left you all his books. He has, moreover, bequeathed to the chaplain a very pretty tenement with good lands about it. It being a very cold day when he made his will, he left for mourning, to every man in the parish, a great frize coat, and to every woman a black riding-hood. It was a most moving sight to see him take leave of his poor servants, commending us all for our fidelity, whilst we were not able to speak a word for weeping. As we most of us are grown grey-headed in our dear master's service, he has left us pensions and legacies, which we may live very comfortably upon the remaining part of our days. He has bequeathed a great deal more in charity, which is not yet come to my knowledge, and it is peremptorily said in the parish, that he has left money to build a steeple to the church; for he was heard to say some time ago, that if he lived two years longer, Coverley church should have a steeple to it. The chaplain tells every body that he made a very good end, and never speaks of him without tears. He was buried, according to his own directions, among the family of the Coverlies, on the left hand of his father Sir Arthur. The coffin was carried by six of his tenants, and the pall held up by six of the quorum : the whole parish followed the corpse with heavy hearts, and in their mourning suits; the men in frize, and the women in riding-hoods. Captain Sentry, my master's nephew, has taken possession of the hall-house, and the whole estate. When my old master saw 1 The 544th number of the "Spectator" (Nov. 24th, 1712) contains a letter from the new esquire, in which he says, “I cannot reflect upon his (Sir Roger's) character but I am confirmed in the truth which I have, I think, heard spoken at the club; to wit, that a man of a warm and well disposed heart, with a very small capacity, is highly superior in human society to him who with the greatest talents is cold and languid in his affections. But, alás! why do I make a difficulty in speaking of my worthy ancestor's failings? His little absurdities and incapacity for the conversation of the politest men are dead with him, and his greater qualities are even now useful to him. I know not whether by naming those him, a little before his death, he shook him by the hand, and wished him joy of the estate which was falling to him, desiring him only to make a good use of it, and to pay the several legacies, and the gifts of charity, which he told him he had left as quitrents upon the estate. The captain truly seems a courteous man, though he says but little. He makes much of those whom my master loved, and shews great kindness to the old house-dog, know you my poor master was so fond of. It would have heart to have heard the moans the dumb creature gone to your made on the day of my master's death. He has never joyed himself since; no more has any of us. It was the melancholiest day for the poor people that ever happened in Worcestershire. This being all from that "Honoured Sir, your most sorrowful servant, "EDWARD BISCUIT." "P. S. My master desired, some weeks before he died, that a book which comes up to you by the carrier, should be given to Sir Andrew Freeport in his name. This letter, notwithstanding the poor butler's manner" of writing it, gave us such an idea of our good old friend, that upon the reading of it, there was not a dry eye in the club. Sir An disabilities I do not enhance his merit, since he has left behind him a reputation in his country which would be worth the pains of the wisest man's whole life to arrive at.”—“I have continued all Sir Roger's servants, except such as it was a relief to dismiss unto little livings within my manor; those who are in a list of the good Knight's own hand to be taken care of by me, I have quartered upon such as have taken new leases of me, and added so many advantages during the lives of the persons so quartered, that it is the interest of those whom they are joined with to cherish and befriend them on all occasions."—* The poor butler's manner. As if that manner was not the very thing that melts us. There is a little vanity in this apology for the poor butler.-H. par drew opening the book, found it to be a collection of acts of liament. There was, in particular, the act of uniformity, with some passages in it marked by Sir Roger's own hand. Sir Andrew found that they related to two or three points, which he had disputed with Sir Roger the last time he appeared at the club. Sir Andrew, who would have been merry at such an incident on another occasion, at the sight of the old man's hand writing, burst into tears, and put the book into his pocket. Captain Sentry informs me, that the knight has left rings and mourning for every one in the club. No. 519. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 25. 713 Inde hominum pecudumque genus, vitæque volantum, Et quæ marmoreo fert monstra sub æquore pontus. VIRG. En. vi. 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 worked 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 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 1 By which I mean. He had better have said-or-and so below, after "world of life."—H. VOL. VI.-23 a 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 humour 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, wilder ness and wood, plentifully stocked with birds and beasts, and every part of matter affording proper necessaries and conveniencies 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 being 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 further 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 1 Fontenelle. a Which are that live." This complicated construction, though against rule, has a grace here.-H. basis and support of animals, and 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 farther upon it, by considering that part of the scale of beings which comes within our knowledge. a 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 look into the several inward perfections of cunning and sagacity, or what we generally call instinct, we find them. rising after the same manner, imperceptibly one above another, and receiving additional improvements according to the species in which they are implanted. This progress in nature is so very gradual, that the most perfect of an inferior species comes very near to the most imperfect of that which is immediately above it That grow. Better, and grow-" and immediately die,"-read—“ but immediately die.”—H. |