ments, wherein the mind has been in dulging itself in fuch luxury of thought, fuch noble hurry of imagination. Suppofe a man's going fupperlefs to bed hould introduce him to the table of fome great prince or other, where he fhall be entertained with the noblest marks of honour and plenty, and do fo much business after, that he fhall rife with as good a ftomach to his breakfast as if he had fafted all night long; or fuppofe he fhould fee his dearest friends remain all night in great diftreffes, which he could inftantly have difengaged them from, could he have been content to have gone to bed without the other bottle; believe me these effects of fancy are no contemptible confequences of commanding or indulging one's appetite.

I forbear recommending my advice upon many other accounts until I hear how you and your readers relish what I have already faid; among whom if there be any that may pretend it is ufeleis to them, because they never dream at all, there may be others, perhaps, who do little elfe all day long. Were every one as fenfible as I am what happens to him in his fleep, it would be no difpute whether we pafs fo confiderable a portion of our time in the condition of ftocks and stones, or whether the foul were not perpetually at work upon the principle of thought. However, it is an honeft endeavour of mine to perfuade

N° DLXXXVII.

my countrymen to reap fome advantage from fo many unregarded hours, and as fuch you will encourage it.

I fall conclude with giving you a sketch or two of my way of proceeding. If I have any business of consequence to do to-morrow, I am fearce dropt afleep to-night but I am in the midst of it, and when awake I consider the whole proceffion of the affair, and get the ad. vantage of the next day's experience before the fun has rifen upon it.

There is scarce a great poft but what I have fome time or other been in; but my behaviour while I was mafter of a college, pleases me fo well, that whenever there is a province of that nature vacant, I intend to step in as foon as I

can.

I have done many things that would not pass examination, when I have had the art of flying or being invifible; for which reafon I am glad I am not poífeffed of thofe extraordinary qualities.

Laftly, Mr. Spectator, I have been a great correfpondent of yours, and have read many of my letters in your paper which I never wrote you. If you have a mind I fhould really be fo, I have got a parcel of vifions and other mifcellanies in my noctuary, which I fhall fend you to enrich your paper on proper occafions. I am, &c.

OXFORD, AUG. 20.

JOHN SHALLOW.

PERS. SAT. III. VER. 30.

DRYDEN.

while he was among his play-fellows, and carrying him afide, cut open his breaft, plucked out his heart, and wrung out of it that black drop of biood, in which, fay the Turkish divines, is contained the Fomes Peccati, fo that he was free from fin ever after. I immediately faid to my felt, though this toy be a fiction, a very good moral may be drawn from it, would every man but apply it to himself, and endeavour to iquecze out of his heart whatever fins or ill qualities he finds in it.

While my mind was wholly taken up with this contemplation, I infenfibly fell into a moft pleafing flumber, when methought two porters entered my chamber carrying a large cheft between them. After having fet it down in the middle of the room, they departed. I immediately endeavoured to open what was fent me, when a fhape, like that in which we paint our angels, appeared before me, and forbade me. Inclofed,' faid he, are 'the hearts of feveral of your friends and acquaintance; but before you can be qualified to fee and animadvert on the failings of others, you must be pure yourself. Whereupon he drew out his incifion knife, cut me open, took out my heart, and began to squeeze it. I was in a great confufion, to fee how many things, which I had always cherifhed as virtues, iffued out of my heart on this occafion. In fhort, after it had been thoroughly fqueezed, it looked like an empty bladder; when the phantom, breathing a fresh particle of divine air into it, reftored it fafe to it's former repofitory; and having fewed me up, we began to examine the chelt.

The hearts were all inclofed in tranfparent phials, and preferved in liquor which looked like fpirits of wine. The first which I calt my eye upon, I was afraid would have broke the glafs which contained it. It fhot up and down, with incredible fwiftnefs, through the liquor in which it fwam, and very frequently bounced against the side of the phial. The fomes, or spot in the middle of it, was not large, but of a red fiery colour, and feemed to be the caufe of thefe violent agitations. That,' fays my instructor, is the heart of Tom

Dread Nought, who behaved himself well in the late wars, but has for thefe ten years last past been aiming at fome post of honour to no purpose. He is lately retired into the country, where quite choaked up with spleen and choler, he rails at better men than himfelf, and will be for e er uneasy, be'caufe it is impoffible he fhould think his merits fufficiently rewarded.' The next heart that I examined was remarkable for it's fmlinefs; it lay ftill at the bottom of the phial, and I could hardly perceive that it beat at all. The fomes was quite black, and had almost diffufed itself over the whole heart. This,' fays my interpreter, is the heart of Dick Gloomy, who never thirfted af.

ter any thing but money. Notwithtanding all his endeavours, he is till poor. This has flung him into a most deplorable ftate of melancholy and defpair. He is a compofition of envy and idleness, hates mankind, but gives them their revenge by being more uneafy to himself than to any one elfe.' The phial I looked upon next contained a large fair heart which beat very ftrongly. The fomes or fpot in it was exceeding fimall; but I could not help obferving, that which way foever I turned the phial, it always appeared upper. most, and in the strongest point of light.

The heart you are examining,' fays my companion, belongs to Will Worthy.' He has, indeed, a most noble foul, and is poffeffed of a thousand good qualities. The fpeck which you difcover is vanity.

Here,' fays the angel, is the heart of Freelove, your intimate friend.'Freelove and I,' faid I, are at prefent very cold to one another, and I do not care for looking on the heart of a man which I fear is overcalt with rancour.' My teacher commanded me to look upon it; I did fo, and to my unfpeakable furprite, found that a fmall fwelling fpot, which I at first took to be ill-will towards me, was only paf fin, and that upon my nearer infpection it wholly difappeared; upon which the phantom told me Freelove was one of the belt-natured men alive.

This, fays my teacher, is a female heart of your acquaintance.' I found the fomes in it of the largest fize, and of an hundred different colours, which were ftill varying every moment. Upon my afking to whom it belonged, I was informed that it was the heart of Coquetilla.

I fet it down, and drew out another, in which I took the fomes at first figat to be very fmall, but was amazed ɔ find, that, as I looked ftedfastly un it, it grew still larger. It was the heart of Meliffa, a noted prude who lives the next door to me.

I fhew you this,' fays the phantom, because it is indeed a rarity, and you have the happiness to know the person to whom it belongs. He then pat into my hands a large cryital glais, that inclofed an heart, in which, though I examined it with the utmoft nicety, I could not perceive any blemish. I made no fcruple to affirm, that it must be the 7 G 2

heart

heart of Seraphina, and was glad, but not furprised, to find that it was fo. She is indeed,' continued my guide, the ornament, as well as the envy, of her fex. At thefe laft words he pointed to the hearts of feveral of her female acquaintance which lay in different phials, and had very large fpots in them, all of a deep blue. You are not to wonder, fays he, that you fee no fpot in an heart, whofe innocence has been proof againft all the corruptions of a depraved age. If it has any blemith, it is too fmall to be difcovered • by human eyes,'

CICERO.

MAN

AN may be confidered. in two views, as a reasonable, and as a fociable being; capable of becoming himfelf either happy or miferable, and of contributing to the happiness or mifery of his fellow-creatures. Suitably to this double capacity, the Contriver of human nature hath wifely furnished it with two principles of action, felf-love, and benevolence; defigned one of them to render man wakeful to his own personal interest, the other to difpofe him for giving his utmost affiftance to all engaged in the fame purfuit. This is fuch an account of our frame, fo agree able to reafon, fo much for the honour of our Maker, and the credit of our fpecies, that it may appear fomewhat unaccountable what should induce men to represent human nature as they do under characters of difadvantage, or having drawn it with a little fordid afpect, what pleafure they can poffibly take in fuch a picture? Do they reflect that it is their own, and, if we would believe theinfelves, is not more odious than the original? One of the first that talked in this lofty ftrain of our nature was Epicurus. Beneficence, would his followers fay, is all founded in weakness; and, whatever he pretended, the kindnefs that paffeth between men and men, is by every man directed to himself. This, it must be confeffed, is of a piece with the rest of that hopeful philofophy, which

having patched men up out of the four elements, attributes his being to chance, and derives all his actions from an unintelligible declination of atoms. And for thefe glorious difcoveries the poet is beyond measure tranfported in the praiks of his hero, as if he must needs be fomething more than man, only for an endeavour to prove that man is in nothing fuperior to beats. In this fchool was Mr. Hobbes inftructed to speak after the fame manner, if he did not rather draw his knowledge from an obferva tion of his own temper; for he fomewhere unluckily lays down this as a rule, That from the fimilitudes of thoughts and paffions of one man to the thoughts and paffions of another, whofoever looks into himself and confiders what he doth when he thinks, hopes, fears, &c. and upon what grounds; he fhall hereby read and know what are the thoughts and paffions of all other men, upon the like occafions. Now we will allow Mr. Hobbes to know best how he was inclined; but in earnest, I fhould be heartily out of conceit with myfelf, if I thought my felf of this unamiable temper, as he affirms, and should have as little kindness for myfelf as for any body in the world. Hitherto I always ima gined that kind and benevolent propenfions were the original growth of the heart of man, and, however checked and overtopped by counter inclinations

that