them into a thousand forms; but I fhall close this as I began upon the fubject of blindness. The following letter feems to be written by a man of learning, who is returned to his study after a fufpenfe of an ability to do fo. The benefit he reports himself to have received may well claim the handsomeft encomium he can give the operator. · · Mr. SPECTATOR, • RUMINATING lately on your admirable difcourfes on the Pleafures of the Imagination, I began to confider to which of our fenfes we are obliged for the greatest and most important hare of those pleafures; and I foon concluded that it was to the fight: that is the foveregin of the fenfes, and mother of all the arts and fciences, that have refined. the rudeness of the uncultivated mind to a politeness ⚫ that distinguishes the fine fpirits from the barbarous goût of the great vulgar and the fmall. The fight is the obliging benefactress that beftows on us the most tranfporting fenfations that we have from the various ⚫ and wonderful products of Nature. To the fight we owe the amazing difcoveries of the height, magni⚫tude and motion of the planets; their feveral revo⚫lutions about their common centre of light, heat and motion, the fun. The fight travels yet farther to the • fixed ftars, and furnishes the understanding with folid reafons to prove, that each of them is a fun moving. on its own axis in the center of its own vortex or turbillion, and performing the fame offices to its dependent planets, that our glorious fun does to this. But the inquiries of the fight will not be ftopped here, but make their progrefs through the immenfe expanfe of the Milky Way, and there divide the ⚫ blended fires of the Galaxy into infinite and different. worlds, made up of diftinct funs, and their peculiar equipages of planets, until unable to purfue this track • any farther, it deputes the imagination to go on to discoveries, until it fill the unbounded space with ⚫ endless worlds. ་ new The fight informs the ftatuary's chiffel with power to give breath to lifelets brafs and marble, and the painter's pencil to fwell the flat canvas with moving. figures actuated by imaginary fouls. Mufic indeed may plead another original, fince Jubal, by the dif ⚫ferent falls of his hammer on the anvil, difcovered by the ear the first rude mufic that pleafed the antediluvian fathers; but then the fight has not only reduced thofe wilder founds into artful order and harmony, but conveys that harmony to the moft diftant parts of the world without the help of found. To the fight we owe not only all the difcoveries of philofophy, but all the divine imagery of poetry that tranfports the intelligent reader of Homer, Milton, • and Virgil. As the fight has polifhed the world, fo does it fupply us with the moft grateful and lafting pleasure. Let love, let friendship, paternal affection, filial piety, and conjugal duty, declare the joys the fight beftows on a meeting after abfence. But it would be endless to enumerate all the pleafures and advantages of fight; every one that has it, every hour he makes use of it,, • finds them, feels them, enjoys them. ་ ་ Thus as our greatest pleasures and knowledge are ⚫ derived from the fight, fo has Providence been more: curious in the formation of its feat, the eye, than ⚫ of the organs of the other fenfes. That ftupenduous machine is compofed in a wonderful manner of mufcles, membranes, and humours. Its motions are admirably directed by the mufcles; the perfpicuity of the humours tranfinit the rays of light; the rays are regularly refracted by their figure, the black lining of the fclerotes effectually prevents their being con⚫ founded by reflection. It is wonderful indeed to con-fider how many objects the eye is fitted to take in at once, and fucceffively in an inftant, and at the fame time to make a judginen: of their pofition, figure, or • colour. It watches againft our dangers, guides our fteps, and lets in all the visible objects, whole beauty and variety inftruct and delight. 6. The pleafures and advantages of fight being fo great, the lofs must be very grievous; of which Milton, from experience, gives the mot fenfible idea, both in the third book of his Paradife Loft, and in his Samfon Agonistes,' To light in the former. -Thee I revifit fafe And feel thy for reign vital lamp; but thou And a little after. • Seafons return, but not to me returns Day, or the fweet approach of ev'n and morn, Of Nature's works, to me expung'd and raz'd, Again, in Samfon Agonistes. But chief of all Olofs of fight! of thee I moft complain; Light, the prime work of God, to me is extinct, Annulled Still as a fool, In pow'r of others, never in my own, Scarce half I feem to live, dead more than half; • O dark! daik! dark! amid the blaze of noon : Irrevocably dark, total eclipfe, • Without all hopes of day !' The enjoyment of fight then being fo great a bleffing, ⚫ and the lofs of it fo terrible an evil, how excellent 301 and valuable is the fkill of that artist which can reftore the former, and redrefs the latter? My frequent perufal of the advertisements in the public newspapers, generally the most agreeable entertainment they afford, has prefented me with many and various - benefits of this kind done to my countrymen by that fkilful artist Dr. Grant, her majefty's oculift extraordinary, whofe happy hand has brought and restored to fight feveral hundreds in lefs than four years. Many have received fight by his means who came blind from their mother's womb, as in the famous inftance of Jones of Newington. I myself have been cured by him of a weakness in my eyes next to blindness, and am ready to believe any thing that is reported of his ability this way; and know that many, who could not purchase his affiftance with money, have enjoyed it from his charity. But a list of particulars would fwell my letter beyond its bounds, what I have faid being futhcient to comfort thofe who are in the like diftrefs, fince they may conceive hopes of being no longer miferable in this kind, while there is yet alive fo able an oculift as Dr. Grant. ་ 6 ་ N° 473. Tuesday, September 2. ་ ་ Quid? fi quis vultu torvo ferus & pede nudo, HOR. Ep. 19. 1. 1. v. 12. wear, Suppofe a man the coarfest fhould SIR, To the SPECTATOR. CREECH I AM now in the country, and employ most of my ⚫ time in reading, or thinking upon what I have read. Your paper comes conftantly down to me, and it affects me fo much, that I find my thoughts run into your way; and I recommend to you a subject upon which you have not yet touched, and that is, the fatisfaction fome men feem to take in their imperfections: I think one may call it glorying in their infufficiency. A certain great author is of opinion it is the contrary to envy, though perhaps it may proceed from it. Nothing is fo common as to hear men of this fort, fpeaking of themfelves, add to their own merit, as they think, by impairing it, in praifing themfelves for their defects, freely allowing they com• mit fome few frivolous errors, in order to be esteemed perfons of uncommon talents and great qualifications.. They are generally profeffing an injudicious neglect of dancing, fencing, and riding, as alfo an unjust contempt for travelling, and the modern languages; as for their part, fay they, they never valued or trou• bled their heads about them. This panegyrical fatire |