having heard of his friend's death, immediately repaired to his mistress, to condole with her, and comfort her. Upon his arrival in her garden, he discovered at a distance, a man clasped in her arms, and embraced with the most endearing tenderness. What should he do? It did not consist with the gentleness of a knighterrant either to kill his mistress, or the man whom she was pleased to favour. At the same time, it would have spoiled a romance, should he have laid violent hands on himself. In short, he immediately entered upon his adventures; and after a long series of exploits, found out by degrees, that the person he saw in his mistress's arms was her own brother, taking leave of her before he left his country, and the embrace she gave him, nothing else but the affectionate farewell of a sister: so that he had at once the two greatest satisfactions that could enter into the heart of man, in finding his friend alive, whom he thought dead; and his mistress faithful, whom he had believed inconstant. There are indeed some disasters so very fatal, that it is im possible for any accidents to rectify them. Of this kind was that of poor Lucretia; and yet we see Ovid has found an expedient even in a case like hers. He describes a beautiful and royal virgin walking on the sea-shore, where she was discovered by Neptune, and violated after a long and unsuccessful importunity. To mitigate her sorrow, he offers her whatever sho would wish for. Never, certainly, was the wit of woman more puzzled in finding out a stratagem to retrieve her honour. Had she desired to be changed into a stock or stone, a beast, fish, or fowl, she would have been a loser by it: or had she desired to have been made a sea-nymph, or a goddess, her immortality would but have perpetuated her disgrace. Give me, therefore, said she, such a shape as may make me incapable of suffering again the like calamity, or of being reproached for what I have already suffered. To be short, she was turned into ɩ man, and by that only means avoided the danger and imputation she so much dreaded. I was once myself in agonies of grief that are unutterable, and in so great a distraction of mind, that I thought myself even out of the possibility of receiving comfort. The occasion was as follows: When I was a youth in a part of the army which was then quartered at Dover, I fell in love with an agreeable young woman, of a good family in those parts, and had the satisfaction of seeing my addresses kindly received, which occasioned the perplexity I am going to relate. We were in a calm evening diverting ourselves upon the top of the cliff with the prospect of the sea, and trifling away the time in such little fondnesses as are most ridiculous to people in business, and most agreeable to those in love. In the midst of these our innocent endearments, she snatched a paper of verses out of my hand, and ran away with them. I was following her, when on a sudden the ground, though at a considerable distance from the verge of the precipice, sunk under her, and threw her down from so prodigious an height upon such a range of rocks, as would have dashed her into ten thousand pieces, had her body been made of adamant. It is much easier for my reader to imagine my state of mind upon such an ọc casion, than for me to express it. I said to myself, 'It is not in the power of heaven to relieve me!' When I awaked," equally transported and astonished, to see myself drawn out of an afflic tion which the very moment before appeared to me altogether inextricable.1 The impressions of grief and horror were so lively on this 1 This story forms the subject of a long eulogium in Beattie's Disserta tions Moral and Critical.-G, a When I awaked. Inimitably contrived, not to tell us that this adventure was a dream, till we come to the catastrophe of it. occasion, that while they lasted, they made me more miserable than I was at the real death of this beloved person, (which happened a few months after, at a time when the match between us was concluded) inasmuch as the imaginary death was untimely, and I myself in a sort an accessary; whereas her decease had at least these alleviations, of being natural and inevitable. The memory of the dream I have related, still dwells so strongly upon me, that I can never read the description of DoverCliff in Shakespear's tragedy of King Lear, without a fresh sense of my escape. The prospect from that place is drawn with such proper incidents, that whoever can read it without growing giddy must have a good head, or a very bad one." Come on, sir, here's the place. Stand still! how fearful And dizzy 'tis to cast one's eras so low? The crows and choughs the wing the midway air Appear like mice, and yon tall anchoring bark Diminish'd to her boat,1 her boat a buoy. Almost too small for sight. The murmuring surge (That on the unnumber'd idle pebbles beats) Cannot be heard so high. I'll look no more, Lest my brain turn. 1 Was this Addison's reading, or that of some edition he consulted?-G. a A quibble, not much to the credit of the writer. For, by a good head, is here meant, a head that does not turn and grow giddy at the sight of a precipice: and by a bad one, is meant a head, that leaves a man insensible to the force of this description. But these two heads may grow together on the same shoulders. The thought, then, is a false on, and the opposi tion is only in the sound, not in the sense. No. 119. THURSDAY, JANUARY 12, 1 09. I HAVE lately applied myself with much satisfaction to the curious discoveries that have been made by the help of microscopes, as they are related by authors of our own and other nations. There is a great deal of pleasure in prying into this world of wonders, which nature has laid out of sight, and seems industrious to conceal from us. Philosophy had ranged over all the visible creation, and began to want objects for her inquiries, when the present age, by the invention of glasses, opened a new and inexhaustible magazine of rarities, more wonderful and amazing than any of those which astonished our forefathers. I was yesterday amusing myself with speculations of this kind, and reflecting upon myriads of animals that swim in those little seas of juices that are contained in the several vessels of an human body. While my mind was thus filled with that secret wonder and delight, I could not but look upon myself as in an act of devotion, and am very well pleased with the thought of the great heathen anatomist, who calls his description of the parts of an human body, 'An Hymn to the Supreme Being.'1 The reading of the day produced in my imagination an agreeable morning's dream, if I may call it such: for I am still in doubt, whether it passed in my sleeping or waking thoughts." However it was, I fancied that my good genius stood at my bed's head, and entertained me with the following discourse; for upon my rising, it 1 Galen. De usu partium.-G. a Waking thoughts. Finely observed, to intimate that what follows how fantastic soever it may seem, hath its foundation in truth and f.ct dwelt so strongly upon me, that I writ down the substance of it if not the very words. If (said he) you can be so transported with those productions of nature which are discovered to you by those artificial eyes that are the works of hunian invention, how great will your surprise be, when you shall have it in your power to model your own eye as you please, and adapt it to the bulk of objects, which, with all these helps, are by infinite degrees too minute for your perception. We who are unbodied spirits, can sharpen our sight to what degree we think fit, and make the least work of the creation distinct and visible. This gives us such ideas as cannot possibly enter into your present conceptions. There is not the least particle of matter which may not furnish one of us sufficient employment for a whole eternity. We can still divide it, and still open it, and still discover new wonders of Providence, as we look into the different texture of its parts, and meet with beds of vegetables, mineral and metallic mixtures, and several kinds of animals that lie hid, and as it were lost in such an endless fund of matter. I find you are surprised at this discourse; but as your reason tells you there are infinite parts in the smallest portion of matter, it will likewise convince you, that there is as great a variety of secrets, and as much room for discoveries, ic a particle no bigger than the point of a pin, as in the globe of the whole earth. Your microscopes bring to sight shoals of living creatures in a spoonful of vinegar; but we, who can distin guish them in their different magnitudes, see among them sev eral huge Leviathans, that terrify the little fry of animals about them, and take their pastime as in an ocean, or the great deep. I could not but smile at this part of his relation, and told him, I doubted not but he could give me the history of several invisible giants, accompanied with their respective dwarfs, in case that any of these little beings are of an human shape. You may assure |