beauty, and gradually decay with him. I might fall upon his brother, when he cursed One who lived before the flood might have him in the bitterness of his heart. seen a wood of the tallest oaks in the acorn. But I only mention this particular, in order to introduce, in my next paper, a history which I have found among the accounts of China, and which may be looked upon as an antediluvian novel." No. 584.] Monday, August 23, 1714. Virg. Ecl. x. 42. Come, see what pleasures in our plains abound: The woods, the fountains, and the flow'ry ground; Here I could live, and love, and die with only you. Dryden. HILPA was one of the hundred and fifty daughters of Zilpa, of the race of Cohu, by whom some of the learned think is meant Cain. She was exceedingly beautiful; and, when she was but a girl of threescore and ten years of age, received the addresses of several who made love to her. Among these were two brothers, Harpath and Shalum. Harpath being the first-born, was master of that fruitful region which lies at the foot of mount Tirzah, in the southern parts of China. Shalum (which is to say the planter in the Chinese language) possessed all the neighbouring hills, and that great range of mountains which goes under the name of Tirzah. Harpath was of a haughty contemptuous spirit; Shalum was of a gentle disposition, beloved both by God and man. It is said that among the antediluvian women, the daughters of Cohu had their minds wholly set upon riches; for which reason the beautiful Hilpa preferred Harpath to Shalum, because of his numerous flocks and herds, that covered all the low country which runs along the foot of mount Tirzah, and is watered by several fountains and streams breaking out of the sides of that mountain. Harpath made so quick a despatch of his courtship, that he married Hilpa in the hundredth year of her age; and, being of an insolent temper, laughed to scorn his brother Shalum for having pretended to the beautiful Hilpa, when he was master of nothing but a long chain of rocks and mountains. This so much provoked Shalum, that he is said to have cursed his brother in the bitterness of his heart, and to have prayed that one of his mountains might fall upon his head if ever he came within the shadow of it. From this time forward Harpath would never venture out of the valleys, but came to an untimely end in the two hundred and fiftieth year of his age, being drowned in a river as he attempted to cross it. This river is called to this day, from his name who perished in it, the river Harpath; and, what is very remarkable, issues out of one of those mountains which Shalum wished Hilpa was in the hundredth and sixtieth year of her age at the death of her husband, having brought him but fifty children before he was snatched away, as has been already related. Many of the antediluvians made love to the young widow; though no one was thought so likely to succeed in her affections as her first lover Shalum, who renewed his court to her about ten years after the death of Harpath; for it was not thought decent in those days that a widow should be seen by a man within ten years after the decease of her husband. Shalum, falling into a deep melancholy, and resolving to take away that objection which had been raised against him when he made his first addresses to Hilpa, began immediately after her marriage with Harpath, to plant all that mountainous region which fell to his lot in the division of this country. He knew how to adapt every plant to its proper soil, and is thought to have inherited many traditional secrets of that art from the first man. This employment_turned at length to his profit as well as to his amusement; his mountains were in a few years shaded with young trees, that gradually shot up into groves, woods, and forests, intermixed with walks, and lawns, and gardens; insomuch that the whole region, from a naked and desolate prospect, began now to look like a second Paradise. The pleasantness of the place, and the agreeable disposition of Shalum, who was reckoned one of the mildest and wisest of all who lived before the flood, drew into it multitudes of people, who were perpetually employed in the sinking of wells, the digging of trenches, and the hollowing of trees, for the better distribution of water through every part of this spacious plantation. The habitations of Shalum looked every year more beautiful in the eyes of Hilpa, who, after the space of seventy autumns, was wonderfully pleased with the distant prospect of Shalum's hills, which were then covered with innumerable tufts of trees and gloomy scenes that gave a magnificence to the place, and converted it into one of the finest landscapes the eye of man could behold. The Chinese record a letter which Shalum is said to have written to Hilpa_in the eleventh year of her widowhood. I shall here translate it, without departing from that noble simplicity of sentiments and plainness of manners which appear in the original. Shalum was at this time one hundred and eighty years old, and Hilpa' one hundred and seventy. I Shalum, Master of Mount Tirzah, to Hilpa, Mistress of the Valleys. In the 788th year of the creation. 'What have I not suffered, O thou stars, and markest the change of seasons. Can a woman appear lovely in the eyes of such a one? Disquiet me not, O Shalum; let me alone, that I may enjoy those goodly possessions which are fallen to my lot. Win me not by thy enticing words. May thy trees increase and multiply; mayest thou add wood to wood, and shade to shade: but tempt not Hilpa to destroy thy solitude, and make thy retirement populous.' daughter of Zilpa, since thou gavest thy-men. Thy dwellings are among the cedars, self away in marriage to my rival? I grew thou searchest out the diversity of soils, weary of the light of the sun, and have been thou understandest the influences of the ever since covering myself with woods and forests. These threescore and ten years have I bewailed the loss of thee on the top of mount Tirzah, and soothed my melancholy among a thousand gloomy shades of my own raising. My dwellings are at present as the garden of God; every part of them is filled with fruits, and flowers, and fountains. The whole mountain is perfumed for thy reception. Come up into it, O my beloved, and let us people this spot of the new world with a beautiful race of The Chinese say, that a little time aftermortals: let us multiply exceedingly among wards she accepted of a treat in one of the these delightful shades, and fill every quar- neighbouring hills to which Shalum had inter of them with sons and daughters. Re-vited her. This treat lasted for two years, member, Oh thou daughter of Zilpa, that and is said to have cost Shaium five hunthe age of man is but a thousand years; that dred antelopes, two thousand ostriches, and beauty is the admiration but of a few centu- a thousand tons of milk; but what most of rics. It flourishes as a mountain oak, or as all recommended it, was that variety of dea cedar on the top of Tirzah, which in licious fruits and potherbs, in which no three or four hundred years will fade away, person then living could any way equal and never be thought of by posterity, unless Shalum. a young wood springs from its roots. Think well on this, and remember thy neighbour in the mountains.' No. 585.] Wednesday, August 25, 1714. Ipsi letitia voces ad sidera jactant Virg. Ecl. v. 63. The lowly shrubs partake of human voice-Dryden. THE SEQUEL OF THE STORY OF SHALUM AND HILPA. He treated her in the bower which he had planted amidst the wood of nightingales. This wood was made up of such fruit-trees and plants as are most agreeable to the several kinds of singing birds; so that it had drawn into it all the music of the country, and was filled from one end of the year to the other with the most agreeable concert in season. He showed her every day some beautiful and surprising scene in this new region of woodlands; and, as by this means he had all the opportunities he could wish for of opening his mind to her, he succeeded so well, that upon her departure she made him a kind of promise, and gave him her word to return him a positive answer in less than fifty years. She had not been long among her own people in the valleys, when she received THE letter inserted in my last had so new overtures, and at the same time a most good an effect upon Hilpa, that she answer-splendid visit from Mishpach, who was a ed it in less than twelve months, after the following manner: 6 Hilpa, Mistress of the Valleys, to Shalum, In the 789th year of the creation. What have I to do with thee, O Shalum? Thou praiseth Hilpa's beauty, but art thou not secretly enamoured with the verdure of her meadows? Art thou not more affected with the prospect of her green valleys than thou wouldest be with the sight of her person? The lowings of my herds, and the bleatings of my flocks, make a pleasant echo in thy mountains, and scund sweetly in thy ears. What though I am delighted with the wavings of thy forests, and those breezes of perfumes which flow from the top of Tirzah, are these like the riches of the valley? I know thee, O Shalum; thou art more wise and happy than any of the sons of mighty man of old, and had built a great city which he called after his own name. Every house was made for at least a thousand years; nay, there were some that were leased out for three lives; so that the quantity of stone and timber consumed in this building is scarce to be imagined by those who live in the present age of the world. This great man entertained her with the voice of musical instruments which had been lately invented, and danced before her to the sound of the timbrel. He also presented her with several domestic utensils wrought in brass and iron, which had been newly found out for the convenience of life. In the mean time Shalum grew very uneasy with himself, and was sorely displeased at Hilpa for the reception which she had given to Mishpach, insomuch that he never wrote to her or spoke of her during a whole revolution of Saturn; but, finding that this intercourse went no farther than a visit, he again renewed his addresses to her; who, | scrutiny into the actions of his fancy, must be during his long silence, is said very often of considerable advantage: for this reason, to have cast a wishing eye upon mount Tirzah. Her mind continued wavering about twenty years longer between Shalum and Mishpach: for though her inclinations favoured the former, her interest pleaded very powerfully for the other. While her heart was in this unsettled condition, the following accident happened, which determined her choice. A high tower of wood that stood in the city of Mishpach having caught fire by a flash of lightning, in a few days reduced the whole town to ashes. Mishpach resolved to rebuild the place whatever it should cost him; and having already destroyed all the timber of the country, he was forced to have recourse to Shalum, whose forests were now two hundred years old. He purchased these woods with so many herds of cattle and flocks of sheep, and with such a vast extent of fields and pastures, that Shalum was now grown more wealthy than Mishpach; and therefore appeared so charming in the eyes of Zilpah's daughter, that she no longer refused him in marriage. On the day in which he brought her up into the mountains, he raised a most prodigious pile of cedar, and of every sweet-smelling wood, which reached above three hundred cubits in height: he also cast into the pile bundles of myrrh, and sheaves of spikenard, enriching it with every spicy shrub, and making it fat with the gums of his plantations. This was the burnt offering which Shalum offered in the day of his espousals: the smoke of it ascended up to heaven, and filled the whole country with incense and perfume. No. 586.] Friday, August 27, 1714. -Quæ in vita usurpant homines, cogitant, curant, vident quæque agunt vigilantes, agitantquæ, ea cuique in somno accidunt. Cic. de Div. The things which employ men's waking thoughts and actions recur to their imaginations in sleep. By the last post, I received the following letter which is built upon a thought that is new, and very well carried on; for which reason I shall give it to the public without alteration, addition, or amendment. 'SIR, It was a good piece of advice which Pythagoras gave to his scholars that every night before they slept they should examine what they had been doing that day, and so discover what actions were worthy of pursuit to-morrow, and what little vices were to be prevented from slipping unawares into a habit. If I might second the philosopher's advice, it should be mine, that, in a morning, before my scholar rose, he should consider what he had been about that night, and with the same strictness, as if the condition he has believed himself to be in was real. Such a because the circumstances which a man imagines himself in during sleep are generally such as entirely favour his inclinations, good or bad, and give him imaginary opportunities of pursuing them to the utmost; so that his temper will lie fairly open to his view, while he considers how it is moved when free from those constraints which the accidents of real life put it under. Dreams are certainly the result of our waking thoughts, and our daily hopes and fears, are what give the mind such nimble relishes of pleasure, and such severe touches of pain in its midnight rambles. A man that murders his enemy, or deserts his friend, in a dream, had need to guard his temper against revenge and ingratitude, and take heed that he be not tempted to do a vile thing in the pursuit of false, or the neglect of true honour. For my part, I seldom receive a benefit, but in a night or two's time I make most noble returns for it; which, though my benefactor is not a whit the better for, yet it pleases me to think that it was from a principle of gratitude in me that my mind was susceptible of such generous transport, while I thought myself repaying the kindness of my friend: and I have often been ready to beg pardon, instead of returning an injury, after considering that, when the offender was in my power, I had carried my resentments much too far. 'I think it has been observed in the course of your papers, how much one's happiness or misery may depend upon the imagination: of which truth those strange workings of fancy in sleep are no inconsiderable instances; so that not only the advantage a man has of making discoveries of himself, but a regard to his own ease or disquiet, may induce him to accept of my advice. Such as are willing to comply with it, I shall put into a way of doing it with pleasure, by observing only one maxim which I shall give them, viz. "To go to bed with a mind entirely free from passion, and a body clear of the least intemperance. with their thoughts less calm or innocent They, indeed, who can sink into sleep than they should be, do but plunge themselves into scenes of guilt and misery; or they who are willing to purchase any midnight disquietudes for the satisfaction of a full meal, or a skin full of wine; these I have nothing to say to, as not knowing how to invite them to reflections full of shame and horror; but those that will observe this rule, I promise them they shall awake into health and cheerfulness, and be capable of recounting, with delight, those glorious moments, wherein the mind has been indulging itself in such luxury of thought, such noble hurry of imagination. Suppose a man's going supperless to bed should introduce him to the table of some great prince or other, where he shall be entertained | with the noblest marks of honour and it may be the work of that ingenious gentleplenty, and do so much business after, that man, who promised me, in the last paper, he shall rise with as good a stomach for some extracts out of his noctuary. his breakfast as if he had fasted all night long: or, suppose he should see his dearest friends remain all night in great distresses, which he could instantly have disengaged them from, could he have been content to have gone to bed without the other bottle; believe me these effects of fancy are no contemptible consequences of commanding or indulging one's appetite. SIR,-I was the other day reading the life of Mahomet. Among many other extravagancies, I find it recorded of that impostor, that, in the fourth year of his age, the angel Gabriel caught him up whilst be was amongst his play-fellows; and carrying him aside, cut open his breast, plucked out his heart, and wrung out of it that black drop 'I forbear recommending my advice upon of blood, in which, say the Turkish divines, many other accounts, until I hear how you is contained the fomes peccati, so that he and your readers relish what I have al- was free from sin ever after. I immediately ready said; among whom, if there be any said to myself, Though this story be a fiction, that may pretend it is useless to them be- a very good moral may be drawn from it, cause they never dream at all, there may would every man but apply it to himself, be others perhaps who do little else all day and endeavour to squeeze out of his heart long. Were every one as sensible as I am whatever sins or ill qualities he finds in it. what happens to him in his sleep, it would¦ While my mind was wholly taken up be no dispute whether we pass so consider- with this contemplation, I insensibly fell into able a portion of our time in the condition, a most pleasing slumber, when methought of stocks and stones, or whether the soul two porters entered my chamber carrying were not perpetually at work upon the a large chest between them. After having principle of thought. However, it is an honest endeavour of mine to persuade my countrymen to reap some advantage from so many unregarded hours, and as such you will encourage it. I shall conclude with giving you a sketch or two of my way of proceeding. If I have any business of consequence to do to-morrow, I am scarce dropt asleep to-night but I am in the midst of it; and when awake, I consider the whole procession of the affair, and get the advantage of the next day's experience before the sun has risen upon it. There is scarcely a great post but what I have some time or other been in; but my behaviour while I was master of a college pleases me so well, that whenever there is a province of that nature vacant, I intend to step in as soon as I can. 'I have done many things that would not pass examination, when I have had the art of flying or being invisible; for which reason I am glad I am not possessed of those extraordinary qualities. 'Lastly, Mr. Spectator, I have been a great correspondent of yours, and have read many of my letters in your paper which I never wrote you. If you have a mind I should really be so, I have got a parcel of visions and other miscellanies in my noctuary, which I shall send you to enrich your paper on proper occasions. I am, &c. JOHN SHADOW. set it down in the middle of the room, they departed. I immediately endeavoured to open what was sent me, when a shape, like that in which we paint our angels, appeared before me, and forbade me. "Enclosed," said he, "are the hearts of several of your friends and acquaintance; but, before you can be qualified to see and animadvert on the failings of others, you must be pure yourself;" whereupon he drew out his incision knife, cut me open, took out my heart, and began to squeeze it. I was in a great confusion to see how many things, which I had always cherished as virtues, issued out of my heart on this occasion. In short, after it had been thoroughly squeezed, it looked like an empty bladder; when the phantom breathing a fresh particle of divine air into it, restored it safe to its former repository; and having sewed me up, we began to examine the chest. The hearts were all enclosed in transparent phials, and preserved in liquor which looked like spirits of wine. The first which I cast my eye upon, I was afraid would have broke the glass which contained it. It shot up and down, with incredible swiftness, through the liquor in which it swam, and very frequently bounced against the side of the phial. The fomes, or spot in the middle of it, was not large, but of a red fiery colour, and seemed to be the cause of these violent agitations. "That," says my instructor, "is the heart of Tom Dreadnought, who behaved himself well in the late wars, but has for these ten years last past been aiming at some post of honour to no purpose. He is lately retired into the country, where, quite choked up with spleen and choler, he rails at better men than himself, and will be for ever uneasy, because it is impossible he should think his merits sufficiently rewarded." The next heart that I examined was re markable for its smallness; it lay still at | deep blue. "You are not to wonder," the bottom of the phial, and I could hardly says he, "that you see no spot in a heart perceive that it beat at all. The fomes whose innocence has been proof against all was quite black, and had almost diffused the corruptions of a depraved age. If it itself over the whole heart. "This," says has any blemish, it is too small to be dismy interpreter, "is the heart of Dick covered by human eyes. Gloomy, who never thirsted after any thing but money. Notwithstanding all his endeavours, he is still poor. This has flung him into a most deplorable state of melancholy and despair. He is a composition of envy and idleness; hates mankind, but gives them their revenge by being more uneasy to himself than to any one else." "I laid it down, and took up the hearts of other females, in all of which the fomes ran in several veins, which were twisted together, and made a very perplexed figure. I asked the meaning of it, and was told it represented deceit. 'I should have been glad to have examined the hearts of several of my acquaintance, whom I knew to be particularly addicted to drinking, gaming, intriguing, &c. but my interpreter told me, I must let that alone until another opportunity, and flung down the cover of the chest with so much violence as immediately awoke me.' The phial I looked upon next contained a large fair heart, which beat very strongly. The fomes or spot in it was exceedingly small; but I could not help observing that, which way soever I turned the phial, it always appeared uppermost, and in the strongest point of light. "The heart you are examining," says my companion, "belongs to Will Worthy. He has, indeed, a most noble soul, and is possessed of a thou- No. 588.] Wednesday, September 1, 1714. sand good qualities. The speck which you discover is vanity." "Here," says the angel, "is the heart of Freelove, your intimate friend." Freelove and I," said I, "are at present very cold to one another, and I do not care for looking on the heart of a man which I fear is overcast with rancour. 99 My teacher commanded me to look upon it; I did so, and, to my unspeakable surprise, found that a small swelling spot, which I at first took to be ill-will towards me, was only passion; and that upon my nearer inspection it wholly disappeared; upon which the phantom told me Freelove was one of the best-natured men alive. "This," says my teacher, "is a female heart of your acquaintance." I found the fomes in it of the largest size, and of a hundred different colours, which were still varying every moment. Upon my asking to whom it belonged, I was informed that it was the heart of Coquetilla. Dicitis, omnis in imbecilitate est et gratia, et caritas. Cicero. You pretend that all kindness and benevolence is founded in weakness. MAN may be considered in two views, as a reasonable and as a social being; capable of becoming himself either happy or miserable, and of contributing to the happiness or misery of his fellow-creatures. Suitably to this double capacity, the Contriver of human nature hath wisely furnished it with two principles of action, self-love and benevolence; designed one of them to render man wakeful to his own personal interest, the other to dispose him for giving his utmost assistance to all engaged in the same pursuit. This is such an account of our frame, so agreeable to reason, so much for the honour of our Maker, and the credit of our species, that it may appear somewhat unaccountable what should induce men to represent human nature as they I set it down, and drew out another, indo, under characters of disadvantage; or which I took the fomes at first sight to be having drawn it with a little sordid aspect, very small, but was amazed to find that, as what pleasure they can possibly take in I looked steadfastly upon it, it grew still such a picture. Do they reflect that it is larger. It was the heart of Melissa, a their own; and if we would believe themnoted prude, who lives the next door to me. selves, is not more odious than the original? "I show you this," said the phantom, One of the first that talked in this lofty "because it is indeed a rarity, and you strain of our nature was Epicurus. Benehave the happiness to know the person to ficence, would his followers say, is all whom it belongs." He then put into my founded in weakness; and, whatever he hand a large chrystal glass, that enclosed pretended, the kindness that passeth bea heart, in which, though I examined it tween men and men is by every man with the utmost nicety, I could not perceive directed to himself. This, it must be conany blemish. I made no scruple to affirm fessed, is of a piece with the rest of that that it must be the heart of Seraphina; and hopeful philosophy, which having patched was glad, but not surprised, to find that it man up out of the four elements, attributes was so. "She is indeed," continued my his being to chance, and derives all his guide, "the ornament, as well as the envy, actions from an unintelligible declination of her sex. "At these last words he pointed of atoms. And for these glorious discoveto the hearts of several of her female ac-ries, the poet is beyond measure transquaintance which lay in different phials, ported in the praises of his hero, as if he and had very large spots in them, all of a must needs be something more than man, |