love, as there would be nothing brave in ac-right or left, you are in a forest, where nature tions that make the most shining appearance, presents you with a much more beautiful scene so nature would not have rewarded them with than could have been raised by art. 'Instead of tulips or carnations, I can show this divine pleasure; nor could the commendations, which a person receives for benefits you oaks in my garden of four hundred years done upon selfish views, be at all more satis-standing, and a knot of elms that might shelfactory than when he is applauded for what ter a troop of horse from the rain. he doth without design; because, in both cases,

The heathens still went farther, and re

'It is not without the utmost indignation that the ends of self-love are equally answered. I observe several prodigal young heirs in the The conscience of approving oneself a bene-neighbourhood felling down the most glorious factor to mankind is the noblest recompense monuments of their ancestors' industry, and for being so; doubtless it is, and the most in- ruining, in a day, the product of ages. terested cannot propose any thing so much to I am mightily pleased with your discourse their own advantage; notwithstanding which, upon planting, which put me upon looking the inclination is nevertheless unselfish. The into my books, to give you some account of pleasure which attends the gratiùcation of our the veneration the ancients had for trees. hunger and thirst, is not the cause of these ap-There is an old tradition, that Abraham plantpetites; they are previous to any such pros-ed a cypress, a pine, and a cedar; and that pect; and so likewise is the desire of doing these three incorporated into one tree, which good; with this difference, that, being seated was cut down for the building of the temple of in the intellectual part, this last, though ante- Solomon. cedent to reason, may yet be improved and re- 'Isidorus, who lived in the reign of Congulated by it; and, I will add, is no otherwise stantius, assures us, that he saw, even in his a virtue than as it is so. Thus have I conten- time, that famous oak in the plains of Mamre, ded for the dignity of that nature I have the under which Abraham is reported to have honour to partake of; and, after all the evi- dwelt; and adds, that the people looked upon dence produced, I think I have a right to con-it with a great veneration, and preserved it as clude, against the motto of this paper, that a sacred tree. there is such a thing as generosity in the world. Though, if I were under a mistake in this, I garded it as the highest piece of sacrilege to should say as Cicero, in relation to the immor- injure certain trees which they took to be protality of the soul, I willingly err, and should tected by some deity. The story of Erisicthon, believe it very much for the interest of man- the grove at Dodona, and that at Delphi, are kind to lie under the same delusion. For the all instances of this kind. contrary notion naturally tends to dispirit the mind, and sinks it into a meanness fatal to the God-like zeal of doing good: as, on the other hand, it teaches people to be ungrate- Eneas, when he built his fleet in order to ful, by possessing them with a persuasion con- sail for Italy, was obliged to cut down the cerning their benefactors, that they have no grove on mount Ida, which however he durst regard to them in the benefits they bestow. n t do until he had obtained leave from CyNow he that banishes gratitude from among bele, to whom it was dedicated. The goddess men, by so doing stops up the stream of bene- could not but think herself obliged to protect ficence: for though in conferring kindnesses, these ships, which were made of consecrated a truly generous man doth not aim at a re-timber, after a very extraordinary manner, turn, yet he looks to the qualitles of the person and therefore desired Jupiter that they might. obliged; and as nothing renders a person not be obnoxious to the power of waves or more unworthy of a benefit than his being without all resentment of it, he will not be extremely forward to oblige such a man.

No 589.] Friday, September 3, 1714.
Persquitur scelus ille suum; labefactaque tandem
letibus innumeris, adductaque funibus arbor
Corruit
Ooid. Met. Lib. 8. 774.
The impious axe he plies, loud strokes resound:
Till dragg'd with ropes, and fell'd, with many a wound,
The loosen'd tree comes rushing to the ground.

'SIR,

I AM SO great an admirer of trees, that the spot of ground I have chosen to build a small seat upon in the country is almost in the midst of large wood. I was obliged, much against my will, to cut down several trees, that I might have any such thing as a walk in my gardens ; but then I have taken care to leave the space, between every walk, as much a wood as I found it. The moment you turn either to the

'If we consider the machine in Virgil, so much blamed by several critics, in this light, we shall hardly think it too violent.

winds. Jupiter would not grant this, but promised her that as many as came safe to Italy should be transformed into goddesses of the sea; which the poet tells us was accordingly executed.

66

And now at length the number'd hours were come,
Prefix'd by Fate s irrevocable doom,
When the great mother of the gods was free
To save her ships, and finish Jove's decree.
First, from the quarter of the morn there sprung
A light that sing'd the heavens, and shot along:
Then from a cloud, fring'd round with golden fires,
Were timbrels heard, and Berecynthian quires:
And last a voice with more than mortal sounds,
Both hosts in arms oppos'd with equal horror wounds.
'O Trojan race, your needless aid forbear;
And know my ships are my peculiar care.
With greater ease the bold Rutulian may,
With hissing brands, attempt to burn the sea,
Than singe my sacred pines. But you, my charge,
Loos'd from your crooked anchors, launch at large,
Exalted each a nymph: forsake the sand,
And swim the seas, at Cybelle's command.'
No sooner had the goddess ceas'd to speak,
When lo, th' obedient ships their hawsers break,
And, strange to tell, like dolphins in the main,
They plunge their prows, and dive and spring again:

As many beauteous maids the billows sweep,
As rode before tall vessels on the deep."

|beginning nor an end. In our speculations of infinite space, we consider that particular place Dryden's Virgin which we exist as a kind of centre to the

The common opinion concerning the whole expansion. In our speculations of eternymphs, whom the ancients called Hamadryads, nity, we consider the time which is present to is more to the honour of trees than any thing into two equal parts. For this reason, many us as the middle, which divides the whole line yet mentioned. It was thought the fate of these nymphs had so near a dependence on witty authors compare the present time to an some trees, more especially oaks that they isthmus, or narrow neck of land, that rises in lived and died together. For this reason they the midst of an ocean, immeasurably diffused were extremely grateful to such persons who on either side of it.

preserved those trees with which their being 'Philosophy, and indeed common sense, nasubsisted. Apollonius tells us a very remark-turally throws eternity under two divisions, able story to this purpose, with which I shall which we may call in English that eternity conclude my letter.

which is past, and that eternity which is to come, The learned terms of Eternitas a parte ante, and Eternitas a parte post, may be more amusing to the reader, but can have no other idea affixed to them than what is conveyed to us by those words, an eternity that is past, and an eternity that is to come. Each of these eternities is bounded at the one extreme, or, in other words, the former has an end and the latter a beginning.

A certain man, called Rhæcus, observing an old oak ready to fall, and being moved with a sort of compassion towards the tree, ordered his servants to pour in fresh earth at the roots of it, and set it upright. The Hamadryad, or nymph, who must necessarily have perished with the tree, appeared to him the next day, and, after having returned him her thanks, told him she was ready to grant whatever he should ask. As she was extremely beautiful, Rhæcus Let us first of all consider that eternity desired he might be entertained as her lover. which is past, reserving that which is to come The Hamadryad, not much displeased with the for the subject of another paper The nature request, promised to give him a meeting, but of this eternity is utterly inconceivable by the commanded him for some days to abstain from mind of man: our reason demonstrates to us the embraces of all other women, adding, that that it has been, but at the same time can frame she would send a bee to him, to let him know no idea of it, but what is big with absurdity when he was to be happy. Rhacus was, it and contradiction. We can have no other conseems, too much addicted to gaming, and hap- ception of any duration which is past, than that pened to be in a run of ill-luck when the faith- all of it was once present: and whatever was ful bee came buzzing about him; so that, in- once present is at some certain distance from stead of minding his kind invitation, he had us, and whatever is at any certain distance like to have killed him for his pains. The Ha- from us, be the distance never so remote, canmadryad was so provoked at her own disap-ration being past implies that it was once prenot be eternity. The very notion of any dupointment, and the ill usage of her messenger, that she deprived Rhæcus of the use of his limbs. However, says the story, he was not so much a cripple, but he made a shift to cut down the tree, and consequently to fell his mistress.'

No. 590.] Monday, September 6, 1714.

-Assidno labuntur tempora motu
Non secus ac flumen. Neque enim consistere flumen,
Nec levis hora potest: sed ut unda impellitur unda,
Urgeturque prior venienti, urgetque priorem,
Tempora sic fugiunt pariter, pariturque sequunter
Et nova sunt semper. Nam quod fuit ante, relictum est;
Fitque quod haud fuerat: momentaque euncta novantur.
Ovid, Met. Lib. xv. 179.

E'en times are in perpetual flux, and run,
Like rivers from their fountains, rolling on.
For time, no more than streams, is at a stay;
The flying hour is ever on her way;

sent, for the idea of being once present is actually included in the idea of its being past. This therefore is a depth not to be sounded by human understanding. We are sure that there has been an eternity, and yet contradict ourselves when we measure this etereity by any notion which we can frame of it.

'If we go to the bottom of this matter, we shall find that the difficulties we meet with in our conceptions of eternity proceed from this single reason, that we can have no other idea of any kind of duration, than that by which we ourselves, and all other created beings, do exist; which is, a successive duration made up of past, present, and to come. There is nothing which exists after this manner, all the parts of whose existence were not once actually present, and consequently may be reached by a certain number of years applied to it. We may ascend as high as we please, and employ our being to that eternity which is to come, in adding millions of years to millions of years, and we can never come up to any fountain-head of duration, to any beginning in eternity: but at the same time we are sure, that whatever was once present does lie within the reach of numbers, though perhaps we can never be able to put enough of them together for that purpose. We 'WE consider infinite space as an expansion may as well say, that any thing may be actuwithout a circumference: we consider eternity ally present in any part of infinite space, which or infinite duration, as a line that has neither a does not lie at a certain distance from us, as

And as the fountains still supply their store,
The wave behind impels the wave before;
Thus in successive course the minutes run,
And urge their predecessor minutes on.
Still moving, ever new: for former things
Are laid aside, like abdicated kings:
And every moment alters what is done,
And innovates some act, till then unknown.

Dryden.

The following discourse comes from the same

hand with the essays upon infinitude.

that any part of infinite duration was once ac- who is environed with so much glory and pertually present, and does not also lie at some de- fection, who is the source of being the fountain termined distance from us. The distance in of all that existence which we and his whole both cases may be immeasurable and indefinite creation derive from him. Let us therefore, as to our faculties, but our reason tells us that with the utmost humility, acknowledge, that, as it cannot be so in itself. Here therefore is that some being must necessarily have existed from difficulty which human understanding is not eternity, so this being does exist after an incapable of surmounting. We are sure that comprehensible manner, since it is impossible something must have existed from eternity, for a being to have existed from eternity after and are at the same time unable to conceive, our manner or notions of existence. Revelathat any thing which exists, according to our tion confirms these natural dictates of reason notion of existence, can have existed from in the accounts which it gives us of the divine eternity. existence, where it tells us, that he is the same It is hard for a reader, who has not rolled yesterday, to-day, and for ever; that he is the this thought in his own mind, to follow in such Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the endan abstracted speculation; but I have been the ing; that a thousand years are with him as one longer on it, because I think it is a demontra- day, and one day as a thousand years: by tive argument of the being and eternity of God: and, though there are many other demonstrations which lead us to this great truth, I do not think we ought to lay aside any proofs in this matter, which the light of reason has suggested to us, especially when it is such an one as has been urged by men famous for their penetration and force of understanding, and which appears altogether conclusive to those who will be at the pains to examine it.

'Having thus considered that eternity which is past, according to the best idea we can frame of it, I shall now draw up those several articles on this subject, which are dictated to us by the light of reason, and which may be looked upon as the creed of a philosopher in this great point.

which, and the like expressions, we are taught that his existence, with relation to time or duration, is infinitely different from the existence of any of his creatures, and consequently that it is impossible for us to frame any adequate conceptions of it.

'In the first revelation which he makes of his own being, he entitles himself, "I Am that I Am;" and when Moses desires to know what name he shall give him in his embassy to Pharaoh, he bids him say that "I Am hath sent you." Our Great Creator, by this revelation of himself, does in a manner exclude every thing else from a real existence, and distinguishes himself from his creatures as the only being which truly and really exists. The ancient Platonic notion, which was drawn from speculations of eternity, wonderfully agrees with this revelation which God has made of himself. There is nothing, say they, which in reality exists, whose existence, as we call it, is pieced up of past, present, and to come. Such a flitting and successive existence is rather a shadow of existence, and something which is like it, than existence itself. He only properly exists whose existence is entirely present; that 'Fourthly, That this Eternal Being must is, in other words, who exists in the most pertherefore be the great Author of nature, "the fect manner, and in such a manner as we have Ancient of Days." who, being at an infinite no idea of.

'First, it is certain that no being could have made itself; for, if so, it must have acted before it was, which is a contradiction.

'Secondly, That therefore some being must have existed from all eternity.

Thirdly, That whatever exists after the manner of created beings, or according to any notions which we have of existence, could not have existed from eternity.

distance in his perfections from all finite and I shall conclude this speculation with one created beings, exists in a quite different man-useful inference. How can we sufficiently prosner from them, and in a manner of which they can have no idea.

trate ourselves and fall down before our Maker, when we consider that ineffable goodness and 'I know that several of the schoolmen, who wisdom which contrived this existence for finite would not be thought ignorant of any thing, natures? What must be the overflowings of have pretended to explain the manner of God's that good-will, which prompted our Creator to existence, by telling us that he comprehends adapt existence to beings in whom it is not infinite duration in every moment: that eterni- necessary? especially when we consider that he ty is with him a punctum stans, a fixed point; himself was before in the complete possesion or, which is as good sense, an infinite instant; of existence and of happiness, and in the full that nothing, with reference to his existence, is enjoyment of eternity. What man can think either past or to come to which the ingenious of himself as called out and separated from Mr. Cowley alludes in his description of heaven:

"Nothing is there to come, and nothing past, But an eternal now does always last."

nothing, of his being made a conscious, a reasonable and a happy creature, in short, in being taken in as a sharer of existence, and a kind of partner in eternity, without being swallowed For my own part, I look upon these pro-up in wonder, in praise, in adoration! It is positions as words that have no ideas annexed indeed a thought too big for the mind of man, to them; and think men had better own their and rather to be entertained in the secrecy of ignorance than advance doctrines by which devotion, and in the silence of his soul, than to they mean nothing, and which, indeed, are be expressed by words. The Supreme Being self-contradictory. We cannot be too modest has not given us powers or faculties sufficient to in our disquisitions when we meditate on Him, extol and magnify such unutterable goodness.

'It is however some comfort to us, that we shall be always doing what we shall be ne-a woman's ridiculous. ver able to do, and that a work which cannot be finished, will however be the work of an eternity.'

I LOOK upon the play-house as a world withAs a farther proof of his skill, he also sent in itself. They have lately furnished the midme several maxims in love, which he assures die region of it with a new set of meteors, in me are the result of a long and profound re- order to give the sublime to many modern flection, some of which I think myself obli- tragedies. I was there last winter at the first ged to communicate to the public, not remem- rehearsal of the new thunder, which is much bering to have seen them before in any au- more deep and sonorous than any hitherto made use of. They have a Salmoneus be

The gay part of mankind is most amorous,ffect of this thunder, however, the play was coldly rethe serious most loving.

hind the scenes who plays it off with great | Envy and cavil are the natural fruits of lasuccess. The lightnings are made to flash ziness and ignorance; which was probably more briskly than heretofore, their clouds are the reason that in the heathen mythology Moalso better furbelowed, and more voluminous; mus is said to be the son of Nox and Somnus, not to mention a violent storm locked up in a of darkness and sleep. Idle men, who have great chest, that is designed for the Tempest. not been at the pains to accomplish or distinThey are also provided with above a dozen guish themselves, are very apt to detract from showers of snow, which, as I am informed, others; as ignorant men are very subject to are the plays of many unsuccessful poets ar- decry those beauties in a celebrated work Mr. which they have not eyes to discover. Many tificially cut and shredded for that use. Ryner's Edgar is to fall in snow at the next of our sons of Momus, who dignify themselves acting of King Lear, in order to heighten, or by the name of critics, are the genuine derather to alleviate, the distress of that unfor- scendants of these two illustrious ancestors. tunate prince; and to serve by way of deco- They are often led into those numerous abrations to a piece which that great critic has surdities, in which they daily instruct the peawritten against. ple, by not considering that, first, there is I do not indeed wonder that the actors should sometimes a greater judgment shown in debe such professed enemies to those among our viating from the rules of art than in adhering nation who are commonly known by the name to them; and, secondly, that there is more of critics, since it is a rule among these gen- beauty in the works of a great genius, who is tlemen to fall upon a play, not because it is ignorant of all the rules of art, than in the ill written, but because it takes. Several of works of a little genius, who not only knows them lay it down as a maxim, that whatever but scrupulously observes them. dramatic performance has a long run, must of First, We may often take notice of men necessity be good for nothing; as though the who are perfectly acquainted with all the rules first precept in poetry were 'not to please.' of good writing, and, notwithstanding, choose Whether this rule holds good or not, I shall to depart from them on extraordinary occaleave to the determination of those who are sions. I could give instances out of all the better judges than myself; if it does, I am sure tragic writers of antiquity who have shown it tends very much to the honour of those gen-their judgment in this particuular; and purtlemen who have established it; few of their posely receded from an established rule of pieces have been disgraced by a run of three the drama, when it has made way for a much days, and most of them being so exquisitely higher beauty than the observation of such a written, that the town would never give them more than one night's hearing.

rule would have been. Those who have surveyed the noblest pieces of architecture and I have a great esteem for a true critic, such statuary, both arcient and modern, know very as Aristotle and Longinus among the Greeks: well that there are frequent deviations from Horace and Quintilian among the Romans; art in the works of the greatest masters, Boileau and Dacier among the French. But which have produced a much nobler effect it is our misfortune that some, who set up for than a more accurate and exact way of proprofessed critics among us, are so stupid that ceeding could have done. This often arises they do not know how to put ten words toge- from what the Italians call the gusto grande ther with elegance or common propriety; and in these arts, which is what we call the sublime withal so illiterate, that they have no taste of in writing.

Quorum æmulari exoptat negligentiam
Potius quain istorum obscuram diligentiam

Whose negligence he would rather imitate than these men's obscure diligence.'

the learned languages, and therefore criticise In the next place, our critics do not seem upon old authors only at second-hand. They sensible that there is more beauty in the works judge of them by what others have written, of a great genius, who is ignorant of the rules and not by any notions they have of the au- of art, than in those of a little genius who thors themselves. The words, unity, action, knows and observes them. It is of these men sentiment, and diction, pronounced with an of genius that Terence speaks, in opposition air of authority, give them a figure among un- to the little artificial cavillers of his time; learned readers, who are apt to beliave they are very deep, because they are unintelligible. The ancient critics are full of the praises of their contemporaries; they discover beauties which escaped the observation of the vulgar, and very often find out reasons for palliating A critic may have the same consolation in and excusing such little slips and oversights as were committed in the writings of eminent the ill success of his play as Dr. South tells authors. On the contrary, most of the smat- us a physician has at the death of a patient, terers in criticism, who appear among us, that he was killed secundum artem. make it their business to vilify and depreciate inimitable Shakspeare is a stumbling-block every new production that gains applause, to to the whole tribe of these rigid crities. Who decry imaginary blemishes, and to prove, by would not rather read one of his plays, far-fetched arguments, that what pass for beau-where there is not a single rule of the stage ties in any clebrated piece are faults and er- observed, than any production of a modern In short, the writings of these critics, critic, where there is not one of them viocompared with those of the ancients, are like lated! Shakspeare was indeed born with all the works of the sophists compared with those the seeds of poetry, and may be compared of the old philosophers. to the stone in Pyrrhus's ring, which, as Pliny 46

rors.

VOL. II.

Our