of in the midft of thofe Dangers and Adverfities which furrounded him; for the following Paffage had its present and perfonal, as well as its future and prophetick Sense. 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 alfo fhall reft in hope. For thou wilt not leave my Soul in Hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to fee Corruption. Thou wilt fhew me the Path of Life: in thy Prefence is Fullness Joy, at thy right Hand there are Pleafures for evermore. No 472. Monday, September 1. I Voluptas Solamenque mali Virg. C Received fome time ago a Propofal, 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 Species of Affliction, and confine their Tenderness to them, fince it is impoffible to affift 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 unfrequent, that one would think, an Establishment 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 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 Pleafure; and fure it may alfo be fome Reafon for A mity, that they are under one common Diftrefs. If all the Rich who are lame in the Gout, from a Life of Ease, 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 adminifter to the Neceffities of Men difabled like themselves, the Consciousness of fuch a Behaviour would be the best Julep, Cordial, and Anodine in the feverifh, faint and tormenting Viciffitudes of that miferable Diftemper. The fame may be faid of all other, both bodily and intellectual Evils. These Clasfes of Charity would certainly bring down Bleffings upon an Age and People; and if Men were not petrifyed with the Love of this World, against all Senfe of the Commerce which ought to be among them, it would not be an un reasonable 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, rou OU have the Gout and Stone, with Sixty thousand Pound Sterling; I have the Gout and Stone, not worth one Fathing; I shall pray for you, and defire you would pay the Bearer Twenty Shillings for Value received from, Cripple-Gate, SIR, Your humble Servant, Lazarus Hopeful. THE Reader's own Imagination will fuggeft to him the Reasonablenefs of fuch Correfpondences; and diverfifie them into a thousand 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 handsomest Encomium he can give the Operator. Mr. Mr. SPECTATOR, Rcourfes on the Pleasures of the Imagination, 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 distinguishes the fine Spirits from the barbarous Gout of the great Vulgar and the fmall. The Sight is the obliging Benefactress, that bestows on us the moft tranfporting Senfations that • we have from the various and wonderful Products of Na<ture. 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 dependant Planets, that our glorious Sun does to this. But the Enquiries of the Sight will not be stopped here, but make their Progrefs through the immenfe Expanfe to 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 endless • Worlds. UMINATING lately on your admirable Dif ་ The Sight informs the Satuary's Chizel 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 Souls. Mufick indeed may plead another Original, fince Jubal, by the different • Falls of his Hammer on the Anvil, difcovered by the Ear the first rude Mufick that pleas'd the Antediluvian Fathers; but then the Sight has not only reduced those ⚫ wilder Sounds into artful Order and Harmony, but conveys that Harmony to the most diftant Parts of the ¿ World 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. AS the Sight has polifhed the World, fo does it fupply us with the moft grateful and lafting Pleafure. Let 'Love, let Friendship, paternal Affection, filial Piety, 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. 6 THUS as our greatest Pleasures and Knowledge 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 ftupendious Machine is compos'd in a wonderful Manner of Muscles, Membranes, and Humours. Its Motions are admirably directed by the Mufcles; 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 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 againft our Dangers, guides our Steps, and lets in all the vifible Objects, whofe Beauty and Variety inftruct and delight. It THE Pleasures and Advantages of Sight being fo great, the Lofs must 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 Sampson Agonistes. To Light in the former. Thee I revifit fafe, And feel thy fovereign vital Lamp, but thou VOL. VI. N And 6 And a little after, Seafons return, but not to me returns Day, or the fweet Approach of Ev'n and Morn, Of Nature's Works, to me expung'd and raz'd, Again, in Sampson Agonifies. But Chief of all, O Lofs of Sight! of thee I most complain; Still as a Fool, In Power 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 Bleffing, and the Lofs of it fo terrible an Evil, how excel⚫lent and valuable is the Skill of that Artift which can reftore the former, and redrefs the latter? My frequent Perufal of the Advertisements in the publick News-Papers (generally the moft 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 lefs than Four Years. Many have re |