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Smiths del.

SPECTATOR.

Pl. XXVII.

Fuldithed as the Act directs, by Harriton & Co June 24.1776.

chair, which was fo artificially hung upon fprings, that it would weigh any thing as well as a pair of fcales. By this means he difcovered how many ounces of his food paffed by perfpiration, what quantity of it was turned into nourishment, and how much went away by the other channels and diftributions of nature.

Having provided myfelf with this chair, I used to study, eat, drink, and fleep in it; infomuch that I may be faid, for thefe three laft years, to have lived In a pair of fcales. I compute myself, when I am in full health, to be precifely two hundred weight, falling fhort of it about a pound after a day's faft, and exceeding it as much after a very full meal; fo that it is my continual employ ment to trim the balance between thefe two volatile pounds in my conftitution. In my ordinary meals I fetch myfelf up to two hundred weight and half a pound; and if, after having dined, I find myself fall fhort of it, I drink just so much smallbeer, or eat fuch a quantity of bread, as is fufficient to make me weight. In my greatest excelles I do not tranfgrefs more than the other half-pound; which, for my health's fake, I do the first Monday in every month. As foon as I find myself duly poifed after dinner, I walk till I have perfpired five ounces and four fcruples; and when I discover, by my chair, that I am fo far reduced, I fall to my books, and ftudy away three ounces more. As for the remaining parts of the pound, I keep no account of them. I do not dine and fup by the clock, but by my chair; for when that informs me my pound of food is exhaufted, I conclude myself to be hungry, and lay in another with all diligence. In my days of abftinence lofe a pound and an half, and on folemn fafts am two pounds lighter than on other days in the year.

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I allow myfelf, one night with another, a quarter of a pound of fleep with in a few grains more or lefs; and if upon my rifing I find that I have not confumed my whole quantity, I take out the reft in my chair. Upon an exact calculation of what I expended and received the last year, which I always regitter in a book, I find the medium to be two hundred weight, fo that I cannot discover that I am impaired one ounce in my health during a whole twelvemonth. And yet, Sir, notwith

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ftanding this my great care to ballast myself equally every day, and to keep my body in it's proper poife, fo it is that I find myself in a lick and languifhing condition. My complexion is grown very fallow, my pulfe low, and my body hydropical. Let me therefore beg you, Sir, to confider me as your patient, and to give me more certain rules to walk by than those I have already obferved, and you will very much oblige Your humble fervant.

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This letter puts me in mind of an Italian epitaph written on the monument of a Valetudinarian; Stavo ben, ma per far Meglio, fto qui:' which it is impoffible to tranflate. The fear of death often proves mortal, and fets people on methods to fave their lives, which infallibly deftroy them. This is a reflection made by fome hiftorians, upon obferving that there are many more thousands killed in a flight than in a battle; and may be applied to those multitudes of imaginary fick perfons that break their conftitutions by phyfic, and throw themfelves into the arms of death, by endeavouring to escape it. This method is not only dangerous, but below the practice of a reasonable creature. To confult the prefervation of life, as the only end of it; to make our health our bufinefs; to engage in no action that is not part of a regimen, or course of phyfic; are purposes so abject, fo mean, fo unworthy human nature, that a generous foul would rather die than fubmit to them. Befides, that a continual anxiety for life vitiates ail the relishes of it, and cafts a gloom over the whole face of nature; as it is impoffible we fhould take delight in any thing that we are every moment afraid of lofing.

I do not mean, by what I have here faid, that I think any one to blame for taking due care of their health. On the contrary, as chearfulness of mind, and capacity for bufinefs, are in a great measure the effects of a well-tempered conftitution, a man cannot be at too much pains to cultivate and preserve it. But this care, which we are prompted to, not only by common fenfe, but by duty and instinct, should never engage us in groundlefs fears, melancholy apprehenfions, and imaginary dilempers, which are natural to every man who is

more anxious to live than how to live. In short, the preservation of life should be only a fecondary concern, and the direction of it our principal. If we have this frame of mind, we shall take the best means to preferve life, without being over folicitous about the event; and hall arrive at that point of felicity which Martial has mentioned as the perfection of happiness, of neither fearing nor wishing for death.

In anfwer to the gentleman, who tempers his health by ounces and by fcruples, and, inftead of complying with thofe natural folicitations of hunger and thirst, drowsiness or love of exercise, governs himself by the prefcriptions of his shair, I fhall tell him a fhort fable.

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Jupiter,' fays the mythologift, to reward the piety of a certain countryman, promised to give him whatever he would afk. The countryman defired that he might have the management of the weather in his own eftate: he obtained his request, ⚫ and immediately diftributed rain, fnow, and funfhine, among his feveral 'fields, as he thought the nature of the foil required. At the end of the year, when he expected to fee a more than ordinary crop, his harvest fell infinitely fhort of that of his neighbours; upon which,' fays the fable, he defired Jupiter to take the weather again into his own hands, or that otherwise he fhould utterly ruin himself.'

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N° XXVI. FRIDAY, MARCH 30.

PALLIDA MORS EQUO PULSAT PEDE PAUPERUM TABERNAS
REGUMQUE TURRES. O BEATE SESTI,

VITE SUMMA BREVIS SPEM NOS VETAT INCHOARE LONGAM.
JAM TE PREMET NOX, FABULAQUE MANES,
ET DOMUS EXILIS PLUTONIA

HOR. OD. I. IV. 13

CREECH.

in the battles of heroic poems, who have
founding names given them, for no
other reafon but that they may be killed,
and are celebrated for nothing but be-
ing knocked on the head,

Γλυκόν τε Μεδόνα τε Θερσιλοχόν τε. Hom.
Glaucumque, Medontaque, Ther filochumque.

VIRG.

WITH EQUAL FOOT, RICH FRIEND, IMPARTIAL FATE KNOCKS AT THE COTTAGE, AND THE PALACE GATE: LIFE'S SPAN FORBIDS THEE TO EXTEND THY CARES, AND STRETCH THY HOPES BEYOND THY YEARS: NIGHT SOON WILL SEIZE, AND YOU MUST QUICKLY GO TO STORY'D GHOSTS, AND PLUTO'S HOUSE BELOW. HEN I am in a ferious humour, very often walk by myfelf in Westminster Abbey; where the gloominefs of the place, and the ufe to which it is applied, with the folemnity of the building, and the condition of the people who lie in it, are apt to fill the mind with a kind of melancholy, or rather thoughtfulness, that is not difagreeable. I yesterday paffed a whole afternoon in the church-yard, the cloisters, and the church, amusing myfelf with the tomb. ftones and infcriptions that I met with in thofe feveral regions of the dead. Moft of them recorded nothing else of the buried perfon, but that he was born upon one day, and died upon another: the whole history of his life being comprehended in those two circumstances, that are common to all mankind. Í could not but look upon these registers of existence, whether of brafs or marble, as a kind of fatire upon the departed perfons; who had left no other memorial of them, but that they were born and that they died. They put we in mind of feveral perfons mentioned

Glaucus, and Medon, and Therfilochus.

The life of these men is finely defcribed in Holy Writ by the path of an arrow, which is immediately closed up and loft.

Upon my going into the church, I entertained myfelf with the digging of a grave; and faw in every fhovel-full of it that was thrown up, the fragment of a bone or skull intermixed with a kind of fresh niouldering earth that some time or other had a place in the compofition of an human body. Upon this I began to confider with my felf what innumerable multitudes of people lay confused together under the pavement of that ancient cathedral; how men and wo

men,

men, friends and enemies, priests and foldiers, monks and prebendaries, were crumbled amongst one another, and blended together in the fame common inafs; how beauty, ftrength, and youth, with old-age, weak nefs, and deformity, lay undiftinguished in the fame promifcuous heap of matter.

After having thus furveyed this great magazine of mortality, as it were in the lump; I examined it more particularly by the accounts which I found on feveral of the monuments which are raifed in every quarter of that ancient fabric. Some of them were covered with fuch extravagant epitaphs, that if it were poffible for the dead perfon to be acquainted with them, he would blush at the praises which his friends have beftowed upon him. There are others fo exceffively modeft, that they deliver the character of the perfon departed in Greek or Hebrew, and by that means are not understood once in a twelvemonth. In the poetical quarter, I found there were poets who had no monuments, and monuments which had no poets. I obferved indeed that the prefent war had filled the church with many of these uninhabited monuments, which had been erected to the memory of perfons whole bodies were perhaps buried in the plains of Blenheim, or in the bofom of the ocean.

I could not but be very much delighted with feveral modern epitaphs, which are written with great elegance of expreffion and juftness of thought, and therefore do honour to the living as well as the dead. As a foreigner is very apt to conceive an idea of the ignorance or politeness of a nation from the turn of their public monuments and infcriptions, they should be fubmitted to the perufal of men of learning and genius before they are put in execution. Sir Cloudefly Shovel's monument has very often given me great offence; inftead of the brave rough English admisal, which was the diftinguishing cha. racter of that plain gallant man, he is reprefented on his tomb by the figure of a beau, dressed in a long periwig, and repofing himself upon velvet cushions under a canopy of ftate. The infcription is anfwerable to the monument; far instead of celebrating the many re

markable actions he had performed in the fervice of his country, it acquaints us only with the manner of his death, in which it was impoffible for him to reap any honour. The Dutch, whom we are apt to defpife for want of genius, fhew an infinitely greater taste of antiquity and politenefs in their buildings, and works of this nature, than what we meet with in thofe of our own country. The monuments of their admirals, which have been erected at the public expence, reprefent them like themselves; and are adorned with roftral crowns and naval ornaments, with beautiful feftoons of fea-weed, fhells, and coral.

But to return to our fubject. I have left the repofitory of our English kings for the contemplation of another day, when I fhall find my mind difpofed for fo ferious an amusement. I know that entertainments of this nature are apt to raife dark and dismal thoughts in timorous minds, and gloomy imaginations; but for my own part, though I am always ferious, I do not know what it is to be melancholy; and can therefore take a view of nature, in her deep and folemn fcenes, with the fame pleasure as in her moft gay and delightful ones. By this means I can improve myself with those objects, which others confider with terror. When I look upon the tombs of the great, every emotion of envy dies in me; when I read the epitaphs of the beautiful, every inordinate defire goes out; when I meet with the grief of parents upon a tomb-stone, my heart melts with compaffion; when I fee the tomb of the parents themselves, I confider the vanity of grieving for those whom we must quickly follow; when I fee kings lying by thofe who depofed them, when I confider rival wits placed fide by fide, or the holy men that divided the world with their contefts and difputes, I reflect with forrow and aftonishment on the little competitions, factions, and debates of mankind. When I read the feveral dates of the tombs, of fome that died yesterday, and fome fix hundred years ago, I confider that great day when we fhall all of us be contemporaries, and make our appearance together.

C

[N XXVII.

T

N° XXVII. SATURDAY, MARCH 31.

UT NOX LONGA, QUIBUS MENTITUR AMICA, DIESQUE
LONGA VIDETUR OPUS DEBENTIBUS; VT PIGER ANNUS
PUPILLIS, QUOS DURA PREMIT CUSTODIA MATRUM:
SIC MIHI TARDA FLUUNT INGRATAQUE TEMPURA, QUE SPEM
CONSILIUMQUE MORANTUR AGENDI GNAVITER ID, QUOD
QUE PAUPERIBUS PRODEST, LOCUPLETIBUS ÆQUE;
AQUE NEGLECTUM PUERIS SENIBUSQUE NOCEBIT.

IMITATED.

LONG AS TO HIM, WHO WORKS FOR DEBT, THE DAY;
LONG AS THE NIGHT TO HER, WHOSE LOVE'S AWAY;'
LONG AS THE YEAR'S DULL CIRCLE SEEMS TO RUN,
WHEN THE BRISK MINOR PANTS FOR TWENTY-ONE:
SO SLOW TH' UNPROFITABLE MOMENTS ROLL,
THAT LOCK UP ALL THE FUNCTIONS OF MY SOUL;
THAT KEEP ME FROM MYSELF, AND STILL DELAY
LIFE'S INSTANT BUSINESS TO A FUTURE DAY:
THAT TASK, WHICH AS WE FOLLOW, OR DESPISE,
THE ELDEST IS A FOOL, THE YOUNGEST WISE:
WHICH DONE, THE POOREST CAN NO WANTS ENDURE;
AND WHICH NOT DONE, THE RICHEST MUST BE POUR.

HERE is fcarce a thinking man in the world, who is involved in the business of it, but lives under a fecret impatience of the hurry and fatigue he fuffers, and has formed a refolution to fix himself, one time or other, in fuch a state as is fuitable to the end of his being. You hear men every day in converfation profefs that all the honour, power, and riches, which they propofe to themselves, cannot give fatisfaction enough to reward them for half the anxiety they undergo in the purfuit or poffeffion of them. While men are in this temper, which happens very frequently, how inconfiftent are they with themfelves! They are wearied with the toil they bear, but cannot find in their hearts to relinquish it; retirement is what they want, but they cannot betake themfelves to it: while they pant after shade and covert, they till affect to appear in the moft glittering fcenes of hire; but fure this is but just as reasonable as if a man fhould call For more lights, when he has a mind to go to fleep.

Since then it is certain that our own hearts deceive us in the love of the world, and that we cannot command ourfelves enough to refign it, though we every day with ourselves difengaged from it's allurements; let us not itand upon a formal taking of leave, but wean

HOR. EP. I. 1. 20

Porz.

ourfelves from them, while we are in the midst of them.

It is certainly the general intention of the greater part of mankind to accomplish this work, and live according to their own approbation, as foon as they poffibly can; but fince the dura tion of life is fo uncertain, and that has been a common topic of difcourfe ever fince there was fuch a thing as life itself, how is it poffible that we should defer a moment the beginning to live according to the rules of reafon?

The man of bufinefs has ever fome one point to carry, and then he tells himself he'll bid adieu to all the vanity of ambition; the man of pleasure refolves to take his leave at least, and part civilly with his miftrefs: but the ambitious man is entangled every moment in a fresh purfuit, and the lover fees new charms in the object he fancied he could abandon. It is therefore a fantaftical way of thinking, when we promife ourselves an alteration in our conduct from change of place, and difference of circumftances; the fame paffions will attend us wherever we are, till they are conquered; and we can never live to our fatisfaction in the deepest retirement, unless we are capable of living so in fome meafure amidit the noife and bufinefs of the world.

I have ever thought men were better known

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