"The gardens are laid out very beautifully; I have dressed up every hedge in woodbines, sprinkled bowers and arbours in every corner, and made a little paradise round me; yet I am still like the first man in his solitude, but half blest without a partner in my happiness. I have directed one. walk to be made for two persons, where I promise ten thousand satisfactions to myself in your conversation. I already take my evening's turn in it, and have worn a path upon the edge of this little alley, while I soothed myself with the thought of your walking by my side. I have held many imaginary discourses with you in this retirement; and when I have been weary have sat down with you in the midst of a row of jessamines. The many expressions of joy and rapture I use in these silent conversations have made me for some time the talk of the parish; but a neighbouring young fellow, who makes love to the farmer's daughter, hath found me out, and made my case known to the whole neighbourhood. "In planting of the fruit-trees I have not forgot the peach you are so fond of. I have made a walk of elms along the river-side, and intend to sow all the place about it with cowslips, which I hope you will like as well as that I have heard you talk of by your father's house in the country. "Oh! Zelinda, what a scheme of delight have I drawn up in my imagination! What day-dreams do I indulge myself in! When will the six weeks be at an end that lie between me and my promised happiness! "How could you break off so abruptly in your last, and tell me you must go and dress for the play? If you loved as I do, you would find no more com pany in a crowd than I have in my solitude. I am, &c." 'On the back of this letter is written, in the hand of the deceased the following piece of history: "Mem. Having waited a whole week for an answer to this letter, I hurried to town, where I found the perfidious creature married to my rival. I will bear it as becomes a man, and endeavour to find out happiness for myself in that retirement which I had prepared in vain for a false ungrateful woman." I am, &c.' Mr. Castleton, at the penny-post-office, hopes to publish by Saturday several vindications against The Spectator, Sept. 17, 1714.-Post-boy, No. 3065, R RRRR. Dec. 1714. This seems to refer to Spect. No. 594. No. 628. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 3, 1714. Labitur, et labetur in omne volubilis ævum. HOR. 1 Ep. ii. 43. It rolls and rolls, and will for ever roll. 'MR. SPECTATOR, "THERE are none of your speculations which please me more than those upon infinitude and eternity." You have already considered that part of eternity which is past, and I wish you would give us your thoughts upon that which is to come. 'Your readers will perhaps receive greater pleasure from this view of eternity than the former, since we have every one of us a concern in that which is to come: whereas a speculation on that which is past is rather curious than useful. See Spect. Nos. 565, 571, 580, and 590. 'Besides, we can easily conceive it possible for successive duration never to have an end; though, as you have justly observed, that eternity which never had a beginning is altogether incomprehensible; that is, we can conceive an eternal duration which may be, though we cannot an eternal duration which hath been; or, if I may use the philosophical terms, we may apprehend a potential though not an actual eternity. 'This notion of a future eternity, which is natural to the mind of man, is an unanswerable argument that he is a being designed for it; especially if we consider that he is capable of being virtuous or vicious here: that he hath faculties improveable to all eternity; and, by a proper or wrong employment of them, may be happy or miserable throughout that infinite duration. Our idea indeed of this eternity is not of an adequate or fixed nature, but is perpetually growing and enlarging itself toward the object, which is too big for human comprehension. As we are now in the beginnings of existence, so shall we always appear to ourselves as if we were for ever entering upon it. After a million or two of centuries, some considerable things, already past, may slip out of our memory; which, if it be not strengthened in a wonderful manner, may possibly forget that ever there was a sun or planets; and yet, notwithstanding the long race that we shall then have run, we shall still imagine ourselves just starting from the goal, and find no proportion between that space which we know had a beginning, and what we are sure will never have an end. 'But I shall leave this subject to your management, and question not but you will throw it into such lights as shall at once improve and entertain your reader. 'I have enclosed sent you a translation of the speech of Cato on this occasion, which hath accidentally fallen into my hands, and which, for conciseness, purity, and elegance of phrase cannot be sufficiently admired.' ACT V.-SCENE I. CATO solus, &c. 'Sic, sic se habere rem necesse prorsus est, Natura? Quorsum hæc dulcis expectatio; • This translation was by Mr. afterwards Dr. Bland, once schoolmaster, then prevost, of Eton, and dean of Durham. See the note in page 513. 'Cato was translated by Salvini into Italian, and acted at Florence. and by the Jesuits of St. Omer's into Latin, and played by their pupils. Of this version a copy was sent to Mr. Addison: it is to be wished that it could be found for the sake of comparing their version of the soliloquy with that of Bland.'-Dr. Johnson's Lives of English Poets, vol. ii. p. 375, 8vo. edit. 1781. It has been frequently observed that the papers after No. 555, are not distinguished by signatures, and Addison's papers are given on the authority of Mr. Tickell, who, it is supposed, has faithfully reprinted them in his edition of Addison's Works. This paper was probably written by Addison, or by Mr. Budgell, or Mr. Tickell, according to Addison's direction, or with his approbation. Figendus hic pes; certa sunt hæc hactenus: In utramque partem facta; quæque vim inferant, Etate languens ipse sol, obscurius At tibi juventus, at tibi immortalitas, This beautiful translation, which fame and Dr. Kippis have attributed to bishop Atterbury (and which on that authority, and on oral tradition in the university of Oxford, I had printed as his in the Select Collection of Poems, vol. v. p. 6), I afterwards found reason (vol. viii. p. 302) to ascribe to Dr. Henry Bland, head master of Eton school, provost of the college there, and dean of Durham (to whom it is also without hesitation ascribed by the last and best biographer of Addison): and have since had VOL. VI.-33. |