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nation, and admonished the rich, who were afflicted with any distemper of body, particularly to regard the poor in the same species of affliction, and confine their tenderness to them, since it is impossible to assist all who are presented to them. The proposer had been relieved from a malady in his eyes by an operation performed by Sir William Read; and, being a man of condition, had taken a resolution to maintain three poor blind men during their lives, in gratitude for that great blessing. This misfortune is so very great and unfrequent, that one would think an establishment for all the poor under it might be easily accomplished, with the addition of a very few others to those wealthy who are in the same calamity. However, the thought of the proposer arose from a very good motive; and the parceling of ourselves out, as called to particular acts of beneficence, would be a pretty cement of society and virtue. It is the ordinary foundation for men's holding a commerce with each other, and becoming familiar, that they agree in the same sort of pleasure; and sure it may also be some reason for amity, that they are under one common distress. If all the rich who are lame in the gout, from a life of ease, pleasure, and luxury, would help those few who have it without a previous life of pleasure, and add a few of such laborious men, who are become lame from unhappy blows, falls, or other accidents of age or sickness; I say, would such gouty persons administer to the necessities of men disabled like themselves, the consciousness of such a behavior, would be the best jalap, cordial, and anodyne, in the feverish, faint, and tormenting vicissitudes of that misera ble distemper. The same may be said of all other, both bodily and intellectual evils. These classes of charity would certainly bring down blessings upon an age and people; and if men were not petrified with the love of this world, against all sense of the commerce which ought to be among them, it would not be an unreasonable bill for a poor man in the agony of pain, aggravated by want and poverty, to draw upon a sick alderman

after this form:

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pleasures; and I soon concluded that it was to the sight. That is the sovereign of the senses, and mother of all the arts and sciences, that have refined the rudeness of the uncultivated mind to a politeness that distinguishes the fine spirits from the barbarous gout of the great vulgar and the small. The sight is the obliging benefactress that bestows on us the most transporting sensations that we have from the various and wonderful products of nature. To the sight we owe the amazing discoveries of the height, magnitude, and motion of the planets; their several revolutions about their common center of light, heat, and motion, the sun. The sight travels yet further to the fixed stars, and furnishes the understanding with solid reasons to prove, that each of them is a sun, moving on its own axis, in the center of its own vortex or turbillion, and performing the same offices to its dependent planets that our glorious sun does to this. But the inquiries of the sight will not be stopped here, but make their progress through the immense expanse to the Milky Way, and there divide the blended fires of the galaxy into infinite and different worlds, made up of distinct suns, and their peculiar equipages of planets, till, unable to pursue this track any further, it deputes the imagination to go on to new discoveries, till it fill the unbounded space with endless worlds.

"The sight informs the statuary's chisel with power to give breath to lifeless brass and marble, and the painter's pencil to swell the flat canvas with moving figures actuated by imaginary souls. Music, indeed, may plead another original,* since Jubal, by the different falls of his hammer on the anvil, discovered by the air the first rude music that pleased the antediluvian fathers; but then the sight has not only reduced those wilder sounds into artful order and harmony, but conveys that harmony to the most distant parts of the world without the help of sound. To the sight we owe not only all the discoveries of philosophy, but all the divine imagery of poetry that transports the intelligent reader of Homer, Milton, and Virgil.

"As the sight has polished the world, so does it supply us with the most grateful and lasting pleasure. Let love, let friendship, paternal affection, filial piety, and conjugal duty, declare the joys it would be endless to enumerate all the pleasures the sight bestows on a meeting after absence. "But and advantages of sight; every one that has it, every hour he makes use of it, finds them, feels them, enjoys them.

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Thus, as our greatest pleasures and knowledge are derived from the sight, so has Providence been more curious in the formation of its seat, the eye, than of the organs of the other senses. That stupendous machine is composed, in a wonderful manner, of muscles, membranes, and humors. Its motions are admirably directed by the muscles; the perspicuity of the humors transmit the rays of light; the rays are regularly refracted by their figure; the black lining of the sclerotes effectually prevents their being confounded by reflection. It is wonderful indeed to consider how many objects the eye is fitted to take in at once, and successively in an instant, and at the same time to make a judgment of their position, figure, and color. It watches against our dangers, guides our steps, and lets in all the visible objects, whose beauty and variety instruct and delight.

"The pleasures and advantages of sight being Milton, from experience, gives the most sensible so great, the loss must be very grievous; of which idea, both in the third book of his Paradise Lost, and in his Samson Agonistes.

* Mr Weaver ascribes the discovery to Pythagoras.

"To light, in the former.

These I revisit safe,

And feel thy sov'reign vital lamp; but thou
Revisit'st not these eyes, that roll in vain
To find thy piercing ray, but find no dawn.
" And a little after.

Seasons return, but not to me returns
Day, or the sweet approach of ev'n or morn,
Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer's rose,
Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine;
But cloud instead, and ever-during dark,
Surround me: from the cheerful ways of men
Cut off, and for the book of knowledge fair
Presented, with a universal blank

Of nature's works, to me expung'd and raz'd,
And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out.

66

Again, in Samson Agonistes

But chief of all

O loss of sight! of thee I most complain;
Blind among enemies! O worse than chains,
Dungeon, or beggary, or decrepid age!
Light, the prime work of God, to me's extinct,
And all her various objects of delight
Annull'd

Still as a fool,

In pow'r of others, never in my own,
Scarce half I seem to live, dead more than half:
O dark! dark! dark! amid the blaze of noon!
Irrecoverably dark, total eclipse,
Without all hopes of day.

and it affects me so much, that I find my thoughts run into your way: and recommend to you a subject upon which you have not yet touched, and that is, the satisfaction some men seem to take in their imperfections: I think one may call it glorying in their insufficiency. A certain great author is of opinion it is the contrary to envy, though perhaps it may proceed from it. Nothing is so common as to hear men of this sort, speaking of themselves, add to their own merit (as they think) by impairing it, in praising themselves for their defects, freely allowing they commit some few frivolous errors, in order to be esteemed persons of uncommon talents and great qualifications. They are generally professing an injudicious neglect of dancing, fencing, and riding, as also an unjust contempt for traveling, and the modern languages; as for their part, say they, they never valued or troubled their head about them. This panegyrical satire on themselves certainly is worthy our ani madversion. I have known one of these gentlemen think himself obliged to forget the day of an appointment, and sometimes even that you spoke to him; and when you see them, they hope you'll pardon them, for they have the worst memory in the world. One of them started up the other day in some confusion, and said, 'Now I think on't, I "The enjoyment of sight then being so great a blessing, and the loss of it so terrible an evil, how business, but whether it is to day, or to-morrow, am to meet Mr. Mortmain, the attorney, about some excellent and valuable is the skill of that artist 'faith I cannot tell.' Now, to my certain knowwhich can restore the former, and redress the lat-ledge, he knew his time to a moment, and was ter! My frequent perusal of the advertisements there accordingly. These forgetful persons have, in the public newspapers (generally the most to heighten their crime, generally the best memoagreeable entertainment they afford) has presented me with many and various benefits of this kind done to my countrymen, by that skillful artist Dr. Grant, her majesty's oculist extraordinary, whose modern tragedies by heart. I asked a gentleman happy hand has brought and restored to sight the other day, that is famous for a good carver (at several hundreds in less than four years. Many which acquisition he is out of countenance, imaghave received sight by his means who came blind ining it may detract from some of his more essenfrom their mother's womb, as in the famous in- tial qualifications) to help me to something that stance of Jones of Newington."* I myself have was near him; but he excused himself, and blushbeen cured by him of weakness in the eyes next ing told me, 'Of all things he could never carve to blindness, and am ready to believe anything in his life; though it can be proved upon hir that is reported of his ability this way; and that he cuts up, disjoints, and uncases, with inknow that many, who could not purchase his comparable dexterity. I would not be understood assistance with money, have enjoyed it from his as if I thought it laudable for a man of quality charity. But a list of particulars would swell my and fortune to rival the acquisitions of artificers, letter beyond its bounds: what I have said being and endeavor to excel in little handy qualities; no, sufficient to comfort those who are in the like dis-I argue only against being ashamed at what is tress, since they may conceive hopes of being no longer miserable in this kind, while there is yet

alive so able an oculist as Dr. Grant.

"I am the Spectator's humble Servant, T. "PHILANTHROPUS."

No. 473.] TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 2, 1712.
Quid? si quis vultu torvo ferus, et pede nudo,
Exiguæque toga simulet textore Catonem;
Virtutemne repræsentet moresque Catonis?

"SIB,

HOR. 1 Ep. xix, 12.

Suppose a man the coarsest gown should wear,
No shoes, his forehead rough, his look severe,
And ape great Cato in his form and dress;
Must he his virtues and his mind express?-CREECH.
TO THE SPECTATOR.

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"I AM now in the country, and employ most of my time in reading, or thinking upon what I have read. Your paper comes constantly down to me, *This ostentatious oculist was, it seems, originally a cobbler or tinker, afterward a preacher in a congregation of Baptists. William Jones was not born blind, and was but very little, if at all, benefitel by Grant's operation, who appears to have been guilty of great fraud and downright forgery, in his account and advertisements of this pretended cure.

ries of any people, as I have found out by their remembering sometimes through inadvertency. Two

or three of them that I know can say most of our

really praiseworthy. As these pretenses to inge-
nuity show themselves several ways, you will
often see a man of this temper ashamed to be clean,
and setting up for wit, only from negligence in
his habit. Now I am upon this head, I cannot
help observing also upon a very different folly
proceeding from the same cause. As these above-
mentioned arise from affecting an equality with
men of greater talents, from having the same faults,
there are others that would come at a parallel with
those above them, by possessing little advantages
which they want. I heard a young man not long
ago, who has sense, comfort himself in his igno-
rance of Greek, Hebrew, and the Orientals at the
same time that he published his aversion to those
languages, he said that the knowledge of them
was rather a diminution than an advancement of a
man's character; though, at the same time, I know
he languishes and repines he is not master of them
himself. Whenever I take any of these fine per-
stand, I tell them I will complain to you; and say
sons thus detracting from what they do not under-
I am sure you will not allow it an exception
against a thing, that he who contemns it is an
ignorant in it.

"I am, Sir, your most humble Servant,
"S. P."

"MR. SPECTATOR,

"I am a man of a very good estate, and am honorably in love. I hope you will allow, when the ultimate purpose is honest, there may be, with out trespass against innocence, some toying by the way. People of condition are perhaps too distant and formal on those occasions; but however that is, I am to confess to you that I have written some verses to atone for ny offense. You professed authors are a little severe upon us, who write like gentlemen; but if you are a friend to love, you will insert my poem. You cannot imagine how much service it would do me with my fair one, as well as reputation with all my friends, to have something of mine in the Spectator. My crime was, that I snatched a kiss, and my poetical ex

cuse as follows:

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"BEING of the number of those that have lately retired from the center of business and pleasure, my uneasiness in the country where I am arises rather from the society than the solitude of it. To be obliged to receive and return visits from and to a circle of neighbors, who, through diversity of age or inclinations, can neither be entertaining nor serviceable to us, is a vile loss of time, and a slavery from which a man should deliver himself, if possible: for why must I lose the remaining part of my life, because they have thrown away the former part of theirs? It is to me an insupporta ble affliction, to be tormented with the narrations of a set of people, who are warm in their expressions of the quick relish of that pleasure which their dogs and horses have a more delicate taste of. I do also in my heart detest and abhor that damnable doctrine and position of the necessity of a bumper, though to one's own toast; for though it is pretended that these deep potations are used oniv to inspire gayety, they certainly drown that cheerfulness which would survive a moderate circulation. If at these meetings it were left to every stranger either to fill his glass according to his wn inclination, or to make his retreat when he

finds he has been sufficiently obedient to that of others, these entertainments would be governed with more good sense, and consequently with more good-breeding, than at present they are. Indeed, where any of the guests are known to measure their fame or pleasure by their glass, proper exhortations might be used to these to push their fortunes in this sort of reputation; but where it is unseasonably insisted on to a modest stranger, this drench may be said to be swallowed with the same necessity as if it had been tendered in the horn for that purpose, with this aggravating circumstance, that it distresses the entertainer's guest in the same degree as it relieves his horses.

To attend without impatience on account of five-barred gates, double ditches, and precipices, and to survey the orator with desiring eyes, is to me extremely difficult and absolutely necessary, to be upon tolerable terms with him; but then the occasional burstings out into laughter is of all other accomplishments the most requisite. I confess at present I have not that command of these convulsions as is necessary to be good company; therefore I beg you would publish this letter, and let me be known all at once for a queer fellow, and avoided. It is monstrous to me, that we who are given to reading and calm conversation, should ever be visited by these roarers; but they think they themselves, as neighbors, may come into our rooms with the same right that they and their dogs hunt in our grounds.

"Your institution of clubs I have always admired, in which you constantly endeavored the union of the metaphorically defunct, that is, such as are neither serviceable to the busy and enterpris ing part of mankind, nor entertaining to the retired and speculative. There should certainly, therefore, in each county be established a club of the persons whose conversations I have described, who for their own private, as also the public emol. ument, should exclude, and be excluded, all other society. Their attire should be the same with their huntsmen's, and none should be admitted into this green conversation-piece except he had broken his collar-bone thrice. A broken rib or two might also admit a man without the least opposition. The president must necessarily have broken his neck, and have been taken up dead once or twice; for the more maims this brotherhood shall have met with, the easier will their conversation flow and keep up; and when any one of these vigorous invalids had finished his narration of the collar bone, this naturally would introduce the history of the ribs. Beside, the different circumstances of their falls and fractures would help to prolong and diversify their relations. There should also be another club of such men, who had not succeeded so well in maiming themselves, but are however in the constant pursuit of these accomplishments. I would by no means be suspected, by what I have said, to traduce in general the body of fox-hunters; for while I look upon a reasonable creature full speed after a pack of dogs by way of pleasure, and not of business, I shall always make honorable mention of it.

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the particular fineries of certain churches; but
their distinguishing mark is a certain prettiness
of foreign languages, the meaning of which they
could have better expressed in their own. The
entertainment of these fine observers Shakspeare
has described to consist

In talking of the Alps and Apennines,
The Pyrenean, and the river Po:

and then concludes with a sigh,

Now this is worshipful society?

"I would not be thought in all this to hate such honest creatures as dogs; I am only unhappy that I cannot partake in their diversions. But I love them so well, as dogs, that I often go with my pockets stuffed with bread to dispense my favors, or make my way through them at neighbors' houses. There is in particular a young hound of great expectation, vivacity, and enterprise, that attends my flights wherever he spies me. This creature observes my countenance, and behaves himself accordingly. His mirth, his frolic, and joy, upon the sight of me, has been observed, and I have been gravely desired not to encourage him so much, for it spoiled his parts; but I think he shows them sufficiently in the several boundings, friskings, and scourings, when he makes his court to me; but I foresee in a little time he and I must keep company with one another only, for we are fit for no other in these parts. Having informed you how I do pass my time in the country where I am, I must proceed to tell you how I would pass it, had I such a fortune as would put me above the observance of ceremony and custom.

that should express the obligation to lie rather on my side; and as for the word singular, I was always of opinion every man must be so, to be what one would desire him.

Your very humble Servant, J. R."*

"MR. SPECTATOR,

"About two years ago I was called upon by the younger part of a country family, by my mother's side related to me, to visit Mr. Campbell, the dumb man; for they told me that that was chiefly what brought them to town, having heard wonders of him in Essex. I, who always wanted faith in matters of this kind, was not easily prevailed or to go; but, lest they should take it ill, I went with them; when, to my surprise, Mr. Campbell related all their past life; in short, had he not been prevented, such a discovery would have come out as would have ruined the next design of their coming to town, viz: buying wedding clothes. Our names though he never heard of us before-and we endeavored to conceal-were as familiar to him as to ourselves. To be sure, Mr. Spectator, he is a very learned and wise man. Being impatient to know my fortune, having paid my respects in a family Jacobus, he told me (after his manner), among several other things, that in a year and nine months I should fall ill of a new fever, be given over by my physicians, but should with much difficulty recover; that, the first time I took the air afterward, I should be addressed to by a young gentleman of a plentiful fortune, good sense, and a generous spirit. Mr. Spectator, he is the purest man in the world, for all he said is come to pass, and I am the happiest she in Keut. I have been in quest of Mr. Campbell these three months, and cannot find him out. Now, hearing you are a dumb man too, I thought you might correspond, and be able to tell me something; for I think my self as highly obliged to make his fortune, as he has mine. It is very possible your worship, who has spies all over this town, can inform me how to send to him. If you can, I beseech you be as speedy as possible, and you will highly oblige "Your constant reader and admirer, DULCIBELLA THANKLEY."

66

Ordered, That the inspector I employ about wonders inquire at the Golden-Lion, opposite to the Half-Moon tavern in Drury-lane, into the merit of the silent sage, and report accordingly.-T.

"My scheme of a country life, then, should be as follows: As I am happy in three or four very agreeable friends, these I would constantly have with me; and the freedom we took with one another at school and the university, we would maintain and exert upon all occasions with great courage. There should be certain hours of the day to be employed in reading, during which time it should be impossible for any one of us to enter the other's chamber, unless by storm. After this we would communicate the trash or treasure we had met with, with our own reflections upon the matter; the justness of which we would controvert with good-humored warmth, and never spare one another out of that complaisant spirit of conversation, which makes others affirni and deny the same matter in a quarter of an hour. If any of the neighboring gentlemen, not of our turn, should take it in their heads to visit me, I should look upon these persons in the same degree enemies to my particular state of happiness, as ever the French No. 475.] THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 1712. were to that of the public, and I would be at an annual expense in spies to observe their motions. Whenever I should be surprised with a visit, as I hate drinking, I would be brisk in swilling bumpers, upon this maxim, that it is better to trouble others with my impatience, than to be troubled myself with theirs. The necessity of an infirmary makes me resolve to fall into that project; and as we should be but five, the terrors of an involuntary separation, which our number cannot so well admit of, would make us exert ourselves in opposition to all the particulars mentioned in your institution of that equitable confinement. This my way of life, I know, would subject me to the imputation of a morose, covetous, and singular fellow. These and all other hard words, with all manner of insipid jests, and all other reproach, would be matter of mirth to me and my friends; beside, I would destroy the application of the epithets morose and covetous, by a yearly relief of my undeservedly necessitous neighbors, and by treating my friends and domestics with a humanity

Quæ res in se neque consilium, neque modum
Habet ullum eam consilio regere non potes.
TER. Eun act. i, sc. 1.

The thing that in itself has neither measure nor considera-
tion, counsel cannot rule.

IT is an old observation, which has been made of politicians who would rather ingratiate them

*This letter was probably written by Steele's fellow-collegian and friend, the Rev. Mr. Richard Parker. This accomplished. scholar was for many years vicar of Embleton, in Northum berland, a living in the gift of Merton college, where he and Steele lived in the most cordial familiarity. Not relishing the rural sports of Bamboroughshire, he declined the interchange of visits with most of the hospitable gentlemen in his neighborhood; who, invigorated by their diversions, indulged in copious meals, and were apt to be vociferous in their mirth, and over importunate with their guests, to join in their conviviality.

+Duncan Campbell announced himself to the public as a

Scotch highlander, gifted with the second-sight. He was, or pretended to be, deaf and dumb, and succeeded in making a fortune to himself by practicing for some years on the credulity of the vulgar in the ignominious character of a fortuneteller.

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"MR. SPECTATOR,

selves with their sovereign, than promote his real service, that they accommodate their counsels to "Now, Sir, the thing is this; Mr. Shapely is the his inclinations, and advise him to such actions prettiest gentleman about town. He is very tall, only as his heart is naturally set upon. The privy but not too tall neither. He dances like an angel. counselor of one in love must observe the same His mouth is made I do not know how, but it is conduct, unless he would forfeit the friendship of the prettiest that I ever saw in my life. He is the person who desires his advice. I have known always laughing, for he has an infinite deal of wit. several odd cases of this nature. Hipparchus was If you did but see how he rolls his stockings! going to marry a common woman; but being re- He has a thousand pretty fancies, and I am sure, solved to do nothing without the advice of his if you saw him, you would like him. He is a friend Philander, he consulted him upon the occa- very good scholar, and can talk Latin as fast as sion. Philander told him his mind freely, and English. I wish you could but see him dance. represented his mistress to him in such strong Now you must understand poor Mr. Shapely has colors, that the next morning he received a chalno estate; but how can he help that. you know? lenge for his pains, and before twelve o'clock was And yet my friends are so unreasonable as to be run through the body by the man who had asked always teasing me about him, because he has no his advice. Celia was more prudent on the like estate; but I am sure he has that that is better than ccasion. She desired Leonilla to give her opin- an estate; for he is a good-natured, ingenious, ion freely upon the young fellow who made his modest, civil, tall, well-bred, handsome man; and addresses to her. Leonilla, to oblige her, told her I am obliged to him for his civilities ever since I with great frankness, that she looked upon him saw him. I forgot to tell you that he has black as one of the most worthless.-Celia, foreseeing eyes, and looks upon me now and then as if they what a character she was to expect, begged her had tears in them. And yet my friends are so not to go on, for that she had been privately mar-unreasonable, that they would have me be uncivil ried to him above a fortnight. The truth of it is, a woman seldom asks advice before she has bought her wedding clothes. When she has made her own choice, for form's sake, she sends a congé d'élire to her friends.

If we look into the secret springs and motives that set people at work on these occasions, and put them upon asking advice which they never intend to take; I look upon it to be none of the least, that they are incapable of keeping a secret which is so very pleasing to them. A girl longs to tell her confidante, that she hopes to be married in a little time; and, in order to talk of the pretty fellow that dwells so much in her thoughts, asks her very gravely what she would advise her to do in a case of so much difficulty. Why else should Melissa, who had not a thousand pounds in the world, go into every quarter of the town to ask her acquaintance, whether they would advise her to take Tom Towuly, that made his addresses to her, with an estate of five thousand a year? It is very pleasant, on this occasion, to hear the lady propose her doubts; and to see the pains she is at to get over them.

to him. I have a good portion which they cannot hinder of, and I shall be fourteen on the 29th day of August next, and am therefore willing to settle in the world as soon as I can, and so is Mr. Shapely. But everybody I advise with here, is poor Mr. Shapely's enemy. I desire therefore you will give me your advice, for I know you are a wise mau; and if you advise me well, I am resolved to follow it. I heartily wish you could see him dance; and

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AMONG my daily papers which I bestow on the public, there are some which are written with regularity and method, and others that run out into the wildness of those compositions which go by the name of essays. As for the first, I have the whole I must not here omit a practice that is in use scheme of the discourse in my mind before I set among the vainer part of our own sex, who will my pen to paper. In the other kind of writing, it often ask a friend's advice in relation to a fortune is sufficient that I have several thoughts on a subwhom they are never like to come at. Will Hon-ject, without troubling myself to range them in eycomb, who is now on the verge of threescore, took me aside not long since, and asked me in his most serious look, whether I would advise him to marry my Lady Betty Single, who, by the way, has one of the greatest fortunes about town. I stared him full in the face upon so strange a question; upon which he immediately gave me an inventory of her jewels and estate, adding that he was resolved to do nothing in a matter of such consequence without my approbation. Finding he would have an answer, I told him if he could get the lady's consent he had mine. This is about the tenth match which, to my knowledge, Will has consulted his friends upon, without ever opening his mind to the party herself.

I have been engaged in this subject by the following letter, which comes to me from some notable young female scribe, who, by the contents of it, seems to have carried matters so far, that she is ripe for asking advice; but as I would not lose her good-will, nor forfeit the reputation which I have with her for wisdom, I shall only communicate the letter to the public, without returning any answer to it.

such order, that they may seem to grow out of one another, and be disposed under the proper heads. Seneca and Montaigne are patterns for writing in this last kind, as Tully and Aristotle excel in the other. When I read an author of genius who writes without method, I fancy myself in a wood that abounds with a great many noble objects, rising among one another in the greatest confusion and disorder. When I read a methodical discourse, I am in a regular plantation, and can place myself in its several centers, so as to take a view of all the lines and walks that are struck from them. You may ramble in the one a whole day together, and every moment discover something or other that is new to you; but when you have done, you will have but a confused imperfect notion of the place: in the other your eye commands the whole prospect, and gives you such an idea of it as is not easily worn out of the memory.

Irregularity and want of method are only supportable in men of great learning or genius, who are often too full to be exact, and therefore choose to throw down their pearls in heaps before the reader, rather than be at the pains of stringing them.

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