On the Back of this Letter is written, in the Hand of No. 627. the Deceased, the following Piece of History, Wednes day, Mem. Having waited a whole Week for an Answer Dec. 1, to this Letter, I hurried to Town, where I found the 1714. perfidious Creature married to my Rival. I will bear it as becomes a Man, and endeavour to find out Happi ness for my self in that Retirement, which I had prepared in vain for a false ungrateful Woman. Labitur et labetur in omne volubilis aevum.-Hor, 'Mr. SPECTATOR, There are none of your Speculations which please me more than those upon Infinitude and Eternity. You have already consider'd that Part of Eternity which is past, and I wish you would give us your Thoughts upon that which is to come. Your Readers will perhaps receive greater Pleasure from this View of Eternity than the former, since we have every one of us a Concern in that which is to come: whereas a Speculation on that which is past is rather curious than useful, Besides, we can easily conceive it possible for successive Duration never to have an End; tho' as you have justly observed, that Eternity which never had a Beginning is altogether incomprehensible: That is, we can conceive an Eternal Duration which may be, though we cannot an Eternal Duration which hath been, or, if I may use the Philosophical Terms, we may apprehend a Potential though not an Actual Eternity, This Notion of a future Eternity, which is natural to the Mind of Man, is an unanswerable Argument that he is a Being design'd for it; especially if we consider that he is capable of being Virtuous or Vicious here; that he hath Faculties improvable to all Eternity; and by a proper or wrong Employment of them may be happy or miserable throughout that infinite Duration. Our Idea indeed of this Eternity is not of an adequate IV. 2 M or No. 628. Friday, Dec. 3, 1714. or fixed Nature, but is perpetually growing and enlarging itself toward the Object, which is too big for human Comprehension. As we are now in the Beginnings of Existence, so shall we always appear to our selves as if we were for ever entring upon it. After a Million or two of Centuries, some considerable Things, already past, may slip out of our Memory; which, if it be not strengthened in a wonderful Manner, may possibly forget that ever there was a Sun or Planets. And yet, notwithstanding the long Race that we shall then have run, we shall still imagine our selves just starting from the Goal, and find no Proportion between that Space which we know had a Beginning, and what we are sure will never have an End, But I shall leave this Subject to your Management, and question not but you will throw it into such Lights as shall at once improve and entertain your Reader, I have enclos'd sent you a Translation of the Speech of Cato on this Occasion, which hath accidentally fallen into my Hands, and which for Conciseness, Purity, and Elegance of Phrase cannot be sufficiently admired,' ACT. V. SCEN. L CATO solus, &c. Sic, sic se habere rem necesse prorsus est, Natura? Quorsum haec dulcis expectatio Quae demigrabitur alia hinc in corpora? Haec Haec intuenti spatia mihi quaqua patent Hic nodum hic omnem expediet. Arma en induor, [Ensi manum admovens. In utramque partem facta; quaeque vim inferant, It must be so ACT V. SCENE L CATO alone, &c, -Plato, thou reason'st well Else whence this pleasing Hope, this fond Desire, Or whence this secret Dread, and inward Horror, 'Tis Heav'n itself, that points out an Hereafter, Eternity! thou pleasing, dreadful, Thought! Through No. 628. Friday, Dec. 3, 1714. No. 628 Friday, Dec. 3, 1714. Through what Variety of untry'd Being, Through what new Scenes and Changes must we pass! Through all her Works) He must delight in Virtue But when! or where!--This World was made for Caesar. [Laying his Hand on his Sword Thus am I doubly arm'd, my Death and Life, The Wrecks of Matter and the Crush of Worlds. No. 629. Monday, December 6. -Experiar quid concedatur in illos, Quorum Flaminia tegitur cinis atque Latina,-Juv. NEX EXT to the People who want a Place, there are none to be pitied more than those who are solicited for one, A plain Answer, with a Denial in it, is looked upon as Pride, and a civil Answer as a Promise, Nothing is more ridiculous than the Pretensions of People upon these Occasions. Every thing a Man hath suffered, whilst his Enemies were in play, was certainly brought about by the Malice of the opposite Party, A bad Cause would not have been lost, if such an one had not been upon the Bench; nor a profligate Youth disinherited, if he had not got drunk every Night by toasting an outed Ministry, I remember a Tory, who having been fined in a Court of Justice for a Prank that deserved the Pillory, desired upon the Merit of it to be made a Justice of Peace when his Friends came into Power and shall never forget a Whig Criminal, who, upon upon being indicted for a Rape, told his Friends, You No. 629. see what a Man suffers for sticking to his Principles. Monday, Dec. 6, The Truth of it is, the Sufferings of a Man in a Party 1714. are of a very doubtful Nature. When they are such as have promoted a good Cause, and fallen upon a Man undeservedly, they have a Right to be heard and recompensed beyond any other Pretensions. But when they rise out of Rashness or Indiscretion, and the Pur suit of such Measures, as have rather ruined, than promoted the Interest they aim at, (which hath always been the Case of many great Sufferers) they only serve to recommend them to the Children of Violence or Folly, I have by me a Bundle of Memorials presented by several Cavaliers upon the Restauration of K. Charles II. which may serve, as so many Instances, to our present Purpose, Among several Persons and Pretensions recorded by my Author, he mentions one of a very great Estate, who, for having roasted an Ox whole, and distributed a Hogs head upon K. Charles's Birth-Day, desired to be provided for, as his Majesty in his great Wisdom shall think fit, Another put in to be Prince Henry's Governor, for having dared to drink his Health in the worst of Times, A Third petitioned for a Colonel's Commission, for having Cursed Oliver Cromwell, the Day before his Death, on a publick Bowling Green, But the most whimsical Petition I have met with is that of B. B. Esq., who desired the Honour of Knighthood, for having Cuckolded Sir T. W. a notorious Roundhead. There is likewise the Petition of one, who, having let his Beard grow from the Martyrdom of K. Charles the First, till the Restauration of K. Charles the Second, desired, in Consideration thereof, to be made a Prívy Counsellor, I must not omit a Memorial setting forth, that the Memorialist had, with great dispatch, carried a Letter from a certain Lord to a certain Lord, wherein, as it afterwards appeared, Measures were concerted for the Restauration, and without which he verily believes that happy |
