While pray'rs and tears his destin'd progress stay, Through stately towns, and many a fertile plain, 'In Haga's towers he waits, till eastern gales Takes in the blended interests of mankind, The world's great patriot. Calm thy anxious breast, Henceforth thy kingdoms shall remain confin'd By rocks and streams, the mounds which Heav'n design'd; But see, to Britain's isle the squadron stand, Ten thousand vessels, from ten thousand shores, Still is it thine; tho' now the cheerful crew Before the wind with swelling sails they ride, As in the flood he sails, from either side, And distant flocks stray o'er a thousand hills. The sun, now rolling down the western way, Welcome, great stranger, to our longing eyes. Oh! king desir'd, adopted Albion cries, For thee the East breath'd out a prosp'rous breeze ; Bright were the suns, and gently swell'd the seas. Thy presence did each doubtful heart compose, And factions wonder'd that they once were foes; That joyful day they lost each hostile name, The same their aspect, and their voice the same. 6 So two fair twins whose features were design'd At one soft moment in the mother's mind, Show each the other with reflected grace, And the same beauties bloom in either face; The puzzled strangers which is which inquire; Delusion grateful to the smiling sire. From that fair hill,* where hoary sages boast To name the stars, and count the heavenly host, VOL. VIII. *Flamstead house on Greenwich hill. By the next dawn doth great Augusta rise, A floating forest! From the distant strand So haply thro' the heav'n's wide pathless ways From east to west burns through th' ethereal frame, And half heav'n's convex glitters with the flame. Now to the regal towers securely brought, Thee, Halifax. To thy capacious mind, The Muse, if fir'd with thy enliv'ning beams, No. 621. WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 1714. -Postquam se lumine puro Implevit, stellasque vagas miratur, et astra LUCAN, 1. ix. ver. 11. New to the blest abode, with wonder fill'd THE ROWE. HE following letter having in it some observations out of the common road, I shall make it the entertainment of this day. Mr. SPECTATOR, THE common topics against the pride of man, which are laboured by florid and declamatory writers, are taken from the baseness of his original, the imperfections of his nature, or the short duration of those goods in which he makes his boast. Though it be true that we can have nothing in us that ought to raise our vanity, yet a consciousness of our own merit may be sometimes laudable. The folly therefore lies here: we are apt to pride ourselves in worthless, or perhaps shameful things; and on the other hand count that disgraceful which is our truest glory. Hence it is that the lovers of praise take wrong measures to attain it. Would a vain man consult his own heart, he would find, that if others knew his weakness, as well as himself doth, he could not have the impudence to expect the public esteem. Pride therefore flows from want of reflection, and ignorance of ourselves. Knowledge and humility come upon us together. The proper way to make an estimate of ourselves, is to consider seriously what it is we value or despise in others. A man who boasts of the goods of fortune, a gay dress, or a new title, is generally the mark of ridicule. We ought therefore not to admire in ourselves what we are so ready to laugh at in other men. Much less can we with reason pride ourselves in those things, which at some time of our life we shall certainly despise. And yet, if we will give ourselves the trouble of looking backward and forward on the several changes which we have already undergone, and hereaf ter must try, we shall find that the greater degrees of our knowledge and wisdom serve only to shew us our own imperfections. 1 As we rise from childhood to youth, we look with contempt on the toys and trifles which our hearts have hitherto been set upon. When we advance to manhood, we are held wise, in proportion to our shame and regret for the rashness and extravagance of youth. Old age fills us with mortifying reflections upon a life mis-spent in the pursuit of anxious wealth, or uncertain honour. Agreeable to this gradation of thought in this life, it may be reasonably supposed that, in a future state, the wis dom, the experience, and the maxims of old age, will be looked upon by a separate spirit, in much the same light as an ancient man now sees the little follies and toyings of infants. The pomps, the honours, the policies, and arts, of mortal men, will be thought as trifling as hobbyhorses, mock battles, or any other sports that now employ all the cunning, strength, and ambition, of rational beings, from four years old to nine or ten. If the notion of a gradual rise in beings from the meanest to the most high be not a vain imagination, it is not improbable that an angel looks down upon a man as a man doth upon a creature which approaches the nearest to the rational nature. By the same rule, if I may indulge my fancy in this particular, a superior brute looks with a kind of pride on one of an inferior species. If they could reflect, we might imagine, from the gestures of some of them, that they think themselves the sovereigns of the world, and that all things were made for them. Such a thought would not be more absurd in brute creatures than one which men are apt to entertain, namely, that all the stars in the firmament were created only to please their eyes and amuse their imaginations. Mr. Dryden, in his fable of the Cock and the Fox, makes |