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No 219. this our paffage. It is therefore very abfurd to think of fetting up our reft before we come to our journey's end, and not rather to take care of the reception we shall there meet, than to fix our thoughts on the little conveniencies and advantages which we enjoy one above another in the way to it.

Epictetus makes use of another kind of allufion, which is very beautiful, and wonderfully proper to incline us to be fatisfied with the poft in which Providence has placed us. We are here, fays he, as in a theatre, where every one has a part allotted to him. The great duty which lies upon a man is to act his part in perfection. We may indeed fay, that our part does not fuit us, and that we could act another better. But this, fays the philofopher, is not our business. All that we are concerned in is to excel in the part which is given us. If it be an improper one, the fault is not in us, but in him who has caft our feveral parts, and is the great difpofer of the drama.

The part that was acted by this philofopher himself was but a very indifferent one, for he lived and died a flave. His motive to contentment in this particular, receives a very great enforcement from the above-mentioned confideration, if we remember that our parts in the other world will be new caft, and that mankind will be there ranged in different ftations of fuperiority and pre-eminence, in proportion as they have here excelled one another in virtue, and performed in their feveral pofts of life the duties which belong to them.

There are many beautiful paffages in the little apocryphal book, entitled, "The Wisdom of Solomon," to fet forth the vanity of honour, and the like temporal bleffings which are in fo great repute among men, and to comfort thofe who have not the poffeffion of them. It reprefents in very warm and noble terms this advancement of a good man in the other world, and the great furprise which it will produce among those who are his fuperiors in this. Then fhall the righteous man ftand in great boldness before the face of fuch as have af'flicted him, and made no account of his labours. When they fee it, they fhall be troubled with terrible fear, and fhall be amazed at the ftrangeness of his falvation, fo far beyond all that they looked for. And they

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repenting and groaning for anguifh of fpirit, fhall fay 'within themselves; this was he whom we had fome ' time in derifion, and a proverb of reproach. We fools ' accounted his life madness, and his end to be without 'honour. How is he numbered among the children ' of God, and his lot is among the faints !'

If the reader would fee the defcription of a life that is paffed away in vanity, and among the fhadows of pomp and greatness, he may fee it very finely drawn in the fame place. In the mean time, fince it is neceffary in the prefent conftitution of things, that order and diftinction fhould be kept up in the world, we fhould be happy, if those who enjoy the upper ftations in it, would endea: vour to furpass others in virtue, as much as in rank, and by their humanity and condefcenfion make their fuperiority eafy and acceptable to those who are beneath them and if, on the contrary, those who are in meaner pofts of life, would confider how they may better their condition hereafter, and by a just deference and fubmiffion to their fuperiors, make them happy in those bleffings with which Providence has thought fit to diftinguish them.

C.

N° 220.

Monday, November 12.

Rumorefque ferit varios

VIRG. En. 12. v. 228.

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A thousand rumours spreads.

SIR,

WHY will you apply to my father for my love?

I cannot help it if he will give you my perfon; but I ⚫ affure you it is not in his power, nor even in my own, to give you my heart. Dear fir, do but confider the ill-confequence of fuch a match; you are fifty-five, I twenty-one. You are a man of bufinefs, and mightily converfant in arithmetic and making calculations; be pleafed therefore to confider what proportion your fpirits bear to mine, and when you have made a juft eftimate of the neceffary decay on one fide, and the 'redundance on the other, you will act accordingly. This perhaps, is fuch language as you may not expect from a young lady; but my happiness is at stake, and I must talk plainly. I mortally hate you; and so, as you and my father agree, you may take me or leave me but if you will be fo good as never to see me more, you will for ever oblige,

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Sir,

Your moft humble fervant,
HENRIETTA.'

Mr. SPECTATOR,

THERE are so many artifices and modes of false wit, and fuch a variety of humour discovers itself among its votaries, that it would be impoffible to exhaust fo fertile a fubject, if you would think fit to refume it. The following inftances may, if you think fit, be added by way of appendix to your difcourfes on • that fubject.

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That feat of poetical activity mentioned by Horace, of an author who could compofe two hundred verfes

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while he ftood upon one leg, has been imitated, as ⚫ have heard, by a modern writer; who priding himself on the hurry of his invention, thought it no finall ⚫ addition to his fame to have each piece minuted with the exact number of hours or days it coft him in the compofition. He could tafte no praife until he had acquainted you in how short space of time he had deferved it; and was not fo much led to an oftentation of his art, as of his dispatch.

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-Accipe, fi vis,
Accipiam tabulas; detur nobis locus, hora,
Cuftodes: videamus uter plus fcribere poffit.

HOR. Sat. 4. lib. 1. ver. 14

Here's pen and ink, and time, and place; let's try,
Who can write most, and fastest, you or I.

CREECH.

This was the whole of his ambition; and therefore I < cannot but think the flights of this rapid author very proper to be opposed to those laborious nothings which you have obferved were the delight of the German wits, and in which they fo happily got rid of fuch a • tedious quantity of their time.

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I have known a gentleman of another turn of humour, who, defpifing the name of an author, never ⚫ printed his works, but contracted his talent, and by the help of a very fine diamond which he wore on his lit⚫tle finger, was a confiderable poet upon glafs. He had a very good epigrammatic wit; and there was not a parlour or tavern-window where he vifited or dined. ' for fome years, which did not receive some sketches or 'memorials of it. It was his misfortune at laft to lofe ⚫ his genius and his ring to a fharper at play, and he has not attempted to make a verfe fince.

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But of all contractions or expedients for wit, I admire that of an ingenious projector whose book I have feen. This virtuofo being a mathematician, has, according to his tafte, thrown the art of poetry into a 'fhort problem, and contrived tables by which any one without knowing a word of grammar or fenfe, may, to his great comfort, be able to compofe, or rather to erect Latin verfes. His tables are a kind of poetical

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logarithms, which being divided into feveral fquares, and all infcribed with fo many incoherent words, appear to the eye fomewhat like a fortune-telling-fcreen. What a joy muft it be to the unlearned operator to 'find that these words being carefully collected and writ down in order according to the problem, start of them⚫ felves into hexameter and pentameter verses? A friend of mine, who is a student in aftrology, meeting with this book, performed the operation, by the rules there fet down; he fhewed his verfes to the next of his acquaintance, who happened to understand Latin; and being informed they defcribed a tempeft of wind, very luckily prefixed them, together with a tranflation, to an almanac he was just then printing, and was sup、 pofed to have foretold the last great ftorm.

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I think the only improvement beyond this, would be that which the late duke of Buckingham mentioned to a ftupid pretender to poetry, as the project of a Dutch mechanic, viz. a mill to make verses. This being the moft compendious method of all which have yet been propofed, may deferve the thoughts of our modern virtuofi who are employed in new discoveries for the public good and it may be worth the while to confider, whether in an island where few are content without being thought wits, it will not be a common bene'fit, that wit as well as labour should be made cheap. 'I am, Sir,

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Mr. SPECTATOR,

'Your humble fervant, &c.'

I OFTEN dine at a gentleman's houfe, where there are two young ladies, in themselves very agreea'ble, but very cold in their behaviour, because they underftand me for a perfon that is to break my mind, as the phrafe is, very fuddenly to one of them. But I take this way to acquaint them, that I am not in love with either of them, in hopes they will ufe me with that agreeable freedom and indifference which they do all 'the rest of the world, and not to drink to one another only, but fometimes cast a kind look, with their fervice to,

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• Sir,

• Your humble fervant.'

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