T. No. 487.] Thursday, September 18, 1712. Urget membra quies, et mens sine pondere ludit. Petr. While sleep oppresses the tir'd limbs, the mind Plays without weight, and wantons unconfin`d. THOUGH there are many authors who have written on dreams, they have generally considered them only as revelations of what has already happened in distant parts of the world, or as presages of what is to happen in future periods of time. has possessed at the same time two abused, genious author gives an account of himself and two contented-' in his dreaming and his waking thoughts. "We are somewhat more than ourselves in our sleeps, and the slumber of the body seems to be but the waking of the soul. It is the ligation of sense, but the liberty of reason; and our waking conceptions do not match the fancies of our sleeps. At my nativity my ascendant was the watery sign of Scorpius: I was born in the planetary hour of Saturn, and I think I have a piece of that leaden planet in me. I am no way facetious, nor disposed for the mirth and galliardise of company; yet in one dream I can compose a whole comedy, behold the action, apprehend the jests, and laugh myself awake at the conceits thereof. Were my memory as faithful as my reason is then fruitful, I would never study but in my dreams; and this time also would I choose for my devotions; but our grosser memories have then so little hold of our abstracted understandings, that they forget the story, and can only relate to our awaked souls a confused and broken tale of that that has passed. Thus it is observed that men sometimes, upon the hour of their departure, do speak and reason above themselves; for then the soul, beginning to be freed from the ligaments of the body, begins to reason like herself, and to discourse in a strain above mortality.' I shall consider this subject in another light, as dreams may give us some idea of the great excellency of a human soul, and some intimations of its independency on matter. In the first place, our dreams are great instances of that activity which is natural to the human soul, and which is not in the power of sleep to deaden or abate. When the man appears to be tired and worn out with the labours of the day, this active part in his composition is still busied and unwearied. When the organs of sense want their due repose and necessary reparations, and the body is no longer able to keep pace with that spiritual substance to which it is united, the soul exerts herself in her several faculties, and continues in action until her partner is again qualified to bear her company. In this case dreams look like the relaxations and amusements of the soul, when she is disencumbered of her machine, her sports, and recreations, when she has laid her charge asleep. We may likewise observe, in the third place, that the passions affect the mind with greater strength when we are asleep than when we are awake. Joy and sorrow give us more vigorous sensations of pain or pleasure at this time than any other. Devotion likewise, as the excellent author above mentioned has hinted, is in a very In the second place, dreams are an in-particular manner heightened and inflamstance of that agility and perfection which ed, when it rises in the soul at a time that is natural to the faculties of the mind, when the body is thus laid at rest. Every man's they are disengaged from the body. The experience will inform him in this matter, soul is clogged and retarded in her opera- though it is very probable that this may tions, when she acts in conjunction with a happen differently in different constitutions. companion that is so heavy and unwieldy I shall conclude this head with the two folin its motion. But in dreams it is wonder-lowing problems, which I shall leave to ful to observe with what a sprightliness and the solution of my reader. Supposing a alacrity she exerts herself. The slow of man always happy in his dreams, and mispeech make unpremeditated harangues, serable in his waking thoughts, and that or converse readily in languages that they his life was equally divided between them; are but little acquainted with. The grave whether would he be more happy or miseabound in pleasantries, the dull in repar-rable? Were a man a king in his dreams, tees and points of wit. There is not a more painful action of the mind than invention; yet in dreams it works with that ease and activity that we are not sensible of, when the faculty is employed. For instance, I believe every one some time or other, dreams that he is reading papers, books, or letters; in which case the invention prompts so readily, that the mind is imposed upon, and mistakes its own suggestions for the compositions of another. I shall, under this head, quote a passage out of the Religio Medici,* in which the inon "Vulgar Errors," which appeared in folio, in 1€46. By Sir T. Brown, M. D. author of the curious book and a beggar awake, and dreamt as consequentially, and in as continued unbroker. schemes, as he thinks when awake; whether would he be in reality a king or a beggar; or, rather, whether he would ne be both? There is another circumstance, which methinks gives us a very high idea of the nature of the soul, in regard to what passes in dreams. I mean that innumerable multitude and variety of ideas which then arise in her. Were that active and watchful being only conscious of her own existence at such a time, what a painful solitude would our hours of sleep be! Were the soul sensible of her being alone in her sleeping | strong intimations, not only of the excelmoments, after the same manner that she is sensible of it while awake, the time would hang very heavy on her, as it often actually does when she dreams that she is in such a solitude. -Semperque relinqui Virg. En. iv. 466. She To wander in her sleep through ways unknown, Guideless and dark.--Dryden. But this observation I only make by the way. What I would here remark, is that wonderful power in the soul, of producing her own company on these occasions. converses with numberless beings of her own creation, and is transported into ten thousand scenes of her own raising. She is herself the theatre, the actor, and the beholder. This puts me in mind of a saying which I am infinitely pleased with, and which Plutarch ascribes to Heraclitus, that all men whilst they are awake are in one common world; but that each of them, when he is asleep, is in a world of his own. The waking man is conversant in the world of nature: when he sleeps he retires to a private world that is particular to himself. There seems something in this consideration that intimates to us natural grandeur and perfection in the soul, which is rather to be admired than explained. I must not omit that argument for the excellency of the soul which I have seen quoted out of Tertullian, namely, its power of divining in dreams. That several such divinations have been made, none can question, who believes the holy writings, or who has but the least degree of a common historical faith; there being innumerable instances of this nature in several authors both ancient and modern, sacred and profane. Whether such dark presages, such visions of the night, proceed from any latent power in the soul, during this her state of abstraction, or from any communication with the Supreme Being, or from any operation of subordinate spirits, has been a great dispute among the learned; the matter of fact is, I think, incontestible, and has been looked upon as such by the greatest writers, who have been never suspected either of superstition or enthusiasm. I do not suppose that the soul in these instances is entirely loose and unfettered from the body; it is sufficient if she is not so far sunk and immersed in matter, nor entangled and perplexed in her operations with such motions of blood and spirits, as when she actuates the machine in its wak lency of the human soul, but of its independence on the body; and, if they do not prove, do at least confirm these two great points, which are established by many other reasons that are altogether unan swerable. O. I FIND, by several letters which I receive daily, that many of my readers would be better pleased to pay three half-pence for my paper than two pence. The ingenious T. W. tells me that I have deprived him of the best part of his breakfast; for that, since the rise of my paper, he is forced every morning to drink his dish of coffee by itself, without the addition of the Spectator, that used to be better than lace to it. Eugenius informs me, very obligingly, that he never thought he should have disliked any passage in my paper, but that of late there have been two words in every one of them which he could heartily wish left out, viz. Price Two Pence.' I have a letter from a soap-boiler, who condoles with me very affectionately upon the necessity we both lie under of setting a high price on our commodities since the late tax has been laid upon them, and desiring me, when I write next on that subject, to speak a word or two upon the present duties on Castile soap. But there is none of these my correspondents, who writes with a greater turn of good sense, and elegance of expression, than the generous Philomedes, who advises me to value every Spectator at sixpence, and promises that he himself will engage for above a hundred of his acquaintance, who shall take it in at that price. Letters from the female world are likewise come to me, in great quantities, upon the same occasion; and, as I naturally bear a great deference to this part of our species, I am very glad to find that those who approve my conduct in this particular are much more numerous than those who condemn it. A large family of daughters have drawn me up a very handsome remonstrance, in which they set forth that their father having refused to take in the Spectator, since the additional price was set upon it, they offered him unanimously to bate him the article of bread and butter in the ing hours. The corporeal union is slack-tea-table account, provided the Spectator ened enough to give the mind more play. The soul seems gathered within herself, and recovers that spring which is broke and weakened, when she operates more in concert with the body. The speculations I have here made, if they are not arguments, they are at least might be served up to them every morning as usual. Upon this the old gentleman, being pleased, it seems, with their desire of improving themselves, has granted them the continuance both of the Spectator and their bread and butter, having given particular orders that the tea-table shall be set forth every morning with its customary | poet laureat should not be over-looked, bill of fare, and without any manner of de- which shows the opinion he entertains of falcation, I thought myself obliged to your paper, whether the notion he promention this particular, as it does honour ceeds upon be true or false. I make bold to this worthy gentleman; and if the young to convey it to you, not knowing if it has lady Lætitia, who sent me this account, yet come to your hands.' will acquaint me with his name, I will insert it at length in one of my papers, if he desires it. I should be very glad to find out any expedient that might alleviate the expense which this my paper brings to any of my readers; and in order to it, must propose two points to their consideration. First, that if they retrench any of the smallest particular in their ordinary expense, it will easily make up the half-penny a day which we have now under consideration. Let a lady sacrifice but a single riband to her morning studies, and it will be sufficient: let a family burn but a candle a night less then their usual number, and they may take in the Spectator without detriment to their private affairs. ON THE SPECTATOR. Nasceris BY MR. TATE. Hor. Carm. Sæc. 10. You rise another and the same. Yet, doubtful how that second sun to name, 'Tis the same sun, and does himself succeed. 0. No. 489.] Saturday, September 20, 1712. Homer. In the next place, if my readers will not The mighty force of ocean's troubled flood. go to the price of buying my papers by retail, let them have patience, and they may 'SIR,-Upon reading your essay conbuy them in the lump without the burden cerning the Pleasures of the Imagination, of a tax upon them. My speculations, I find among the three sources of those when they are sold single, like cherries pleasures which you have discovered, that upon the stick, are delights for the rich and greatness is one. This has suggested to me wealthy: after some time they come to the reason why, of all objects that I have market in greater quantities, and are every ever seen, there is none which affects my ordinary man's money. The truth of it is, imagination so much as the sea, or ocean. I they have a certain flavour at their first cannot see the heavings of this prodigious appearance, from several accidental cir- bulk of waters, even in a calm, without a cumstances of time, place, and person, very pleasing astonishment; but when it is which they may lose if they are not taken worked up in a tempest, so that the horiearly; but, in this case, every reader is to zon on every side is nothing but foaming consider, whether it is not better for him tobillows and floating mountains, it is imposbe half a year behind-hand with the fash-sible to describe the agreeable horror that ionable and polite part of the world, than to strain himself beyond his circumstances. My bookseller has now about ten thousand of the third and fourth volumes, which he is ready to publish, having already disposed of as large an edition both of the first and second volumes. As he is a person whose head is very well turned to his business, he thinks they would be a very proper present to be made to persons at christenings, marriages, visiting days, and the like joyful solemnities, as several other books are frequently given at funerals. He has printed them in such a little portable volume, that many of them may be ranged together upon a single plate; and is of opinion, that a salver of Spectators would be as acceptable an entertainment to the ladies as a salver of sweet-meats. I shall conclude this paper with an epigram lately sent to the writer of the Spectator, after having returned my thanks to the ingenious author of it. 'SIR,-Having heard the following epivery much commended, I wonder as not yet had a place in any of ers; I think the suffrage of our rises from such a prospect. A troubled ocean, to a man who sails upon it, is, I think, the biggest object that he can see in motion, and consequently gives his imagination one of the highest kinds of pleasure that can arise from greatness. I must confess it is impossible for me to survey this world of fluid matter without thinking on the hand that first poured it out, and made a proper channel for its reception. Such an object naturally raises in my thoughts the idea of an Almighty Being, and convinces me of his existence as much as a metaphysical demonstration. The imagination prompts the understanding, and, by the greatness of the sensible object, produces in it the idea of a being who is neither circumscribed by time nor space. 'As I have made several voyages upon the sea, I have often been tossed in storms, and on that occasion have frequently reflected on the descriptions of them in ancient poets. I remember Longinus highly recommends one in Homer, because the poet has not amused himself with little fancies upon the occasion, as authors of an inferior genius, whom he mentions, had done, but because he has gathered together those circumstances which are the most apt to terrify the imagination, and which really happen in the raging of a tempest. It is for the same reason that I prefer the following description of a ship in a storm, which the psalmist has made, before any other I have ever met with. "They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters; these see the works of the Lord, and his wonders in the deep. For he commandeth and raiseth the stormy wind, =which lifteth up the waters thereof. They -mount up to the heaven, they go down again to the depths, their soul is melted because of trouble. They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their wit's end. Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble, and he bringeth them out of their distresses. He maketh the =storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still. Then they are glad, because they be quiet, so he bringeth them unto their No. desired haven."* By the way; how much more comfortable, as well as rational, is this system of the psalmist, than the pagan scheme in Virgil and other poets, where one deity is represented as raising a storm, and another as laying it! Were we only to consider the sublime in this piece of poetry, what can be nobler than the idea it gives us of the Supreme Being thus raising a tumult among the elements, and recovering them out of their confusion; thus troubling and becalm- | ing nature? Great painters do not only give us landscapes of gardens, groves, and meadows, but very often employ their pencils upon sea-pieces. I could wish you would follow their example. If this small sketch may deserve a place among your works, I shall accompany it with a divine ode made by a gentleman upon the conclusion of his travels. Whilst, in the confidence of prayer, VII. "For though in dreadful whirls we hung I knew thou wert not slow to hear, VIII. "The storm was laid, the winds retir'd, The sea that roar'd at thy command, IX. "In midst of dangers, fears, and death, And praise thee for thy mercies past, X. "My life, if thou preserv'st my life, And death, if death must be my doom, 490.] Monday, September 22, 1712. Domus et placens uxor.-Hor. Od. xiv. Lib. 2. 21. Thy house and pleasing wife.-Creech. But I HAVE very long entertained an ambition to make the word wife the most agreeable and delightful name in nature. If it be not so in itself all the wiser part of mankind, from the beginning of the world to this day, has consented in an error. our unhappiness in England has been, that a few loose men of genius for pleasure, have turned it all to the gratification of ungoverned desires, in despite of good sense, form, and order; when in truth, any satisfaction beyond the boundaries of reason is but a step towards madness and folly. But is the sense of joy and accomplishment of desire no way to be indulged or attained?. And have we appetites given us not to be at all gratified? Yes, certainly. Marriage is an institution calculated for a constant scene of delight, as much as cur being is capable of. Two persons, who have chosen each other out of all the species, with design to be each other's mutual comfort and entertainment, have in that action bound themselves to be good-humoured, affable, discreet, forgiving, patient, and joyful, with respect to each other's frailties and perfecThe wiser tions, to the end of their lives. of the two (and it always happens one of them is such) will, for her or his own sake, keep things from outrage with the utmost sanctity. When this union is thus preserved, (as I have often said) the most indifferent circumstance administers delight: their condition is an endless source of new gratifications. The married man can say, 'If I am unacceptable to all the world beside, there is one whom I entirely love, that will receive me with joy and transport, and think herself obliged to double her kindness and caresses of me from the gloom with which she sees me overcast. I need not dissemble the sorrow of my heart to be agreeable there; that very sorrow quickens her affection.' This passion towards each other, when once well fixed, enters into the very constitution, and the kindness flows as easily and silently as the blood in the veins. When this affection is enjoyed in the sublime degree, unskilful eyes see nothing of it; but when it is subject to be changed, and has an allay in it that may make it end in distaste, it is apt to break into rage, or overflow into fondness, before the rest of the world. Uxander and Viramira are amorous and young, have been married these two years; yet do they so much distinguish each other in company, that in your conversation with the dear things, you are still put to a sort of cross-purposes. Whenever you address yourself in ordinary discourse to Viramira, she turns her head another way, and the answer is made to the dear Uxander. If you tell a merry tale, the application is still directed to her dear; and when she should commend you, she says to him, as if he had spoke it, That is, my dear, so pretty.'-This puts me in mind of what I have somewhere read in the admired memoirs of the famous Cervantes; where, while honest Sancho Panca is putting some necessary humble question concerning Rozinante, his supper, or his lodging, the knight of the sorrowful countenance is ever improving the harmless lowly hints of his 'squire to the poetical conceit, rapture, and flight, in contemplation of the dear dulcinea of his affections. On the other side, Dictamnus and Moria are ever squabbling; and you may observe them, all the time they are in company, in a state of impatience. As Uxander and Viramira wish you all gone, that they may be at freedom for dalliance; Dictamnus and Moria wait your absence, that they may speak their harsh interpretations on each other's words and actions, during the time you were with them. It is certain that the greater part of the evils, attending this condition of life, arises from fashion. Prejudice in this case is turned the wrong way; and, instead of expecting more happiness than we shall meet with in it, we are laughed into a prepossession, that we shall be disappointed if we hope for lasting satisfactions. With all persons who have made good sense the rule of action, marriage is de owe the following epigram, which I showed My friend would not allow that this luscious account could be given of a wife, and therefore used the word consort; which, he learnedly said, would serve for a mistress as well, and give a more gentlemanly turn to the epigram. But, under favour of him and all other such fine gentlemen, I cannot be persuaded but that the passion a bridegroom has for a virtuous young woman will, by little and little, grow into friendship, and then it has ascended to a higher pleasure than it was in its first fervour. Without this happens, he is a very unfortunate man who has entered into this state, and left the habitudes of life he might have enjoyed with a faithful friend. But when the wife proves capable of filling serious as well as joyous hours, she brings happiness unknown to friendship itself. Spenser speaks of each kind of love with great justice, and attributes the highest praise to friendship; and indeed there is no disputing that point, but by making that friendship take its place between two married persons. 'Hard is the doubt, and difficult to deem, When all three kinds of love together meet, No less than perfect gold surmounts the meanest -Digna satis fortuna revisit. T. scribed as the state capable of the highest No. 491.] Tuesday, September 23, 1712. human felicity. Tully has epistles full of affectionate pleasure, when he writes to his wife, or speaks of his children. But, above all the hints of this kind I have met with in writers of ancient date, I am pleased with an epigram of Martial, in honour of the beauty of his wife Cleopatra. Commentators say it was written the day after his wedding-night... When his spouse was retired to the bathing-room in the heat of the day, he, it seems, came in upon her when she was just going into the water. To her beauty and carriage on this occasion we Virg. Æn. iii. 318. A just reverse of fortune on him waits. It is common with me to run from book to book to exercise my mind with many objects, and qualify myself for my daily labours. After an hour spent in this loitering way of reading, something will remain to be food to the imagination. The writings that please me most on such occasions are stories, for the truth of which there is good authority. The mind of man is naturally a |