Record our monarch in a nobler ftrain, And fing the op'ning wonders of his reign; Bright Carolina's heavenly beauties trace, Her valiant confort, and his blooming race. A train of kings their fruitful love fupplies, A glorious scene to Albion's ravish'd eyes; • Who fees by Brunswick's hand her fceptre fway'd, And through his line from age to age convey'd*.' N° 621. Wednesday, November 17, 1714. Poftquam fe lumine puro Implevit, ftellafque vagas miratur, & aftra LUCAN. ix. II. Now to the bleft abode, with wonder fill'd, The fun and moving planets he beheld; Then, looking down on the fun's feeble ray, Survey'd our dufky, faint, imperfect day, • And under what a cloud of night we lay!' ROWE. HE following letter having in it fome obfervations out of the common road, I fhall make it the entertainment of this day. • Mr. SPECTATOR, T HE common topics against the pride of man, which are laboured by florid ⚫ and declamatory writers, are taken from the 7 * By Mr. Thomas Tickell. • bafenefs bafenefs of his original, the imperfections of his nature, or the short duration of thofe goods in which he makes his boaft. Though it be 'true that we can have nothing in us that ought to raise our vanity, yet a confcioufnefs of our own merit may be fometimes laudable. The folly therefore lies here; we are apt to pride ourselves in worthlefs, or perhaps fhameful, things; and on the other hand count that difgraceful which is our trueft glory. 6 Hence it is that the lovers of praise take wrong measures to attain it. Would a vain man confult his own heart, he would find that if others knew his weakneffes as well as he himself doth, he could not have the impu'dence to expect the public esteem. Pride there'fore flows from want of reflection, and ignorance of ourselves. Knowledge and humility ' come upon us together. The proper way to make an estimate of ourfelves, is to confider feriously what it is we ⚫ value or defpife in others. A man who boasts of the goods of fortune, a gay drefs, or a new title, is generally the mark of ridicule. ought therefore not to admire in ourselves. 'what we are fo ready to laugh at in other men. 6 We Much lefs can we with reafon pride ourfelves in those things, which at fome time of our life we shall certainly defpife. And yet, if we will give ourselves the trouble of looking backward and forward on the several changes which we have already undergone,⚫ and hereafter must try, we shall find that the 6 greater N° 621. ⚫ greater degrees of our knowledge and wisdom • ferve only to fhew us our own imperfections. As we rife from childhood to youth, we look with contempt on the toys and trifles • which our hearts have hitherto been fet upon. • When we advance to manhood, we are held wife, in proportion to our fhame and regret for the rafhness and extravagance of youth. Old age fills us with mortifying reflections upon a life miffpent in the pursuit of anxious wealth, or uncertain honour. Agreeable to this gradation of thought in this life, it may be reafonably fuppofed that, in a future state, the wisdom, the experience, and the maxims, of old age, will be looked upon by a separate fpirit, in much the fame light as an ancient man now fees the little follies and toying of infants. The pomps, the honours, the policies, and arts, of mortal men, will be thought as trifling as hobby-horses, mock battles, or any other sports that now employ all the cunning, and ftrength, and ambition, of rational beings, from four years old to nine or ten. 6 • If the notion of a gradual rife in beings from the meanest to the most high be not a vain 'imagination, it is not improbable that an angel looks down upon a man as a man doth upon a creature which approaches the nearest to the rational nature. By the fame rule, if I may indulge my fancy in this particular, a fuperior brute looks with a kind of pride on one of an inferior fpecies. If they could reflect, we might imagine, from the gestures 6 • of ' of fome of them that they think themselves ⚫the fovereigns of the world, and that all things were made for them. Such a thought would not be more abfurd in brute creatures than one which men are apt to entertain, namely, 'that all the ftars in the firmament were created only to please their eyes and amuse their imaginations. Mr. Dryden, in his fable of the 'Cock and the Fox, makes a fpeech for his hero 'the cock, which is a pretty inftance for this purpose: "Then turning, faid to Partlet, fee, my dear, "How lavifh nature hath adorn'd the year; "How the pale primrofe and the violet fpring, "And birds effay their throats, difus'd to fing: "All these are ours, and I with pleasure fee "Man ftrutting on two legs and aping me.' 'What I would obferve from the whole is this, that we ought to value ourselves upon those things only which fuperior beings think valuable, fince that is the only way for us not to fink in our own efteem hereafter." **This day is publifhed, "The Examiner," Number L. Printed for J. Roberts in Warwick-Lane, where advertisements will be taken in, &c. by J. Morphew. To be continued Wednesdays and Saturdays. SPECT. in folio. N° 615. Wednesday, Nov. 3, 1714. See TAT. with Notes, vol. V. N° 210, Note on the Examiner, &c. and Preface to the "Rea"der." Editions of 1738 and 1789 in 12mo. and 8vo. with Notes. *This day is published, "The Monthly Catalogue of books, plays, pamphlets, poems, and fermons," in Oct. 1714, price 3d. SPECT. in folio. N° 616. Friday, Nov. 5, 1714. VOL. VIII. N° 622. Ꮓ N° 622. Friday, November 19, 1714. -Fallentis femita vita. HOR. 1. Ep. xviii. 103. A fafe private quiet, which betrays Itfelf to ease, and cheats away the days.' PooLY. • Mr. SPECTATOR, IN Na former Speculation you have obferved that true greatness doth not consist in that pomp and noife wherein the generality of mankind are apt to place it. You have there taken notice that virtue in obfcurity often appears more illuftrious in the eye of fuperior beings, than all that paffes for grandeur and magnificence among men. When we look back upon the history of those who have borne the parts of kings, statef men, or commanders, they appear to us ftripped of thofe outfide ornaments that dazzle their contemporaries; and we regard their perfons as great or little, in proportion to the eminence of their virtues or vices. The wife fayings, generous fentiments, or difinterested conduct of a philofopher under mean circum• ftances of life, fet him higher in our esteem than the mighty potentates of the earth, when we view them both through the long profpect of many ages. Were the memoirs of an obfcure man, who lived up to the dignity of his nature and according to the rules of virtue, to be • laid |