have somewhere read in an account of Mahometan superstitions.

A dervise of great sanctity one morning had the misfortune as he took up a crystal cup, which was consecrated to the prophet, to let it fall upon the ground, and dash it in pieces. His son coming in some time after, he stretched out his hands to bless him, as his manner was every morning; but the vouth going out stumbled over the threshold and broke his arm. As the old man wondered at these events, a caravan passed by in its way from Mecca: the dervise approached it to beg a blessing; but as he stroked one of the holy camels, he received a kick from the beast that sorely bruised him. His sorrow and amazement increased upon him until he recollected that, through hurry and inadvertency, he had that morning come abroad without washing his hands.

the number I'll complete,

Then to obscurity well pleas'd retreat.

THE love of symmetry and order, which is natural to the mind of man, betrays him sometimes into very whimsical fancies. "This noble principle," says a French author, "loves to amuse itself on the most trifling occasions. You may see a profound philosopher," says he, "walk for an hour together in his chamber, and industriously treading, at every step, upon every other board in the flooring." Every reader will recollect several instances of this nature without my assistance. I think it was Gregorio Leti, who had published as many books as he was years old; which was a rule he had laid down and punctually observed to the year of his death.-It was, perhaps, a thought of the like nature which determined Homer himself to divide each of his poems into as many books as there are letters in the Greek alphabet. Herodotus has in the same manner adapted his books to the number of the Muses, for which reason many a learned man hath wished that there had been more than nine of that sisterhood.

Several epic poets have religiously followed Virgil as to the number of his books; and even Milton is thought by many to have changed the number of his books from ten to twelve for no other reason; as Cowley tells us it was his design, had he finished his Davideis, to have also imitated the Eneid in this particular. I believe every one will agree with me that a perfection of this nature hath no foundation in reason; and, with due respect to these great names, may be looked upon as something whimsical.

I mention these great examples in defence of my bookseller, who occasioned this eighth volume of Spectators, because, as he said, he thought seven a very odd number. On the other side several grave reasons were urged on this important subject; as, in particular, that seven was the precise number of the wise men, and that the most beautiful constellation in the heavens was composed of seven stars. This he allowed to be true, but still insisted that

This voluminous writer boasted that he had been the author of a book and the father of a child for twenty years successively. Swift counted the number of steps he had made from London to Chelsea. And it is said and demonstrated in the Parentalia, that Bishop Wren walked round the earth while a prisoner in the Tower of London.

seven was an odd number: suggesting at the same time that, if he were provided with a sufficient stock of leading papers, he should find friends ready enough to carry on the work. Having by this means got his vessel launched and set afloat, he hath committed the steerage of it, from time to time, to such as he thought capable of conducting it.

The close of this volume, which the town may now expect in a little time, may possibly ascribe each sheet to its proper author.

It were no hard task to continue this paper a considerable time longer by the help of large contributions sent from unknown hands.

I cannot give the town a better opinion of the Spectator's correspondents than by publishing the following letter, with a very fine copy of verses upon a subject perfectly new:

" MR. SPECTATOR, Dublin, Nov. 30, 1714. “You lately recommended to your female readers the good old custom of their grandmothers, who used to lay out a great part of their time in needlework. I entirely agree with you in your sentiments, and think it would not be of less advantage to themselves and their posterity, than to the reputation of many of their good neighbours, if they passed many of those hours in this innocent entertainment which are lost at the tea-table. I would, however, humbly offer to your consideration the case of the poetical ladies; who, though they may be willing to take any advice given them by the Spectator, yet cannet so easily quit their pen and ink as you may imagine. Pray allow them, at least now and then, to indulge themselves in other amusements of fancy when they are tired with stooping to their tapestry. There is a very particular kind of work, which of late several ladies here in our kingdom are very fond of, which seems very well adapted to a poetical genius: it is the making of grottos. I know a lady who has a very beautiful one, composed by herself; nor is there one shell in it not stuck up by her own hands. I here send you a poem to the fair architect, which I would not offer to herself, until I knew whether this method of a lady's passing her time were approved of by the British Spectator; which, with the poem, I submit to your censure, who am,

"Your constant Reader
" and humble Servant,
"A. B."

A grotto so complete, with such design.
What hands, Calypso, could have formed but thine?
Each chequer'd pebble, and each shining shell,
So well proportion'd and dispos'd so well,
Surprising lustre from thy thought receive,
Assuming beauties more than Nature gave.
To her their various shapes and glossy hue,
Their curious symmetry they owe to you.
Not fam'd Amphion's lute, whose powerful call
Made willing stones dance to the Theban wall,
In more harmonious ranks could make them fall
Not evening cloud a brighter arch can shew,
Nor richer colours paint the heavenly bow.

Where can unpolish'd nature boast a piece
In all her mossy cells exact as this?
At the gay parti-colour'd scene we start,
For chance too regular, too rude for art.

Charm'd with the sight, my ravish'd breast is fir d
With hints like those which ancient bards inspir'd;
All the feign'd tales by superstition told.
All the bright train of fabled nymphs of old,
Th' enthusiastic Muse believes are true,
Thinks the spot sacred, and its genius you:
Lost in wild raptures would she fain disclose
How by degrees the pleasing wonder rose:
Industrious in a faithful verse to trace
The various beauties of the lovely place:

And, while she keeps the glowing work in view,
Through every maze thy artful hand pursue.

O, were I equal to the bold design,
Or could I boast such happy art as thine,
That could rude shells in such sweet order place,
Give common objects such uncommon grace;
Like them, my well chose words in every line
As sweetly temper'd should as sweetly shine.
So just a fancy should my numbers warm,
Like the gay piece should the description charm.
Then with superior strength my voice I'd raise,
The echoing grotto should approve my lays,
Pleas'd to reflect the well-sung founder's praise.

No. 633.] WEDNESDAY, DEC. 15, 1714. Omnia profecto, cum se a cœlestibus rebus referet ad humanas, excelsius magnificentiusque et dicet et sentiet.-CICERO. The contemplation of celestial things will make a man both speak and think more sublimely and magnificently when he descends to human affairs

power of moving the affections. There is another part of eloquence which is indeed its master-piece: I mean the marvellous, or sublime. In this the Christian orator has the advantage beyond contradiction. Our ideas are so infinitely enlarged by revelation, the eye of reason has so wide a prospect into eternity, the notions of a Deity are so worthy and refined, and the accounts we have of a state of happiness or misery so clear and evident, that the contemplation of such objects will give our discourse a noble vigour, an invincible force, beyond the power of any human consideration. Tully requires in his perfect orator some skill in the nature of heavenly bodies; because, says he, his mind will become more extensive and unconfined; and when he descends to treat of human affairs he will both think and write in a more exalted and magnificent manner. For the same reason that excellent master would have recommended the study of those great and

THE following discourse is printed, as it came to glorious mysteries which revelation has discovered my hands, without variation :

to us; to which the noblest parts of this system of the world are as much interior as the creature is less excellent than its Creator. The wisest and most

Cambridge, Dec. 12. "It was a very common inquiry among the an- knowing among the heathens had very poor and imcients why the number of excellent orators, under perfect notions of a future state. They had indeed all the encouragements the most flourishing states some uncertain hopes, either received by tradition, could give them, fell so far short of the number of or gathered by reason, that the existence of virtuous those who excelled in all other sciences. A friend men would not be determined by the separation of of mine used merrily to apply to this case an obser- soul and body; but they either disbelieved a future vation of Herodotus, who says that the most useful state of punishment and misery; or, upon the same animals are the most fruitful in their generation; account that Apelles painted Antigonus with one whereas the species of those beasts that are fierce side only towards the spectator, that the loss of his and mischievous to mankind are but scarcely con- eye might not cast a blemish upon the whole piece; tinued. The bistorian instances a hare, which al- so these represented the condition of man in its ways either breeds or brings forth; and a lioness fairest view, and endeavoured to conceal what they which brings forth but once, and then loses all power thought was a deformity to human nature. I have of conception. But leaving my friend to his mirth, often observed, that whenever the above-mentioned I am of opinion that in these latter ages we have orator in his philosophical discourses is led by his greater cause of complaint than the ancients had. argument to the mention of immortality, he seems And since that solemn festival is approaching, like one awaked out of sleep; roused and alarmed which calls for all the power of oratory, and which with the dignity of the subject, he stretches his ima affords as noble a subject for the pulpit as any revegination to conceive something uncommon, and, lation has taught us, the design of this paper shall with the greatness of his thoughts, casts, as it were, be to show, that our moderns have greater advan- a glory round the sentence. Uncertain and untages towards true and solid eloquence, than any settled as he was, he seems fired with the contemwhich the celebrated speakers of antiquity enjoyed. plation of it. And nothing but such a glorious pros"The first great and substantial difference is, that pect could have forced so great a lover of truth as their common-places, in which almost the whole he was to declare his resolution never to part with force of amplification consists, were drawn from the his persuasion of immortality, though it should be profit or honesty of the action, as they regarded proved to be an erroneous one. But had he lived only this present state of duration. But Chris- to see all that Christianity has brought to light, how tianity, as exalts morality to a greater perfection, would he have lavished out all the force of eloquence as it brings the consideration of another life into in those noblest contemplations which human nathe question, as it proposes rewards and punishments ture is capable of, the resurrection, and the judg of a higher nature and a longer continuance, is more ment that follows it! How had his breast glowed adapted to affect the minds of the audience, natu- with pleasure, when the whole compass of futurity rally inclined to pursue what it imagines its greatest lay open and exposed to his view! How would his interest and concern. If Pericles, as historians re-imagination have hurried him on in the pursuit of port, could shake the firmest resolutions of his the mysteries of the incarnation! How would he hearers, and set the passions of all Greece in a ferment, when the present welfare of his country, or the fear of hostile invasions, was the subject; what may be expected from that orator who warns his audience against those evils which have no remedy, when once undergone, either from prudence or time? As much greater as the evils in a future state are than these at present, so much are the motives to persuasion under Christianity greater than those which mere moral consideratious could supply us with But what I now mention relates only to the

• Christmas.

have entered, with the force of lightning, into the affections of his hearers, and fixed their attention in spite of all the opposition of corrupt nature, upon those glorious themes which his eloquence hath painted in such lively and lasting colours!

"This advantage Christians have; and it was with no small pleasure I lately met with a fragment of Longinus, which is preserved, as a testimony of that critic's judgment, at the beginning of a manuscript of the New Testament in the Vatican library. After that author has numbered up the most celebrated orators among the Grecians, he says, ' add to these Paul of Tarsus, the patron of an opinion

they made human nature resemble the divine. How much mistaken soever they might be in the several means they proposed for this end, it must be owned that the design was great and glorious. The finest works of invention and imagination are of very little weight when put in the balance with what refines and exalts the rational mind. Longinus excuses Homer very handsomely, when be says the poet made his gods like men, that he might make his men appear like the gods. But it must be allowed that several of the ancient philosophers acted as Cicero wishes Homer had done; they endeavoured rather to make men like gods than gods like men.

According to this general maxim in philosophy, some of them have endeavoured to place men in such a state of pleasure, or indolence at least, as they vainly imagined the happiness of the Supreme Being to consist in. On the other hand, the most virtuous sect of philosophers have created a chimerical wise man, whom they made exempt from passion and pain, and thought it enough to pronounce him all-sufficient.

so to suppress and contract his desires as to have few wants; and that he should cherish so many virtues in his soul as to have a perpetual source of pleasure in himself.

not yet fully proved.' As a heathen he condemns the Christian religion; and, as an impartial critic, he judges in favour of the promoter and preacher of it. To me it seems that the latter part of his judgment adds great weight to his opinion of St. Paul's abilities, since, under all the prejudice of opinions directly opposite, he is constrained to acknowledge the merit of that apostle. And, no doubt, such as Longinus describes St. Paul, such he appeared to the inhabitants of those countries which he visited and blessed with those doctrines he was divinely commissioned to preach. Sacred story gives us, in one circumstance, a convincing proof of his eloquence, when the men of Lystra called him Mercury, because he was the chief speaker,' and would have paid divine worship to him, as to the god who invented and presided over eloquence. This one account of our apostle, sets his character, considered as an orator only, above all the celebrated relations of the skill and influence of Demosthenes and his contemporaries. Their power in speaking was admired, but still it was thought human; their eloquence warmed and ravished the hearers, but still This last character, when divested of the glare of it was thought the voice of man, not the voice of human philosophy that surrounds it, signifies no God. What advantage then had St. Paul above more than that a good and wise man should so arm those of Greece or Rome! I confess I can ascribe himself with patience as not to yield tamely to the this excellence to nothing but the power of the doc-violence of passion and pain; that he should learn trines he delivered, which may have still the same influence on the hearers, which have still the power, when preached by a skilful orator, to make us break out in the same expressions as the disciples who met our Saviour in their way to Emmaus made use of: 'Did not our hearts burn within us when he talked to us by the way, and while he opened to us the Scriptures?' I may be thought bold in my judgment by some, but I must affirm that no one orator has left us so visible marks and footsteps of his eloquence as our apostle. It may perhaps be wondered at, that, in his reasonings upon idolatry at Athens, where eloquence was born and flourished, he confines himself to strict argument only; but my reader may remember, what many authors of the best credit have assured us, that all attempts upon the affections, and strokes of oratory, were expressly forbidden by the laws of that country in courts of judicature. His want of eloquence therefore here was the effect of his exact conformity to the laws; but his discourse on the resurrection to the Corinthians, his harangue before Agrippa upon his own conversion, and the necessity of that of others, are truly great, and may serve as full examples to those excellent rules for the sublime, which the best of critics has left us. The sum of all this discourse is, that our clergy have no further to look for an example of the perfection they may arrive at, than to St. Paul's harangues; that when he, under the want of several advantages of nature, as he himself tells us, was heard, admired, and made a standard to succeeding ages, by the best judges of a different persuasion in religion; I say, our clergy may learn, that however instructive their sermons are, they are capable of receiving a great addition: which St. Paul has given them a noble example of, and the Christian religion has furnished them with certain means of attaining to."

No. 634.] FRIDAY, DECEMBER 17, 1714.
The fewer our wants, the nearer we resemble the gods.
It was the common boast of the heathen philoso-
phers, that by the efficacy of their several doctrines,

The Christian religion requires that, after having framed the best idea we are able of the divine na ture, it should be our next care to conform ourselve to it as far as our imperfections will permit. I might mention several passages in the sacred writings on this head, to which I might add many maxims and wise sayings of moral authors among the Greeks and Romans.

I shall only instance a remarkable passage, to this purpose, out of Julian's Caesars. The emperor having represented all the Roman emperors, with Alexander the Great, as passing in review before the gods, and striving for the superiority, lets them all drop, excepting Alexander, Julius Cæsar, Augustus Cæsar, Trajan, Marcus Aurelius, and Con stantine. Each of these great heroes of antiquity lays in his claim for the upper place; and, in order to it, sets forth his actions after the most advantageous manner. But the gods, instead of being dazzled with the lustre of their actions, inquire by Mercury into the proper motive and governing principle that influenced them throughout the whole series of their lives and exploits. Alexander tells them that his aim was to conquer; Julius Casar, that his was to gain the highest post in his country; Augustus, to govern well; Trajan, that his was the same as that of Alexander, namely, to conquer. The question, at length, was put to Marcus Aurelius, who replied, with great modesty, that it had always been his care to imitate the gods. This conduct seems to have gained him the most votes and best place in the whole assembly. Marcus Aurelius being afterward asked to explain himself, declares that, by imitating the gods, he endeavoured to imitate them in the use of his understanding, and of all other faculties: and in particular, that it was always his study to have as few wants as possible in himself, ard to do all the good he could to others.

Among the many methods by which revealed religion has advanced morality, this is one, that it has given us a more just and perfect idea of that Being

whom every reasonable creature ought to imitate. and desires. He can have no greater pleasure from The young man, in a heathen comedy, might justify a bare review of his works than from the survey of his lewdness by the example of Jupiter; as, indeed, his own ideas; but we may be assured that he is there was scarce any crime that might not be coun- well pleased in the satisfaction derived to beings catenanced by those notions of the deity, which pre-pable of it, and for whose entertainment he hath vailed among the common people in the heathen erected this immense theatre. Is not this more than world. Revealed religion sets forth a proper object an intimation of our immortality? Man, who, for imitation in that Being who is the pattern, as when considered as on his probation for a happy well as the source, of all spiritual perfection. existence hereafter, is the most remarkable instance of divine wisdom; if we cut him off from all relation to eternity, is the most wonderful and unaccountable composition in the whole creation. He hath capacities to lodge a much greater variety of knowledge than he will be ever master of, and an unsatisfied curiosity to tread the secret paths of nature and providence; but with this, his organs, in their present structure, are rather fitted to serve the necessities of a vile body, than to minister to his understanding; and from the little spot to which he is chained, he can frame but wandering guesses concerning the innumerable worlds of light that encompass him; which, though in themselves of a prodigious bigness, do but just glimmer in the remote spaces of the heavens: and when, with a great deal of time and pains, he hath laboured a little way up the steep ascent of truth, and beholds with pity the grovelling multitude beneath, in a moment his foot slides, and he tumbles down headlong into the grave.

While we remain in this life we are subject to innumerable temptations, which, if listened to, will make us deviate from reason and goodness, the only things wherein we can imitate the Supreme Being. In the next life we meet with nothing to excite our inclinations that doth not deserve them. I shall therefore dismiss my reader with this maxim, viz. "Our happiness in this world proceeds from the suppression of our desires, but in the next world from the gratification of them."

No. 635.] MONDAY, DECEMBER 20, 1714. Sentio te sedem hominum ac domum contemplari; quæ si tibi parva (ut est) ita videtur, hæc coelestia semper spectato; illa humana contemnito.-CICERO Soma. Scip.

I perceive you contemplate the seat and habitation of men; which if it appears as little to you as it really is, fix your eyes perpetually upon heavenly objects, and despise earthly. THE following essay comes from the ingenious author of the letter upon novelty, printed in a late Spectator: the notions are drawn from the Platonic way of thinking; but, as they contribute to raise the mind, and may inspire noble sentiments of our own future grandeur and happiness, I think it well deserves to be presented to the public :

"If the universe be the creature of an intelligent mind, this mind could have no immediate regard to himself in producing it. He needed not to make trial of his omnipotence to be informed what effects were within its reach: the world, as existing in his eternal idea, was then as beautiful as now it is drawn forth into being; and in the immense abyss of his essence are contained far brighter scenes than will be ever set forth to view; it being impossible that the great author of nature should bound his own power by giving existence to a system of creatures so perfect that he cannot improve upon it by any other exertions of his almighty will. Between finite and infinite there is an unmeasurable interval not to be filled up in endless ages; for which reason the most excellent of all God's works must be equally short of what his power is able to produce as the most imperfect, and may be exceeded with

the same ease.

"This thought hath made some imagine (what it must be confessed is not impossible), that the unfathomed space is ever teeming with new births, the younger still inheriting a greater perfection than the elder. But, as this doth not fall within my present view, I shall content myself with taking notice that the consideration now mentioned proves undeniably, that the ideal worlds in the divine understanding yield a prospect incomparably more ample, various, and delightful, than any created world can do: and that therefore, as it is not to be supposed that God should make a world merely of inanimate matter, however diversified, or inhabited only by creatures of no higher an order than brutes, so the end for which he designed his reasonable offspring is the contemplation of his works, the enjoyment of himself, and in both to be happy; having, to this purpose, endowed them with correspondent faculties SPECTATOR No. 90 & 91.

"Thinking on this, I am obliged to believe, in justice to the Creator of the world, that there is another state when man shall be better situated for contemplation, or rather have it in his power to remove from object to object, and from world to world; and be accommodated with senses and other helps, for making the quickest and most amazing discoveries. How doth such a genius as Sir Isaac Newton, from amidst the darkness that involves human understanding, break forth, and appear like one of another species! The vast machine we inhabit lies open to him; he seems not unacquainted with the general laws that govern it and while with the transport of a philosopher he beholds and admires the glorious work, he is capable of paying at once a more devout and more rational homage to his Maker. But, alas! how narrow is the prospect even of such a mind! And how obscure to the compass that is taken in by the ken of an angel, or of a soul but newly escaped from its imprisonment in the body! For my part, I freely indulge my soul in the confidence of its future grandeur; it pleases me to think that I, who know so small a portion of the works of the Creator, and with slow and painful steps creep up and down on the surface of this globe, shall ere long shoot away with the swiftness of imagination, trace out the hidden springs of nature's operations, be able to keep pace with the heavenly bodies in the rapidity of their career, be a spectator of the long chain of events in the natural and moral worlds, visit the several apartments of creation, know how they are furnished and how inhabited, comprehend the order, and measure the magnitudes and distance of those orbs, which to us seem disposed without any regular design, and set all in the same circle; observe the dependance of the parts of each system, and (if our minds are big enough to grasp the theory) of the several systems upon one another, from whence results the harmony of the universe. In eternity a great deal may be done of this kind. I find it of use to cherish this generous ambition; for besides the secret refreshment it diffuses through my soul, it engages me in an endeavour to improve my faculties, as well as to exercise them conform

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