his mind, without variation, and the

We might carry this thought further, and confider a man as, on one side, fhortening his time by thinking on nothing, or but a few things; fo, on the other, as lengthening it, by employing his thoughts on many fubjects, or by entertaining a quick and conftant fucceffion of ideas. Accordingly Monfieur Mallebranche, in his Enquiry after Truth, which was published several years before Mr. Locke's Essay on Human Understanding, tells us, that it is poffible fome creatures may think half an hour as long as we do a thousand years; or look upon that space of duration which we call a minute, as an hour, a week, a month, or a whole age.

This notion of Monfieur Mallebranche, is capable of fome little explanation from what I have quoted out of Mr. Locke; for if our notion of time is produced by our reflecting on the fucceffion of ideas in our mind, and this fucceffion may be infinitely accelerated or retarded, it will follow, that different beings may have different notions of the fame parts of duration, according as their ideas, which we fuppofe are equally diftin&t in each of them, follow one another in a greater or lefs degree of rapidity.

There is a famous paffage in the Alcoran, which looks as if Mahomet had been poffeffed of the notion we are now fpeaking of. It is there faid, that the angel Gabriel took Mahomet out of his bed one morning to give him a fight of all things in the feven heavens, in paradife, and in hell, which the prophet took a diftin&t view of; and after having held ninety thoufand conferences

with God, was brought back again to his bed. All this, fays the Alcoran, was tranfacted in fo finall a fpace of time, that Mahomet at his return found his bed ftill warm, and took up an earthen pitcher, which was thrown down at the very inftant that the angel Gabriel carried him away, before the water was all spilt.

There is a very pretty story in the Turkish Tales which relates to this paffage of that famous impoftor, and bears fome affinity to the fubject we are now upon. A fultan of Egypt, who was an infidel, ufed to laugh at this circumftance in Mahomet's life, as what was altogether impoffible and abfurd: but converfing one day with a great doctor in the law, who had the gift of working miracles, the doctor told him he would quickly convince him of the truth of this paffage in the hiftory of Mahomet, if he would confent to do what he fhould defire of him. Upon this the fultan was directed to place himfelf by an huge tub of water, which he did accordingly; and as he stood by the tub amidst a circle of his great men, the holy man bid him plunge his head into the water, and draw it up again: the king accordingly thruit his head into the water, and at the fame time found himself at the foot of a mountain on a fea-fhore. The king immediately began to rage against his doctor for this piece of treachery and witchcraft; but at length, knowing it was in vain to be angry, he fet himself to think on proper methods for getting a livelihood in this ftrange country. Accordingly he applied himfelf to fome people whom he faw at work in a neighbouring wood: thefe people conducted him to a town that stood at a little diftance from the wood, where, after fome adventures, he married a woman of great beauty and fortune. He lived with this woman to long until he had by her feven fons and feven daughters; he was afterwards reduced to great want, and forced to think of plying in the ftreets as a porter for his livelihood. One day as he was walking alone by the fea-ĥide, being feized with many melancholy reflections upon his former and his prefent ftate of life, which had raised a fit of devotion in him, he threw off his cloaths with a defign to wash himself, according to the cuttom of the Mahometans, before he faid his prayers.

After his firft plunge into the fea, he no fooner raised his head above the water but he found himfelf standing by the fide of the tub, with the great men of his court about him, and the holy man at his fide. He immediately upbraided his teacher for having fent him on fuch a courfe of adventures, and betrayed him into fo long a state of mifery and fervitude; but was wonderfully furprised when he heard that the ftate he talked of was only a dream and delufion; that he had not ftirred from the place where he then flood; and that he had only dipped his head into the water, and immediately taken it out again.

The Mahometan doctor took this occafion of inftructing the fultan, that nothing was impoffible with God; and that He, with whom a thousand years are but as one day, can, if he pleases, make a single day, nay a fingle moment, appear to any of his creatures as a thoufand years.

I thall leave my reader to compare thefe Eastern fables with the notions of thofe two great philofophers whom I have quoted in this paper; and fhall only, by way of application, defire him to confider how we may extend life beyond it's natural dimenfions, by applying ourfelves diligently to the pursuits of knowledge.

The hours of a wife man are lengthened by his ideas, as those of a fool are by his paflions; the time of the one is long, because he does not know what to do with it; fo is that of the other, becaufe he diftinguishes every moment of it with ufeful or amufing thoughts; or in other words, becaufe the one is always withing it away, and the other always enjoying it.

How different is the view of paft life, in the man who is grown old in knowledge and wifdom, from that of him who is grown old in ignorance and folly! The latter is like the owner of a barren country that fills his eye with the profpect of naked hills and plains, which produce nothing either profitable or ornamental; the other beholds a beautiful and fpacious landskip divided into delightful gardens, green meadows, fruitful fields, and can fcarce caft his eye on a single spot of his poffeffions, that is not covered with fome beautiful plant or flower.

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N° XCV.

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not but think the good fenfe of them will be as agreeable to the town as any thing I could fay either on the topics they treat of, or any other. They both allude to former papers of mine; and I do not question but the firft, which is upon inward mourning, will be thought the production of a man who is well acquainted with the generous yearnings of diftrefs in a manly temper, which is above the relief of tears. A fpeculation of my own on that fubje&t I shall defer until another occafion.

The fecond letter is from a lady of a mind as great as her understanding. There is perhaps fomething in the beginning of it which I ought in modefty to conceal; but I have fo much efteem for this correfpondent, that I will not alter a tittle of what the writes, though I am thus fcrupulous at the price of being ridiculous.

MR. SPECTATOR,

I Was very well pleased with your difcourfe upon general mourning, and hould be obliged to you if you would enter into the matter more deeply, and give us your thoughts upon the common enfe the ordinary people have of the demonftrations of grief, who prefcribe rules and fashions to the moft folemn affliction; fuch as the lofs of the nearest relations and dearest friends. You cannot go to vifit a fick friend, but fome impertinent waiter about him obferves the muscles of your face, as ftrictly as if they were prognoftics of his death or recovery. If he happens to be taken from you, you are immediately furrounded with numbers of thefe fpectators, who expect a melancholy fhrug of your shoulders, a pathetical shake of your head, and an expreffive distortion of your face, to meafure your affection and value for the deceased: but there is nothing, on thefe occafions, fo much in their favour as immoderate weeping. As all their paffions are fuperficial, they imagine the feat of love and friendship

to

to be placed vifibly in the eyes: they you had for the living, by the quantity of tears you pour out for the dead; fo that if one body wants that quantity of faltwater another abounds with, he is in great danger of being thought insensible or ill-natured: they are ftrangers to friendship, whofe grief happens not to be moist enough to wet such a parcel of handkerchiefs. But experience has told us, nothing is fo fallacious as this outward fign of forrow; and the natural hiftory of our bodies will teach us that this Aux of the eyes, this faculty of weeping, is peculiar only to fome conftitutions. We obferve in the tender bodies of children, when croffed in their little wills and expectations, how diffolvable they are into tears; if this were what grief is in men, nature would not be able to fupport them in the excess of it for one moment. Add to this obfervation, how quick is their transition from this paffion to that of their joy! I will not fay we fee often, in the next tender things to children, tears fhed without much grieving. Thus it is common to fhed tears without much forrow, and as common to fuffer much forrow without fhedding tears. Grief and weeping are indeed frequent companions; but, I believe, never in their highest exceffes. As laughter does not proceed from profound joy, fo neither does weeping from profound forrow. The forrow which appears fo easily at the eyes, cannot have pierced deeply into the heart. The heart diftended with grief, ftops all the paffages for tears or lamentations.

Now, Sir, what I would incline you to in all this, is, that you would inform the fhallow critics and obfervers upon forrow, that true affliction labours to be invifible, that it is a stranger to ceremony, and that it bears in it's own nature a dignity much above the little circumftances which are affected under the notion of decency. You must know, Sir, I have lately loft a dear friend, for whom I have not yet fhed a tear, and

for