N° 254. THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 1710. Splendidè mendax Gloriously false. HOR. 2 Od. iii. 35. FRANCIS. From my own Apartment, November 22. THERE are no books which I more delight in than in travels, especially those that describe remote countries, and give the writer an opportunity of showing his parts without incurring any danger of being examined or contradicted. Among all the authors of this kind, our renowned countryman, Sir John Mandeville, has distinguished himself, by the copiousness of his invention, and the greatness of his genius. The second to Sir John I take to have been Ferdinand Mendez Pinto, a person of infinite adventure, and unbounded imagination. One reads the voyages of these two great wits, with as much astonishment as the travels of Ulysses in Homer, or of the Red-Cross Knight in Spenser. All is enchanted ground, and fairy-land. I have got into my hands, by great chance, several manuscripts of these two eminent authors, which are filled with greater wonders than any of those they have communicated to the public; and indeed, were they not so well attested, they would appear altogether improbable. I am apt to think the ingenious authors did not publish them with the rest of their works, lest they should pass for fictions and fables: a caution not unnecessary, when the repu tation of their veracity was not yet established in the world, But as this reason has now no further weight, I shall make the public a present of these curious pieces, at such times as I shall find myself unprovided with other subjects. The present Paper I intend to fill with an extract from Sir John's Journal, in which that learned and worthy knight gives an account of the freezing and thawing of several short speeches, which he made in the territories of Nova Zembla. I need not inform my reader, that the author of Hudibras alludes to this strange quality in that cold climate, when, speaking of abstracted notions cloathed in a visible shape, he adds that apt simile, " Like words congeal'd in northern air." Not to keep my reader any longer in suspense, the relation, put into modern language, is as fol lows: "We were separated by a storm in the latitude of seventy-three, insomuch, that only the ship which I was in, with a Dutch and French vessel, got safe into a creek of Nova Zemlla. We landed, in order to refit our vessels, and store ourselves with provisions. The crew of each vessel made themselves a cabbin of turf and wood, at some distance from each other, to fence themselves against the inclemencies of the weather, which was severe beyond imagination. We soon observed, that in talking to one another we lost several of our words, and could not hear one another at above two yards distance, and that too when we sat very near the fire. After much perplexity, I found that our words froze in the air, before they could reach the ears of the persons to whom they were spoken. I was soon confirmed in this conjecture, when, upon the increase of the cold, the whole company grew dumb, or rather deaf; for every man was sensible, as we afterwards found, that he spoke as well as ever; but the sounds no sooner took air than they were condensed and lost. It was now a miserable spectacle to see us nodding and gaping at one another, every man talking, and no man heard. One might observe a seaman that could hail a ship at a league's distance, beckoning with his hand, straining his lungs, and tearing his throat; but all in vain: Nec vox nec verba sequuntur. "Nor voice, nor words ensued. OVID. "We continued here three weeks in this dismal plight. At length, upon a turn of wind, the air about us began to thaw. Our cabbin was immediately filled with a dry clattering sound, which I afterwards found to be the crackling of consonants that broke above our heads, and were often mixed with a gentle hissing, which I imputed to the letters, that occurs so frequently in the English tongue. I soon after felt a breeze of whispers rushing by my ear; for those, being of a soft and gentle substance, immediately liquified in the warm wind that blew across our cabbin. These were soon followed by syllables and short words, and at length by entire sentences, that melted sooner or later, as they were more or less congealed; so that we now heard every thing that had been spoken during the whole three weeks that we had been silent, if I may use that expression. It was now very early in the morning, and yet, to my surprize, I heard somebody say, 'Sir John, it is midnight, and time for the ship's crew to go to-bed." This I knew to be the pilot's voice; and, upon recollecting myself, I concluded that he had spoken these words to me some days before, though I could not hear them morning to night; all which time we employed in dancing, in order to dissipate our chagrin, & tuer le temps." Here Sir John gives very good philosophical reasons, why the kit could not be heard during the frost; but, as they are something prolix, I pass them over in silence, and shall only observe, that the honourable author seems, by his quotations, to have been well versed in the ancient poets, which perhaps raised his fancy above the ordinary pitch of historians, and very much contributed to the embelLishment of his writings. N°255. SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 1710. Nec te tua plurima, Panthen, Labentem pietus, nec Apollinis insula texit. VIRG. Æn. ii. 429. Comes course the last, the red'ning doctor now From my own Apartment, November 24. "To the CENSOR of GREAT-BRITAIN. "SIR, "I AM at present under very great difficulties, which it is not in the power of any one, besides yourself, to redress. Whether or no you shall think it a pro per case to come before your court of honour, I cannot tell; but thus it is. I am chaplain to an honourable family, very regular at the hours of devotion, and, I hope, of an unblameable life; but for not offering to rise at the second course, I found my patron and his lady, very sullen and out of humour, though at first I did not know the reason of it. At length, when I happened to help myself to a jelly, the lady of the house, otherwise a devout woman, told me, that it did not become a man of my cloth to delight in such frivolous food: but as I still continued to sit out the last course, I was yesterday informed by the butler, that his lordship had no farther occasion for my service. All which is humbly submitted to your consideration by, Sir, Your most humble servant, &c." The case of this gentleman deserves pity; especially if he loves sweetmeats, to which, if I may guess by his letter, he is no enemy. In the mean time, I have often wondered at the indecency of discharging the holiest man from the table as soon as the most delicious parts of the entertainment are served up, and could never conceive a reason for so absurd a custom. Is it because a liquorish palate, or a sweet tooth, as they call it, is not consistent with the sanctity of his character? This is but a trifling pretence. No man, of the most rigid virtue, gives offence by any excesses in plum-pudding or plum-porridge, and that because they are the first parts of the dinner. Is there any thing that tends to incitation in sweetmeats more than in ordinary dishes? Certainly not. Sugar-plums are a very innocent diet, and conserves of a much colder nature than your common pickles. I have sometimes thought that the ceremony of the chaplain's flying away from the desert was typical and figurative, to mark out to the company how |