* in a man of fuch perfect good breeding, and his avoid ing one particular walk in his garden, where he had used to pass the greateft part of his time, raised abundance ' of idle conjectures in the village where he lived. Upon looking over his papers we found out the reafon, which he never intimated to his nearcft friends. He was, it feems, a paffionate lover in his youth, of which a large parcel of letters he left behind him are a witness. I fend you a copy of the last he ever wrote upon that fubject, by which you will find that he concealed the true name of his miftrefs under that of Zelinda.' A LONG month's abfence would be infupportable to me, if the bufinefs I am employed in were not for the fervice of my Zelinda, and of fuch a nature as to place her every moment in my mind. I have furnished the house exactly according to your fancy, or, if you pleafe, my own; for I have long fince learned to like nothing but what you do. The apartment defigned for your ufe is fo exact a copy of that which you live in, that I often think myself in your house when I step into ' it, but figh when I find it without its proper inhabitant. You will have the most delicious profpect from your clofet-window that England affords: I am fure I should think it fo, if the landskip that fhews fuch variety did not at the fame time fuggeft to me the greatnefs of the fpace that lies between us. . THE gardens are laid out very beautifully; I have dreffed up every hedge in woodbines, fprinkled bowers and arbours in every corner, and made a little paradise round me; yet I am ftill like the first man in his folitude, but half bleft without a partner in my happiness. I have ' directed one walk to be made for two perfons, where I promise ten thousand fatisfactions to myfelf in your converfation. I already take my evening's turn in it, and have worn a path upon the hedge of this little alley, while I foothed myself with the thought of your walking by, my fide. I have held many imaginary difcourfes with you in this retirement; and when I have been weary, have fat down with you in the midst of a row of jeffamines. The many expreffions of joy and rapture I ufe in these filent converfations have made me, for fome time, the • talk talk of the parish, but a neighbouring young fellow, who 'makes love to the farmer's daughter, hath found me out, ⚫ and made my cafe known to the whole neighbourhood. IN planting of the fruit-trees, I have not forgot the peach you are fo fond of. I have made a walk of elms along the river-fide, and intend to fow all the place a'bout it with cowflips, 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 fix weeks be at an end, that lie between me and my promised happiness? "How could you break off fo abruptly in your last, and tell me you must go and drefs for the play? If you loved as I do, you would find no more company in a ⚫ croud than I have in my folitude.`. 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 per'fidious creature married to my rival. I will bear it as becomes a man, and endeavour to find out happiness for myfelf in that retirement, which I had prepared in vain for a falfe ungrateful woman. N° 628. Friday, December 3. Labitur, et labetur in omne volubilis ævum. I am, &c. Hor. Ep. 1. 1. 1. v. 43. It rolls, and rolls, and will for ever roll. Mr SPECTATOR, T HERE are none of your fpeculations which please me more than those upon infinitude and X 3 e ternity, 'ternity. You have already confidered 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 fpeculation on that which is past is rather cu⚫rious than ufeful. BESIDES, we can easily conceive it poffible for fucceffive duration never to have an end; though, as you have justly obferved, that eternity which never had a beginning is altogether incomprehenfible; 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 philofophical 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 defigned for it; especially if we confider 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 miferable 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 comprehen<fion. As we are now in the beginnings of existence, fo thall we always appear to ourselves as if we were for ever entering upon it. After a million or two of centuries, fome confiderable things, already paft, may flip ont of our memory; which, if it be not strengthened in a wonderful manner, may poffibly forget that ever there was a fun or planets. And yet, notwithstanding the long. race that we shall then have run, we shall still imagine ourfelves juft starting from the goal, and find no proportion between that space which we know had a beginning, and what we are fure will never have an end. BUT I fhall leave this fubject entirely to your own management, and question not but you will throw it into fuch lights as hall at once improve and entertain your reader, I HAVE inclofed fent you a tranflation of the speech of Cato on this occafion, which hath accidentally fallen ⚫ into my hands, and which for concifenefs, purity, and elegance of phrafe cannot be fufficiently admired. ACT ACT. V. SCEN. I. CATO folus, &c. SIG, fic fe habere rem neceffe prorfus eft, Natura? Quorfum hæc dulcis expectatio; Que demigrabitur alia hinc in corpora? Arma en induor, |