Was the third son of eight, begot upon 'His mother Martha by his father John. 'Much favor'd by his prince he 'gan to be, But nipt by death at th' age of twenty-three. 'Fatal to him was that we small-pox name, 'By which his mother and two brethren came Also to breathe their last, nine years before, And now have left their father to deplore "The loss of all his children with his wife, "Who was the joy and comfort of his life." "The second is as follow: 'Here lies the body of Daniel Saul, C 'Spittlefield's weaver, and that's all.' "I will not dismiss you, whilst I am upon this subject, without sending a short epitaph which I once met with, though I cannot possibly recollect the place. The thought of it is serious, and, in my opinion, the finest that I ever met with upon this occasion. You know, Sir, it is usual, after having told us the name of the person who lies interred, to launch out into his praises. This epitaph takes a quite contrary turn, having been made by the person himself some time before his death. '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 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 humor and disposition conformable to the rules of that art. In courts and cities every body lays a constraint upon his countenance, and endeavors to look like the rest of the world; 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 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 contor 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 eyes 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 the Galligaskins, is logic, 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 and 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."* No. 519. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 25, 1712. BY ADDISON. Inde hominum pecudumque genus, vitæque volantum, VIRG. Æn. 6. v. 728. Hence men and beasts the breath of life obtain. DRYDEN. THOUGH there is a great deal of pleasure in contemplating the material world, by 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 By Mr. Henley, the orator. 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 observations 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 humor 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 conveniences 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 nature, that it seems to delight in the conferring of existence upon every degree of perceptive being. As this is a speculation which I have often pursued with great pleasure to myself, I shall enlarge further upon it, by considering that part of the scale of beings which comes within our knowledge, There are some living creatures which are raised but 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 besides 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 senses; and even among these there is such a different degree of perfection in the sense which one animal enjoys beyond what appears in another, that though the sense in different animals be distinguished by the same common denomination, it seems almost of a different nature. If after this we |