297 the fame Calamity. However, the Thought of the Propofer arose from a very good Motive, and the parcelling of our felves out, as called to particular Acts of Beneficence, would be a pretty Cement of Society and Virtue. It is the ordinary Foundation for Mens holding a Commerce with each other, and becoming familiar, that they agree in the fame Sort of Pleasure; and fure it may alfo be fome Reason for Amity, that they are under one common Diftrefs. If all the Rich who are lame in the Gout, from a Life of Eafe, Pleasure and Luxury, would help thofe few who have it without a previous Life of Pleasure, and add a few of fuch laborious Men, who are become lame from unhappy Blows, Falls, or other Accidents of Age or Sickness; I fay, would fuch gouty Perfons administer to the Neceffities of Men difabled like themfelves, the Consciousness of such a Behaviour would be the best Julep, Cordial, and Anodyne in the feverish, faint and tormenting Viciffitudes of that miferable Distemper. The fame may be faid of all other, both bodily and intellectual Evils. Thefe Claffes of Charity would certainly bring down Blefings upon an Age and People; and if Men were not petrified with the Love of this World, against all Senfe 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 fick Alderman after this Form; Mr. Bafil Plenty, SIR, r OU have the Gout and Stone, with Sixty thousand Pound Sterling; I have the Gout and Stone, not worth one Farthing; I fall pray for you, and defire you would pay the Bearer Twenty Shillings for Value received from Cripple-Gate, Aug. 29, 1712. SIR, Your humble Servant, Lazarus Hopeful. THE Reader's own Imagination will fuggeft to him the Reasonablenefs of fuch Correfpondences, and diverfify N 5 them them into a thoufand Forms; but I fhall close this as I began upon the Subject of Blindnefs. The following Letter feems to be written by a Man of Learning, who is returned to his Study after a Sufpence of an Ability to do fo. The Benefit he reports himself to have received, may well claim the handfomeft Encomium he can give the Operator. Mr. SPECTATOR, UMINATING lately on your admirable Difcourfes on the Pleafures of the Imagination, I I began to confider to which of our Senfes we are obliged for the greatest and most important Share of those Pleafures; and I foon concluded that it was to the Sight: That is the Sovereign of the Senfes, and Mother of all the Arts and Sciences, that have refined the Rudeness of the uncultivated Mind to a Politeness that diftinguishes 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 tranfporting Senfations 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 feveral Revolutions about their common Centre of Light, Heat ⚫ and Motion, the Sun. The Sight travels yet farther to the fixed Stars, and furnishes the Understanding with 'folid Reasons to prove, that each of them is a Sun moving on its own Axis in the Centre of its own Vortex or Turbillion, and performing the fame Offices to its dependent Planets, that our glorious Sun does to this. But the Inquiries of the Sight will not be ftopped here, but make their Progrefs through the immenfe Expanfe of the Milky Way, and there divide the blended Fires of the Galaxy into infinite and different Worlds, made up of diftinct Suns, and their peculiar Equipages of Planets, till unable to purfue this Track any farther, it deputes the Imagination to go on to new Discoveries, till it fill the unbounded Space • with endlefs Worlds. THE Sight informs the Statuary's Chifel with Power to give Breath to lifeless Brafs and Marble, and the the Painter's Pencil to fwell the flat Canvas with moving Figures actuated by imaginary Souls. Mufick indeed may plead another Original, fince Jubal by the different Falls of his Hammer on the Anvil, difcover'd by the Ear the first rude Mufick that pleas'd the Ante⚫ diluvian Fathers; but then the Sight has not only reduced thofe 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 Philofophy, but all the Divine Imagery of Poetry that tranfports the intelligent Reader of Homer, Milton, and Virgil. 6 6 AS the Sight has polifhed the World, fo does it fupply us with the moft grateful and lafting Pleasure.. Let Love, let Friendship, paternal Affection, filial Pie-ty, and conjugal Duty, declare the Joys the Sight beftows on a Meeting after Abfence. But it would be ⚫ endless to enumerate all the Pleasures and Advantages of Sight; 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: 6 are derived from the Sight, fo has Providence been more curious in the Formation of its Seat, the Eye, than of the Organs of the other Senfes. That ftupendous Machine is compofed in a wonderful Manner of Muscles, Membranes, and Humours. Its Motions are admirably directed by the Mufcies; the Perfpicuity of the Humours tranfmit the Rays of Light; the Rays are regularly refracted by their Figure, the black Lining of the Sclerotes effectually prevents their being• confounded by Reflexion. It is wonderful indeed to ⚫ confider how many Objects the Eye is fitted to take in at once, and fucceffively in an Instant, and at the fame time to make a Judgment of their Pofition, Figure, or • Colour. It watches against our Dangers, guides our Steps, and lets in all the vifible Objects, whofe Beauty and Variety inftruct and delight. THE Pleasures and Advantages of Sight being fo great, the Lofs must be very grievous; of which Milton, from Experience, gives the moft fenfible Idea,. both both in the third Book of his Paradife Loft, and in his Thee I revifit fafe, And feel thy foreign vital Lamp ; but thou And a little after. Seafons return, but not to me returns Day, or the feet Approach of Ev'n and Morn, Of Nature's Works, to me expung'd and raz'd, Again in Samfon Agonifies. But Chief of all, O Lofs of Sight! of thee I moft complain; Still as a Fool, In Pow'r of others, never in my own, Scarce half I feem to live, dead more than Half: Without all Hopes of Day!" THE Enjoyment of Sight then being fo great a Blessing, and the Lofs of it fo terrible an Evil, how excellent ⚫ excellent and valuable is the Skill of that Artift which can restore the former, and redress the latter? My frequent Perufal of the Advertisements in the publick News-Papers (generally the most agreeable Entertainment they afford) has prefented me with many and various Benefits of this kind done to my Countrymen by that skilful Artist Dr. Grant, Her Majefty's Oculift Extraordinary, whofe happy Hand has brought and restored to Sight feveral Hundreds in less than Four Years. Many have received Sight by his Means 'who came blind from their Mothers Womb, as in the famous Inftance of Jones of Newington. I my ⚫ felf have been cured by him of a Weakness in my Eyes next to Blindness, and am ready to believe any thing that is reported of his Ability this way; and ⚫ know that many who could not purchase his Affiftance ' with Money, have enjoy'd it from his Charity. • But a Lift of Particulars would fwell my Letter beyond its Bounds, what I have faid being fufficient, to ⚫ comfort those who are in the like Distress, fince they may conceive Hopes of being no longer miferable in this Kind, while there is yet alive fo able an Oculift as • Dr. Grant. 6 T I am the SPECTATOR's humble Servant, PHILANTHROPUS. Tuesday, |