Those several living creatures which are made for our service or sustenance, at the same time either fill the woods with their music, furnish us with game, or raise pleasing ideas in us by the delightfulness of their appearance. Fountains, lakes, and rivers, are as refreshing to the imagination, as to the soil through which they pass.

There are writers of great distinction, who have made it an argument for Providence, that the whole earth is covered with green rather than with any other colour, as being suob a right mixture of light and shade, that it comforts and strengthens the eye, iustead of weakening or grieving it. For this reason several painters have a green cloth hanging near them, to ease the eye upon, after too great an application to their colouring. A famous modern philosopher* accounts for it in the following manner.—All colours that are more luminous, overpower and dissipate the animal spirits which are employed in sight; on the contrary, those that are more obscure do not give the animal spirits a sufficient exercise; whereas, the rays that produce in us the idea of green, fall upon the eye in such a due proportion, that they give the animal spirits their proper play, and by keeping up the struggle in a just balance, excite a very pleasing and agreeable sensation. Let the cause be what it will, the effect is certain: for which reason the poets ascribe to this particular colour the epithet of cheerful.

To consider further this double end in the works of nature, and how they are at the same time both useful and entertaining, we find that the most important parts in the vegetable world are those which are the most beautiful. These are the seeds by which the several races of plants are propagated and continued, and which are always lodged in flowers or blossoms. Nature seems to hide her principal design, and to be industrious in making the earth gay and delightful, while she is carrying on her great work, and intent upon her own preservation. The husbandman after the same manner is employed in laying out the whole country into a kind of garden or landscape, and making everything smile about him, whilst in reality he thinks of nothing but of the harvest, and the increase which is to arise from it

We may further observe how Providence has taken care to keep up this cheerfulness in the mind of man, by having formed it after such a manner, as to make it capable of conceiving delight from several objects which seem to have very little use in them; as from the wildness of rocks and deserts, and the like grotesque parts of nature. Those who are versed in philosophy may still carry this consideration higher, by observing that if matter hod appeared to us endowed only with those real qualities which it actually pos sesses, it would have mode but a very joyless and uncomfortable figure ; and why has Providence given it a power of producing in us such imaginary qualities, as tastes and colours, sounds and * Sir Isaac Newton.

smells, heat and cold, but that man, while he is conversant in ihe lover stations of nature, might have bis mind cheered and delighted with agreeable sensations ! In short, the whole universe is a kind of theatre filled with objects that either raise in us pleasure, amusement, or admiration.

The reader's own thoughts will suggest to him the vicissitude of day and night, the change of seasons, with all that variety of scenes which diversify the face of nature, and fill the mind with a perpetual succession of beautiful and pleasing images.

I shall not here mention the several entertainments of art, with the pleasures of friendship, books, conversation, and other accidental diversions of life, because I would only take notice of such incitements to a cheerful temper as offer themselves to persons of all ranks and conditions, and which may sufficiently show us that Providence did not design this world should be filled with murmurs and repinings, or that the heart of man should be involved in gloom and melancholy.

I the more inculcate this cheerfulness of temper, as it is a virtue in which our countrymen are observed to be more deficient than any other nation. Melancholy is a kind of demon that haunts our island, and often conveys herself to us in an easterly wind. A celebrated French novelist, in opposition to those who begin their romances with the flowery season of the year, enters on his story thus.—" In the gloomy month of November, when the people of England hang and drown themselves, a disconsolate lover walked out into the fields," &c.

Every one ought to fence against the temper of his climate or constitution, and frequently to indulge in himself those considerations which may give him a serenity of mind, and enable him to bear up cheerfully against those little evils and misfortunes which ire common to human nature, and which by a right improvement of them will produce a satiety of joy, and an uninterrupted happiness.

At the same time that I would engage my reader to consider the *orld in its most agreeable lights, I must own there are many evils which naturally spring up amidst the entertainments that are provided for us; but these, if rightly considered, should be far from overcasting the mind with sorrow, or destroying that cheerfulness of temper which I have been recommending. This interspersion of evil with good, and pain with pleasure, in the works of nature, is very truly ascribed by Mr. Locke, in his Essay on Human Understanding, to a moral reason, in the following words.—

" Beyond all this we may find another reason why God hath •caUered up and down several degrees of pleasure and pain, in all the things that environ and affect us, and blended them together, in almost all that our thoughts aud senses have to do with ; that »e, finding imperfection, dissatisfaction, and want of complete :!

happiness in all the enjoyments which the creatures can afford us, might be led to seek it in the enjoyment of him with whom ' there is fulness of joy, and at whose right hand are pleasures for ever more.' "

ADDISON. L

No. 388. MONDAY, MAY 26, 1712.

—— Tibi res antiqua? laudis et artis
Ingredior : sanctos ausus recludere fontes.

TIBO. OEOEQ. II. 171'
For thee I dare unlock the sacred spring.
And arts disclos'd by ancient sages sing.

"mr. Spectator,
" It is my custom, when I read your papers, to read over the
quotations in the authors from whence you take them. As you
mentioned a passage lately out of the second chapter of Solomon's
Song,* it occasioned my looking into it: and upon reading it, I
thought the ideas so exquisitely soft and tender, that I could not
help making this paraphrase of it; which, now it is done, I can as
little forbear sending to' you. Some marks of your approbation,
which I have already received, have given me so sensible a taste
of them that I cannot forbear endeavouring after them as often as
I can with any appearance of success.

" I am, Sir, your most obedient humble servant."

THE SECOND CHAPTER OF SOLOMON'S SONG.

" As when in Sharon's field the blushing rose

Does its chaste bosom to the morn disclose,

Whilst all around the Zephyrs bear

The fragrant odours through the air;

Or as the lily in the shady vale,

Does o'er each flow'r with beauteous pride prevail,

And stands with dews and kindest sunshine blest,

In fair pre-eminence, superior to the rest:

So if my love, with happy influence, shed

His eyes bright sunshine on his lover's head.

Then shall the rose of Sharon's field,

And whitest lilies, to my beauties yield.

Then fairest flow'rs with studious art combine,

The roses with the lilies join.

And their united charms are less than mine. " As much as fairest lilies can surpass

A thorn in beauty, or in height the grass;

• See No. 327.

So does my lore, among the virgins, shine,
Adorn'd with graces more than half divine;
Or as a .tree, that glorious to behold,
It hung with apples all of ruddy gold,
Hesperian fruit, and beautifully high,
Extends its branches to the sky;
So does my love the virgin's eyes invite :
'Tis he alone can fix their wand'ring sight,
Among ten thousand eminently bright.

" Beneath his pleasing shade

My wearied limbs at ease I laid,

And on his fragrant boughs reclin'd my head.

I pull'd the golden fruit with eager haste;

Sweet was the fruit, and pleasing to the taste :

With sparkling wine he crown'd the bowl,

With gentle ecstacies he fill'd my soul;

Joyous we sat beneath the shady grove.

And o'er my head he hung the banners of his love.

" I faint! I die! my lab'ring breast

Is with the mighty weight of love oppress'd !

I feel the fire possess my heart,

And pain convey'd to ev'ry part,

Through all ray veins the passion flies,
My feeble soul foresakes its place,

A trembling faintness seals my eyes,
And paleness dwells upon my face :

Oh I let my love with pow'rful odours stay

My fainting love-sick soul, that dies away;

One hand beneath me let him place,

With t'other press me in a chaste embrace.

" I charge you, nymphs of Sion, as yon go
Arm'd with the sounding quiver and the bow,
Whilst through the lonesome woods you rove,
You ne'er disturb my sleeping love. .

Be only gentle Zephyrs there,

With downy wings to fan the air;

Let sacred silence dwell around,

To keep off each intruding sound:
And when the balmy slumber leaves his eyes,
May he to joys, unknown till then, arise.

" But see ! he comes! with what majestic gait
Be onward bears his lovely state!

Now through the lattice he appears,

With softest words dispels my fears.

Arise, my fair one, and receive

All the pleasures love can give,

For now the sullen winter's past,

No more we fear the northern blast;

No storms nor threat'ning clouds appear,

No falling rains deform the year. VOL ui. P

»■'

My lore admits of no delay,
Arise, my fair, and come away.

'. . " Already, see ! the teeming earth

Brings forth the flow'rs, her benuteouB birth.

The dews, and soft descending show'rs,

Nurse the new-born tender flow'rs.

Hark ! the birds melodious sing,

And sweetly usher in the spring.

Close by his fellow sits the dove,

And billing, whispers her his love.

The spreading vines with blossoms swell.

Diffusing round a grateful smell.

Arise, my fair one, and receive

All the blessings love can give: ij For love admits of no delay,

Arise, my fair, and come a way.

"As to its mate the constant dove
Flies through the covert of the spicy grove,
So let us hasten to some lonely shade.
There let me safe in thy lov'd arms be laid,
Where no intruding hateful noiso
Shall damp the sound of thy melodious voice;
Where I may gaxe, and mark, each beauteous grace;
For sweet thy voice, and lovely is thy face.

"As all of me, my Love, is thine,
Let all of thee be ever mine.
Among the lilies we will play,
Fairer, my Love, thou art than they;
Till the purple morn arise,
And balmy sleep forsake thine eyes;
Till the gladsome beams of day
Remove the shades of night away ;
Then when soft sleep shall from my eyes depart.
Rise like the bounding roe, or lusty hart,
Glad to behold the light again
From Bethor's mountains darting o'er the plain."
STEELE. T.

No. 389. TUESDAY, MAY 27, 1712.

Meliora pii docuero parentes. HOE.*

Their pious sires a better lesson taught.

Nothing has more surprised the learned in England, than the price which a small book, entitled, " Spaccio della Bestia triom

* The folio Spectator cites Horace as the authority for this quotation; but it is not to be found there.