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Indearments. This Species of Women are likewife fubject to little Thefts, Cheats, and Pilferings.

THE Mare with a flowing Mane, which was never broke to any fervile Toil and Labour, compofed an Eighth Species of Women. These are they who have little Regard for their Husbands, who pass away their Time in Dreffing, Bathing, and Perfuming; who throw their Hair into the niceft Curls, and trick it up with the fairest Flowers and Garlands. A Woman of this Species is a very pretty Thing for a Stranger to look upon, but very detrimental to the Owner, unless it be a King or Prince who takes a Fancy to fuch a Toy.

THE Ninth Species of Females were taken out of the Ape. Thefe are fuch as are both ugly and ill-natured, who bave nothing beautiful in themfelves, and endeavour to detract from or ridicule every Thing which appears fo in others.

THE Tenth and Laft Species of Women were made out of the Bee; and happy is the Man who gets fuch an one for his Wife. She is altogether faultless and unblameable; her Family flourishes and improves by her good Management. She loves her Husband and is beloved by him. She brings him a Race of beautiful and virtuous Children. She diftinguishes her felf among her Sex. She is furrounded with Graces. She never fits among the loofe Tribe of Women, nor paffes away her Time with them in wanton Difcourfes. She is full of Virtue and Prudence, and is the best Wife that Jupiter can bestow on Man.

I fhall conclude thefe Iambicks with the Motto of this Paper, which is a Fragment of the fame Author: A Man cannot poffefs any Thing that is better than a good Woman, nor any thing that is worse than a bad one.

AS the Poet has fhewn a great Penetration in this Diversity of Female Characters, he has avoided the Fault which Juvenal and Monfieur Boileau are guilty of, the former in his fixth, and the other in his laft Satyr, where they have endeavoured to expofe the Sex in general, without doing Juftice to the valuable Part of it. Such levelling Satyrs are of no ufe to the World, and for this Reafon I have often wondered how the French Author above-mentioned, who was a Man of exquifite Judgment,

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and a Lover of Virtue, could think humane Nature a proper Subject for Satyr in another of his celebrated Pieces, which is called The Satyr upon Man. What Vice or Frailty can a Difcourfe correct, which cenfures the whole Species alike, and endeavours to fhew by fome fuperficial Strokes of Wit, that Brutes are the more excellent Creatures of the two? A Satyr fhould expofe nothing but what is corrigible, and make a due Difcrimination between those who are, and those who are not the proper Objects of it.

L

N° 210. Wednesday, October 31.

Nefcio quomodo inhæret in mentibus quafi feculorum quoddam augurium futurorum; idque in maximis ingeniis al tiffimifque animis exiftit maximè & apparet facillimè. Cic. Tufc. Quæft.

SIR,

I

To the SPECTATOR.

Am fully perfwaded that one of the best Springs of generous and worthy Actions, is the having generous and worthy Thoughts of our felves. Whoever has a mean Opinion of the Dignity of his Nature, ‹ will act in no higher a Rank than he has allotted him⚫ felf in his own Eftimation. If he confiders his Being as circumfcribed by the uncertain Term of a few Years, his Defigns will be contracted into the fame narrow Span he imagines is to bound his Existence. How can he exalt his Thoughts to any Thing great and noble, 'who only believes that, after a fhort Turn on the Stage of this World, he is to fink into Oblivion, and to lofe his Consciousness for ever?

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FOR this Reason I am of Opinion, that fo useful ⚫ and elevated a Contemplation as that of the Soul's Immortality cannot be refumed too often. There is not

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a more improving Exercise to the humane Mind, than

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to be frequently reviewing its own great Privileges ' and Endowments; nor a more effectual Means to awaken in us an Ambition raised above low Objects and little Purfuits, than to value our felves as Heirs of Eternity.

'IT is a very great Satisfaction to confider the best and ' wifest of Mankind in all Nations and Ages, afferting, as ' with one Voice, this their Birth-right, and to find it 'ratify'd by an exprefs Revelation. At the fame time, if < we turn our Thoughts inward upon our felves, we may 'meet with a kind of fecret Senfe concurring with the Proofs of our own Immortality.

YOU have, in my Opinion, raifed a good prefumptive Argument from the encreafing Appetite the Mind has to Knowledge, and to the extending its own Fa 'culties, which cannot be accomplished, as the more reftrained Perfection of lower Creatures may, in the Li'mits of a fhort Life. I think another probable Conjecture may be raised from our Appetite to Duration it felf, and from a Reflection on our Progrefs through the feveral Stages of it: We are complaining, as you obferve in a former Speculation, of the Shortness of Life, and yet are perpetually hurrying over the Parts of it, to arrive at < certain little Settlements, or imaginary Points of Reft, which are difperfed up and down in it.

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NOW let us confider what happens to us when we arrive at these imaginary Points of Reft: Do we ftop our Motion, and fit down fatisfyed in the Settlement we have gained? or are we not removing the Boundary, and marking out new Points of Reft, to which we prefs forward with the like Eagerness, and • which ceafe to be fuch as faft as we attain them? Our • Cafe is like that of a Traveller upon the Alps, who 'fhould fancy that the Top of the next Hill muft end his Journey, because it terminates his Profpect; but · he no fooner arrives at it, than he fees new Ground and other Hills beyond it, and continues to travel on as ⚫ before.

THIS is fo plainly every Man's Condition in Life, that there is no one who has obferved any thing, but may obferve, that as faft as his Time wears away, his

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Appetite to fomething future remains. The Ufe therefore I would make of it is this, That fince Nature (as fome love to exprefs it) does nothing in vain, or, to fpeak properly, fince the Author of our Being has planted no wandering Paffion in it, no Defire which ' has not its Object, Futurity is the proper Object of the 'Paffion fo conftantly exercis'd about it; and this Restlefnefs in the prefent, this affigning our felves over to farther Stages of Duration, this fucceffive grafping at fomewhat ftill to come, appears to me (whatever it may to others) as a kind of Inftinct or natural Symptom which the Mind of Man has of its own Immortality.

I take it at the fame time for granted, that the Immortality of the Soul is fufficiently established by other • Arguments; and if fo, this Appetite, which otherwife 'would be very unaccountable and abfurd, feems very • reasonable, and adds Strength to the Conclufion. But • I am amazed when I confider there are Creatures capable of Thought, who, in fpite of every Argument, ⚫ can form to themfelves a fullen Satisfaction in thinking otherwise. There is fomething fo pitifully mean in ⚫ the inverted Ambition of that Man who can hope for 'Annihilation, and please himself to think that his whole • Fabrick fhall one Day crumble into Duft, and mix with 'the Mass of inanimate Beings, that it equally deferves our 'Admiration and Pity. The Mystery of fuch Mens Un• belief is not hard to be penetrated; and indeed amounts to nothing more than a fordid Hope that they fhall not be immortal, because they dare not be fo.

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THIS brings me back to my first Obfervation, and 'gives me Occafion to fay further, That as worthy Acti⚫ons fpring from worthy Thoughts, fo worthy Thoughts are likewife the Confequence of worthy Actions: But the Wretch who has degraded himself below the Cha⚫racter of Immortality, is very willing to refign his • Pretenfions to it, and to fubftitute in its Room a dark :negative Happiness in the Extinction of his Being.

THE

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THE admirable Shakespear has given us a ftrong Image of the unfupported Condition of fuch a Perfon in his last Minutes, in the fecond Part of King Henry the Sixth, where Cardinal Beaufort, who had been concern⚫ed in the Murther of the good Duke Humphrey, is repre• fented on his Death-bed. After fome fhort confused Speeches which fhew an Imagination disturbed with Guilt, juft as he is expiring, King Henry standing by him full of Compaffion, fays,

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Lord Cardinal! if thou think'ft on Heaven's Blifs,
Hold up thy Hand, make Signal of that Hope!
He dies, and makes no Sign!

THE Defpair which is here fhewn, without a Word or Action on the Part of the dying Perfon, is beyond what could be painted by the most forcible Expressions * whatever.

I fhall not pursue this Thought further, but only add, That as Annihilation is not to be had with a Wish, so it ⚫ is the most abject Thing in the World to wish it. What are Honour, Fame, Wealth, or Power, when compared ⚫ with the generous Expectation of a Being without End, and a Happiness adequate to that Being?

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I fhall trouble you no further; but, with a certain Gra vity, which thefe Thoughts have given me, I reflect upon fome Things People fay of you, (as they will of all Men who diftinguish themselves) which I hope are not true; and wifh you as good a Man as you are an ! Author.

T

I am, SIR,

Your most Obedient, humble Servant,

T. D.

Thursday,

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