I fhall fend you to enrich your paper with on proper oc • cafions. Oxford, Aug. 20. I am, &c. N° 587. JOHN SHADOW.' Monday, August 30. -Intus, et in cute novi. Perf. Sat. 3. v. 30.. I know thee to thy bottom: from within TH Dryden HOUGH the author of the following vifion is unknown to me, I am apt to think it may be the work of that ingenious gentleman, who promifed me in the last paper fome extracts out of his noctuary. 6 I SIR, WAS the other day reading the life of Mahomet. Among many other extravagancies, I find it recorded of that impoftor, that in the fourth year of his age the angel Gabriel caught him up, while he was among his play-fellows, and carrying him afide, cut open his breaft, plucked out his heart, and wrung out of it that black drop of blood, in which, fay the Turkish divines, is contained the fomes peccati, fo that he was free from fin ever after. I immediately faid to myfelf, though this story be a fiction, a very good moral may be drawn 'from it, would every man but apply it to himself, and endeavour to fqueeze out of his heart whatever fins or ill qualities he finds in it. WHILE my mind was wholly taken up with this contemplation, I infenfibly fell into a moft pleafing flumber, when methought two porters entered my chamber, carrying a large cheft between them. After having fet it down in the middle of the room they departed. I immediately endeavoured to open what was fent me, when a fhape like that in which we paint our angels, appeared before me, and forbad me. Inclofed, faid he, are the hearts 115 ⚫ hearts of feveral of your friends and acquaintance; but before you can be qualified to fee and animadvert on the failings of others, you must be pure yourself; whereupon he drew out his incifion-knife, cut me open, took out my heart, and began to fqueeze it. I was in a great confufion, to fee how many things, which I had always cherished as virtues, iffued out of my heart on this occafion. In short, after it had been thoroughly fqueezed, it looked like an empty bladder, when the phantom breathing a fresh particle of divine air into it, re'ftored it fafe to its former repofitory; and having fewed me up, we began to examine the cheft. • wine. THE hearts were all inclofed in tranfparent phials, and preferved in a liquor which looked like fpirits of The first which I caft my eye upon, I was afraid would have broke the glafs which contained it. It fhot up and down with incredible fwiftnefs, through the liquor in which it fwam, and very frequently bounced against the fide of the phial. The fomes, or fpot in 'the middle of it, was not large, but of a red fiery colour, and feemed to be the caufe of thefe violent agitations. That, fays my inftructor, is the heart of Tom Dread-nought, who behaved himfelf well in the late wars, but has for thefe ten years laft paft been aiming at fome poft of honour to no purpofe. He has lately retired into the country, where quite chocked up with fpleen and choler, he rails at better men than himself, and will be for ever uneafy, because it is impoffible he should think his merit fufficiently rewarded. • The next heart that I examined was remarkable for its fmallnefs it lay still at the bottom of the phial, and I 'could hardly perceive that it beat at all. The fomes ' was quite black, and had almost diffused itself over the whole heart. This, fays my interpreter, is the heart ' of Dick Gloomy, who never thirfted after any thing but money. Notwithstanding all his endeavours, he is • ftill poor. This has flung him into a moft deplorable ftate of melancholy and defpair. He is a compofition • of envy and idlenefs, hates mankind, but gives them their revenge by being more uneafy to himfelf, than tơ f any one elfe. : THE THE phial I looked upon next contained a large fair heart, which beat very strongly. The fomes, or spot' in it was exceeding fmall; but I could not help obferving, that which way foever I turned the phial it al'ways appeared uppermoft, and in the strongest point of light. The heart you are examining, fays my companion, belongs to Will. Worthy. He has indeed a moft ⚫ noble foul, and is poffeffed of a thousand good qualties. The fpeck which you difcover is Vanity. HERE, fays the angel, is the heart of Freelove, your 'intimate friend. Freelove and I, faid I, are at prefent · very cold to one another, and I do not care for looking on the heart of a man, which I fear is overcaft with " rancour. My teacher commanded me to look upon it; I did fo, and to my unfpeakable furprife, found, that fmall fwelling fpot, which I at first took to be ill-will. towards me, was only paffion, and that upon my nearer infpection it wholly difappeared; upon which the phantom told me, Freelove was one of the best-natured mer → alive. a THIS, fays my teacher, is a female heart of your acquaintance. I found the fomes in it of the largest fize, and of a hundred different colours, which were • ftill varying every moment. Upon my afking to whom it belonged, I was informed that it was the heart of Co quetilla. 'I SET it down, and drew out another, in which I *took the fomes at first fight to be very fmall, but was amazed to find, that as I looked ftedfaftly upon it, it grew ftill larger. It was the heart of Melissa, a noted prude, who lives the next door to me. 'I SHOW you this, fays the phantom, because it is indeed a rarity, and you have the happiness to know the perfon to whom it belongs. He then put into my • hands a large crystal glass, that inclofed an heart, in which, though I examined it with the utmost nicety, I ⚫ could not perceive any blemish. I made no fcruple to 'affirm that it must be the heart of Seraphina, and was glad, but not furprised, to find that it was fo. She is indeed, continued my guide, the ornament, as well as the envy, of her fex; at thefe laft words, he pointed to the hearts of feveral of her female acquaintance, which • lay lay in different phials, and had very large spots in them, • all of a deep blue. You are not to wonder, fays he, that you fee no fpot in an heart, whofe innocence has • been proof against all the corruptions of a depraved age. If it has any blemish, it is too final to be discovered by • human eyes. 'I LATD it down, and took up the hearts of other females, in all of which the fomes ran in several veins, which were twifted together, and made a very perplex⚫ed figure. I asked the meaning of it, and was told *that it reprefented Deceit. 'I SHOULD have been glad to have examined the ⚫ hearts of feveral of my acquaintance, whom I knew to be particularly addicted to drinking, gaming, intriguing, &c. but my interpreter told me, I muft let that alone till another opportunity, and flung down the cover of the cheft with fo much violence, as immediately awoke • me.' N° 588. Wednesday, September 1. Dicitis, omnis in imbecillitate eft et gratia, et caritas. Cicero de nat. Deor. You pretend that all kindness and benevolence is founded in weakness. M AN may be confidered in two views, as a reafonable, and as a fociable being; capable of becoming himself either happy or miferable, and of contribu ting to the happiness or mifery of his fellow-creatures. Suitably to this double capacity, the contriver of human nature hath wifely furnished it with two principles of action, felf-love and benevolence; defigned one of them to render man wakeful to his own perfonal intereft, the other to difpofe him for giving his utmost affiftance to all engaged in the fame pursuit. This is fuch an account of our frame, fo agreeable to reafon, fo much for the honour of our Maker, and the credit of our fpecies, that it may appear fomewhat unaccountable what should induce men to represent human nature as they do, under characters of disadvantage, or, having drawn it with a little and fordid afpect, what pleasure they can poffibly take in fuch a picture. Do they reflect that it is their own, and, if we shall believe themfelves, is not more odious than the original? One of the first that talked in this lofty ftrain of our nature was Epicurus. Beneficence, would his followers fay, is all founded in weakness; and, whatever be pretended, the kindness that paffeth between men and men is by every man directed to himself. This, it must be confeffed, is of a piece with the reft of that hopeful philofophy, which having patched man up out of the four elements, attributes his being to chance, and derives all his actions from an unintelligible declination of atoms. And for thefe glorious difcoveries the poet is beyond measure tranfported in the praises of his hero, as if he must needs be fomething more than man, only for an endeavour to prove that man is in nothing fuperior to beafts. In this fchool was Mr Hobbes inftructed to fpeak after the fame manner, if he did not rather draw his knowledge from an obfervation of his own temper; for he fomewhere unluckily lays down this as a rule; That from the fimilitudes of thoughts and paffions of one man to the thoughts and paffions of another, whofoever looks into himself, and confiders what he doth 'when he thinks, hopes, fears, &c. and upon what 'grounds; he shall hereby read and know what are the thoughts and passions of all other men upon the like oc'cafions.' Now we will allow Mr Hobbes to know best how he was inclined: but, in earnest, I fhould be heartily out of conceit with myself, if I thought myfelf of this unamiable temper, as he affirms, and should have as little kindness for myfelf as for any body in the world. Hitherto I always imagined that kind and benevolent propenfions were the original growth of the heart of man, and, however checked and overtopped by counter-inclinations that have fince fprung up within us, have still fome force in the worst of tempers, and a confiderable influence on the beft. And, methinks, it is a fair ftep towards the proof of this, that the most beneficent of all beings is he who hath an abfolute fulness of perfection in himfelf, who gave existence to the univerfe, and fo can not |