crates, nor to be met with in the London | dication of Astrology. This profound auDispensary. Juvenal in the motto of my thor, among many mystical passages, has paper, terms it a cacoethes; which is a the following one: The absence of the sun hard word for a disease called in plain Eng- is not the cause of night, forasmuch as his lish, 'The itch of writing.' This cacoe- light is so great that it may illuminate the thes is as epidemical as the smallpox, there earth all over at once as clear as broad being very few who are not seized with it day; but there are tenebrificous and dark some time or other in their lives. There stars, by whose influence night is brought is, however, this difference in these two on, and which do ray out darkness and distempers, that the first, after having in- obscurity upon the earth as the sun does disposed you for a time, never returns again; light.’ whereas, this I am speaking of, when it is once got into the blood, seldom comes out of it. The British nation is very much afflicted with this malady, and though very many remedies have been applied to persons infected with it, few of them have ever proved successful. Some have been cauterized with satires and lampoons, but have received little or no benefit from them; others have had their heads fastened for an hour together between a cleft board, which is made use of as a cure for the disease when it appears in its greatest malignity.* There is indeed, one kind of this malady which has been sometimes removed, like the biting of a tarantula, with the sound of a musical instrument, which is commonly known by the name of a cat-call. † But if you have a patient of this kind under your care, No. 583.] Friday, August 20, 1714. you may assure yourself there is no other way of recovering him effectually, but by forbidding him the use of pen, ink, and paper. But, to drop the allegory before I have tired it out, there is no species of scribblers more offensive, and more incurable, than your periodical writers, whose works return upon the public on certain days, and at stated times. We have not the consolation in the perusal of these authors which we find at the reading of all others, namely, that we are sure if we have but patience, we may come to the end of their labours. I have often admired a humorous saying of Diogenes, who, reading a dull author to several of his friends, when every one began to be tired, finding he was almost come to a blank leaf at the end of it, cried, 'Courage, lads, I see land. On the contrary, our progress through that kind of writers I am now speaking of is never at an end. One day makes work for another-we do not know when to promise ourselves rest. It is a melancholy thing to consider that the art of printing, which might be the greatest blessing to mankind, should prove detrimental to us, and that it should be made use of to scatter prejudice and ignorance through a people, instead of conveyto them truth and knowledge. ing I consider writers in the same view this sage astrologer does the heavenly bodies. Some of them are stars that scatter light as others do darkness. I could mention several authors who are tenebrificous stars of the first magnitude, and point out a knot of gentlemen, who have been dull in concert, and may be looked upon as a dark constellation. The nation has been a great while benighted with several of these antiluminaries. I suffered them to ray out their darkness as long as I was able to endure it, till at length I came to a resolution of rising upon them, and hope in a little time to drive them quite out of the British hemisphere. Ipse thymum pinosque ferens de montibus altis, Virg. Georg. iv. 112. With his own hand, the guardian of the bees EVERY station of life has duties which are proper to it. Those who are determined by choice to any particular kind of business, are indeed more happy than those who are determined by necessity; but both are under an equal obligation of fixing on employments, which may be either useful to themselves or beneficial to others: no one of the sons of Adam ought to think himself exempt from that labour and industry which were denounced to our first parent, and in him to all his posterity. Those to whom birth or fortune may seem to make such an application unnecessary, ought to find out some calling or profession for themselves, that they may not lie as a burden on the species, and be the only useless parts of the creation. Many of our country gentlemen in their busy hours apply themselves wholly to the chase, or to some other diversion which they find in the fields and woods. This gave occasion to one of our most eminent English writers to represent every one of them as lying under a kind of curse, pronounced to them in the words of Goliah, 'I will give thee to the fowls of the air and to the beasts of the field.' Though exercises of this kind, when indulged with moderation, may have a good influence both on the mind and body, the country affords many other amusements of a more noble kind. Among these, I know none more delightful in itself, and beneficial to the public, than that of planting. I could mention a nobleman whose fortune has placed him in several parts of England, and who has always left these visible marks behind him, which show he has been there: he never hired a house in his life, without leaving all about it the seeds of wealth, and bestowing legacies on the posterity of the owner. Had all the gentlemen of England made the same improvements upon their estates, our whole country would have been at this time as one great garden. Nor ought such an employment to be looked upon as too inglorious for men of the highest rank. There have been heroes in this art, as well as in others. We are told in particular of Cyrus the Great, that he planted all the Lesser Asia. There is indeed something truly magnificent in this kind of amusement: it gives a nobler air to several parts of nature; it fills the earth with a variety of beautiful scenes, and has something in it like creation. For this reason the pleasure of one who plants is something like that of a poet, who, as Aristotle observes, is more delighted with his productions than any other writer or artist whatsoever. Plantations have one advantage in them which is not to be found in most other works, as they give a pleasure of a more lasting date, and continually improve in the eye of the planter. When you have finished a building, or any other undertaking of the like nature, it immediately decays upon your hands: you see it brought to the utmost point of perfection, and from that time hastening to its ruin. On the contrary, when you have finished your plantations, they are still arriving at greater degrees of perfection as long as you live, and appear more delightful in every succeeding year than they did in the foregoing. But I do not only recommend this art to men of estates as a pleasing amusement, but as it is a kind of virtuous employment, and may therefore be inculcated by moral motives; particularly from the love which we ought to have for our country, and the regard which we ought to bear to our posterity. As for the first I need only mention what is frequently observed by others, that the increase of forest trees does by no means bear a proportion to the destruction of them, insomuch, that in a few ages the nation may be at a loss to supply itself with timber sufficient for the fleets of England. I know when a man talks of posterity in matters of this nature, he is looked upon with an eye of ridicule by the cunning and selfish part of mankind. Most people are of the humour of an old fellow of a college, who, when he was pressed by the society to come into something that might redound to the good of their successors, grew very peevish: 'We are always doing,' says he, something for posterity, but I would fain see posterity do something for us. But I think men are inexcusable, who fail in a duty of this nature, since it is so easily discharged. When a man considers that the putting a few twigs into the ground is doing good to one who will make his appearance in the world about fifty years hence, or that he is perhaps making one of his own descendants easy or rich, by so inconsiderable an expense, if he finds himself averse to it, he must conclude that he has a poor and base heart, void of all generous principles and love to mankind. There is one consideration which may very much enforce what I have here said. Many honest minds, that are naturally disposed to do good in the world, and become beneficial to mankind, complain within themselves that they have not talents for it. This therefore is a good office, which is suited to the meanest capacities, and which may be performed by multitudes who have not abilities sufficient to deserve well of their country, and to recommend themselves to their posterity, by any other method. It is the phrase of a friend of mine, when any useful country neighbour dies, that 'you may trace him;' which I look upon as a good funeral oration, at the death of an honest husbandman who had left the impressions of his industry behind him in the place where he has lived. Upon the foregoing considerations, I can scarcely forbear representing the subject of this paper as a kind of moral virtue; which, as I have already shown, recommends itself likewise by the pleasure that attends it. It must be confessed that this is none of those turbulent pleasures which are apt to gratify a man in the heats of youth; but, if it be not so tumultuous, it is more lasting. Nothing can be more delightful than to entertain ourselves with prospects of our own making, and to walk under those shades which our own industry has raised. Amusements of .this nature compose the mind, and lay at rest all those passions which are uneasy to the soul of man, besides that they naturally engender good thoughts, and dispose us to laudable contemplations. Many of the old philosophers passed away the greatest parts of their lives among their gardens. Epicurus himself could not think sensual pleasure attainable in any other scene. Every reader, who is acquainted with Homer, Virgil, and Horace, the greatest geniuses of all antiquity, knows very well with how much rapture they have spoken on this subject; and that Virgil in particular has written a whole book on the art of planting. This art seems to have been more especially adapted to the nature of man in his primæval state, when he had life enough to see his productions flourish in their utmost beauty, and gradually decay with him. I might fall upon his brother, when he cursed One who lived before the flood might have him in the bitterness of his heart. seen a wood of the tallest oaks in the acorn. But I only mention this particular, in order to introduce, in my next paper, a history which I have found among the accounts of China, and which may be looked upon as an antediluvian novel. No. 584.] Monday, August 23, 1714. Hic gelidi fontes hic mollia prata, Lycori, HILPA was one of the hundred and fifty daughters of Zilpa, of the race of Cohu, by whom some of the learned think is meant Cain. She was exceedingly beautiful; and, when she was but a girl of threescore and ten years of age, received the addresses of several who made love to her. Among these were two brothers, Harpath and Shalum. Harpath being the first-born, was master of that fruitful region which lies at the foot of mount Tirzah, in the southern parts of China. Shalum (which is to say the planter in the Chinese language) possessed all the neighbouring hills, and that great range of mountains which goes under the name of Tirzah. Harpath was of a haughty contemptuous spirit; Shalum was of a gentle disposition, beloved both by God and man. It is said that among the antediluvian women, the daughters of Cohu had their minds wholly set upon riches; for which reason the beautiful Hilpa preferred Harpath to Shalum, because of his numerous flocks and herds, that covered all the low country which runs along the foot of mount Tirzah, and is watered by several fountains and streams breaking out of the sides of that mountain. Harpath made so quick a despatch of his courtship, that he married Hilpa in the hundredth year of her age; and, being of an insolent temper, laughed to scorn his brother Shalum for having pretended to the beautiful Hilpa, when he was master of nothing but a long chain of rocks and mountains. This so much provoked Shafum, that he is said to have cursed his brother in the bitterness of his heart, and to have prayed that one of his mountains might fall upon his head if ever he came within the shadow of it. From this time forward Harpath would never venture out of the valleys, but came to an untimely end in the two hundred and fiftieth year of his age, being drowned in a river as he attempted to cross it. This river is called to this day, from his name who perished in it, the river Harpath; and, what is very remarkable, issues out of one of those mountains which Shalum wished Hilpa was in the hundredth and sixtieth year of her age at the death of her husband, having brought him but fifty children before he was snatched away, as has been already related. Many of the antediluvians made love to the young widow; though no one was thought so likely to succeed in her affections as her first lover Shalum, who renewed his court to her about ten years after the death of Harpath; for it was not thought decent in those days that a widow should be seen by a man within ten years after the decease of her husband. Shalum, falling into a deep melancholy, and resolving to take away that objection which had been raised against him when he made his first addresses to Hilpa, began immediately after her marriage with Harpath, to plant all that mountainous region which fell to his lot in the division of this country. He knew how to adapt every plant to its proper soil, and is thought to have inherited many traditional secrets of that art from the first man. This employment turned at length to his profit as well as to his amusement; his mountains were in a few years shaded with young trees, that gradually shot up into groves, woods, and forests, intermixed with walks, and lawns, and gardens; insomuch that the whole region, from a naked and desolate prospect, began now to look like a second Paradise. The pleasantness of the place, and the agreeable disposition of Shalum, who was reckoned one of the mildest and wisest of all who lived before the flood, drew into it multitudes of people, who were perpetually employed in the sinking of wells, the digging of trenches, and the hollowing of trees, for the better distribution of water through every part of this spacious plantation. The habitations of Shalum looked every year more beautiful in the eyes of Hilpa, who, after the space of seventy autumns, was wonderfully pleased with the distant prospect of Shalum's hills, which were then covered with innumerable tufts of trees and gloomy scenes that gave a magnificence to the place, and converted it into one of the finest landscapes the eye of man could behold. The Chinese record a letter which Shalum is said to have written to Hilpa in the eleventh year of her widowhood. I shall here translate it, without departing from that noble simplicity of sentiments and plainness of manners which appear in the original. Shalum was at this time one hundred and eighty years old, and Hilpa one hundred and seventy. 'I Shalum, Master of Mount Tirzah, to Hilpa, Mistress of the Valleys. In the 788th year of the creation. "What have I not suffered, O thou daughter of Zilpa, since thou gavest thy-men. Thy dwellings are among the cedars, self away in marriage to my rival? I grew thou searchest out the diversity of soils, weary of the light of the sun, and have been thou understandest the influences of the ever since covering myself with woods and stars, and markest the change of seasons. forests. These threescore and ten years Can a woman appear lovely in the eyes of have I bewailed the loss of thee on the top such a one? Disquiet me not, O Shalum; of mount Tirzah, and soothed my melan- let me alone, that I may enjoy those goodly choly among a thousand gloomy shades of possessions which are fallen to my lot. my own raising. My dwellings are at pre- Win me not by thy enticing words. May sent as the garden of God; every part of thy trees increase and multiply; mayest them is filled with fruits, and flowers, and thou add wood to wood, and shade to shade: fountains. The whole mountain is per- but tempt not Hilpa to destroy thy solitude, fumed for thy reception. Come up into it, and make thy retirement populous.' O my beloved, and let us people this spot of the new world with a beautiful race of The Chinese say, that a little time aftermortals: let us multiply exceedingly among wards she accepted of a treat in one of the these delightful shades, and fill every quar- neighbouring hills to which Shalum had inter of them with sons and daughters. Re-vited her. This treat lasted for two years, member, Oh thou daughter of Zilpa, that and is said to have cost Shalum five hunthe age of man is but a thousand years; that dred antelopes, two thousand ostriches, and beauty is the admiration but of a few centu- a thousand tons of milk; but what most of ries. It flourishes as a mountain oak, or as all recommended it, was that variety of dea cedar on the top of Tirzah, which in licious fruits and potherbs, in which no three or four hundred years will fade away, person then living could any way equal and never be thought of by posterity, unless Shalum. a young wood springs from its roots. Think well on this, and remember thy neighbour in the mountains.' He treated her in the bower which he had planted amidst the wood of nightingales. This wood was made up of such fruit-trees and plants as are most agreeable Having here inserted this letter, which I to the several kinds of singing birds; so that look upon as the only antediluvian billet-it had drawn into it all the music of the doux now extant, I shall in my next paper country, and was filled from one end of the give the answer to it, and the sequel of this year to the other with the most agreeable story. No. 585.] Wednesday, August 25, 1714. Virg. Ecl. v. 63. THE SEQUEL OF THE STORY OF SHALUM THE letter inserted in my last had so good an effect upon Hilpa, that she answered it in less than twelve months, after the following manner: Hilpa, Mistress of the Valleys, to Shalum, In the 789th year of the creation. What have I to do with thee, O Shalum? Thou praiseth Hilpa's beauty, but art thou not secretly enamoured with the verdure of her meadows? Art thou not more affected with the prospect of her green valleys than thou wouldest be with the sight of her person? The lowings of my herds, and the bleatings of my flocks, make a pleasant echo in thy mountains, and sound sweetly in thy ears. What though I am delighted with the wavings of thy forests, and those breezes of perfumes which flow from the top of Tirzah, are these like the riches of the valley? "I know thee, O Shalum; thou art more wise and happy than any of the sons of concert in season. He showed her every day some beautiful and surprising scene in this new region of woodlands; and, as by this means he had all the opportunities he could wish for of opening his mind to her, he succeeded so well, that upon her departure she made him a kind of promise, and gave him her word to return him a positive answer in less than fifty years. She had not been long among her own people in the valleys, when she received new overtures, and at the same time a most splendid visit from Mishpach, who was a mighty man of old, and had built a great city which he called after his own name. Every house was made for at least a thou sand years; nay, there were some that were leased out for three lives; so that the quantity of stone and timber consumed in this building is scarce to be imagined by those who live in the present age of the world. This great man entertained her with the voice of musical instruments which had been lately invented, and danced before her to the sound of the timbrel. He also presented her with several domestic utensils wrought in brass and iron, which had been newly found out for the convenience of life. In the mean time Shalum grew very uneasy with himself, and was sorely displeased at Hilpa for the reception which she had given to Mishpach, insomuch that he never wrote to her or spoke of her during a whole revolution of Saturn; but, finding that this intercourse went no farther than a visit, he again renewed his addresses to her; who, | scrutiny into the actions of his fancy, must be during his long silence, is said very often of considerable advantage: for this reason, to have cast a wishing eye upon mount because the circumstances which a man Tirzah. imagines himself in during sleep are generally such as entirely favour his inclinations, good or bad, and give him imaginary opportunities of pursuing them to the utmost; so that his temper will lie fairly open to his view, while he considers how it is moved when free from those constraints which the accidents of real life put it under. Dreams are certainly the result of our waking thoughts, and our daily hopes and fears, are what give the mind such nimble relishes of pleasure, and such severe touches of pain in its midnight rambles. A man that murders his enemy, or deserts his friend, in a dream, had need to guard his temper against revenge and ingratitude, and take heed that he be not tempted to do a vile thing in the pursuit of false, or the neglect of true honour. For my part, I seldom receive a benefit, but in a night or two's time I make most noble returns for it; which, though my benefactor is not a whit the better for, yet it pleases me to think that it was from a principle of gratitude in me that my mind was susceptible of such generous transport, while I thought myself repaying the kindness of my friend: and I have often been ready to beg pardon, instead of returning an injury, after considering that, when the offender was in my power, I had carried my resentments much too far. Her mind continued wavering about twenty years longer between Shalum and Mishpach: for though her inclinations favoured the former, her interest pleaded very powerfully for the other. While her heart was in this unsettled condition, the following accident happened, which determined her choice. A high tower of wood that stood in the city of Mishpach having caught fire by a flash of lightning, in a few days reduced the whole town to ashes. Mishpach resolved to rebuild the place whatever it should cost him; and having already destroyed all the timber of the country, he was forced to have recourse to Shalum, whose forests were now two hundred years old. He purchased these woods with so many herds of cattle and flocks of sheep, and with such a vast extent of fields and pastures, that Shalum was now grown more wealthy than Mishpach; and therefore appeared so charming in the eyes of Zilpah's daughter, that she no longer refused him in marriage. On the day in which he brought her up into the mountains, he raised a most prodigious pile of cedar, and of every sweet-smelling wood, which reached above three hundred cubits in height: he also cast into the pile bundles of myrrh, and sheaves of spikenard, enriching it with every spicy shrub, and making it fat with the gums of his plantations. This was the burnt offering which Shalum offered in the day of his espousals: the smoke of it ascended up to heaven, and filled the whole country with incense and perfume. No. 586.] Friday, August 27, 1714. -Quæ in vita usurpant homines, cogitant, curant, vident quæque agunt vigilantes, agitantquæ, ea cuique in somno accidunt. Cic. de Div. The things which employ men's waking thoughts and actions recur to their imaginations in sleep. By the last post, I received the following letter which is built upon a thought that is new, and very well carried on; for which reason I shall give it to the public without alteration, addition, or amendment. 'SIR,It was a good piece of advice which Pythagoras gave to his scholars that every night before they slept they should examine what they had been doing that day, and so discover what actions were worthy of pursuit to-morrow, and what little vices were to be prevented from slipping unawares into a habit. If I might second the philosopher's advice, it should be mine, that, in a morning, before my scholar rose, he should consider what he had been about that night, and with the same strictness, as if the condition he has believed himself to be in was real. Such a 'I think it has been observed in the course of your papers, how much one's happiness or misery may depend upon the imagination: of which truth those strange workings of fancy in sleep are no inconsiderable instances; so that not only the advantage a man has of making discoveries of himself, but a regard to his own ease or disquiet, may induce him to accept of my advice. Such as are willing to comply with it, I shall put into a way of doing it with pleasure, by observing only one maxim which I shall give them, viz. "To go to bed with a mind entirely free from passion, and a body clear of the least intemperance." They, indeed, who can sink into sleep with their thoughts less calm or innocent than they should be, do but plunge themselves into scenes of guilt and misery; or they who are willing to purchase any midnight disquietudes for the satisfaction of a full meal, or a skin full of wine; these I have nothing to say to, as not knowing how to invite them to reflections full of shame and horror; but those that will observe this rule, I promise them they shall awake into health and cheerfulness, and be capable of recounting, with delight, those glorious moments, wherein the mind has been indulging itself in such luxury of thought, such noble hurry of imagination. Suppose a man's going supperless to bed should introduce him to the table of some great prince or other, where he shall bed, entertained |