Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

appeared to us endowed only with those real qualities which it actually possesses, it would have made but a very joyless and uncomfortable figure; and why has Providence given it a power of producing in us such imaginary qualities, and tastes, and colours, sounds and smells, heat and cold, but that man, while he is conversant in the lower stations of nature, might have his mind cheared and delighted with agreeable sensations? In short, the whole universe is a kind of theatre filled with objects that either raise in us pleasure, amusement, or admiration.

The reader's own thoughts will suggest to him the vicissitude of day and night, the change of seasons, with all that variety of scenes which diversify the face of nature, and fill the mind with a perpetual succession of beautiful and pleasing images.

I shall not here mention the several entertainments of art, with the pleasures of friendship, books, conversation, and other accidental diversions of life, because I would only take notice of such incitements to a chearful temper, as offer themselves to persons of all ranks and conditions, and which may sufficiently shew us that Providence did not design this world should be filled with murmurs and repinings, or that the heart of man should be involved in gloom and melancholy.

I the more inculcate this chearfulness of temper, as it is a virtue in which our countrymen are observed to be more deficient than any other nation. Melancholy is a kind of demon that haunts our island, and often conveys herself to us in an easterly wind. A celebrated French novelist, in opposition to those who begin their romances with the flowery season of the year, enters on his story thus: In the gloomy month of November, when the people of England hang and drown themselves, a disconsolate lover walked out into the fields,' &c.

Every one ought to fence against the temper of his climate or constitution, and frequently to indulge in himself those consider

ations which may give him a serenity of mind, and enable him to bear up chearfully against those little evils and misfortunes which are common to human nature, and which by a right improvement of them will produce a satiety of joy," and an uninterrupted happiness.

At the same time that I would engage my reader to consider the world in its most agreeable lights, I must own there are many evils which naturally spring up amidst the entertainments that are provided for us; but these, if rightly considered, should be far from overcasting the mind with sorrow, or destroying that chearfulness of temper which I have been recommending. This interspersion of evil with good, and pain with pleasure, in the works of nature, is very truly ascribed by Mr. Locke, in his Essay on Human Understanding, to a moral reason, in the following words:

'Beyond all this, we may find another reason why God hath scattered up and down several degrees of pleasure and pain, in all the things that environ and affect us, and blended them together, in almost all that our thoughts and senses have to do with; that we finding imperfection, dissatisfaction, and want of compleat happiness in all the enjoyments which the creatures can afford us, might be led to seek it in the enjoyment of Him, with whom there is fulness of joy, and at whose right hand are pleasures for evermore.'

L.

Satiety of joy, i. e. An excess of joy, or such a measure of it, as palls and cloys the appetite. What he meant to say, and what he should have said is,a fulness of joy.-H. Mind-reader?

No. 391. THURSDAY, MAY 29.

-Non tu prece poscis emaci,

Quæ nisi seductis nequeas committere divis:

At bona pars procerum tacita libabit acerra.

Haud cuivis promptum est, murmurque humilesque susurros.

Tollere de Templis; et aperto vivere voto.

Mens bona, fama, fides, hæc clare, et ut audiat hospes,

Illa sibi introrsum, et sub lingua immurmurat: O si

Ebullit patrui præclarum funus! Et O si

Sub rastro crepet argenti mihi seria dextro
Hercule! pupillumve utinam, quem proximus hæres
Impello, expungam!-

PERS. Sat. iii. v. 8.

Thy prayers the test of heaven will hear:
Nor need'st thou to take the gods aside to hear:
While others, even the mighty men of Rome,
Big swell'd with mischief to the temples come;
And in low murmurs and with costly smoke,
Heav'n's help, to prosper their black vows invoke,
So boldly to the gods mankind reveal

What from each other they, for shame, conceal.
Give me good fame, ye pow'rs, and make me just;
Thus much the rogue to public ears will trust,
In private then,-when wilt thou, mighty Jove,
My wealthy uncle from this world remove?
Or,-0 thou thund'rer's son, great Hercules,
That once thy bounteous deity would please
To guide my rake upon the chinking sound
Of some vast treasure hidden under ground!
O were my pupil fairly knock'd o' th' head!
I should possess th' estate if he were dead.

[ocr errors]

WHERE Homer represents Phoenix, the tutor of Achilles, as persuading his pupil to lay aside his resentments, and give himself up to the entreaties of his countrymen, the poet, in order to make him speak in character, ascribes to him a speech full of those fables and allegories which old men take delight in relating, and which are very proper for instruction. The gods, (says he,) suffer themselves to be prevailed upon by entreaties. When mortals have offended them by their transgressions, they appease them by vows and sacrifices. You must know, Achilles, that Prayers are the daughters of Jupiter. They are crippled by fre

quent kneeling, have their faces full of cares and wrinkles, and their eyes always cast towards heaven. They are constant attendants on the goddess Ate, and march behind her. This goddess walks forward with a bold and haughty air, and being very light of foot, runs through the whole earth, grieving and afflicting the sons of men. She gets the start of Prayers, who always follow her, in order to heal those persons whom she wounds. He who honours these daughters of Jupiter, when they draw near to him, receives great benefit from them; but as for him who rejects them, they entreat their father to give his orders to the goddess Ate to punish him for his hardness of heart.' This noble allegory needs but little explanation; for whether the goddess Ate signifies injury, as some have explained it; or guilt in general, as others; or divine justice, as I am the more apt to think; the interpretation is obvious enough.

I shall produce another heathen fable relating to prayers, which is of a more diverting kind. One would think by some passages in it, that it was composed by Lucian, or at least by some author who has endeavoured to imitate his way of writing; but as dissertations of this nature are more curious than useful, I shall give my reader the fable, without any further inquiries after the author.

'Menippus the philosopher was a second time taken up into heaven by Jupiter, when for his entertainment he lifted up a trap-door that was placed by his footstool. At its rising, there issued through it such a din of cries as astonished the philosopher. Upon his asking what they meant, Jupiter told him they were the prayers that were sent up to him from the earth. Menippus, amidst the confusion of voices, which was so great, that nothing less than the ear of Jove could distinguish them,

Mr Addison had too good a mind to be a successful imitator of Lucian's free manner. He is seen to more advantage when he is copying Plato.-H.

VOL. VI.-13

heard the words, Riches, Honour, and Long Life, repeated in several different tones and languages. When the first hubbub of sounds was over, the trap-door being left open, the voices came up more separate and distinct. The first prayer was a very odd one, it came from Athens, and desired Jupiter to increase the wisdom and the beard of his humble supplicant. Menippus knew it by the voice to be the prayer of his friend Lycander the philosopher. This was succeeded by the petition of one who had just laden a ship, and promised Jupiter, if he took care of it, and returned it home again full of riches, he would make him an offering of a silver-cup. Jupiter thanked him for nothing; and bending down his ear more attentively than ordinary, heard a voice complaining to him of the cruelty of an Ephesian widow, and begging him to breed compassion in her heart: This, says Jupiter, is a very honest fellow, I have received a great deal of incense from him; I will not be so cruel to him as to hear his prayers. He was then interrupted with a whole volley of vows, which were made for the health of a tyrannical prince by his subjects, who prayed for him in his presence. Menippus was surprised, after having listened to prayers offered up with so much ardour and devotion, to hear low whispers from the same assembly, expostulating with Jove for suffering such a tyrant to live, and asking him how his thunder could lie idle? Jupiter was so offended at these prevaricating rascals, that he took down the first vows, and puffed away the last. The philosopher seeing a great cloud mounting upwards, and making its way directly to the trap-door, inquired of Jupiter what it meant. This, says Jupiter, is the smoke of a whole hecatomb that is offered me by the general of an army, who is very importunate with me to let him cut off an hundred thousand men that are drawn up in array against him what does the impudent wretch think I see in him, to believe that I will make a sacrifice of so many mortals as good

« AnteriorContinuar »