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N° 583.

FRIDAY, AUGUST 20.

Ipfe thymum pinofque ferens de montibus altis,
Tecta ferat late circum, cui talia curæ:
Ipfe labore manum duro terat; ipfe feraces
Figat humo plantas, et amicos irriget imbres.

VIRG. Georg. iv. ver. 112.

With his own hand, the guardian of the bees,
For flips of pines, may fearch the mountain trees;
And with wild thyme and fav'ry plant the plain,
Till his hard horny fingers ache with pain;
And deck with fruitful trees the fields around,
And with refrething waters drench the ground.
DRYDEN.

EVE

VERY ftation of life has duties which are proper to it. Those who are determined by choice to any particular kind of bufinefs, are indeed more happy than thofe who are determined by neceffity, but both are under an equal obligation of fixing on employments, which may be either ufeful to themselves or beneficial to others: No one of the fons of Adam ought to think himself exempt from that labour and industry which were denounced to our first parent, and in him to all his pofterity. Thofe to whom birth or fortune may feem to make fuch an application unneceffary, ought to find out fome calling or profeffion for themfelves, that they may not lie as a burden on the fpecies, and be the only ufelefs part of the creation.

Many of our country gentlemen in their bufy hours apply themfelves wholly to the chace, or to fome other diversion which they find in the fields and woods. This gave occafion to one of our most eminent English writers to reprefent every one of them as lying under a kind of curfe pronounced

to

to them in the words of Goliah, I will give thee to the fowls of the air, and to the beafts in the field.

Though exercises of this kind, when indulged with moderation, may have a good influence both on the mind and body, the country affords many other amusements of a more noble kind.

Among these I know none more delightful in itfelf, and beneficial to the public than that of PLANTING. I could mention a nobleman whofe fortune has placed him in feveral parts of England, and who has always left these visible marks behind him, which fhew he has been there: He never hired a houfe in his life, without leaving all about it the feeds of wealth, and beftowing legacies on the pofterity of the owner. Had all the gentlemen of England made the fame improvements upon their eftates, our whole country would have been at this time as one great garden. Nor ought fuch an employment to be looked upon as too inglorious for men of the highest rank. There have been heroes in this art, as well as in others. We are told in particular of Cyrus the Great, that he planted all the Leffer Afia. There is indeed fomething truly magnificent in this kind of amufement: It gives a nobler air to feveral parts of nature; it fills the earth with a variety of beautiful scenes, and has fomething in it like creation. For this reafon the pleafure of one who plants is fomething like that of a poet, who, as Ariftotle obferves, is more delighted with his productions, than any other writer or artist whatsoever.

Plantations have one advantage in them which is not to be found in most other works, as they give a pleasure of a more lasting date, and continually improve in the eye of the planter. When you have finished a building, or any other undertaking of the like nature, it immediately decays upon your hands; you fee it brought to its utmoft point of perfection, and from that time haftening to its, ruin.

伊玛

On the contrary, when you have finished your plantations, they are still arriving at greater degrees of perfection as long as you live, and appear more delightful in every fucceeding year, than they did in the foregoing.

But I do not only recommend this art to men of eftates as a pleafing amufement, but as it is a kind. of virtuous employment, and may therefore be inculcated by moral motives; particularly from the love which we ought to have for our country, and the regard which we ought to bear to our pofterity. As for the firft, I need only mention what is frequently obferved by others, that the increafe of foreft-trees does by no means bear a proportion to the deftruction of them, infomuch that in a few ages the nation may be at a lofs to fupply itself with timber fufficient for the fleets of England. I know when a man talks of pofterity in matters of this nature, he is looked upon with an eye of ridicule by the cunning and felfifh part of mankind. Moft people are of the humour of an old fellow of a College, who, when he was preffed by the fociety to come into fomething that might redound to the good of their fucceffors, grew very peevith: We are always doing, fays he, fomething for pofterity, but I ̧ would fain fee pofterity do something for us.

But I think men are inexcufable, who fail in a duty of this nature, fince it is fo easily discharged. When a man confiders that the putting a few twigs into the ground is doing good to one who will make his appearance in the world about fifty years hence, or that he is perhaps making one of his own defcendents eafy or rich, by fo inconfiderable an expence; if he finds himself averse to it, he must conclude that he has a poor and base heart, void of all generous principles and love to mankind.

There is one confideration, which may very much enforce what I have here faid. Many honest minds that are naturally difpofed to do good in the VOL. VIII.

L

world,

world, and become beneficial to mankind, complain within themselves that they have not talents for it. This therefore is a good office which is fuited to the meaneft capacities, and which may be performed by multitudes, who have not abilities fufficient to deserve well of their country, and to recommend themselves to their pofterity by any other method. It is the phrase of a friend of mine, when any useful country-neighbour dies, that you may trace him; which I look upon as a good funeral oration at the death of an honeft husbandman, who hath left the impreffions of his industry behind him, in the place where he has lived.

Upon the foregoing confiderations I can scarce forbear reprefenting the fubject of this paper as a kind of moral virtue: Which, as I have already fhewn, recommends itself likewife by the pleasure that attends it. It must be confeffed, that this is none of those turbulent pleasures which is apt to gratify a man in the heats of youth; but if it be not fo tumultuous, it is more lafting. Nothing can be more delightful than to entertain ourselves with profpects of our own making, and to walk under thofe fhades which our own industry has raifed. Amufements of this nature compofe the mind, and lay at reft all thofe paffions which are uneafy to the foul of man, befides that they naturally engender good thoughts, and difpofe us to laudable contemplations. Many of the old philofophers paffed away the greatest parts of their lives among their gardens. Epicurus himself could not think fenfual pleasure attainable in any other scene. Every reader who is acquainted with Homer, Virgil, and Horace, the greatest geniufes of all antiquity, knows very well with how much rapture they have fpoken on this fubject; and that Virgil in particular has written a whole book on the art of planting.

This art feems to have been more especially ad

apted

apted to the nature of man in his primæval ftate, when he had life enough to fee his productions flourish in their utmost beauty, and gradually decay with him. One who lived before the flood might have 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 found among the accounts of China, and which may be looked upon as an antediluvian novel.

No 584.

MONDAY, AUGUST 23.

Hic gelidifontes, hic mallia prata, Lycori,
Hic nemus, hic ipfo tecum confumerer avo.
VIRG. Ecl. x. ver. 42.

Come fee what pleafures in our plains abound;
The woods, the fountains, and the flow'ry ground:
Here I cou'd live, and love, and die with only you.
DRYDEN.

ILPA was one of the 150 daughters of Zilpah,

HILPA

of the race of Cohu, by whom fome 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 addreffes of feveral who made love to her. Among these were two brothers, Harpath and Shalum. Harpath, being the first born, was mafter of that fruitful region which lies at the foot of mount Tirzah, in the fouthern parts of China. Shalum (which is to fay the planter, in the Chinese language) poffeffed all the neighbouring hills, and that great range of moun tains which goes under the name of Tirzah. Harpath was of a haughty contemptuous fpirit; Shalum was of a gentle difpofition, beloved both by God and man.

It is faid, that, among the antediluvian women,

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