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No. 110]

THE SPECTATOR.

Horror ubique animos, simul ipsa silentia terrent.
Virg. Æn. ii. 755.

All things are full of horror and affright,
And dreadful ev'n the silence of the night.

said to be the first that made love by | No. 110.] Friday, July 6, 1711. squeezing the hand. He left the estate with ten thousand pounds debt upon it; but however by all hands I have been informed that he was every way the finest gentleman in the world. That debt lay heavy on our house for one generation, but it was retrieved by a gift from that honest man you see there, a citizen of our name, but nothing at all akin to us. drew Freeport has said behind my back, that this man was descended from one of the ten children of the maid of honour I showed you above; but it was never We winked at the thing, inmade out. deed, because money was wanting at that time.'

Here I saw my friend a little embarrassed, and turned my face to the next por

traiture.

Dryden.

AT a little distance from Sir Roger's house, among the ruins of an old abbey, there is a long walk of aged elms; which I know Sir An-are shot up so very high, that when one passes under them, the rooks and crows that rest upon the tops of them seem to be cawing in another region. I am very much delighted with this sort of noise, which I consider as a kind of natural prayer to that creation, and who, in the beautiful language Being who supplies the wants of his whole of the Psalms,* feedeth the young ravens the better, because of an ill report it lies that call upon him. I like this retirement Sir Roger went on with his account of the under of being haunted; for which reason gallery in the following manner: This (as I have been told in the family) no living man (pointing to him I looked at) I take to creature ever walks in it besides the chapbe the honour of our house. Sir Humphrey lain. My good friend the butler desired de Coverley; he was in his dealings as punc-me with a very grave face not to venture tual as a tradesman, and as generous as a myself in it after sunset, for that one of the gentleman. He would have thought him- footmen had been almost frightened out of self as much undone by breaking his word, his wits by a spirit that appeared to him in as if it were to be followed by bankruptcy. the shape of a black horse without a head; He served his country as a knight of the to which he added, that about a month ago He found it one of the maids coming home late that shire to his dying day. no easy matter to maintain an integrity way with a pail of milk upon her head, in his words and actions, even in things heard such a rustling among the bushes I was taking a walk in this place last that regarded the offices which were in-that she let it fall. cumbent upon him, in the care of his own affairs and relations of life, and therefore night between the hours of nine and ten, dreaded (though he had great talents) to and could not but fancy it one of the most go into employments of state, where he proper scenes in the world for a ghost to must be exposed to the snares of ambition. appear in. The ruins of the abbey are Innocence of life and great ability were the scattered up and down on every side, and distinguishing parts of his character; the half covered with ivy and elder-bushes, the latter, he had often observed, had led to the harbours of several solitary birds which destruction of the former, and he used fre- seldom make their appearance till the dusk quently to lament that great and good had of the evening. The place was formerly a He was an church-yard, and has still several marks in not the same signification. excellent husbandman, but had resolved it of graves and burying-places. There is not to exceed such a degree of wealth; all such an echo among the old ruins and above it he bestowed in secret bounties vaults, that if you stamp but a little louder many years after the sum he aimed at for than ordinary, you hear the sound repeated. his own use was attained. Yet he did not At the same time the walk of elms, with slacken his industry, but to a decent old age the croaking of the ravens which from time spent the life and fortune which was super-time are heard from the tops of them, fluous to himself, in the service of his friends and neighbours.'

objects naturally raise seriousness and atlooks exceeding solemn and venerable. The Here we were called to dinner, and Sir tention; and when night heightens the Roger ended the discourse of this gentle-awfulness of the place, and pours out her man, by telling me, as we followed the servant, that this his ancestor was a brave man, and narrowly escaped being killed in the civil wars; For,' said he, he was sent out of the field upon a private message, the day before the battle of Worcester.' The whim of narrowly escaping by having been within a day of danger, with other matters above-mentioned, mixed with good was more sense, left me at a loss whether R. delighted with my friend's wisdom or simplicity.

22

supernumerary horrors upon every thing
in it, I do not at all wonder that weak minds
Mr. Locke, in his chapter of the Asso-
fill it with spectres and apparitions.
ciation of Ideas, has very curious remarks
to show how, by the prejudice of educa-
tion, one idea often introduces into the mind
a whole set that bear no resemblance to
one another in the nature of things. Among
several examples of this kind, he produces

*Psal. cxlvii. 9.

the following instance. The ideas of goblins and sprites have really no more to do with darkness than light; yet let but a foolish maid inculcate these often on the mind of a child, and raise them there together, possibly he shall never be able to separate them again so long as he lives; but darkness shall ever afterwards bring with it those frightful ideas, and they shall be so joined, that he can no more bear the one than the other.'

think very remarkable: he was so pressed with the matter of fact, which he could not have the confidence to deny, that he was forced to account for it by one of the most absurd unphilosophical notions that was ever started. He tells us that the surfaces of all bodies are perpetually flying off from their respective bodies, one after another; and that these surfaces or thin cases that included each other whilst they were joined in the body, like the coats of an onion, are sometimes seen entire when they are separated from it; by which means we often behold the shapes and shadows of persons who are either dead or absent.*

As I was walking in this solitude, where the dusk of the evening conspired with so many other occasions of terror, I observed a cow grazing not far from me, which an imagination that was apt to startle might I shall dismiss this paper with a story easily have construed into a black horse out of Josephus,† not so much for the sake without a head: and I dare say the poor of the story itself as for the moral reflecfootman lost his wits upon some such tri-tions with which the author concludes it, vial occasion.

My friend, Sir Roger, has often told me with a great deal of mirth, that at his first coming to his estate he found three parts of his house altogether useless; that the best room in it had the reputation of being haunted, and by that means was locked up; that noises had been heard in his long gallery, so that he could not get a servant to enter it after eight o'clock at night; that the door of one of his chambers was nailed up, because there went a story in the family that a butler had formerly hanged himself in it; and that his mother, who lived to a great age, had shut up half the rooms in the house, in which either her husband, a son, or daughter had died. The knight seeing his habitation reduced to so small a compass, and himself in a manner shut out of his own house, upon the death of his mother ordered all the apartments to be flung open, and exorcised by his chaplain, who lay in every room one after another, and by that means dissipated the fears which had so long reigned in the family.

and which I shall here set down in his own words. 'Glaphyra, the daughter of king Archelaus, after the death of her two first husbands, (being married to a third, who was brother to her first husband, and so passionately in love with her, that he turned off his former wife to make room for this marriage,) had a very odd kind of dream. She fancied that she saw her first husband coming towards her, and that she embraced him with great tenderness; when in the midst of the pleasure which she expressed at the sight of him, he reproached her after the following manner; "Glaphyra," says he, "thou hast made good the old saying, that women are not to be trusted. Was not I the husband of thy virginity? Have I not children by thee? How couldst thou forget our loves so far as to enter into a second marriage, and after that into a third, nay to take for thy husband a man who has so shamelessly crept into the bed of his brother? However, for the sake of our past loves, I shall free thee from thy present reproach, and make thee mine for ever. Glaphyra told this dream to several women of her acquaintance, and died soon after. I thought this story might not be impertinent in this place, wherein I speak of those kings. Besides that, the example deserves to be taken notice of, as it contains a most certain proof of the immortality of the soul, and of Divine Providence. If any man thinks these facts incredible, let him enjoy his own opinion to himself, but let him not endeavour to disturb the belief of others, who by instances of this nature are excited to the study of virtue.'

I should not have been thus particular upon these ridiculous horrors, did not I find them so very much prevail in all parts of the country. At the same time I think a person who is thus terrified with the imagination of ghosts and spectres much more reasonable than one who, contrary to the reports of all historians, sacred and profane, ancient and modern, and to the traditions of all nations, thinks the appearance of spirits fabulous and groundless. Could not I give myself up to this general testimony of mankind, I should to the relations of particular persons who are now living, and whom I cannot distrust in other matters of fact. I might here add, that No. 111.] Saturday, July 7, 1711. not only the historians, to whom we may join the poets, but likewise the philosophers of antiquity, have favoured this opinion. Lucretius himself, though by the course of his philosophy he was obliged to maintain that the soul did not exist separate from the body, makes no doubt of the reality of apparitions, and that men have ofcen appeared after their death. This I

L.

-Inter silvas academi quærere verum.
Hor. Lib. 2. Ep. ii. 45.

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To search for truth in academic groves. THE course of my last speculation led me insensibly into a subject upon which I always meditate with great delight, I mean

*Lucret. iv. 34, &c.

† Antiquit. Jud. lib. xvii. cap. 15. sect. 4, 5.

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the immortality of the soul. I was yesterday walking alone in one of my friend's woods, and lost myself in it very agreeably, as I was running over in my mind the several arguments that established this great point, which is the basis of morality, and the source of all the pleasing hopes and secret joys that can arise in the heart of a reasonable creature. I considered those several proofs, drawn;

He does not seem born to enjoy life, but to deliver it down to others. This is not surprising to consider in animals, which are formed for our use, and can finish their business in a short life. The silk-worm, after having spun her task, lays her eggs and dies. But a man can never have taken in his full measure of knowledge, has not time to subdue his passions, establish his soul in virtue, and come up to the perfection of his nature, before he is hurried off the stage. Would an infinitely wise Being make such glorious creatures for so mean a purpose? Can he delight in the production of such abortive intelligences, such short-lived Secondly, From its passions and senti- reasonable beings? Would he give us taments, as particularly from its love of ex-lents that are not to be exerted? Capaciistence, its horror of annihilation, and its hopes of immortality, with that secret satisfaction which it finds in the practice of virtue, and that uneasiness which follows in it upon the commission of vice.

First, From the nature of the soul itself, and particularly its immateriality, which though not absolutely necessary to the eternity of its duration, has, I think, been evinced to almost a demonstration.

Thirdly, From the nature of the Supreme Being, whose justice, goodness, wisdom, and veracity are all concerned in this great point. But among these and other excellent arguments for the immortality of the soul, there is one drawn from the perpetual progress of the soul to its perfection, without a possibility of ever arriving at it: which is a hint that I do not remember to have seen opened and improved by others who have written on this subject, though it seems to me to carry a great weight with it. How can it enter into the thoughts of man, that the soul which is capable of such immense perfections, and of receiving new improvements to all eternity, shall fall away into nothing almost as soon as it is created? Are such abilities made for no purpose? A brute arrives at a point of perfection that he can never pass: in a few years he has all the endowments he is capable of: and were he to live ten thousand more, would be the same thing he is at present. Were a human soul thus at a stand in her accomplishments, were her faculties to be full blown, and incapable of further enlargements, I could imagine it might fall away insensibly, and drop at once into a state of annihilation. But can we believe a thinking being, that is in a perpetual progress of improvements, and travelling on from perfection to perfection, after having just looked abroad into the works of its Creator, and made a few discoveries of his infinite goodness, wisdom, and power, must perish at her first setting out, and in the beginning of her inquiries?

A man, considered only in his present state, seems only sent into the world to propagate his kind. He provides himself with a successor, and immediately quits his post to make room for him.

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ties that are never to be gratified? How can we find that wisdom, which shines through all his works, in the formation of man, without looking on this world as only a nursery for the next, and believing that the several generations of rational creatures, which rise up and disappear in such quick successions, are only to receive their first rudiments of existence here, and afterwards to be transplanted into a more friendly climate, where they may spread and flourish to all eternity.

There is not, in my opinion, a more pleasing and triumphant consideration in religion than this, of the perpetual progress which the soul makes towards the perfection of its nature, without ever arriving at a period in it. To look upon the soul as going on from strength to strength; to consider that she is to shine for ever with new accessions of glory, and brighten to all eternity; that she will be still adding virtue to virtue, and knowledge to knowledge; carries in it something wonderfully agreeable to that ambition which is natural to the mind of man. Nay, it must be a prospect pleasing to God himself, to see his creation for ever beautifying in his eyes, and drawing nearer to him by greater degrees of resemblance.

Methinks this single consideration of the progress of a finite spirit to perfection, will be sufficient to extinguish all envy in inferior natures, and all contempt in superior. That cherubim, which now appears as a God to a human soul, knows very well that the period will come about in eternity, when the human soul shall be as perfect as he himself now is: nay, when she shall look down upon that degree of perfection, as much as she now falls short of it. It is true the higher nature still advances, and by that means preserves his distance and superiority in the scale of being; but he knows that how high soever the station is of which he stands possessed at present, the inferior nature will at length mount up to it, and shine forth in the same degree of glory.

With what astonishment and veneration may we look into our own souls, where there are such hidden stores of virtue and knowledge, such inexhausted sources of

P

THE SPECTATOR.

perfection? We know not yet what we shall be, nor will it ever enter into the heart of man to conceive the glory that will be always in reserve for him. The soul, considered with its Creator, is like one of those mathematical lines that may draw nearer to one another for all eternity without a possibility of touching it: and can there be a thought so transporting, as to consider ourselves in these perpetual approaches to Him, who is not only the standard of perfection but of happiness.

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First, in obedience to thy country's rites,
Worship th' immortal gods.

L.

Pythag.

[No. 112.

besides himself; for if by chance he has been surprised into a short nap at sermon, upon recovering out of it he stands up and looks about him, and if he sees any body else nodding, either wakes them himself, or sends his servants to them. Several other of the old knight's particularities break out upon these occasions. Sometimes he will be lengthening out a verse in the singing Psalms, half a minute after the rest of the congregation have done with it; sometimes when he is pleased with the matter of his devotion, he pronounces 'Amen,' three or four times to the same prayer; and sometimes stands up when every body else is upon their knees, to count the congregation, or see if any of his tenants are missing.

I was yesterday very much surprised to hear my old friend, in the midst of the sermind what he was about, and not disturb vice, calling out to one John Matthews to the congregation. This John Matthews it seems is remarkable for being an idle fellow, and at that time was kicking his heels

knight, though exerted in that odd manner which accompanies him in all circumstances of life, has a very good effect upon the parish, who are not polite enough to see any thing ridiculous in his behaviour; besides that the general good sense and worthiness of his character make his friends observe these little singularities as foils that rather set off than blemish his good qualities.

I AM always very well pleased with a country Sunday, and think, if keeping holy the seventh day were only a human institution, it would be the best method that could have been thought of for the polish-for his diversion. This authority of the ing and civilizing of mankind. It is certain the country people would soon degenerate into a kind of savages and barbarians, were there not such frequent returns of a stated time, in which the whole village meet together with their best faces, and in their cleanliest habits, to converse with one another upon indifferent subjects, hear their duties explained to them, and join together in adoration of the Supreme Being. Sunday clears away the rust of the whole week, not presumes to stir till Sir Roger is gone out of only as it refreshes in their minds the notions the church. The knight walks down from As soon as the sermon is finished, nobody of religion, but as it puts both the sexes upon his seat in the chancel between a double appearing in their most agreeable forms, row of his tenants, that stand bowing to and exerting all such qualities as are apt him on each side: and every now and then to give them a figure in the eye of the vil-inquires how such a one's wife, or mother, lage. A country fellow distinguishes himself as much in the churchyard, as a citizen does upon the Change, the whole parishpolitics being generally discussed in that place either after sermon or before the bell rings.

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or son, or father do, whom he does not see
at church; which is understood as a secret
reprimand to the person that is absent.

a catechising day, when Sir Roger has been The chaplain has often told me, that upon My friend Sir Roger being a good church- has ordered a Bible to be given him next pleased with a boy that answers well, he man, has beautified the inside of his church day for his encouragement; and sometimes with several texts of his own choosing. He accompanies it with a flitch of bacon to his has likewise given a handsome pulpit-cloth, mother. Sir Roger has likewise added five and railed in the communion-table at his pounds a year to the clerk's place; and that own expence. He has often told me, that he may encourage the young fellows to make at his coming to his estate he found his pa- themselves perfect in the church-service, rishioners very irregular; and that in order has promised upon the death of the present to make them kneel and join in the re-incumbent, who is very old, to bestow it sponses, he gave every one of them a has- according to merit. sock and a common-prayer-book: and at the same time employed an itinerant sing-and his chaplain, and their mutual concuring-master, who goes about the country for that purpose, to instruct them rightly in the tunes of the Psalms; upon which they now very much value themselves, and indeed outdo most of the country churches that I have ever heard.

As Sir Roger is landlord to the whole congregation, he keeps them in very good order, and will suffer nobody to sleep in it

The fair understanding between Sir Roger

rence in doing good, is the more remarkable, because the very next village is famous for the differences and contentions that rise between the parson and the 'squire, who live in a perpetual state of war. The parthe 'squire, to be revenged on the parson, never comes to church. The 'squire has son is always preaching at the 'squire; and made all his tenants atheists and tythe

stealers; while the parson instructs them | it received that stroke which has ever since every Sunday in the dignity of his order, affected his words and actions. But he went and insinuates to them, in almost every ser- on as follows. mon, that he is a better man than his patron. In short, matters have come to such an extremity, that the 'squire has not said his prayers either in public or private this half year; and that the parson threatens bim, if he does not mend his manners, to pray for him in the face of the whole congregation.

Feuds of this nature, though too frequent in the country, are very fatal to the ordinary people; who are so used to be dazzled with riches, that they pay as much deference to the understanding of a man of an estate, as of a man of learning; and are very hardly brought to regard any truth, how important soever it may be, that is preached to them, when they know there are several men of five hundred a year who do not believe it.

No. 113.] Tuesday, July 10, 1711.
-Hærent infixi pectore vultus.

L.

Virg. Æn. iv. 4. Her looks were deep imprinted in his heart.

In my first description of the company in which I pass most of my time, it may be remembered, that I mentioned a great affliction which my friend Sir Roger had met with in his youth; which was no less than a disappointment in love. It happened this evening, that we fell into a very pleasing walk at a distance from his house. As soon as we came into it, 'It is,' quoth the good old man looking round him with a smile, very hard, that any part of my land should be settled upon one who has used me so ill as the perverse widow did; and yet I am sure I could not see a sprig of any bough of this whole walk of trees, but I should reflect upon her and her severity. She has certainly the finest hand of any woman in the world. You are to know, this was the place wherein I used to muse upon her; and by that custom I can never come into it, but the same tender sentiments revive in my mind, as if I had actually walked with that beautiful creature under these shades. I have been fool enough to carve her name on the bark of several of these trees; so unhappy is the condition of men in love, to attempt the removing of their passion by the methods which serve only to imprint it deeper. She has certainly the finest hand of any woman in the world.'

Here followed a profound silence; and I was not displeased to observe my friend falling so naturally into a discourse, which I had ever before taken notice he industriously avoided. After a very long pause, he entered upon an account of this great circumstance in his life, with an air which I thought raised my idea of him above what I had ever had before; and gave me the picture of that cheerful mind of his, before

'I came to my estate in my twentysecond year, and resolved to follow the steps of the most worthy of my ancestors who have inhabited this spot of earth before me, in all the methods of hospitality and good neighbourhood, for the sake of my fame; and in country sports and recreations, for the sake of my health. In my twenty-third year I was obliged to serve as sheriff of the county; and in my servants, officers, and whole equipage, indulged the pleasure of a young man (who did not think ill of his own person,) in taking that public occasion of showing my figure and behaviour to advantage. You may easily imagine to yourself what appearance I made, who am pretty tall, rid well, and was very well dressed, at the head of a whole county, with music before me, a feather in my hat, and my horse well bitted. I can assure you, I was not a little pleased with the kind looks and glances I had from all the balconies and windows as I rode to the hall where the assizes were held. But when I came there, a beautiful creature, in a widow's habit, sat in court to hear the event of a cause concerning her dower. This commanding creature, (who was born for the destruction of all who behold her,) put on such a resignation in her countenance, and bore the whispers of all around the court with such a pretty uneasiness, I warrant you, and then recovered herself from one eye to another, until she was perfectly confused by meeting something so wistful in all she encountered, that at last, with a murrain to her, she cast her bewitching eye upon me. I no sooner met it but I bowed like a great surprised booby; and knowing her cause was to be the first which came on, I cried, like a great captivated calf as I was, “Make way for the defendant's witnesses." This sudden partiality made all the county immediately see the sheriff also was become a slave to the fine widow. -During the time her cause was upon trial, she behaved herself, I warrant you, with such a deep attention to her business, took opportunities to have little billets handed to her counsel, then would be in such a pretty confusion, occasioned, you must know, by acting before so much company, that not only I, but the whole court was prejudiced in her favour; and all that the next heir to her husband had to urge, was thought so groundless and frivolous, that when it came to her counsel to reply, there was not half so much said as every one besides in the court thought he could have urged to her advantage. You must understand, sir, this perverse woman is one of those unaccountable creatures that secretly rejoice in the admiration of men, but indulge themselves in no further consequences. Hence it is that she has ever had a train of admirers, and she removes

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