kindness to the old house-dog, that you know my poor master was so fond of. It would have gone to your heart to have heard the moans the dumb creature made on the day of my master's death. He has never joyed himself since; no more has any of us. It was the melancholiest day for the poor people that ever happened in Worcestershire. This being all from, honoured sir, your most sorrowful servant, EDWARD BISCUIT. P. S. My master desired, some weeks before he died, that a book which comes up to you by the carrier, should be given to Sir Andrew Freeport in his name.' This letter, notwithstanding the poor butler's manner of writing it, gave us such an idea of our good old friend, that upon the reading of it there was not a dry eye in the club. Sir Andrew, opening the book, found it to be a collection of acts of parliament. There was in particular the Act of Uniformity, with some passages in it marked by Sir Roger's own hand. Sir Andrew found that they related to two or three points which he had disputed with Sir Roger the last time he appeared at the club. Sir Andrew, who would have been merry at such an incident on another occasion, at the sight of the old man's writing burst into tears, and put the book in his pocket. Captain Sentry informs me that the knight has left rings and mourning for every one in the club. 0. No. 518.] Friday, October 24, 1712. -Miserum est alienæ incumbere famæ, 'Tis poor relying on another's fame; 'MR. SPECTATOR,-It is with inexpressible sorrow that I hear of the death of good Sir Roger, and do heartily condole with you upon so melancholy an occasion. I think you ought to have blackened the edges of a paper which brought us so ill news, and to have had it stamped likewise in black. It is expected of you that you should write his epitaph, and, if possible, fill his place in the club with as worthy and diverting a member. I question not but you will receive many recommendations from the public of such as will appear candidates for that post. an afternoon with great pleasure to yourself and to the public. It belongs to the church of Stebon-Heath, commonly called Stepney. Whether or no it be that the people of that parish have a particular genius for an epitaph, or that there be some poet among them who undertakes that work by the great, I cannot tell; but there are more remarkable inscriptions in that place than in any other I have met with; and I may say, without vanity, that there is not a gen tleman in England better read in tomb- Here Thomas Sapper lies interr'd. Ah why! "Here lies the body of Daniel Saul, "Hic jacet R. C. in expectatione diei supremi. Qualis erat dies iste indicabit.” "Here lieth R. C. in expectation of the last day. What sort of a man he was, that day will discover." 'I am, sir, &c.' The following letter is dated from Cambridge. 'SIR,-Having lately read among your speculations an essay upon physiognomy, I cannot but think, that, if you made a visit to this ancient university, you might receive very considerable lights upon that subject, there being scarce a young fellow in it who does not give certain indications of his particular humour and disposition, 'Since I am talking of death, and have conformable to the rules of that art. mentioned an epitaph, I must tell you, sir, courts and cities every body lays a conthat I have made a discovery of a church-straint upon his countenance, and endeayard in which I believe you might spend vours to look like the rest of the world; In but the youth of this place, having not yet formed themselves by conversation, and the knowledge of the world, give their limbs and features their full play. As you have considered human nature in all its lights, you must be extremely well apprized, that there is a very close correspondence between the outward and the inward man; that scarce the least dawning, the least parturiency towards a thought can be stirring in the mind of man, without producing a suitable revolution in his exteriors, which will easily discover itself to an adept in the theory of the phiz. Hence it is that the intrinsic worth and merit of a son of Alma Mater is ordinarily calculated from the cast of his visage, the contour of his person, the mechanism of his dress, the disposition of his limbs, the manner of his gait and air, with a number of circumstances of equal consequence and information. The practitioners in this art often make use of a gentleman's eves to give them light into the posture of his brains; take a handle from his nose to judge of the size of his intellects; and interpret the overmuch visibility and pertness of one ear as an infallible mark of reprobation, and a sign the owner of so saucy a member fears neither God nor man. In conformity to this scheme, a contracted brow, a lumpish downcast look, a sober sedate pace, with both hands dangling quiet and steady in lines exactly parallel to each lateral pocket of his galligaskins, is legic, metaphysics, and mathematics, in perfection. So likewise the belles-lettres, are typified by a saunter in the gait, a fall of one wing of the peruke backward, an insertion of one hand in the fob, and a negligent swing of the other, with a pinch of right fine Barcelona between finger and thumb, a due quantity of the same upon the upper lip, and a noddle case loaden with pulvil. Again, a grave solemn stalking pace is heroic poetry and politics; an unequal one, a genius for the ode, and the modern ballad; and an open breast, with an audacious display of the Holland shirt, is construed a fatal tendency to the art military. I might be much larger upon these hints, but I know whom I write to. If you can graft any speculation upon them, or turn them to the advantage of the persons concerned in them, you will do a work very becoming the British Spectator, and oblige, your very humble servant. TOM TWEER.' which I mean that system of bodies into which nature has so curiously wrought the mass of dead matter, with the several relations which those bodies bear to one another; there is still, methinks, something more wonderful and surprising in contemplations on the world of life, by which I mean all those animals with which every part of the universe is furnished. The material world is only the shell of the Universe, the world of life are its inhabitants. If we consider those parts of the material world which lie the nearest to us, and are therefore subject to our observation and inquiries, it is amazing to consider the infinity of animals with which it is stocked. Every part of matter is peopled; every green leaf swarms with inhabitants. There is scarce a single humour in the body of a man, or of any other animal, in which our glasses do not discover myriads of living creatures. The surface of animals is also covered with other animals, which are in the same manner the basis of other animals that live upon it; nay, we find in the most solid bodies, as in marble itself, innumerable cells and cavities that are crowded with such imperceptible inhabitants as are too little for the naked eye to discover. On the other hand, if we look into the more bulky parts of nature, we see the seas, lakes, and rivers, teeming with numberless kinds of living creatures. We find every mountain and marsh, wilderness and wood, plentifully stocked with birds and beasts; and every part of matter affording proper necessaries and conveniencies for the livelihood of multitudes which inhabit it. The author of the Plurality of Worlds draws a very good argument from this consideration for the peopling of every planet; as indeed it seems very probable, from the analogy of reason, that if no part of matter, which we are acquainted with, lies waste and useless, those great bodies which are at such a distance from us, should not be desert and unpeopled, but rather that they should be furnished with beings adapted to their respective situations. Existence is a blessing to those beings only which are endowed with perception; and is in a manner thrown away upon dead matter, any farther than as it is subservient to beings which are conscious of their existence. Accordingly we find, from the bodies which lie under our observation, that matter is only made as the basis and support of animals, and that there is no more of the one than what is necessary for the existence of the other. Infinite goodness is of so communicative a ferring of existence upon every degree of nature, that it seems to delight in the conperceptive being. As this is a speculation which I have often pursued with great pleasure to myself, I shall enlarge farther THOUGH there is a great deal of pleasure in contemplating the material world, by obtained for the author great reputation. Fontenelle.-This book was published in 1686, and upon it, by considering that part of the beings which are of a superior nature to scale of beings which comes within our him; since there is an infinitely greater knowledge. space and room for different degrees of perfection between the Supreme Being and man, than between man and the most despicable insect. This consequence of so great a variety of beings which are superior to us, from that variety which is inferior to us, is made by Mr. Locke, in a passage which I shall here set down, after having premised, that, notwithstanding there is such infinite room between man and his Maker for the creative power to exert itself in, it is impossible that it should ever be filled up, since there will be still an infinite gap or distance between the highest created being and the Power which produced him. There are some living creatures which are raised just above dead matter. To mention only that species of shell-fish, which are formed in the fashion of a cone, that grow to the surface of several rocks, and immediately die upon their being severed from the place where they grow. There are many other creatures but one remove from these, which have no other sense but that of feeling and taste. Others have still an additional one of hearing; others of smell, and others of sight. It is wonderful to observe by what a gradual progress the world of life advances through a prodigious variety of species, before a creature is formed that is complete in all its That there should be more species of senses; and even among these there is such intelligent creatures above us, than there a different degree of perfection in the senses are of sensible and material below us, is which one animal enjoys beyond what ap- probable to me from hence: that in all the pears in another, that, though the sense invisible corporeal world we see no chasms, different animals be distinguished by the or no gaps. All quite down from us the same common denomination, it seems al- descent is by easy steps, and a continued most of a different nature. If after this we series of things, that in each remove differ look into the several inward perfections of very little one from the other. There are cunning and sagacity, or what we generally fishes that have wings, and are not strancall instinct, we find them rising after the gers to the airy region; and there are some same manner imperceptibly one above an- birds that are inhabitants of the water, other, and receiving additional improve- whose blood is as cold as fishes, and their ments, according to the species in which flesh so like in taste, that the scrupulous they are implanted. This progress in na-are allowed them on fish days. There are ture is so very gradual, that the most per- animals so near of kin both to birds and fect of an inferior species comes very near beasts, that they are in the middle between to the most imperfect of that which is im- both. Amphibious animals link the terresmediately above it. trial and aquatic together. Seals live at The exuberant and overflowing goodness land and at sea, and porpoises have the of the Supreme Being, whose mercy ex- warm blood and the entrails of a hog; not tends to all his works, is plainly seen, as I to mention what is confidently reported have before hinted, from his having made of mermaids, or sea-men, there are some so very little matter, at least what falls brutes that seem to have as much knowwithin our knowledge, that does not swarm ledge and reason as some part that are with life. Nor is his goodness less seen in called men; and the animal and vegetable the diversity than in the multitude of living kingdoms are so nearly joined, that if you creatures. Had he only made one species will take the lowest of one, and the highest of animals, none of the rest would have en- of the other, there will scarce be perceived joyed the happiness of existence: he has, any great difference between them; and so therefore, specified in his creation every de-on until we come to the lowest and the gree of life, every capacity of being. The whole chasm in nature, from a plant to a man, is filled up with diverse kinds of creatures, rising one over another, by such a gentle and easy ascent, that the little transitions and deviations from one species to another are almost insensible. This intermediate space is so well husbanded and managed, that there is scarce a degree of perception which does not appear in some one part of the world of life. Is the goodness or the wisdom of the Divine Being more manifested in this his proceeding? There is a consequence, besides those I have already mentioned, which seems very naturally deducible from the foregoing considerations. If the scale of being rises by such a regular progress so high as man, we may, by a parity of reason, suppose that it still proceeds gradually through those most inorganical parts of matter, we shall find every where that the several species are linked together, and differ but in almost insensible degrees. And, when we consider the infinite power and wisdom of the Maker, we have reason to think that it is suitable to the magnificent harmony of the universe, and the great design and infinite goodness of the architect, that the species of creatures should also by gentle degrees ascend upward from us toward his infinite perfection, as we see they gradually descend from us downward: which if it be probable, we have reason then to be persuaded that there are far more species of creatures above us than there are beneath; we being in degrees of perfection much more remote from the infinite being of God, than we are from the lowest state of being. and that which approaches nearest to no thing. And yet of all those distinct species | meekness, good nature, and complacency. we have no clear distinct ideas.' But, indeed, when in a serious and lonely In this system of being, there is no crea-hour I present my departed consort to my ture so wonderful in its nature, and which so much deserves our particular attention, as man, who fills up the middle space between the animal and intellectual nature, the visible and invisible world, and is that link in the chain of beings which has been often termed the nerus utriusque mundi. So that he, who in one respect, being associated with angels and archangels, may look upon a Being of infinite perfection,' as his father, and the highest order of spirits as his brethren, may in another respect say to corruption, Thou art my father; and to the worm, Thou art my mother and my sister.' 0. No. 520.] Monday, October 27, 1712. Quis desiderio sit pudor aut modus imagination, with that air of persuasion in her countenance when I have been in passion, that sweet affability when I have been in good humour, that tender compassion when I have had any thing which gave me uneasiness; I confess to you I am inconsolable, and my eyes gush with grief, as if I had seen her just then expire. In this condition I am broken in upon by a charming young woman, my daughter, who is the picture of what her mother was on her weddingday. The good girl strives to comfort me; but how shall I let you know that all the comfort she gives me is to make my tears flow more easily? The child knows she quickens my sorrows, and rejoices my heart at the same time. Oh, ye learned! tell me by what word to speak a motion of the soul for which there is no name. When she kneels, and bids me be comforted, she is my child: when I take her in my arms, and bid her say no more, she is my very wife, and is the very comforter I lament the loss of. I banish her the room, and weep aloud that I have lost her mother, and that I have her. Mr. Spectator, I wish it were possible for you to have a sense of these pleasing perplexities; you might communicate to the guilty part of mankind that they are incapable of the happiness which is in the very sorrows of the virtuous. and bore the vain application of medicines with the greatest patience imaginable. When the physician told her she must certainly die, she desired, as well as she could, that all who were present, except myself, might depart the room. She said she had nothing to say, for she was resigned, and I knew all she knew that concerned us in this world; but she desired to be alone, that in the presence of God only she might, without interruption, do her last duty to me, of thanking me for all my kindness to her: adding that she hoped in my last moments I should feel the same comfort for my goodness to her, as she did in that she had acquitted herself with honour, truth, and virtue to me. 'MR. SPECTATOR,-The just value you have expressed for the matrimonial state is the reason that I now venture to write to you, without fear of being ridiculous, and confess to you that though it is three months since I lost a very agreeable woman who was my wife, my sorrow is still fresh; and I am often, in the midst of company, upon any circumstance that revives her memory, But pray spare me a little longer; give with a reflection what she would say or do me leave to tell you the manner of her on such an occasion: I say upon any occur-death. She took leave of all her family, rence of that nature, which I can give you a sense of, though I cannot express it wholly, I am all over softness, and am obliged to retire and give way to a few sighs and tears before I can be easy. I cannot but recommend the subject of male widowhood to you, and beg of you to touch upon it by the first opportunity. To those who had not lived like husbands during the lives of their spouses, this would be a tasteless jumble of words; but to such (of whom there are not a few) who have enjoyed that state with the sentiments proper for it, you will have every line, which hits the sorrow, attended with a tear of pity and consolation; for I know not by what goodness of Providence it is that every gush of passion is a step towards the relief of it; and there is a certain 'I curb myself, and will not tell you that comfort in the very act of sorrowing, which, this kindness cut my heart in twain, when I suppose, arises from a secret conscious- I expected an accusation for some passionness in the mind, that the affliction it is un-ate starts of mine, in some parts of our time der flows from a virtuous cause. My con-together, to say nothing but thank me for cern is not indeed so outrageous as at the the good, if there was any good suitable to first transport; for I think it has subsided rather into a soberer state of mind than any actual perturbation of spirit. There might be rules formed for men's behaviour on this great incident, to bring them from that misfortnne into the condition I am at present; which is, I think, that my sorrow has converted all roughness of temper into her own excellence! All that I had ever said to her, all the circumstances of sorrow and joy between us, crowded upon my mind in the same instant: and when, immediately after, I saw the pangs of death come upon that dear body which I had often embraced with transport: when I saw those cherishing eyes begin to be ghastly, and their last struggle to be to fix themselves mean, that can report what they have seen on me, how did I lose all patience! She or heard: and this through incapacity or expired in my arms, and in my distraction prejudice, one of which disables almost I thought I saw her bosom still heave. There was certainly life yet still left. I cried, she just now spoke to me. But, alas! I grew giddy, and all things moved about me, from the distemper of my own head; for the best of women was breathless, and gone for ever. Now the doctrine I would, methinks, have you raise from this account I have given you, is, that there is a certain equanimity in those who are good and just, which runs into their very sorrow, and disappoints the force of it. Though they must pass through afflictions in common with all who are in human nature, yet their conscious integrity shall undermine their affliction; nay, that very affliction shall add force to their integrity, from a reflection of the use of virtue in the hour of affliction. I sat down with a design to put you upon giving us rules how to overcome such griefs as these, but I should rather advise you to teach men to be capable of them. every man who talks to you from representing things as he ought. For which reason I am come to a resolution of believing nothing I hear; and I contemn the man given to narrations under the appellation of "a matter-of-fact man:" and, according to me, a matter-of-fact man is one whose life and conversation is spent in the report of what is not matter-of-fact. "I remember when prince Eugene was here there was no knowing his height or figure, until you, Mr. Spectator, gave the public satisfaction in that matter. In relations, the force of the expression lies very often more in the look, the tone of voice, or the gesture, than the words themselves; which, being repeated in any other manner by the undiscerning, bear a very different interpretation from their original meaning. I must confess I formerly, have turned this humour of mine to very good account; for whenever I heard any narration uttered with extraordinary vehemence, 'You men of letters have what you call and grounded upon considerable authority, the fine taste in your apprehensions of what I was always ready to lay any wager that it is properly done or said. There is some- was not so. Indeed, I never pretended to thing like this deeply grafted in the soul be so rash as to fix the matter any particuof him who is honest and faithful in all his lar way in opposition to theirs; but as there houghts and actions. Every thing which are a hundred ways of any thing happenis false, vicious, or unworthy, is despicable ing, besides that it has happened, I only to him, though all the world should ap- controverted its falling out in that one manprove it. At the same time he has the most ner as they settled it, and left it to the lively sensibility in all enjoyments and suf-ninety-nine other ways, and consequently ferings which it is proper for him to have had more probability of success. I had where any duty of life is concerned. To arrived at a particular skill in warming want sorrow when you in decency and truth a man so far in his narrations as to make should be afflicted, is, I should think, a him throw in a little of the marvellous, and greater instance of a man's being a block- then, if he has much fire, the next degree head, than not to know the beauty of any is the impossible. Now this is always the passage in Virgil. You have not yet ob- time for fixing the wager. But this requires served, Mr Spectator, that the fine gentle- the nicest management, otherwise very men of this age set up for hardness of heart; probably the dispute may arise to the old and humanity has very little share in their determination by battle. In these conceits pretences. He is a brave fellow who is al-I have been very fortunate, and have won ways ready to kill a man he hates, but he some wages of those who have professedly does not stand in the same degree of esteem who laments for the woman he loves. I should fancy you might work up a thousand pretty thoughts, by reflecting upon the persons most susceptible of the sort of sorrow I have spoken of; and I dare say you will find, upon examination, that they are the wisest and the bravest of mankind who are the most capable of it. I am, sir, your humble servant, F. J. 'Norwich, 7th October, 1712.' T. No. 521.] Tuesday, October 28, 1712. valued themselves upon intelligence, and have put themselves to great charge and expense to be misinformed considerably sooner than the rest of the world. Having got a comfortable sum by this my opposition to public report, I have brought myself now to so great a perfection in attention, more especially to party-relation, that, at the same time I seem with greedy ears to devour up the discourse, I certainly do not know one word of it, but pursue my own course of thought, whether upon business or amusement, with much tranquillity; I say inattention, because a late act of parliament has secured all party-liars from the penalty of a wager, and consequently made it unprofitable to contingency relating to the war with France were de*Stat. 7 Anne, cap. 17.-By it all wagers laid upon a Iclared to be void. |