" · were, as all the world imagined then, juft entering on the ways that promifed to lead to 'fuch a peace, as would have answered to all the prayers of our religious queen, the care and ⚫ vigilance of a most able ministry, the payments of a willing and obedient people, as well as all the glorious toils and hazards of the foldiery; when God, for our fins, permitted the fpirit of ⚫ difcord to go forth, and, by troubling fore the camp, the city, and the country, (and oh that it had altogether fpared the places facred to his 'worship!) to fpoil for a time, this beautiful and pleafing profpect, and give us in its ftead, I know not what- -Our enemies will tell the 'reft with pleasure. It will become me better to pray to God to restore us to the power of obtaining fuch a peace, as will be to his glory, the fafety, honour, and the welfare of the queen and her dominions, and the general fatisfaction of all her high and mighty allies.' T May 2, 1712. The character of Achates fuggefts to us an obfervation we may often make on the intimacies of great men, who freqnently choose their companions rather for the qualities of the heart than thofe of the head, and prefer fidelity in an easy, inoffenfive, complying temper, to thofe endow. ments which make a much greater figure among mankind. I do not remember that Achates, who is reprefented as the first favourite, either gives his advice, or strikes a blow through the whole Æneid. A friendship, which makes the least noife, is very often moft ufeful: for which reafon I should prefer a prudent friend to a zealous one. There is fomething in friendship fo very great and noble, that in thofe fictitious stories which are invented to the honour of any particular petfon, the authors have thought it as neceffary to make their hero a friend as a lover. Achilles has his Patroclus, and neas his Achates. In the first of thefe inftances we may obferve, for the reputation of the fubje&t I am treating of, that Greece was almoft ruined by the hero's love, but was preferved by his friendship. 6 During the war between Cæfar and Pompey, he ftill maintained the fame conduct. After the death of Cæfar, he fent money to Brutus in his troubles, and did a thousand good offices to Antony's wife and friends when that party feemed ruined. Laftly, even in that bloody war between Antony and Auguftus, Atticus ftill kept his place in both their friendships: infomuch that the firft, fays Cornelius Nepos, whenever he was abfent from Rome in any part of the empire, writ punctually to him what he was doing; what he read, and whither he intended to go; and the latter gave him constantly an exact account of all his affairs. A likeness of inclinations in every particular is fo far from being requifite to form a benevolence in two minds towards each other, as it is generally imagined, that I believe we fhall find fome of the firmeft friendships to have been contracted between perfons of different humcurs; the mind being often pleased with thofe perfections which are new to it, and which it does not find among its own accomplishments. Befides that a man in fome meafure fupplies his own defects, and fancies himself at fecond-hand poffeffed of those good qualities and endowments, which are in the poffeffion of him who in the eye of the world is looked on as his other self. The most difficult province in friendship is the letting a man fee his faults and errors, which fhould, if poffible, be fo contrived, that he may perceive our advice is given him not fo much to please curfelves as for his own advantage. The reproaches therefore of a friend fhould always be strictly just, and not too frequent. The violent defire of pleafing in the perfon reproved, may othewife change into a despair of doing it, while he finds himself cenfured for faults he is not confcious of. A mind that is foftened and humanized by friendship, cannot bear frequent reproaches; either it must quite fink under the oppreffion, or abate confiderably of the value and esteem it had for those who beftows them. The proper bufinefs of friendship is to infpire life and courage; and a foul thus fupported, outdoes No. 386. THE SPECTATOR. As it has been faid on one fide, that a man I was going to fay, the true art of being agreeable in company, (but there can be no fuch thing as art in it) is to appear well pleafed with thofe you are engaged with, and rather to feem well entertained, than to bring entertainment to others. A man thus difpofed is not indeed what we ordinarily call a good companion, but effentially is fuch, and in all the parts of his converfation HE piece of Latin on the head of this pa- has fomething friendly in his behaviour, which extremely more FRIDAY, MAY 23. N° 386. Cum triftibus ferverè, cum remiffis jucundè, cum fenibus graviter, cum juventute comiter vivere. TULL. 83 every man enjoys himself in his company; and though Acafto contributes nothing to the entertainment, he never was at a place where he was not welcome a fecond time. Without thefe fubordinate good qualities of Acafto, a man of wit and learning would be painful to the generality of mankind, instead of being pleafing. Witty men are apt to imagine they are agreeable as fuch, and by that means grow the worst companions imaginable; they deride the abfent or rally the prefent in a wrong manner, not knowing that if you pinch or tickle a man till he is uneafy in his feat, or ungracefully diftinguished from the rest of the company, you equally hurt him. 6 but I have fet down no more than may fall in with the rules of juftice and honour. Cicero fpoke it of Cataline, who, he faid, lived with the fad feverely, with the chearful agreeably, 'with the old gravely, with the young pleafantly;' he added, with the wicked boldly, with the wanton lafcivioufly.' The two laft inftances of his complaifance I forbear to confider, having it in my thoughts at prefent only to fpeak of obfequious behaviour as it fits upon a companion in pleasure, not a man of defign and intrigue. To vary with every humour in this manner, cannot be agreeable, except it comes from a man's own temper and natural complexion; to do it out of an ambition to excel that way, is the most fruitless and unbecoming proftitution imaginable. To put on an artful part to obtain no other end but an unjust praise from the undifcerning, is of all endeavours the most defpicable. A man must be fincerely pleased to become pleasure, or not to interrupt that of others: for this reafon it is a moft calamitous circumfiance, that many people who want to be alone, or fhould be fo, will come into converfation. Is is certain, that all men, who are the least given to reflexion. are feized with an inclination that way, when, perhaps, they had rather be inclined to company? but indeed they had better go home and be tired with themselves, than force themfelves upon others to recover their good-humour. In all this the cafe of communicating to a friend a fad thought or difficulty, in order to relieve a heavy heart, ftands excepted; but what is here meant, is that a man fhould always go with inclination to the turn of the company he is going into, or not pretend to be of the party. It is certainly a very happy temper to be able to live with all kinds of difpofitions, because it argues a mind that lies open to receive what is pleafing to others, and not obftinately bent on any particularity of its own. This is it which makes me pleafed with the character of my good acquaintance Acafto, You meet him at the tables and converfations of the wife, the impertinent, the grave, the frolic, and the witty; and yet his own character has nothing in it that can make him particularly agreeable to any one fect of men; but Acafto has natural good fenfe, good nature and difcretion, fo that mens higheft lies of wit or starts of humours can poffibly do. The feeblenefs of age in a man of this turn, has fomething which should be treated with refpect even in a man no otherwise venerable. The forwardness of youth, when it proceeds from alacrity and not infolence, has alfo its allowances. The companion, who is formed for fuch by nature, gives to every character of life its due regards, and is ready to account for their imperfections, and receive their accomplishments as if they were his own. It must appear that you receive law from, and not give it to, your company, to make you agreeable. I remember Tully, speaking, I think, of Antony, fays, That in eo fucetiæ erant, quæ nullâ artə tradi poffunt: He had a witty mirth, which 'could be acquired by no art.' This quality must be of the kind of which I am now speaking; for all forts of behaviour which depend upon obfervation and knowledge of life, is to be ac quired; but that which no one one can defcribe, and is apparently the act of nature, must be every; where prevalent, because every thing it meets is a fit occafion to exert it; for he, who follows nature, can never be improper or unfeasonable. How unaccountable then must their behaviour be, who, without any manner of confideration of what the company they have juft entered are upon, give themselves the air of a meffenger, and make as diftinct relations of the occurrences they laft met with, as if they had been dispatched from thofe they talk to, to be punctually exact in a report of thofe circumftances: it is unpardonable to those who are met to enjoy one another, that a fresh man shall pop in, and give us only the laft part of his own life, and put a stop to ours during the hiftory, If fuch a man comes from Change, whether you will or not, you must hear how the ftocks go; and though you are ever fo intently employed on a graver subject, a young fellow of the other end of the town will take his place, and tell you, Mrs. fuch-a-one is charmingly handsome, because he just now faw her, But I think I need not dwell on this fubject, fince I have acknowledged there can be no rules made for excelling this way; and precepts of this kind fare like rules for writing poetry, which, it is faid, may have prevented ill poets, but never made good ones T No 387. SATURDAY, MAY 24. Quid puré tranquille the contrary, thofe that are more obfcure do not. give the animal fpirits a fufficient exercife; whereas the rays that produce in us the ideas of green, fall upon the eye in fuch a due proportion, that they give the animal fpirits their proper play, and by keeping up the ftruggle in a just balance, excite a very pleafing and agreeable fenfation, Let the cause be what it will, the effect is certain, for which reafon the poets afcribe to this particular colour the epithet of chearful. To confider farther this double end in the works of Nature, and how they are at the fame time both feful and entertaining, we find that the most important parts in the vegetable world are thofe which are the most beautiful, Thefe are the feeds by which the feveral races of plants are propagated and continued, and which are always lodged in flowers or bloffoms. Nature feems to hide her principal defign, and to be induftrious in making the earth gay and delightful, while the is carrying on her great work, and intent upon her own prefervation. The hufbandman after the fame manner is employed in laying out the whole country into a kind of garden or landfkip, and making every thing fimile about him, whilft in reality he thinks of nothing but the harvest, and increafe which is to arife from it.' HOR. Ep. 18. 1. t. v. 102. What calms the breaft, and makes the mind ferene. IT 41 I N my laft Saturday's paper I fpoke of chearfulness as it is a moral habit of the mind, and accordingly mentioned fuch moral motives as are apt to cherish and keep alive this happy temper in the foul of man: I fhall now confider chearfulness in its natural ftate, and reflect on thofe motives to it, which are indifferent either as to virtue or vice. 1 Chearfulness is, in the first place, the beft promoter of health, Repinings and fecret murmurs of heart, give inperceptible ftrokes to thofe delicate fibres of which the vital parts are compofed, and wear out the machine infenfibly; not to mention thofe violent ferments which they ftir up in the blood, and thofe irregular difturbed motions, which they raife in the animal fpirits. I fcarce remember, in my own obfervation, to have met with many old men, or with fuch, who (to ufe our English phrafe) wear well,' that had not at least à certain indolence in their humour, if not a more than ordinary gaiety and chearfulness of heart." The truth of it is, health and chearfulness mutually beget each other; with this difference, that we feldom meet with a great degree of health which is not attended with a certain chearfulnefs but very often fee chearfulness where there is no great degree of health. Chearfulness bears the fame friendly regard to the mind as to the body: it banishes all anxious care and difcontent, fooths and compofes the paffions, and keeps the foul in a perpetual calm. But having already touched at this laft confideration, I fall here take notice, that the world, in which we are placed, is filled with innumerable objects that are proper to raife and keep alive this happy temper of mind. We may further obferve how Providence has taken care to keep up this chearfulness in the mind of man, by having formed it after fuch a manner, as to make it capable of conceiving delight from feveral objects which feem to have very little ufe in them; as from the wildnefs of rocks and defarts, and the like grotefque parts, of Nature. Those who are verfed in philofophy may ftill carry this confideration higher, by cbferving that if matter had appeared to us endowed only with thofe real qualities which it actually poffefes, it would have made but a very joyless and uncomfortable figure; and why has providence given it a power of producing in us fuch imaginary qualities, as tantes and colours, found's and finells, heat and cold, but that man, while he is converfant in the lower flations of Nature, might have his mind cheared and delighted with agreeable fenfations? In fhort, the whole univerfe is a kind of theatre filled with objects that either raife in us pleasure, amusement, or admiration. If we confider the world in its fubferviency to man, one would think it was made for our ufe; but if we confider it in its natural beauty and harmony, one would be apt to conclude it was made for our pleasure. The fun, which is as the great foul of the universe, and produces all the néceffaries of life, has a particular influence in chearing the mind of man, and making the heart glad. 47. The readers own thoughts will fuggeft to him. the viciffitude of day and night, the change of feafons, with all that variety of fcenes which di verfify the face of Nature, and fill the mind with a perpetual fucceffion of beautiful and pleafing images. Thote feveral living creatures which are made fer our fervice or fuítenance, at the fanie time either fill the woods with their mufic, furnifh us with game, or raife pleafing ideas in us by the delightfulness of their appearance. Fountains, lakes, and rivers are as refreshing to the imagination, as to the foil through which they pafs. There are writers of great diftinction, who have made it an argument for Providence, that the whole earth is covered with green, rather than with any other colour, as being fuch a right mixture of light aud fhade, that comforts and fergthens the eve inftead of weakening or grieving it. For this reafon feveral painters have's a green cloth hanging near them, to cafe the eye I the more inculcate this chearfulncfs of tempon, after too great an application to their co-per, as it is a virtue in which our countrymen leuring. A famous modern philofopher accounts are obferved to be more deficient than any other frit in the following manner. All colours that nation. Melancholy is a kind of demon that are more luminous, overpower and diffipate the haunts our iländ, and often conveys herfelf to animal fpiiits which are employed in "fight" on us in an eafterly wind. A celebrated French novelift, I shall not here mention the feveral entertainments of art, with the pleafures of friendship, books, converfation, and other accidental diverfions of life, because I would only take notice of fuch incitements to a chearful temper, as offer themselves to perfens of all ranks and conditions; and which may fufficiently fhew us that Providence did not defign this world fhould be filled with murmurs and fepinings, or that the heart of man hould be involved in gloom and melancholy. yelift, in oppofition to those who begin their romances with the flowery feafon of the year, enters on his ftory thus: In the gloomy month of November, when the people of England hang and drown themfelves, a difconfolate lover walked out into the fields, &c.' Every one ought to fence against the temper of his climate or conftitution, and frequently to indulge in himself thofe confiderations which may give him a ferenity of mind, and enable him to bear up chearfully against thofe little evils and misfortunes which are common to human nature, and which, by a right improvement of them will produce a fatiety of joy, and an uninterrupted happiness. At the fame time that I would engage my reader to confider the world in its moft agreeable lights, I must own there are many evils which naturally fpring up amidst the entertainments that are provided for us; but thefe, if rightly confidered, hould be far from overcafting the mind with forrow, or destroying that chearfulnefs of temper which I have been recommending. This interfperfion of evil with good, and, pain with pleasure in the works of nature, is very truly afcribed by Mr. Locke, in his Effay on Human Underftanding, to a moral reafon in the following words: No 388. MONDAY, MAY 26. VIRG. Georg. 2. V. 174. "Whilft all around the Zephyrs bear "The fragrant odours through the air : "Or as the lily in the fhady vale, "Does o'er cach flow'r with beauteous pride prevail, "And itands with dews and kindeft fun-fhine bleft, III. Beyond all this, we may find another reason why God hath fcattered up and down feyeral degrees of pleafure and pain, in all the things that environ and affect us, and blended them together, in almost all that our thoughts and, fenfes have to do with; that we finding imperfection, diffatisfaction, and want, of complete, happiness in all the enjoyments, which the creatures can afford us, might be led to feek, it in the enjoyment of him, "with whom " And on his fragrant boughs reclin'd my head, 7 < } L love. "there is fullness of joy, and at whofe right, "And o'er my head he hung the banners of his hand are pleasures for evermore." "In fair pre-eminence, fuperior to the reft: "The rofes with the lilies join, "As much as faireft lilies can furpafs "A thorn in beauty, or in height the grafs; "So does my love among the virgins thine, "Adorn'd with graces more than half divine; "Or as a tree, that gloricus to behold, Is hung with apples all of ruddy gold, "Hefperian fruit; and beautifully high, « Extends its branches to the sky: "So does my love the virgins eyes invite: "'Tis he alone can fix their wand'ring fight, "Among ten thousand eminently bright. • Mr. Spelator, is as to read over the quotations in the authors from whence you take them: as you. mentioned a paffage lately out of the fecond chapter of Solomon's Song, it occafioned my looking into it; and upon reading it I thought the ideas fo exquifitely foft and tender, that I could not help making this paraphrafe of it; which, now it is done, I can as little forbear fending to you. Some marks of your approbation, which I have already received, have given me fo fenfible a taste of them, that I cannot forbear endeavouring after them as.. foften as I can with any appearance of fuccefs. I am, SIR, Your most obedient humble fervant.? The fecond chapter of Solomon's Song. I. S when in Sharon's field the blushing IV. "I faint! I die! my lahouring breast "Is with the mighty weight of love oppreft; I feel the fire poffefs my heart, "And pain convey'd to ev'ry part, "Thro' all my veins the paffion flies, "My feeble foul forfakes its place, "A trembling faintnefs feals my eyes, "And palencfs dwells upon my face: "Oh! let my love with pow'riul odours itay "My fainting-love-fick foul, that dies away: "One hand beneath me let him place, "With t'other prefs.me in a chafte embrace. V. W "I charge you, nymphs of Sion, as you go "Arm'd with the founding quiver and the b Whilft thro' the loathfome woods you rove, "You ne'er disturb my fleeping love; "Be only gentle Zephyrs there, "He onward bears his lovely ftate! With fotteft words difpels my fears; "Arife, my fair one, and receive "All the pleafures love can give, "For now the fullen winter's past, "No more we fear the northern Llaft: "No ftorms nor threat'ning clouds appear, VII. "Brings forth the flow'rs, her beauteous birth. Arife my fair and come away. VIII. "As to its mate the conftant dove Flies through the covert of the spicy grove, So let us haften to fome lonely fhade, "There let me fafe in thy lov'd arms be laid, "Where no intruding hateful noise "Shall damp the found of thy melodious voice; "Where I may gaze and mark each beauteous grace: For fweet thy voice, and lovely is thy face. The author pretends that Jupiter, once upon a time, refolved on a reformation of the cònftellations for which purpofe having fummoned the ftars together, he complains to them of the great decay of the worthip of the gods, which he thought fo much the harder, having called feveral of thofe celeftial bodies by the names of the heathen deities, and by that means made the heavens as it were a book of the pagan theology. Momus tells him that this is not to be wondered at, fince there were so many scandalous ftories of the deities; upon which the author takes occafion to caft reflexions upon all other religions, concluding that Jupiter, after a full hearing, difcarded the deities out of heaven, and called the ftars by the names of the moral virtues. N OTHING has more furprised the learned in England, than the price which a fmall book, intitled Spaccio, della Beftia triomfante, bore in a late auction. This book was fold for thirty pounds. As it was written by one Jordanus Brunus, a proteft atheist, with a defign to depreciate religion, every one was apt to fancy, from the extravagant price it bore, that there must be fomething in it very formidable. I must confefs, that happening to get a fight of one of them myfelf, I could not forbear perufing it with this apprehenfion; but found there was fo very little danger in it, that I fhall venture to give my readers a fair account of the whole plan upon which this wonderful treatife I built. This fhort fable, which has no pretence in it to reafon or argument, and but a very fmall fhare of wit, has however recommended itfelf wholly by its impiety, to thofe weak men, who would diftinguifh themfelves by the fingularity of their opinions. There are two confiderations which have been often urged against atheists, and which they never yet could get over. The first is, that the greateft and most eminent perfons of all ages have been against them, and always complied with the public forms of worship established in their repective countries, when there was nothing in them either derogatory to the honour of the Supreme Being, or prejudicial to the good of mankind. i The Platos and C.ceros among the ancients the Bacons, the Boyles, and the Lockes, among our own countrymen, are all inftances of what I have been saying, not to mention any of the divines, however celebrated, fince our adverfaries challenge all thofe, as men who have too much intereft in this cafe to be impartial evidences. But what has been often urged as a confideration of much more weight, is not only the opinion of the better fort, but the general confent of mankind to this great truth: which I think could not poffibly have come to pafs, but from one of the three following reafons; either that the idea of a God is innate and co-exiftent with the mind itself; cr that this truth is fo very obvious, that it is difcovered by the first exertion of reafon in perfons of the most ordinary capacities; or laftly, that it has been delivered down to us through all ages by a tradition from the first man. The atheists are equally confounded, to which ever of these three causes we affign it; they have been fo preffed by this laft argument from the general conf nt of mankind, that after great fearch and pains they pretend to have found out a nation of atheifts, I mean that polite people the Hottentots. I dare not fhock my readers with the defcrip. tion of the customs and manners of thefe bai barians, having no language among them but a confufed gabble, which is neither well understood by themfelves or others. It is not however to be imagined how much the atheifts have gloried in these their good friends and allies. If we boaft of a Socrates or a Seneca, they may now confront them with thefe great philofofophers the Hottentots. Though even this point has, not without reafon, been feveral times controverted, I see no |
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