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Dover Cliff in Shakspeare'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.1

Come on, sir, here's the place. Stand still! how fearful
And dizzy 'tis to cast one 's eyes so low!

The crows and choughs that wing the midway air
Show scarce as gross as beetles. Half-way down
Hangs one that gathers samphire. Dreadful trade!
Methinks he seems no bigger than his head.
The fishermen that walk upon the beach
Appear like mice, and yon tall anchoring bark
Diminish'd to her boat; 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.

No. 119. THURSDAY, JANUARY 12, 1709.

In tenui labor.

VIRG.

Sheer Lane, January 11.

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

1 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 one, and the opposition is only in the sound, not in the sense.

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." 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.1 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 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 human 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, in 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 distinguish them in their different magnitudes, see among them several huge Leviathans, that

1 Waking thoughts.] Finely observed, to intimate that what follows, how fantastic soever it may seem, hath its foundation in truth and fact.

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 yourself (said he) that we see in these little animals different natures, instincts, and modes of life, which correspond to what you observe in creatures of bigger dimensions. We descry millions of species subsisted1 on a green leaf, which your glasses represent only in crowds and swarms. What appears to your eye but as hair or down rising on the surface of it, we find to be woods and forests, inhabited by beasts of prey, that are as dreadful in those their haunts, as lions and tigers in the deserts of Libya. I was much delighted with his discourse, and could not forbear telling him, that I should be wonderfully pleased to see a natural history of imperceptibles, containing a true account of such vegetables and animals as grow and live out of sight. Such disquisitions (answered he) are very suitable to reasonable creatures; and you may be sure, there are many curious spirits amongst us who employ themselves in such amusements. For as our hands, and all our senses, may be formed to what degree of strength and delicacy we please, in the same manner as our sight, we can make what experiments we are inclined to, how small soever the matter be in which we make them. I have been present at the dissection of a mite, and have seen the skeleton of a flea. I have been shown a forest of numberless trees, which has been picked out of an acorn. Your microscope can show you in it a complete oak in miniature; and could you suit all your organs as we do, you might pluck an acorn from this little oak, which contains another tree; and so proceed from tree to tree, as long as you would think fit to continue your disquisitions. It is almost impossible (added he) to talk of things so remote from common life, and the ordinary notions which mankind receive from blunt and gross organs of sense, without appearing extravagant and ridiculous. You have often seen a dog opened, to observe the circulation

1 Subsisted.] Subsist has no participle passive. He should have said "subsisting.'

2 I wonder that a man of Mr. Addison's humanity, could speak of open

of the blood, or make any other useful inquiry; and yet would be tempted to laugh if I should tell you, that a circle of much greater philosophers than any of the Royal Society, were present at the cutting up of one of those little animals which we find in the blue of a plum; that it was tied down alive before them; and that they observed the palpitations of the heart, the course of the blood, the working of the muscles, and the convulsions in the several limbs, with great accuracy and improvement. I must confess, (said I,) for my own part, I go along with you in all your discoveries with great pleasure; but it is certain, they are too fine for the gross of mankind, who are more struck with the description of everything that is great and bulky. Accordingly we find the best judge of human nature setting forth his wisdom, not in the formation of these minute animals, (though indeed no less wonderful than the other,) but in that of the Leviathan and Behemoth, the Horse and the Crocodile. Your observation (said he) is very just; and I must acknowledge, for my own part, that although it is with much delight that I see the traces of Providence in these instances, I still take greater pleasure in considering the works of the creation in their immensity, than in their minuteness. For this reason, I rejoice when I strengthen my sight so as to make it pierce into the most remote spaces, and take a view of those heavenly bodies which lie out of the reach of human eyes, though assisted by telescopes. What you look upon as one confused white in the milky-way, appears to me a long tract of heavens, distinguished by stars that are ranged in proper figures and constellations. While you are admiring the sky in a starry night, I am entertained with a variety of worlds and suns placed one above another, and rising up to such an immense distance, that no created eye can see an end of them.

The latter part of his discourse flung me into such an astonishment, that he had been silent for some time before I took notice of it; when on a sudden I started up and drew my curtains, to look if any one was near me, but saw nobody, and cannot tell, to this moment, whether it was my good genius or a dream that left me.

ing a dog, with so much unconcern; or think it justifiable on the pretence of making a useful discovery.

No. 120. SATURDAY, JANUARY 14, 1709.

Velut silvis, ubi passim

Palantes error certo de tramite pellit;
Ille sinistrorsum, hic dextrorsum abit.

HoR.

Sheer Lane, January 13.

INSTEAD of considering any particular passion or character in any one set of men, my thoughts were last night employed on the contemplation of human life in general; and truly it appears to me, that the whole species are hurried on by the same desires, and engaged in the same pursuits, according to the different stages and divisions of life. Youth is devoted to lust, middle age to ambition, old age to avarice. These are the three general motives and principles of action both in good and bad men; though it must be acknowledged that they change their names, and refine their natures, according to the temper of the person whom they direct and animate. For with the good, lust becomes virtuous love; ambition, true honour; and avarice, the care of posterity. This scheme of thought amused me very agreeably till I retired to rest, and afterwards formed itself into a pleasing and regular vision,1 which I shall describe in all its circumstances, as the objects presented themselves, whether in a serious or ridiculous manner.

I dreamed that I was in a wood, of so prodigious an extent, and cut into such a variety of walks and alleys, that all mankind were lost and bewildered in it. After having wandered up and down some time, I came into the centre of it, which 1 Mr. Addison's serious papers on human life, have not, in general, the merit of his humorous. Even his style, on these occasions, (his genius not lying towards abstract or formal discourse,) hath a languor in it, which all the graces of his polished manner cannot conceal. But when he throws himself out in dreams and visions, the case is much otherwise. For his poetic invention supplies him with many apt resemblances; and his magic style (fired by the subject, and the writer's love of it) is then so bright and glowing, that Plato himself is but second to him in this province of moral allegory. His genius may be compared to the spirit in Milton's Mask. When clad in this earth-worn mould, I mean, in the hackneyed form of dissertation, one may take him for an ordinary swain or villager: but when he sports at ease, in his own element, and, as the poet says, "plays i' th' plighted clouds," the reader is awe-struck, and easily recognises his divine original.

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