than when you spoke every Day as you formerly • used to do? If this be your plunging out of your Taciturnity, pray let the Length of your Speeches compenfate for the Scarcenefs of them. I am, Good Mr. Pert, Your Admirer, if you will be long enough for Me, Amanda Lovelength. N° 582. Wednesday, August 18. Tenet infanabile multos Scribendi Cacoethes · T Juv. HERE is a certain Diftemper, which is mentioned neither by Galen nor Hippocrates, nor to be met with in the London Difpenfary. Juvenal, in the Motto of my Paper, terms it a Cacoethes; which is a hard Word for a Difeafe called in plain English, the Itch of Writing. This Cacoethes is as Epidemical as the Small-Pox, there being very few who are not feized with it fome time or other in their Lives. There is, however, this Difference in these two Diftempers, that the firft, after having indifpofed you for a time, never returns again; whereas this I am fpeaking of, when it is once got into the Blood, feldom comes out of it. The British Nation is very much afflicted with this Malady, and tho' very many Remedies have been applied to Perfons infected with it, few of them have ever proved fuccefsful. Some have been cauterized with Satyrs and Lampoons, but have received little or no Benefit from them; others have had their Heads faftned for an Hour together between a Cleft Board, which is made ufe of as a Cure for the Difeafe when it appears in its greatest Malignity. There is indeed one kind of this Malady which has been fometimes removed, like the the Biting of a Tarantula, with the Sound of a mufical Inftrument, which is commonly known by the Name of a Cat-Call. But if you have a Patient of this kind under your Care, you may affure your felf there is no other way of recovering him effectually, but by forbid. ding 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 offenfive, and more incurable, than your Periodical Writers, whose Works return upon the Publick on certain Days and at ftated Times. We have not the Confolation in the Perufal of these Authors, which we find at the reading of all others, (namely) that we are. fure 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 feveral 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 fee Land. On the contrary, our Progrefs through that kind of Writers I am now fpeaking of is never at an End. One Day makes Work for another, we do not know when to promise our felves Reft. IT is a melancholy thing to confider, that the Art of Printing, which might be the greatest Bleffing to Mankind, fhould prove detrimental to us, and that it fhould be made ufe of to fcatter Prejudice, and Ignorance through a People, inftead of conveying to them. Truth and Knowledge. I was lately reading a very whimsical Treatife, entitled, William Ramfey's Vindication of Aftrology. This profound Author, among many myftical Paflages, has the following one: The Abfence of the Sun is not the Caufe of Night, forafmuch as his Light is fo great that it may illuminate the Earth all over at once as clear as broad Day, but there are tenebrificous and dark Stars, by whole Influence Night is brought on, and which do ray out Darkness and Obfcurity upon the Earth, as the Sun does Light. I confider Writers in the fame View this fage Aftrologer does the Heavenly Bodies. Some of them are Stars that scatter Light, as others do Darkness. I could could mention feveral Authors who are tenebrificous Stars of the first Magnitude, and point out a Knot of Gentlemen, who have been dull in Confort, and may be looked upon as a dark Conftellation. The Nation has been a great while benighted with feveral of these Antiluminaries. I fuffered them to ray out their Darknefs as long as I was able to endure it, till at length I came to a Refolution of rifing upon them, and hope in a little time to drive them quite out of the British Hemisphere. N° 583. Friday, August 20. Ipfe thymum pinofque ferens de montibus altis, E VERY Station of Life has Duties which are pro per to it. Those who are determined by Choice to any particular kind of Bufinefs, are indeed more happy than those who are determined by Neceffity, but both are under an equal Obligation of fixing. on Employments, which may be either useful to themfelves, 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 Pofterity. Thofe to whom Birth or Fortune may feem to make such an Application unneceffary, ought to find out fome Calling or Profeffion 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 Chafe, or to fome other Diverfion which they find in the Fields and Woods. This gave occafion to one of our most eminent eminent English Writers to represent every one of them as lying under a kind of Curfe 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. THO' Exercises of this Kind, when indulged with Moderation, may have a good Influence both on the Mind and Body, the Country affords many other Amufements of a more noble Kind. AMONG these I know none more delightful in itfelf, and beneficial to the Publick, than that of PLANTING. I could mention a Nobleman whofe Fortune has placed him in feveral Parts of England, and who has always left these visible Marks behind him, which fhow he has been there: He never hired a Houfe in his Life, without leaving all about it the Seeds of Wealth, and bestowing Legacies on the Pofterity of the Owner. Had all the Gentlemen of England made the fame Improvements upon their Eftates, our whole Country would have been at this time as one great Garden. Nor ought fuch 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 Leffer Afia. There is indeed fomething truly magnificent in this kind of Amusement: It gives a nobler Air to feveral Parts of Nature; it fills the Earth with a Variety of beautiful Scenes, and has fomething in it like Creation. For this Reafon the Pleasure of one who plants is fomething like that of a Poet, who, as Ariftotle obferves, is more delighted with his Productions than any other Writer or Artist whatfoever. PLANTATIONS have one Advantage in them which is not to be found in most other Works, as they give a Pleasure of a more lafting 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 fee it brought to its utmost Point of Perfection, and from that time haftening to its Ruin. On the contrary, when you have finished your Plantations, they are ftill arriving at greater Degrees of Perfection as long as you live, and appear more delightful in every fucceeding Year, than they did in the foregoing. BUT I do not only recommend this Art to Men of Eftates 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 Pofterity. As for the first, I need only mention what is frequently observed by others, that the Increase of Foreft-Trees does by no Means bear a Proportion to the Destruction of them, infomuch that in a few Ages the Nation may be at a Lofs to fupply it felf with Timber fufficient for the Fleets of England. I know when a Man talks of Pofterity in Matters of this Nature, he is looked upon with an Eye of Ridicule by the cunning and selfish Part of Mankind. Moft People are of the Humour of an old Fellow of a College, who, when he was preffed by the Society to come into fomething that might redound to the good of their Succeffors, grew very peevish, We are always doing, fays he, fomething for Pofterity, but I would fain fee Pofterity do fomething for us. BUT I think Men are inexcufable, who fail in a Duty of this Nature, fince it is fo eafily discharged. When a Man confiders 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 Defcendants eafy or rich, by fo inconfiderable an Expence, 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 Confideration, which may very much enforce what I have here faid. Many honest Minds that are naturally difpofed to do good in the World, and become Beneficial to Mankind, complain within themfelves that they have not Talents for it. This therefore is a good Office, which is fuited to the meanett Capacities, and which may be performed by Multitudes, who have not Abilities fufficient to deferve well of their Country and to recommend themselves to their Pofte rity, |