No 576. WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 4, 1714. Nitor in adversum; nec me, qui cætera, vincit OVID. Met. 1. ii. ver. 72. I steer against their motions, nor am I within himself, to act in the most indifferent parts of life according to the most abstracted notions of reason and good sense, without any regard to fashion or example. This humour broke out at first in many little oddnesses: he had never any stated hours for his dinner, supper, or sleep; because, said he, we ought to attend the calls of nature, and not set our appetites to our meals, but bring our meals to our appetites. In his conversation with country gentlemen he would not make use of a phrase that was not strictly true: he never told any of them that he was his humble servant, but that he was his well-wisher, and would rather be thought a malcontent than drink the king's health when he was not dry. He would thrust his head out of his chamber window every morning, and, after having gaped for fresh air about half an hour, repeat fifty verses as loud as he could bawl them, for the benefit of his lungs; to which end he generally took them out of Homer; the Greek tongue, especially in that author, being more deep and sonorous, and more conducive to expectoration than any other. He had many other particularities, for which he gave sound and philosophical reasons. As this humour still grew upon him, he chose to wear a turban instead of a periwig; concluding very justly that a bandage of clean linen about his head was much more whole. There is indeed nothing which betrays a man some, as well as cleanly, than the caul of a wig to so many errors and inconveniences as the de- which is soiled with frequent perspirations. He e of not appearing singular; for which reason it afterwards judiciously observed, that the many very necessary to form a right idea of singula-ligatures in our English dress must naturally check REMEMBER a young man of very lively parts, and a sprightly turn in conversation, who had only e fault, which was an inordinate desire of aparing fashionable. This ran him into many ours, and consequently into many distempers. He wer went to bed till two o'clock in the morning, cause he would not be a queer fellow; and was ery now and then knocked down by a constable, signalize his vivacity. He was initiated into If a dozen clubs before he was one-and-twenty; d so improved in them his natural gaiety of temr, that you might frequently trace him to his iging by a range of broken windows, and other e like monuments of wit and gallantry. To be ort, after having fully established his reputation being a very agreeable rake, he died of old age five-and-twenty. y, that we may know when it is laudable, and hen it is vicious. In the first place every man of sense will agree ith me, that singularity is laudable when, in conadiction to a multitude, it adheres to the dictates `conscience, morality, and honour. In these cases e ought to consider that it is not custom, but ity, which is the rule of action; and that we ould be only so far sociable, as we are reason le creatures. Truth is never the less so for not ing attended to: and it is the nature of actions, t the number of actors, by which we ought to gulate our behaviour. Singularity in concerns this kind is to be looked upon as heroic bravery, which a man leaves the species only as he soars ove it. What greater instance can there be of weak and pusillanimous temper than for a man pass his whole life in opposition to his own senments? or not to dare to be what he thinks he ght to be? the circulation of the blood; for which reason he made his breeches and his doublet of one continued piece of cloth, after the manner of the hussars. In short, by following the pure dictates of reason, he at length departed so much from the rest of his countrymen, and indeed from his whole species, that his friends would have clapped him into Bedlam, and have begged his estate; but the judge, being informed that he did no harm, contented himself with issuing out a commission of lunacy against him, and putting his estate into the hands of proper guardians. The fate of this philosopher puts me in mind of a remark in Monsieur Fontenelle's Dialogues of the Dead. The ambitious and the covetous,' says he, are madmen to all intents and purposes as much as those who are shut up in dark rooms; but they have the good luck to have numbers on their side; whereas the frenzy of one who is given up for a lunatic is a phrenzy hors d'œuvre; that is, in other words, something which is singular in its kind, and does not fall in with the madness of a multitude. The subject of this essay was occasioned by a letter which I received not long since, and which, for want of room at present, I shall insert in my ADDISON. Singularity, therefore, is only vicious when it You have so lately decried that custom, too much in use amongst most people of making themselves the subjects of their writings and conversation, that I had some difficulty to persuade myself to give you this trouble, till I had considered that though I should speak in the first person, yet I could not be justly charged with vanity, since I shall not add my name; as also, because what I shall write, will not, to say the best, redound to my praise; but is only designed to remove a prejudice conceived against me, as I hope with very little foundation. My short history is this. the key-hole. To be short, after this advester! The first minute I got to my lodgings in t I have lived for some years last past altogether in London, till about a month ago an acquaintance of mine, for whom I have done some small services in town, invited me to pass part of the summer with him at his house in the country. I accepted his invitation, and found a very hearty wel-particular case and cannot justify me, who e come. My friend, an honest plain man, not being qualified to pass away his time without the reliefs of business, has grafted the farmer upon the gentleman, and brought himself to submit even to the servile parts of that employment, such as inspecting his plough, and the like. This necessarily takes up some of his hours every day; and, as I have no relish for such diversions, I used at these times to retire either to my chamber, or a shady walk near the house, and entertain myself with some agreeable author. Now, you must know, Mr. Spectator, that when I read, especially if it be poetry, it is very usual with me, when I meet with any passage or expression which strikes me much, to pronounce it aloud, with that tone of the voice which I think agreeable to the sentiments there expressed; and to this I generally add some motion or action of the body. It was not long before I was observed by some of the family in one of these heroic fits, who thereupon received impressions very much to my disadvantage. This however I did not soon discover, nor should have done probably, had it not been for the following accident. I had one day shut myself up in my chamber, and was very deeply engaged in the second book of Milton's Paradise Lost. I walked to and fro with the book in my hand; and, to speak the truth, I fear I made no little noise; when, presently coming to the following lines: -On a sudden open fly, With impetuous recoil and jarring sound, I in great transport threw open the door of my "Your admirer 'P. S. If I must be mad, I desire the young may believe it is for her.' 'The humble Petition of John a Nokes and Joha a Styles, 'Showeth, THAT your petitioners have had causes dep in Westminster-hall above five hundred year, dos that we despair of ever seeing them brogat issue; that your petitioners have not been inve in these lawsuits out of any litigious temper of own, but by the instigation of contentious per that the young lawyers in our inos of court are tinually setting us together by the ears, and dra they do us no hurt, because they plead far u = 3 out a fee; that many of the gentlemen of the have no other clients in the world besides is that when they have nothing else to do they mik us plaintiffs and defendants, though they we never retained by any of us; that they tal condemn, or acquit us, without any manner a gard to our reputations and good mae * world. Your petitioners therefore, best th unto encouraged by the favourable receptio you lately gave to our kinsman Blank, da hum pray that you will put an end to the controver which have been so long depending between @ your said petitioners, and that our entity may endure from generation to generation; it being not get him to engage in a life of business, made him however his chief companion and first favourite. our resolution to live hereafter as it becometh men of peaceable dispositions. And your petitioners, as in duty bound, shall ever pray, &c.' N° 578. MONDAY, AUGUST 9, 1714. Eque feris humana in corpora transit, Inque feras noster ——— OVID. Met. I. xv. ver. 167. 'As they were one day hunting together, and happened to be separated from the rest of the company, the dervis entertained Fadlallah with an account of his travels and adventures. After having related to him several curiosities which he had seen in the Indies, "It was in this place," says he, "that I coutracted an acquaintance with an old brachman, who was skilled in the most hidden powers of nature: he died within my arms, and with his parting breath communicated to me one of the most valuable of his secrets, on condition I should never reveal it to any man." The king im mediately, reflecting on his young favourite's having refused the late offers of greatness he had made THERE has been very great reason, on several ac- him, told him he presumed it was the power of counts, for the learned world to endeavour at set-making gold. "No, sir," says the dervis, "it is tling what it was that might be said to compose somewhat more wonderful than that; it is the power personal identity. of reanimating a dead body, by flinging my own soul into it." Th' unbodied spirit flies And lodges where it lights in man or beast. Mr. Locke, after having premised that the word person properly signifies a thinking intelligent beWhile he was yet speaking, a doe came bounding that has reason and reflection, and can considering by them, and the king, who had his bow ready, itself as itself, concludes, that it is consciousness shot her through the heart; telling the dervis, that alone, and not an identity of substance, which a fair opportunity now offered for him to show his makes this personal identity of sameness. Had art. The young man immediately left his own the same consciousness,' says that author, that I body breathless on the ground, while at the same saw the ark and Noah's flood, as that I saw an instant that of the doe was reanimated. She overflowing of the Thames last winter; or as that came to the king, fawned upon him, and, after I now write; I could no more doubt that I who having played several wanton tricks, fell again write this now, that saw the Thames overflow last upon the grass; at the same instant the body of winter, and that viewed the flood at the general the dervis recovered its life. The king was intideluge, was the same self, place that self in what nitely pleased at so uncommon an operation, and substance you please, than that I who write this conjured his friend by every thing that was sacred am the same myself now while I write, whether I to communicate it to him. The dervis at first made consist of all the same substance, material or im- some scruple of violating his promise to the dying material, or no, that I was yesterday; for as to brachman; but told him at last that he found he could this point of being the same self, it matters not conceal nothing from so excellent a prince; after whether this present self be made up of the same having obliged him therefore by an oath to secresy, or other substances.' he taught him to repeat two cabalistic words, in I was mightily pleased with a story in some mea-pronouncing of which the whole secret consisted. sure applicable to this piece of philosophy, which | I read the other day in the Persian Tales, as they are lately very well translated by Mr. Philips; and with an abridgment whereof I shall here present my readers. I shall only premise that these stories are writ after the eastern manner, but somewhat more cor rect. Fadlallah, a prince of great virtue, succeeded his father Bin Ortoc, in the kingdom of Mousel. He reigned over his faithful subjects for some time, and lived in great happiness with his beauteous consort Queen Zemroude, when there appeared at his court a young dervis of so lively and entertaining a turn of wit, as won upon the affections of every one he conversed with. His reputation grew so fast every day, that it at last raised a curiosity in the prince himself to see and talk with him. He did so; and, far from finding that common fame had flattered him, he was soon convinced that every thing he had heard of him fell short of the truth. | The king, impatient to try the experiment, immediately repeated them as he had been taught, and in an instant found himself in the body of the doe. He had but a little time to contemplate himself in this new being; for the treacherous dervis, shooting his own soul into the royal corpse, and bending the prince's own bow against him, had laid him dead on the spot, had not the king, who perceived his intent, fled swifdy to the woods. The dervis, now triumphant in his villany, returned to Mousel, and filled the throne and bed of the unhappy Fadlallah. The first thing he took care of, in order to secure himself in the possession of his new-acquired kingdom, was to issue out a proclamation, ordering his subjects to destroy all the deer in the realm. The king had perished among the rest, had he not avoided his pursuers by reanimating the body of a nightingale which he saw lie dead at the foot of a tree. In this new shape he winged his way in safety to the palace: where, perching on a tree Fad.allah immediately lost all manner of relish which stood near the queen's apartment, he filled for the conversation of other men; and, as he was the whole place with so many melodious and meevery day more and more satisfied of the abilities lancholy notes as drew her to the window. He of this stranger, offered him the first posts in his had the mortification to see that, instead of being kingdom. The young dervis, after having thanked pitied, he only moved the mirth of his princess, him with a very singular modesty, desired to be and of a young female slave who was with her. excused, as having made a vow never to accept of He continued however to serenade her every morn any employment, and preferring a free and inde-ing, till at last the queen, charmed with his harpendent state of life to all other conditions. 'The king was infinitely charmed with so great an example of moderation; and though he could mony, sent for the bird-catchers, and ordered them to employ their utmost skill to put that little creature in her possession. The king, pleased with an Opportunity of being once more near his beloved consort, easily suffered himself to be taken; and when he was presented to her, though he showed a fearfulness to be touched by any of the other ladies, flew of his own accord, and hid himself in the queen's bosom. Zemroude was highly pleased at the unexpected fondness of her new favourite, and ordered him to be kept in an open cage in her own apartment. He had there an opportunity of making his court to her every morning, by a thousand little actions, which his shape allowed him. The queen passed away whole hours every day in hearing and playing with him. Fadlallah could even have thought himself happy in this state of life, had he not frequently endured the inexpressible torment of seeing the dervis enter the apartment and caress his queen even in his presence. The usurper, amidst his toying with the princess, would often endeavour to ingratiate himself with her nightingale; and while the enraged Fadlallah pecked at him with his bill, beat his wings, and showed all the marks of an impotent rage, it only afforded his rival and the queen new matter for their diversion. Zemroude was likewise fond of a little lapdog, which she kept in her apartment, and which one night happened to die. The king immediately found himself inclined to quit the shape of the nightingale, and enliven this new body. He did so, and the next morning Zemroude saw her favourite bird lie dead in the cage. It is impossible to express her grief on this occasion; and when she called to mind all its little actions, which even appeared to have somewhat in them like reason, she was inconsolable for her loss. 'Her women immediately sent for the dervis to come and comfort her; who, after having in vain represented to her the weakness of being grieved at such an accident, touched at last by her repeated complaints, "Well, madam,” says he, “ I will exert the utmost of my art to please you. Your nightingale shall again revive every morning, and serenade you as before." The queen beheld him with a look which easily showed she did not believe him; when, laying himself down in a sofa, he shot his soul into the nightingale, and Zemroude was amazed to see her bird revive. The king, who was a spectator of all that passed, lying under the shape of a lap-dog in one corner of the room, immediately recovered his own body, and, running to the cage with the utmost indignation, twisted off the neck of the false nightingale. In the reign of King Charles the First the compars of Stationers, into whose hands the printing of t Bible is committed by patent, made a very remav able erratum, or blunder, in one of their edition for, instead of Thou shalt not commit adulter they printed off several thousands of copies wa Thou shalt commit adultery.' Archbishop L to punish this their negligence, laid a considera“. fine upon that company in the star-chamber. By the practice of the world, which prevail * this degenerate age, I am afraid that very ar young profligates of both sexes are possessed of t spurious edition of the Bible, and observe t commandment according to that faulty reading, Adulterers in the first ages of the church w excommunicated for ever, and unqualified all t lives from bearing a part in Christian assemblin notwithstanding they might seek it with tears, 2 all the appearances of the most unfeigned reper ance. I might here mention some ancient laws among the heathens, which punished this crime with dead and others of the same kind, which are now force among several governments that have braced the reformed religion. But, because a subje of this nature may be too serious for my ordinary readers, who are very apt to throw by my paper when they are not enlivened with something that a diverting or uncommon, I shall here publish th contents of a little manuscript lately fallen into hands, and which pretends to great antiquity; though, by reason of some modern phrases and other particulars in it, I can by no means allow it to genuine, but rather the production of a modern se phist. It is well known by the learned, that there wa a temple upon mount Etna dedicated to Valcao, which was guarded by dogs of so exquisite a se say the historians, that they could discern whether the persons who came thither were chaste or othewise. They used to meet and fawn upon such s were chaste, caressing them as the friends of the master Vulcan; but flew at those who were poi luted, and never ceased barking at them till tary had driven them from the temple. My manuscript gives the following account these dogs, and was probably designed as a ca ment upon this story. Zemroude was more than ever amazed and concerned at this second accident, until the king entreating her to hear him, related to her his whole 'These dogs were given to Vulcan by his adventure. Diana, the goddess of hunting and of chastity, 'The body of the dervis which was found deading bred them out of some of her hounds, in whi in the wood, and his edict for killing all the deer, left her no room to doubt of the truth of it; but the story adds, that out of an extreme delicacy, peculiar to the oriental ladies, she was so highly afflicted at the innocent adultery in which she had for some time lived with the dervis, that no arguments, even from Fadlallah himself, could compose her mind. She shortly after died with grief, begging his pardon with her last breath for what the most rigid justice could not have interpreted as a crime. The king was so afflicted with her death, that he left his kingdom to one of his nearest relations, and passed the rest of his days in solitude and retirement.' she had observed this natural instinct and saga 66 but it is here where he resides in a sensible magni ficence, and in the midst of all those splendours which can affect the imagination of created beings. see how different the treatment was which the dogs gave to these little misses, from that which they had shown to their mothers. It is said that the prince of Syracuse, having married a young lady, and being naturally of a jealous temper, made such an interest with the priests of this temple, that he procured a whelp from them of this famous breed. The young puppy was very troublesome to the fair lady at first, insomuch that she solicited her husband to send him away; but the good man cut her short with the old Sicilian proverb, “ Love me, love my dog." From which time she lived very peaceably with both of them. The ladies of Syracuse were very much annoyed with him, and several of very good reputation refused to come to court till he was discarded. There were indeed some of them that defied his sagacity; but it was observed, though he did not actually bite them, he would growl at them most confoundedly. To return to the dogs of the temple; after they had lived here in great repute for several years, it so hap-man inventions. But to pass over the notions of pened, that as one of the priests, who had been making a charitable visit to a widow who lived on the promontory of Lilybeum, returned home pretty late in the evening, the dogs flew at him with so much fury, that they would have worried him if his brethren had not come in to his assistance; upon which, says my author, the dogs were all of them hanged, as having lost their original instinct.' cannot conclude this paper without wishing that we had some of this breed of dogs in Great Britain, which would certainly do justice, I should say honour, to the ladies of our country, and show the world the difference between pagan women and those who are instructed in sounder principles of virtue and religion. "It is very remarkable that this opinion of God Almighty's presence in heaven, whether discovered by the light of nature, or by a general tradition from our first parents, prevails among all the nations of the world, whatsoever different notions they entertain of the Godhead. If you look into Homer, the most ancient of the Greek writers, you see the supreme power seated in the heavens, and encompassed with inferior deities, among whom the Moses are represented as singing incessantly about his throne. Who does not here see the main strokes and outlines of this great truth we are speaking of? The same doctrine is shadowed out in many other heathen authors, though at the same time, like several other revealed truths, dashed and adulterated with a mixture of fables and huthe Greeks and Romans, those more enlightened parts of the pagan world, we find there is scarce a people among the late-discovered nations who are not trained up in an opinion that heaven is the habitation of the divinity whom they worship. 'As in Solomon's temple there was the Sanctum Sanctorum, in which a visible glory appeared among the figures of the cherubims, and into which none but the high-priest himself was permitted to enter, after having made an atonement for the sins of the people; so if we consider the whole creation as one great temple, there is in it this Holy of Holies, into which the High-priest of our salvation entered, and took his place among angels and archangels, after having made a propitiation for the sins of mankind. With how much skill must the throne of God be erected! with what glorious designs is that habitation beautified, which is contrived and built by him who inspired Hiram with wisdom! how great must be the majesty of that place, where the whole art of creation has been employed, and where God has chosen to show himself in the most magnificent manner; what must be the architecture of infinite power under the direction of infinite wisdom? A spirit cannot but be transported after an ineffable manner with the sight of those objects, which were made to affect him by that Being who knows the inward frame of a soul, and how to please and ravish it in all its most secret powers and faculties. It is to this majestic presence of God we may apply those beautiful expressions in holy writ: "Behold even to the moon, and it shineth not; yea the stars are not pure in his sight." The light of the sun, and all the glories of the world in which we live, are but as weak and sickly glimmerings, or rather darkness itself, in comparison of those splendours which encompass the throne of God. 'I CONSIDERED in my two last letters that awful and tremendous subject, the ubiquity or omnipresence of the Divine Being. I have shown that he is equally present in all places throughout the whole extent of infinite space. This doctrine is so agreeable to reason, that we meet with it in the writings of the enlightened heathens, as I might show at large, were it not already done by other bands. But though the Deity be thus essentially present through all the immensity of space, there is one part of it in which he discovers himself in a most As the glory of this place is transcendent betranscendent and visible glory; this is that place yond imagination, so probably is the extent of it. which is marked out in scripture under the different There is light behind light, and glory within glory. appellations of “paradise, the third heaven, the How far that space may reach, in which God thus throne of God, and the habitation of his glory." appears in perfect majesty, we cannot possibly It is here where the glorified body of our Saviour conceive. Though it is not infinite, it may be inresides, and where all the celestial hierarchies, and definite: and, though not immeasurable in itself, the innumerable hosts of angels, are represented as it may be so with regard to any created eye or perpetually surrounding the seat of God with hal-imagination. If he has made these lower regions lelujahs and hymns of praise. This is that presence of God which some of the divines call his glorious, and others his majestic presence. He is indeed as essentially present in all other places as in this; See also Nos. 565, 571, 390, and 628. of matter so inconceivably wide and magnificent for the habitation of mortal and perishable beings, how great may we suppose the courts of his house to be, where he makes his residence in a more especial manner, and displays himself in the fulness of his glory, among an innumerable |