drefs to this occafion, yet muft own, that I am very much difpofed to be offended with fuch a new and unaccountable fashion. I fhall however pronounce nothing upon it, until I have examined all that can be faid for and against it. And in the mean time, think fit to give this notice to the fair Ladies who are now making up their winter fuits, that they may abstain from all dreffes of that kind, until they fhall find what judgment will be paffed upon them; for it would very much trouble me, that they should put themselves to an unneceffary expence; and I could not but think myself to blame, if I should hereafter forbid them the wearing of fuch garments, when they have laid out money upon them, without having given them any previous admonition. "N. B. A Letter of the fixteenth inftant about one "of the fifth, will be answered according to the defire "of the party, which he will see in a few days." N° 111. Saturday, December 24, 1709. Procul O! Procul efte profani! Hence, ye profane! far hence be gone! TH Sheer-lane, December 23: HE watchman, who does me particular honours, as being the chief man in the lane, gave fo very great a thump at my door last night, that I awakened at the nock, and heard myfelf complimented with the ufual falutation of, "Good-morrow Mr. 66 Bickerftaff, Good-morrow my Masters all." The filence and darknefs of the night difpofed me to be more than ordinarily ferious; and as my attention was not drawn out among exterior objects, by the avocations of fenfe, my thoughts naturally fell upon myfelf. I was confidering, amidst the ftillnefs of the night, what was was the proper employment of a thinking Being? what were the perfections it fhould propofe to itfelf? and, what the end it should aim at? my mind is of fuch a particular caft, that the falling of a fhower of rain, or the whiftling of wind, at fuch a time, is apt to fill my thoughts with fomething awful and folemn. I was in this difpofition, when our bellman began his midnight homily, which he has been repeating to us every winternight for thefe twenty years, with the ufual exordium; "Oh! mortal man, thou that art born in fin !” Sentiments of this nature, which are in themselves juft and reasonable, however debased by the circumftances that accompany them, do not fail to produce their natural effect in a mind that is not perverted and depraved by wrong notions of gallantry, politenefs, and ridicule. The temper which I now found myself in, as well as the time of the year, put me in mind of those lines in Shakespear, wherein, according to his agreeable wildness of imagination, he has wrought a country tradition into a beautiful piece of poetry. In the tragedy of Hamlet, where the ghoft vanishes upon the cock's crowing, he takes occafion to mention its crowing all hours of the night about Chriftmas time, and to infinuate a kind of religious veneration for that feafon. It faded on the crowing of the cock. This admirable author, as well as the beft and graveft men of all ages, and of all nations, feems to have had his mind thoroughly feafoned with religion, as is evident by many paffages in his plays, that would not be fuffered by a modern audience; and are therefore certain inftances, that the age he lived in had a much greater fenfe of virtue than the prefent. P 4 It 1 It is indeed a melancholy reflection to confider, that the British nation, which is now at a greater height of glory for its councils and conquefts, than it ever was before, fhould diftinguifh itfelf by a certain loofeness of principles, and a falling off from thofe fchemes of thinking, which conduce to the happiness and perfection of human nature.. This evil comes upon us from the works of a few folemn blockheads, that meet together with the zeal and feriousness of apoftles, to extirpate common fenfe, and propagate infidelity. These are wretches, who without any fhow of wit, learning, or reafon, publish their crude conceptions with an ambi tion of appearing more wife than the rest of mankind, upon no other pretence, than that of diffenting from them. One gets by heart a catalogue of title pages and editions; and immediately to become confpicuous, declares that he is an unbeliever. Another knows how to write a receipt, or cut up a dog, and forthwith argues against the immortality of the Soul. I have known many a little wit in the oftentation of his parts, rally the truth of the Scripture, who was not able to read a chapter in it. Thefe poor wretches talk blafphemy for want of discourse, and are rather the objects of fcorn or pity, than of our indignation; but the grave difputant, that reads and writes, and fpends all his time in convincing himself and the world, that he is no better than a brute, ought to be whipped out of a government, as a blot to civil fociety, and a defamer of mankind. I love to confider an Infidel, whether diftinguished by the title of Deift, Atheist, or Free-thinker, in three dif ferent lights, in his folitudes, his afflictions, and his laft moments.. A wife man that lives up to the principles of reafon and virtue, if one confiders him in his folitude, as in taking in the fyftem of the univerfe, obferving the mutual dependence and harmony, by which the whole frame of it hangs together, beating down his paffions, or fwelling his thoughts with magnificent ideas of Providence, makes a nobler figure in the eye of an intelligent Being, than the greateft conqueror amidst all the pomps and folemnities of a triumph. On the contrary, there is not a more ridiculous animal than an Atheist in his retirement. His mind is incapable of rapture or elevation: He can only confider himself as an infignificant figure in a landskip, and wandering up and down: in a field or a meadow, under the fame terms as the: meanest animals about him, and as fubject to as total a mortality as they, with this aggravation, that he is the: only one amongst them, who lies under the apprehenfion of it. In diftreffes, he must be of all creatures the most help lefs and forlorn; he feels the whole preffure of a prefent: calamity, without being relieved by the memory of any thing that is paft, or the profpect of any thing that is to come. Annihilation is the greateft bleffing that he proposes to himself, and an halter or a piftol the only refuge he can fly to. But if you would behold one of those gloomy mifcreants in his pooreft figure, you must confider him under the terrors, or at the approach of death.. About thirty years ago I was a fhipboard with one of thefe vermin, when there arose a brifk gale, which could fighten no body but himself. Upon the rolling of the: fhip he fell upon his knees, and confeffed to the Chap-lain, that he had been a vile Atheist, and had denied a fupreme Being ever fince he came to his eftate. The good man was aftonished, and a report immediately ran through the fhip, that there was an Atheist upon the: upper-deck. Several of the common feamen, who hadi never heard the word before, thought it had been some: ftrange fish; but they were more furprized when they! faw it was a man, and heard out of his own mouth, that he never believed until that day that there was a God.. As he lay in the agonies of confeffion, one of the honeft: Tars whifpered to the boatfwain, that it would be a good deed to heave him overboard. But we were now within fight of port, when of a fudden the wind fell and! the penitent relapfed, begging all of us that were pre-fent, as we were Gentlemen, not to fay any thing off what had paffed. He had not been afhore above two days, when one of the company began to rally him upon his devotion on fhipboard, which the other denied in fo high terms, that it produced the lie on both fides, and ended in a duel.. The Atheist was run through the body, and after fome: P 5 lofss lofs of blood, became as good a Chriftian as he was at fea, until he found that his wound was not mortal. He is at prefent one of the Free-thinkers of the age, and now writing a pamphlet against several received opinions concerning the existence of Fairies. As I have taken upon me to cenfure the faults of the age and country which I live in, I fhould have thought myfelf inexcufable to have paffed over this crying one, which is the fubject of my prefent difcourfe. I fhall therefore from time to time give my countrymen particular cautions against this diftemper of the mind, that is almoft become fashionable, and by that means more likely to fpread. I have fomewhere either read or heard a very memorable fentence, that a man would be a moft infupportable monfter, fhould he have the faults that are incident to his years, conftitution, profeffion, family, religion, age, and country; and yet every man is in danger of them all. For this reafon, as I am an old man, I take particular care to avoid being covetous, and, telling long ftories: As I am choleric, I forbear not only fwearing, but all interjections of fretting, as Pugh!. or Pifh! and the like. As I am a lay-man, I refolve not to conceive an averfion for a wife and a good man, because his coat is of a different colour from mine. As I am defcended of the ancient family of the Bickerstaffs,. I never call a man of merit an Upstart. As a proteftant, I do not fuffer my zeal fo far to tranfport me, as to name the Pope and the Devil together. As I am fallen into this degenerate age, I guard myself particularly against the folly I have been now speaking of. And as I am an Englishman, I am very cautious not to hate a ftranger, or defpife a poor Palatine. Thefday, |