the several races of plants are propagated and continued, and which are always lodged in flowers or blossoms. Nature seems to hide her principal design, and to be industrious in making the earth gay and delightful, while she is carrying on her great work, and intent upon her own preservation. The husbandman, after the same manner, is employed in laying out the whole country into a kind of garden or landscape, and making every thing smile about him, whilst in reality he thinks of nothing but of the harvest, and the increase which is to arise from it.

We may further observe how Providence has taken care to keep up this cheerfulness in the mind of man, by having formed it after such a manner, as to make it capable of conceiving delight from several objects which seem to have very little use in them; as from the wildness of rocks and deserts, and the like grotesque parts of nature. Those who are

versed in philosophy may still carry this consideration higher, by observing, that if matter had appeared to us endowed only with those real qualities which it actually possesses, it would have made but a very joyless and uncomfortable figure; and why has Providence given it a power of producing in us such imaginary qualities, as tastes and colours, sounds and smells, heat and cold, but that man, while he is conversant in the lower stations of nature, might have his mind cheered and delighted with agreeable sensations? In short, the whole universe is a kind of theatre, filled with objects that either raise in us pleasure, amusement, or admiration.

The reader's own thoughts will suggest to him the vicissitude of day and night, the change of seasons, with all that variety of scenes which diversify the face of nature, and fill the mind with a perpetual succession of beautiful and pleasing images.

I shall not here mention the several entertainments of art, with the pleasures of friendship, books, conversation, and other accidental diversions of life, because I would only take notice of such incitements to a cheerful temper as offer themselves to persons of all ranks and conditions, and which may sufficiently show us that Providence did not design this world should be filled with murmurs and repinings, or that the heart of man should be involved in gloom and melancholy.

I the more inculcate this cheerfulness of temper as it is a virtue in which our countrymen are observed to be more deficient than any other nation. Melancholy is a kind of demon, that haunts our island, and often conveys herself to us in an easterly wind. A celebrated French novelist, in opposition to those who begin their romance with the flowery season of the year, enters on his story thus: 'In the gloomy month of November, when the people of England hang and drown themselves, a disconsolate lover walked out into the fields,' &c.

Every one ought to fence against the temper of his climate or constitution, and frequently to indulge in himself those considerations which may give him a serenity of mind, and enable him to bear up cheerfully against those little evils and misfortunes which are common to human nature, and which, by a right improvement of them, will produce a satiety of joy, and an uninterrupted happiness.

At the same time that I would engage my reader to consider the world in its most agreeable lights, I must own there are many evils which naturally spring up amidst the entertainments that are provided for us; but these, if rightly considered, should be far from overcasting the mind with sorrow, or destroying that cheerfulness of temper which I have

been recommending. This interspersion of evil with good, and pain with pleasure, in the works of nature, is very truly ascribed by Mr. Locke, in his Essay on Human Understanding, to a moral reason, in the following words :—

"Beyond all this, we may find another reason why God hath scattered up and down several degrees of pleasure and pain, in all the things that environ and affect us, and blended them together, in almost all that our thoughts and senses have to do with; that we, finding imperfection, dissatisfaction, and want of complete happiness, in all the enjoyments which the creatures can afford us, might be led to seek it in the enjoyment of Him with whom there is fulness of joy, and at whose right hand are pleasures for evermore.'

L

No. 388. MONDAY, MAY 26, 1712.

- Tibi res antiquæ laudis et artis

Ingredior, sanctos ausus recludere fontes.

VIRG. GEORG. ii. 174.

For thee I dare unlock the sacred spring,
And arts disclosed by ancient sages sing.

"MR. SPECTATOR,

"IT is my custom, when I read your papers, to read over the quotations in the authors from whence you take them. As you mentioned a passage lately out of the second chapter of Solomon's Song, it occasioned my looking into it; and, upon reading it, I

No storms, nor threat'ning clouds appear,
No falling rain deforms the year:

My love admits of no delay,

Arise, my fair, and come away!

VII.

Already, see! the teeming earth
Brings forth the flowers, her beauteous birth.
The dews, and soft-descending showers,
Nurse the new-born tender flowers.
Hark! the birds melodious sing,
And sweetly usher in the spring.
Close by his fellow sits the dove,
And billing, whispers her his love.
The spreading vines with blossoms swell,
Diffusing round a grateful smell.
Arise, my fair one, and receive
All the blessings love can give:
For love admits of no delay,
Arise, my fair, and come away!

VIII.

As to its mate the constant dove
Flies through the covert of the spicy grove,
So let us hasten to some lonesome shade,
There let me safe in thy loved arms be laid,
Where no intruding hateful noise

Shall damp the sound of thy melodious voice; Where I may gaze, and mark each beauteous grace: For sweet thy voice, and lovely is thy face.

IX.

As all of me, my Love, is thine,
Let all of thee be ever mine.

Among the lilies we will play,
Fairer, my Love, thou art than they;
Till the purple morn arise,

And balmy sleep forsake thine eyes;
Till the gladsome beams of day
Remove the shades of night away;

Then when soft sleep shall from thy eyes depart,
Rise like the bounding roe, or lusty hart,

Glad to behold the light again

From Bether's mountains, darting o'er the plain.

No. 389. TUESDAY, MAY 27, 1712.

-Meliora pii docuere parentes.

Their pious sires a better lesson taught.

NOTHING has more surprised the learned in England, than the price which a small book, entitled Spaccio della Bestia Triomfante, bore in a late auction.* This book was sold for thirty pounds. As it was written by one Jordanus Brunus, a professed atheist, with a design to depreciate religion, every one was apt to fancy, from the extravagant price it bore, that there must be something in it very formidable.

I must confess that, happening to get a sight of

-mani

*The book here mentioned was bought by Walter Clavel, Esq., at the auction of the library of Charles Barnard, Esq., in 1711, for 28 pounds. The same copy became successively the property of Mr. John Nichols, of Mr. Joseph Ames, of Sir Peter Thompson, and of M. C. Tutet., Esq, among whose books it was lately sold by auction, at Mr. Gerrard's, in Litchfield Street. The author of this book, Giordano Bruno, was a native of Nola, in the kingdom of Naples, and burnt at Rome by the order of the Inquisition, in 1600. Morhoff, speaking of atheists, says: 'Jordanum tamen Brunum huic classi non annumerarem,festo in illo atheismi vestigia non deprehendo.' Polyhist. i. 1, 8, 22. Bruno published many other writings said to be atheistical. The book spoken of here was printed, not at Paris, as is said in the title-page, nor in 1544, but at London, and in 1584, 12mo., dedicated to Sir Philip Sidney. It was for some time so little regarded, that it was sold, with five other books of the same author, for 25 pence French, at the sale of Mr. Bigor's library, in 1706; but it is now very scarce, and has been sold at the exorbitant price of 50%. Niceron. Hommes illustr. tom. xvii. p. 211. There was an edition of it in English in 1713.