ing ideas in us by the delightfulness of their appearance. Fountains, lakes, and rivers, are as refreshing to the imagination, as to the soil through which they pass.

There are writers of great distinction, who have made it an argument for Providence, that the whole earth is covered with green rather than with any other colour, as being such a right mixture of light and shade, that it comforts and strengthens the eye, instead of weakening or grieving it. For this reason several painters have a green cloth hanging near them to ease the eye upon, after too great an application to their colouring. A famous modern philosopher* accounts for it in the following man

ner.

All colours that are more luminous, overpower and dissipate the animal spirits which are employed in sight; on the contrary, those that are more obscure do not give the animal spirits a sufficient exercise; whereas, the rays that produce in us the idea of green, fall upon the eye in such a due proportion, that they give the animal spirits their proper play, and, by keeping up the struggle in a just balance, excite a very pleasing and agreeable sensation. Let the cause be what it will, the effect is certain; for which reason, the poets ascribe to this particular colour the epithet of cheerful.

To consider further this double end in the works of nature, and how they are at the 'same time both useful and entertaining, we find that the most important parts in the vegetable world are those which are the most beautiful. These are the seeds by which the several races of plants are propagated and continued, and which are always lodged in the flowers or blossoms. Nature seems to hide her principal design, and to be industrious in making the earth gay and delightful, while she is carrying on her great work, and intent upon her own preservation. The husbandman, after the same manner, is employed in laying out the whole country into a kind of garden or landscape, and making every thing smile about him, whilst in reality he thinks of nothing but of the harvest, and the increase which is to arise from it.

We may further observe how Providence has taken care to keep up this cheerfulness in the mind of man, by having formed it after such a manner as to make it capable of conceiving delight from several objects which seem to have very little use in them; as from the wildness of rocks and deserts, and the like grotesque parts of nature. Those who are versed in philosophy may still carry this consideration higher, by observing, that if matter had appeared to us endowed only with those real qualities which it actually possesses, it would have made but a very joyless and uncomfortable figure; and why has Providence given it a power of producing in us such imaginary

*Sir Isaac Newton.

qualities, and tastes and colours, sounds and smells, heat and cold, but that man, while he is conversant in the lower stations of nature, might have his mind cheered and delighted with agreeable sensations? In short, the whole universe is a kind of theatre filled with objects that either raise in us pleasure, amusement, or admiration. The reader's own thoughts will suggest to him the vicissitude of day and night, the change of seasons, with all that variety of scenes which diversify the face of nature, and fill the mind with a perpetual succession of beautiful and pleasing images.

I shall not here mention the several en tertainments of art, with the pleasures of friendship, books, conversation, and other accidental diversions of life, because I would only take notice of such incitements to a cheerful temper as offer themselves to persons of all ranks and conditions, and whick may sufficiently show us that Providence did not design this world should be filled with murmurs and repinings, or that the heart of man should be involved in gloom and melancholy.

I the more inculcate this cheerfulness of temper, as it is a virtue in which our countrymen are observed to be more deficient than any other nation. Melancholy is a kind of demon that haunts our island, and often conveys herself to us in an easterly wind. A celebrated French novelist, in opposition to those who begin their romances with the flowery season of the year, enters on his story thus, 'In the gloomy month of November, when the people of England hang and drown themselves, a disconsolate lover walked out into the fields,' &c.

Every one ought to fence against the temper of his climate or constitution, and frequently to indulge in himself those considerations which may give him a serenity of mind, and enable him to bear up cheerfully against those little evils and misfor tunes which are common to human nature, and which, by a right improvement of them, will produce a satiety of joy, and an unin terrupted happiness.

At the same time that I would engage my reader to consider the world in its most agreeable lights, I must own there are many evils which naturally spring up amidst the entertainments that are provided for us; but these, if rightly considered, should be far from overcasting the mind with sorrow, or destroying that cheerfulness of temper which I have been recommending. This interspersion of evil with good, and pain with pleasure, in the works of nature, is very truly ascribed by Mr. Locke, in his Essay on Human Understanding, to a moral reason, in the following words.

Beyond all this, we may frd another reason why God hath scattered up and down several degrees of pleasure and pain, in all the things that environ and affect us, and blended them together, in almost all

those, as men who have too much interest in this case to be impartial evidences.

was sold for thirty pounds. As it was writ- | brated, since our adversaries challenge al! ten by one Jordanus Brunus, a professed atheist, with a design to depreciate religion, every one was apt to fancy, from the extravagant price it bore, that there must be something in it very formidable.

I must confess that, happening to get a sight of one of them myself, I could not forbear perusing it with this apprehension; but found there was so very little danger in it, that I shall venture to give my reader a fair account of the whole plan upon which this wonderful treatise is built.

But what has been often urged as a con sideration of much more weight, is not only the opinion of the better sort, but the gene ral consent of mankind to this great truth, which I think could not possibly have come to pass, but from one of the three following reasons: either that the idea of a God is innate and co-existent with the mind itself; or that this truth is so very obvious, that it is discovered by the first exertion of reason in persons of the most ordinary capacities; or lastly, that it has been delivered down to us through all ages by a tradition from the first man.

The atheists are equally confounded, to whichever of these three causes we assign it; they have been so pressed by this last argument from the general consent of mankind, that after great search and pains they pretend to have found out a nation of atheists, I mean that polite people the Hottentots.

The author pretends that Jupiter once upon a time, resolved upon a reformation of the constellations: for which purpose, having summoned the stars together, he complains to them of the great decay of the worship of the gods, which he thought so much the harder, having called several of those celestial bodies by the names of the heathen deities, and by that means made the heavens as it were a book of the pagan theology. Momus tells him that this is not to be wondered at, since there were so many scandalous stories of the deities. Upon I dare not shock my readers with the dewhich the author takes occasion to cast re-scription of the customs and manners of flections upon all other religions, concluding these barbarians, who are in every respect that Jupiter, after a full hearing, discarded scarce one degree above brutes, having nc the deities out of heaven, and called the language among them but a confused gabstars by the names of the moral virtues. ble, which is neither well understood by themselves nor others.

The short fable, which has no pretence in it to reason or argument, and but a very small share of wit, has however recommended itself, wholly by its impiety, to those weak men who would distinguish themselves by the singularity of their opinions.

It is not, however, to be imagined how much the atheists have gloried in these their good friends and allies.

If we boast of a Socrates or a Seneca, they may now confront them with these great philosophers the Hottentots.

Though even this point has, not without reason, been several times controverted, I see no manner of harm it could do to religion, if we should entirely give them up this elegant part of mankind.

There are two considerations which have been often urged against atheists, and which they never yet could get over. The first is, that the greatest and most eminent persons of all ages have been against them, and always complied with the public forms of Methinks nothing more shows the weak worship established in their respective coun-ness of their cause, than that no division of tries, when there was nothing in them either derogatory to the honour of the Supreme Being, or prejudicial to the good of mankind. The Platos and Ciceros among the ancients; the Bacons, the Boyles, and the Lockes, among our own countrymen; are all instances of what I have been saying; not to mention any of the divines, however cele

Mr. Joseph Ames, of Sir Peter Thompson, and of M. C.

Tutet, esq. among whose books it was lately sold by auction, at Mr. Gerrard's in Litchfield-street. The author of this book, Giordano Bruno, was a native of Nola, in the kingdom of Naples, and burnt at Rome by order of the inquisition in 1600. Morhoff, speaking of atheists, says, Jordanum tamen Brunum huic classi non annumerarem,-manifesto in illo atheismi vestigia non

deprehendo.' Polyhist. i. 1. 8. 22. Bruno published many

other writings said to be atheistical. The book spoken of here was printed, not at Paris, as is said in the titlepage, nor in 1544, but at London, and in 1584, 12mo. dedicated to sir Philip Sidney. It was for some time so little regarded, that it was sold with five other books of the same author, for 25 pence French, at the sale of Mr. Bigor's library in 1706; but it is now very scarce, and has been sold at the exorbitant price of 50%. Niceron. Hommes I lust. tom. xvii. p. 211. There was an edition of it in English in 1713.

their fellow-creatures join with them but those among whom they themselves own reason is almost defaced, and who have but little else but their shape which can entitle them to any place in the species.

Besides these poor creatures, there have now and then been instances of a few crazy people in several nations who have denied the existence of a deity.

The catalogue of these is, however, very short; even Vanina, the most celebrated champion for the cause, professed before his judges that he believed the existence of a God: and, taking up a straw which lay before him on the ground, assured them that alone was sufficient to convince him of it: alleging several arguments to prove that it was impossible nature alone could create any thing.

I was the other day reading an account of Casimir Lyszynski, a gentleman of Poland, who was convicted and executed for this crime. The manner of his punishment was very particular. As soon as his body was

Durnt, his ashes were put into a cannon, and shot into the air towards Tartary.

I am apt to believe, that if something like this method of punishment should prevail in England (such is the natural good sense of the British nation,) that whether we rammed an atheist whole into a great gun, or pulverized our infidels, as they do in Poland, we should not have many charges.

I should, however, premise, while our arnmunition lasted, that, instead of Tartary, we should always keep two or three cannons ready pointed towards the Cape of Good Hope, in order to shoot our unbelievers into the country of the Hottentots.

their own behaviour so unhappily, that there indeed lies some cause of suspicion upon them. It is certain, that there is no authority for persons who have nothing else to do, to pass away hours of conversation upon the miscarriages of other people; but since they will do so, they who value their reputation should be cautious of appearances to their disadvantage: but very often our young women, as well as the middleaged, and the gay part of those growing old, without entering into a formal league for that purpose, to a woman, agree upon a short way to preserve their characters, and go on in a way that at best is only not vicious. The method is, when an ill-natured or talkative girl has said any thing that bears hard upon some part of another's carriage, this creature, if not in any of their little cabals, is run down for the most censorious, dangerous body in the world. Thus they There is indeed a great objection against guard their reputation rather than their this manner of treating them. Zeal for re-modesty; as if guilt lay in being under the ligion is of so effective a nature that it seldom knows where to rest: for which reason I am afraid, after having discharged our atheists, we might possibly think of shooting off our sectaries; and as one does not foresee the vicissitudes of human affairs, it might one time or other come to a man's own turn to fly out of the mouth of a demiculverin.

In my opinion, a solemn judicial death is too great an honour for an atheist; though I must allow the method of exploding him, as it is practised in this ludicrous kind of martyrdom, has something in it proper enough to the nature of his offence.

If any of my readers imagine that I have treated these gentlemen in too ludicrous a manner, I must confess, for my own part, I think reasoning against such unbelievers, upon a point that shocks the common sense of mankind, is doing them too great an honour, giving them a figure in the eye of the world, and making people fancy that they have more in them than they really have.

imputation of a fault, and not in a commission of it. Orbicilla is the kindest poor thing in town, but the most blushing creature living. It is true, she has not lost the sense of shame, but she has lost the sense of innocence. If she had more confidence, and never did any thing which ought to stain her cheeks, would she not be much more modest, without that ambiguous suffusion which is the livery both of guilt and innocence? Modesty consists in being conscious of no ill, and not in being ashamed of having done it. When people go upon any other foundation than the truth of their own hearts for the conduct of their actions, it lies in the power of scandalous tongues to carry the world before them, and make the rest of mankind fall in with the ill for fear of reproach. On the other hand, to do what you ought, is the ready way to make calumny either silent, or ineffectually malicious. Spenser, in his Fairy Queen, says admirably to young ladies under the dis

As for those persons who have any scheme of religious worship, I am for treating such with the utmost tenderness, and should endeavour to show them their errors with the greatest temper and humanity; but as these miscreants are for throwing down re-tress of being defamed: ligion in general, for stripping mankind of what themselves own is of excellent use in all great societies, without once offering to establish any thing in the room of it, I think the best way of dealing with them, is to retort their own weapons upon them, which are those of scorn and mockery. X.

'The best,' said he, 'that I can you advise,
Is to avoid th' occasion of the ill:
For when the cause, whence evil doth arise,
Removed is, th' effect surceaseth still.
Abstain from pleasure, and restrain your will,
Subdue desire, and bridle loose delight:
Use scanty diet, and forbear your fill;

Shun secresy, and talk in open sight;
So shall you soon repair your present evil plight.'

Instead of this care over their words and actions, recommended by a poet in old queen Bess's days, the modern way is to say and do what you please, and yet be the prettiest sort of woman in the world. If fathers and brothers will defend a lady's honour, she is quite as safe as in her own innocence. Many of the distressed, who suffer under the malice of evil tongues, are so harmless, that they are every day they live asleep till twelve at noon; concern themselves with nothing but their own persons till two; take their necessary food between that time and four; visit, go to the

play, and sit up at cards till towards the ensuing morn; and the malicious world shall draw conclusions from innocent glances, short whispers, or pretty familiar railleries with fashionable men, that these fair ones are not as rigid as vestals. It is certain, say these 'goodest' creatures, very well, that virtue does not consist in constrained behaviour and wry faces; that must be allowed: but there is a decency in the aspect and manner of ladies, contracted from a habit of virtue, and from general reflections that regard a modest conduct, all which may be understood, though they cannot be described. A young woman of this sort claims an esteem mixed with affection and honour, and meets with no defamation; or, if she does, the wild malice is overcome with an undisturbed perseverance in her innocence. To speak freely, there are such coveys of coquettes about this town, that if the peace were not kept by some impertinent tongues of their own sex, which keep them under some restraint, we should have no manner of engagement upon them to keep them in any tolerable order.

As I am a Spectator, and behold how plainly one part of woman-kind balance the behaviour of the other, whatever I may think of tale-bearers or slanderers, I cannot wholly suppress them, no more than a general would discourage spies. The enemy would easily surprise him whom they knew had no intelligence of their motions. It is so far otherwise with me, that I acknowledge I permit a she-slanderer or two in every quarter of the town, to live in the characters of coquettes, and take all the innocent freedoms of the rest, in order to send me information of the behaviour of the respective sisterhoods.

But as the matter of respect to the world which looks on, is carried on, methinks it is so very easy to be what is in general called virtuous, that it need not cost one hour's reflection in a month to deserve that appellation. It is pleasant to hear the pretty rogues talk of virtue and vice among each other. She is the laziest creature in the world, but I must confess, strictly virtuous; the peevishest hussy breathing, but as to her virtue, she is without blemish. She has not the least charity for any of her acquaintance, but I must allow her rigidly virtuous.' As the unthinking part of the male world call every man a man of honour who is not a coward; so the crowd of the other sex terms every woman who will not be a wench, virtuous.

No. 391.] Thursday, May 29, 1712.
-Non tu prece poscis emaci,

Quæ nisi seductis nequeas committere divis :

At bona pars procerum tacita libabit acerra. [susurros
Haud cuivis promptum est, murmurque humilesque
Tollere de templis; et aperto vivere voto.

Mens bona, fama, fides; hæc clare, et ut audiat hospes,

Illa sibi introrsum et sub lingua immurmurat: O si
VOL. II.

15

Ebullit patrui præclarum funus! Et O si
Sub rastro crepet argenti mihi seria dextro
Hercule! pupillumve utinam, quem proximus hæres
Impello, expungam!
Pers. Sat. ii. v. 3.

Thou know'st to join

No bribe unhallow'd to a prayer of thine;
Thine, which can ev'ry ear's full test abide,
Nor need be mutter'd to the gods aside!
No, thou aloud may'st thy petitions trust;
Thou need'st not whisper, other great ones must.
For few, my friend, few dare like thee be plain,
And prayer's low artifice at shrines disdain.
Few from their pious mumblings dare depart,
And make profession of their inmost heart.
Keep me, indulgent Heaven, through life sincere,
Keep my mind sound, my reputation clear,
These wishes they can speak, and we can hear.
Thus far their wants are audibly express'd ;
Then sinks the voice, and muttering groans the rest
Hear, hear at length, good Hercules, my vow!
O chink some pot of gold beneath my plow!
Could I, O could I to my ravish'd eyes

See my rich uncle's pompous funeral rise;
Or could I once my ward's cold corpse attend;
Then all were mine!'

WHERE Homer represents Phoenix, the
tutor of Achilles, as persuading his pupil to
lay aside his resentment, and give himself
up to the entreaties of his countrymen, the
poet, in order to make him speak in cha-
racter, ascribes to him a speech full of
those fables and allegories which old men
take delight in relating, and which are very
proper for instruction.
The gods,' says
he, suffer themselves to be prevailed upon
by entreaties. When mortals have offend-
ed them by their transgressions, they ap-
pease them by vows and sacrifices. You
must know, Achilles, that prayers are the
daughters of Jupiter. They are crippled
by frequently kneeling, have their faces
full of scars and wrinkles, and their eyes
always cast towards heaven. They are
constant attendants on the goddess Ate,
and march behind her. This goddess walks
forward with a bold and haughty air; and,
being very light of foot, runs through the
whole earth, grieving and afflicting the
sons of men. She gets the start of Prayers,
who always follow her, in order to heal
those persons whom she wounds. He who
honours these daughters of Jupiter, when
they draw near to him, receives great bene-
fit from them; but as for him who rejects
them, they entreat their father to give his
orders to the goddess Ate, to punish him for
his hardness of heart.' This noble allegory
needs but little explanation; for, whether
the goddess Ate signifies injury, as some
have explained it; or guilt in general, as
others; or divine justice, as I am more apt to
think; the interpretation is obvious enough,

I shall produce another heathen fable relating to prayers, which is of a more diverting kind. One would think by some passages in it, that it was composed by Lucian, or at least by some author who has endeavoured to imitate his way of writing; but as dissertations of this nature are more curious than useful, I shall give my reader the fable, without any further inquiries after the author.

time taken up into heaven by Jupiter, when Menippus the philosopher was a second