of it is of an exalted kind, and in it's nature proper to make the perfon happy who enjoys it. This propofition muft be very evident to thofe who confider how few are the prefent enjoyments of the most happy man, and how infufficient to give him an intire fatisfaction and acquiefcence in them. My next obfervation is this, that a religious life is that which molt abounds in a well-grounded hope, and fuch an one as is fixed on objects that are capable of making us intirely happy. This hope in a religious man is much more fure and certain than the hope of any temporal bleffing, as it is ftrengthened not only by reafon, but by faith. It has at the fame time it's eye perpetually fixed on that state, which implies in the very notion of it the moft full and the moit complete happiness. I have before fhewn how the influence of hope in general fweetens life, and makes our prefent condition supportable, if not pleafing; but a religious hope has ftill greater advantages. It does not only bear up the mind under her fufferings, but makes her rejoice in them, as they may be the inftruments of procuring her the great and ultimate end of all her hope. Religious hope has likewife this advantage above any other kind of hope, that it is able to revive the dying man, and to fill his mind not only with fecret comfort and refreshment, but fometimes with rapture and tranfport. He triumphs in his agonies, whilft the foul fprings forward with delight to the great object which he has always had in view, and leaves the body with an expectation of being re-united to her in a glorious and joyful refurrection. : I fhall conclude this effay with thofe emblematical expreffions of a lively hope, which the pfalmift made use of in the midft of thofe dangers and adverfities which furrounded him; for the following paffage had it's prefent and perfonal, as well as it's future and prophetic fenfe. 'I have fet the Lord always before me because he is at my right-hand I fhall not be moved. Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoiceth: my flesh also shall reft in hope. For thou wilt not leave my foul in hell, neither wilt thou fuffer thine Holy One to fee corruption. Thou wilt fhew me the path of life: in thy prefence there is fulness of joy, at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.' N° CCCCLXXII. MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 1. VOLUPTAS SOLAMENQUE MALI C VIRG. EN. III. v. 660, THIS ONLY SOLACE HIS HARD FORTUNE SENDS. which had a preface to it, wherein the author difcourfed at large of the innumerable objects of charity in a nation, and admonished the rich, who were afflicted with any diftemper of body, particularly to regard the poor in the fame fpecies of affliction, and confine their tenderness to them, fince it is impoffible to affitt all who are prefented to them. The propofer 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 refolution to maintain three poor blind men during their lives, in gratitude for that great bleffing. This misfortune is fo very great and unfre DRYDEN, quent, that one would think, an efta. blishment 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 fame calamity. However, the thought of the propofer arofe from a very good motive, and the parcelling of ourselves out, as called to particular acts of beneficence, would be a pretty cement of fociety and virtue. It is the ordinary foundation for men's holding a commerce with each other, and becoming familiar, that they agree in the fame fort of pleafure; and fure 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 would help thofe few who have it without a previous life of pleasure, and add a few of fuch laborious men, who are become Jame from unhappy blows, falls, or other accidents of age or ficknefs; I fay, would fuch gouty perfons adminifter to the neceffities of men difabled like themselves, the confcioufnefs of fuch a behaviour would be the beft julep, cordial, and anodyne in the feverith, faint, and tormenting viciffitudes of that miferable diftemper. The fame may be faid of all other, both bodily and intellectual evils. Thefe claffes of charity would certainly bring down bleffings upon an age and people; and if men were not petrified with the love of this world, against all fenfe of the commerce which ought to be among them, it would not be an unreafonable bill for a poor man in the agony of pain, aggravated by want and poverty, to draw upon a fick alderman after this form: fovereign of the fenfes, and mother of all the arts and fciences, that have refined the rudeness of the uncultivated mind to a politencfs that diftinguithes the fine fpirits from the barbarous goût of the great vulgar and the final. The fight is the obliging benefactress that bestows on us the mott tranfporting fenfations that we have from the various and wonderful products of nature. To the fight we owe the amazing discoveries of the height, magnitude, and motion of the planets; their feveral revolutions about their common centre of light, heat and motion, the fun. The fight travels yet farther to the fixed ftars, and furnishes the understanding with solid reasons to prove, that each of them is a fun moving on it's own axis in the centre of it's own vortex or turbillion, and performing the fame offices to it's dependent planets, that our glorious fun does to this. But the inquiries of the fight will not be flopped here, but make their progrefs through the immenfe expanfe of the Milky Way, and there divide the blended fires of the Ga laxy into infinite and different worlds, made up of diftinct funs, and their peculiar equipages of planets, until unable to purfue this track any farther, it deputes the imagination to go on to new difcoveries, until it fill the unbounded fpace with endless worlds. The fight informs the ftatuary's chiffel with power to give breath to lifeless brafs and marble, and the painter's pencil to fwell the flat canvas with moving figures actuated by imaginary fouls. Mufic indeed may plead another original, fince Jubal, by the different falls of his hammer on the anvil, difcovered by the ear the first rude mufic that pleafed the antediluvian fathers; but then the fight has not only reduced thofe wilder founds into artful order and harmony,, but conveys that harmony to the most diftant parts of the world without the help of found. To the fight we owe not only all the difcoveries of philofophy, but all the divine imagery of poe try that tranfports the intelligent reader of Homer, Milton, and Virgil. As the fight has polifhed the world, fo does it fupply us with the most grateful and latting pleature. Let love, let friendthip, paternal affection, filial piety, and coniugal duty, declare the joys the fight beltows on a meeting after abfence. Butit would be endlefs to enume6 C rate all the pleasures and advantages of fight; every one that has it, every hour he makes ufe of it, finds them, feels them, enjoys them. Thus as our greatest pleasures and knowledge are derived from the fight, fo has Providence been more curious in the formation of it's feat, the eye, than of the organs of the other fenfes. That ftupendous machine is compofed in a wonderful manner of muscles, membranes, and humours. It's motions are admirably directed by the mufcles; the perfpicuity of the humours tranfmits 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 confider how many objects the eye is fitted to take in at once, and fucceffively in an inftant, and at the fame time to make a judgment of their pofition, figure, or colour. watches against our dangers, guides our fteps, and lets in all the visible objects, whofe beauty and variety inftruct and delight. It The pleafures and advantages of fight being fo great, the lofs muft be very grievous; of which Milton, from experience, gives the most fenfible idea, both in the third book of his Paradife Loft, and in his Samfon Agoniftes. Seasons return, but not to me returns Prefented with an univerfal blank Of Nature's works, to me expung'd and raz'd, -Still as a fool, In pow'r of others, never in my own, The enjoyment of fight then being fo T I anı PHILANTHROPUS. N° CCCCLXXIII. TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 2. SIR, QUID? SI QUIS VULTU TORVO FERUS ET PEDE NUDO, HOR. EP. XIX. L. I. V. 12. 1 SUPPOSE A MAN THE COARSEST GOWN SHOULD WEAR, TO THE SPECTATOR. I am now in the country, and em ploy most of my time in reading, or thinking upon what I have read. Your paper comes conftantly down to me, and it affects me fo much, that I find my thoughts run into your way; and I recommend to you a fubject upon which you have not yet touched, and that is, the fatisfaction fome men feem to take in their imperfections: I think one may call it glorying in their infufficiency. A certain great author is of opinion it is the contrary to envy, though perhaps it may proceed from it. Nothing is fo common as to hear men of this fort, Speaking of themselves, add to their own merit, as they think, by impairing it, in praifing themfelves for their defects, freely allowing they commit fome few frivolous errors, in order to be esteemed perfons of uncommon talents and great qualifications. They are generally profeffing an injudicious neglect of dancing, fencing, and riding, as alfo an unjuft contempt for travelling, and the modern languages; as for their part, fay they, they never valued or troubled their heads about them. This panegyrical fatire on themfelves certainly is worthy of your animadverfion. I have known one of these gentlemen think himself obliged to forget the day of an appointment, and fometimes even that you spoke to him; and when you fee them, they hope you will pardon them, for they have the worst memory in the world. One of them ftarted up the other day in fome confufion, and faid— Now I think on it, I am to meet Mr, Mortmain the attorney about fome business, but whether it is to-day or to-morrow, faith, I cannot tell.' Now to my certain knowledge he knew his time to a moment, and was there ac CREECH. cordingly. Thefe forgetful perfons have, he is not mafter of them himself. Whenever I take any of thefe fine perfons thus detracting from what they do not underftand, I tell them I will complain to you, and fay I am fure you will not allow it an exception against a thing, that he who contemns it is an ignorant in it. 1 am, Sir, your most humble fervant, I MR. SPECTATOR, S. T. Am a man of a very good eftate, and am honourably in love. I hope you will allow, when the ultimate purpose is honeft, there may be, without trefpafs against innocence, fome toying by the way. People of condition are perhaps too diftant and formal on thofe occafions; but however that is, I am to confels to you that I have writ fome verfes to atone for my offence. You profefled authors are a little fevere upon us, who write like gentlemen: but if you are a friend to love, you will infert my poem. You cannot imagine how much fervice it would do me with my fair one, as well as reputation with all my friends, to have fomething of mine in the Spectator, My crime was, that I fnatched a kifs, and my pcetical excufe as follows, END OF THE SIXTH VOLUME, |