words, which it is not poffible for a 'man to utter.' By this is meant, that what he heard was fo infinitely different from any thing which he had heard in this world, that it was impoffible to exprefs it in fuch words as might convey a notion of it to his hearers.

It is very natural for us to take delight in enquiries concerning any foreign country, where we are fome time or other to make our abode; and as we all hope to be admitted into this glorious place, it is both a laudable and useful curiofity to get what informations we can of it, whilft we make ufe of revelation for our guide. When thefe everJatting doors thall be open to us, we may be fure that the pleafures and beauties of this place will infinitely transcend our prefent hopes and expectations, and that the glorious appearance of the throne of God will rife infinitely beyond whatever we are able to conceive of it. We might here entertain ourfelves with many other fpeculations on this fubject, from thofe feveral hints which we find of it in the Holy Scripfures; as whether there may not be different manfions and apartments of glory, to beings of different natures; whether, as they excel one another in perfection, they are not admitted nearer to the throne of the Almighty, and enjoy greater månifeftations of his prefence; whether there are not folemn times and occasions, when all the multitude of heaven cele

I

brate the prefence of their Maker in more extraordinary forms of praise and adoration; as Adam, though he had continued in a state of innocence, would, in the opinion of our divines, have kept holy the Sabbath-day, in a more particular manner than any other of the feven. These, and the like fpeculations, we may very innocently indulge, fo long as we make use of them to inspire us with a defire of becoming inhabitants of this delightful place.

I have in this, and in two foregoing letters, treated on the most ferious fubject that can employ the mind of man, the omniprefence of the Deity; a fubject which, if poffible, fhould never depart from our meditations. We have confidered the Divine Being, as he inhabits infinitude, as he dwells among his works, as he is prefent to the mind of man, and as he difcovers himself in a more glorious manner among the regions of the blessed. Such a confideration fhould be kept awake in us at all times, and in all places, and poflefs our minds with a perpetual awe and reverence. It should be interwoven with all our thoughts and perceptions, and become one with the consciousness of our own being. It is not to be reflected on in the coldnefs of philofophy, but ought to fink us into the loweft proftration before him, who is fo aitonishingly great, wonderful, and holy.

MART. EPIG. XVII. L. I.

Am at prefent fitting with a heap of letters before me, which I have received under the character of Spectator. I have complaints from lovers, tchemes from projectors, fcandal from ladies, congratulations, compliments, and adVice in abundance.

I have not been thus long an author, to be infenfible of the natural fondness every perfon must have for their own productions; and I begin to think I have treated my correfpondents a little too uncivilly in ftringing them all toge ther on a file, and letting them lie fo

long unregarded. I fhall therefore, for the future, think myfelf at leaft obliged to take fome notice of fuch letters as I receive, and may poffibly do it at the end of every month.

In the mean time, I intend my prefent paper as a fhort answer to most of thofe which have been already fent

me.

The public, however, is not to expe&t I should let them into all my fecrets; and though I appear abftrufe to molt people, it is fufficient if I am underitood by my particular correspondents.

My well-wisher Van Nath is very arch, but not quite enough fo to appear in print.

Philadelphus will, in a little time, fee his Query fully anfwered by a treatife which is now in the prefs.

It was very improper at that time to comply with Mr. G.

Mifs Kitty muft excufe me.

The gentleman who fent me a copy of verfes on his miftrefs's dancing, is, I believe, too thoroughly in love to compofe correctly.

I have too great a refpect for both the univerfities to praife one at the expence

of the other.

My friend at Woodstock is a bold man, to undertake for all within ten miles of him.

I am afraid the entertainment of Tom Turnover will hardly be relifhed by the good cities of London and Westminster. I must confider farther of it, before I indulge W. F. in thote freedoms he takes with the ladies stockings.

I am obliged to the ingenious gentleman who fent me an ode on the fubject of the late Spectator, and fhall take particular notice of his laft letter.

When the lady who wrote me a letter, dated July the 20th, in relation to fome paffages in a lover, will be more particular in her directions, I fhall be fo in my answer.

The poor gentleman, who fancies my writings could reclaim an husband who can abufe fuch a wife as he defcribes, has, I am afraid, too great an opinion of my skill.

Philanthropos is, I dare fay, a very well-meaning man, but a little too prolix in his compofitions.

Conftantius himself must be the best judge in the affair he mentions.

4

Arethufa and her friend may hear fat ther from me.

Celia is a little too hasty.

Harriot is a good girl, but muft no curtly to folks he does not know.

I must ingenuously confefs my friend Sampfon Bentitaff has quite puzzled me and writ me a long letter which I cannot comprehend one word of.

Collidan muft alfo explain what means by his drigelling.

I think it beneath my fpectatorial dig nity, to concern myself in the affair the boiled dumpling.

I fhall confult fome Literati on the project fent me for the discovery of the longitude.

I know not how to conclude this pa per better, than by inferting a couple! of letters which are really genuine, ard which I look upon to be two of the fmarteft pieces I have received from my correfpondents of either sex.

BROTHER SPEC,

WHILE you are furveying every

object that falls in your way, I am wholly taken up with one. Had that fage, who demanded what beauty was, lived to fee the dear angel I love, he would not have afked fuch a queftion. Had another seen her, he would himself have loved the perfon in whom Heaven has made virtue vifible; and were you yourself to be in her company, you could never, with all your loquacity, fay enough of her good-humour and fenfe. I fend you the outlines of a picture, which I can no more finish than I can fufficiently admire the dear original. I am your most affectionate brother,

CONSTANTIO SPEC.

GOOD MR. PERT,

Will allow you nothing until you refolve me the following question. Pray what is the reafon that while you only talk now upon Wednesdays, Fridays, and Mondays, you pretend to be a greater tatler, than when you spoke every day as you formerly used to do? If this be your plunging out of your taciturnity, pray let the length of your fpeeches compenfate for the fcarceneis of them. I am, good Mr. Pert, your admirer, if you will be long enough

7

Τ'

HERE is a certain diftemper, which is mentioned neither by Galen nor Hippocrates, nor to be met with in the London Difpenfary. Ju.. venal, in the motto of my paper, terms it a Cacoethes; which is a hard word for a difeafe called in plain English, The itch of writing. This Cacoethes is as epidemical as the fmall-pox, there being very few who are not feized with it fome time or other in their lives. There is, however, this difference in thefe two diftempers, that the first, after having indifpofed you for a time, never returns again; whereas this I am speaking of, when it is once got into the blood, feldom comes out of it. The British nation is very much afflicted with this malady; and though very many te medies have been applied to perfons infected with it, few of them have ever proved fuccefsful. Some have been cauterized with fatires and lampoons, but have received little or no benefit from them; others have had their heads fastened for an hour together between a cleft board, which is made ufe of as a cure for the difeafe when it appears in it's greateft malignity. There is indeed one kind of this malady which has been fometimes removed, like the biting of a Tarantula, with the sound of a musical inftrument, which is commonly known by the name of a, cat-call. But if you have a patient of this kind under your care, you may affure yourself there is no other way of recovering him effectually, but by forbidding him the ufe of pen, ink, and paper.

But to drop the allegory before I have tired it out, there is no fpecies of fcrib. blers more offenfive, and more incurable,

than

your periodical writers whofe works return upon the public on certain days and at ftated times. We have not the confolation in the perufal of these authors, which we find at the reading of all others, namely, that we are fure if we have but patience we may come to the end of their labours. I have often

CH. DRYDEN.

admired an humourous faying of Diogenes, who reading a dull author to several of his friends, when every one began to be tired, finding he was almoft come to the blank leaf at the end of it, cried Courage, lads, I fee land.' On the contrary, our progrefs through that kind of write s I ain now fpeaking of is never at an end. One day makes work for another, we do not know when to promife ourselves reft.

It is a melancholy thing to confider that the art of printing, which might be the greatest bleffing to mankind, thould prove detrimental to us, and that it should be made use of to fcatter prejudice and ignorance through a people, inftead of conveying to them truth and knowledge.

I was lately reading a very whimsical treatife, intituled, William Ramfay's Vindication of Aftrology.' This profound author, among many mystical paffages, has the following one: The

abience of the fun is not the cause of night, forafmuch as his light is fo great that it may illuminate the earth all over at once as clear as broad day; but there are tenebrificous and dark fiars, by whofe influence night is brought on, and which do ray out darkness and obicurity upon the earth, as the fun does light."

I confider writers in the fame view

this fage aftrologer does the heavenly bodies. Some of them are stars that fcatter light as others do darkness. I could mention feveral authors who are tenebrificous stars of the first magnitude, and point out a knot of gentlemen, who have been dull in confort, and may be looked upon as a dark conftellation. The nation has been a great while benighted with feveral of thefe antiluminaries. I fuffered them to ray out their darkness as long as I was able to endure it, till at length I came to a refolution of rifing upon them, and hope in a little time to drive them quite out of the Britifh hemifphere. 7 F 2

N°

E

VERY ftation of life has duties which are proper to it. Those who are determined by choice to any particular kind of business, are indeed more happy than those who are determined by neceffity, but both are under an equal obligation of fixing on employments, which may be either ufeful to themselves or beneficial to others: no one of the fons of Adam ought to think himself exempt from that labour and induftry which were denounced to our first parent, and in him to all his pofterity. Thofe to whom birth or fortune may feem to make fuch an application unneceflary, ought to find out fome calling or profeffion for themfelves, that they may not lie as a burden on the fpecies, and be the only ufelefs parts of the creation. Many of our country gentlemen in their buly hours apply themselves wholly to the chace, or to fome other diverfion which they find in the fields and woods. This gave occafion to one of our moft eminent English writers to reprefent every one of them as lying under a kind of curfe pronounced to them in the words of Goliah, I will give thee to the fowls of the air, and to the beats ⚫ of the field.'

Though exercifes of this kind, when indulged with moderation, may have a good influence both on the mind and Body, the country affords many other amufements of a more noble kind.

Among thefe I know none m re delightful in itself, and beneficial to the public, than that of Plas ting. I could mention a nobleman whofe fortune has placed him in feveral parts of England, and who has always left these visible marks behind him, which fhew he has been there: he never hired a house in

DRYDEN.

his life, without leaving all about it the feeds of wealth, and beftowing legacies on the pofterity of the owner. Had all the gentlemen of England made, the fame improvements upon their estates, our whole country would have been at this time as one great garden. Nor ought such an employment to be looked upon as too inglorious for men of the higheft rank. There have been heroes in this art, as well as in others. We are told in particular of Cyrus the Great, that he planted all the Leifer Afia. There is indeed fomething truly magnificent in this kind of amufement: it gives a nobler air to feveral parts of nature; it fills the earth with a variety of beannful fcenes, and has fomething in it like creation. For this reafon the pleasure of one who plants is fomething ike that of a poet, who, as Ariftotle obferves, is more delighted with his productions than any other writer or artift whatsoever.

Plantations have one advantage in them which is not to be found in mott other works, as they give a pleature of a more Jasting date, and continua ly improve in the eye of the planter. When you have finished a building, or any other undertaking of the like nature, it immediately decays upon your hands; you see it brought to the utmolt point of perfection, and from that time haitening to it's ruin. On the contrary, when you have finished your plantations, they are fill arriving at greater degrees of perfection as long as you live, and appear more delightful in every fucceeding year than they did in the foregoing.

But I do not only recommend this art to men of eftates as a pi-aling amufement, but as it is, a kind of virtuous employment,