That joyful day they lost each hostile name,
The same their aspect, and their voice the same.

So two fair twins, whose features were design'd
At one soft moment in the mother's mind,
Show each the other with reflected grace,
And the same beauties bloom in either face;
The puzzled strangers which is which enquire;
Delusion grateful to the smiling fire.

From that fairhill, where hoary sages boast
To name the stars, and count the heav'nly host,
By the next dawn doth great Augusta rise,
Proud town! the noblest scene beneath the skies.
O'er Thames her thousand spires their lustre shed,
And a vast navy hides his ample bed,

A floating forest. From the distant strand
A line of golden cars strikes o'er the land:
Britannia's peers in pomp and rich array,
Before their king, triumphant, lead the way.
Far as the eye can reach, the gaudy train,
A bright procession, shines along the plain.

So haply through the heav'n's wide pathless ways A comet draws a long-extended blaze;

From East to West burns through th' ethereal frame, And half heav'n's convex glitters with the flame.

Now to the regal towers securely brought,
He plans Britannia's glories in his thought,
Resumes the delegated pow'r he gave,
Rewards the faithful, and restores the brave.
Whom shall the muse from out the shining throng
Select, to heighten and adorn her song?

Thee, Halifax. To thy capacious mind,
O man approv'd, is Britain's wealth consign'd.
Her coin (while Nassau fought) debas'd and rude,
By thee in beauty and in truth renew'd,
An arduous work! Again thy charge we see,
And thy own care once more returns to thee.
O! form'd in every scene to awe and please,
Mix wit with pomp, and dignity with ease:
Tho' call'd to shine aloft, thou wilt not scorn
To smile on arts thyself didst once adorn:

*Mr. Flamstead's house.

For this thy name succeeding time shall praise,
And envy less thy garter, than thy bays.

The muse, if fir'd with thy enliv'ning beams,
Perhaps shall aim at more exalted themes,
Record our monarch in a nobler strain,
And sing the op'ning wonders of his reign:
Bright Carolina's heav'nly beauties trace,
Her valiant consort, and his blooming race.
A train of kings their fruitful love supplies,
A glorious scene to Albion's ravish'd eyes:
Who sees by Brunswick's hand her sceptre sway'd,
And through his line from age to age convey'd.

No. DCXXI. WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 17.

.Postquam se lumine puro

Implevit, stellasque vagas miratur & astra
Fixa polis, vidit quanta sub nocte jaceret
Nostra dies, risitque sui ludibra............

Now to the blest abode, with wonder fill'd,
The sun and moving planets he beheld;
Then looking down on the sun's feeble ray,
Survey'd our dusky, faint imperfect day,
And under what a cloud of night we lay.

LUCAN.

ROWE:

THE following letter having in it some observations out of the common road, I shall make it the entertainment of this day.

Mr. Spectator,

THE common topics against the pride of man, which are laboured by florid and declamatory writers, are taken from the baseness of his original, the imperfections of his nature, or the short duration of

those goods in which he makes his boast. Though it be true that we can have nothing in us that ought to raise our vanity, yet the consciousness of our own merit may be sometimes laudable. The folly therefore lies here: we are apt to pride ourselves in worthless, or perhaps shameful things; and on the other hand, count that disgraceful which is our truest glory.

Hence it is, that the lovers of praise take wrong measures to attain it. Would a vain man consult his own heart, he would find, that if others knew his weaknesses as well as he himself doth, he could not have the impudence to expect the public esteem., Pride therefore flows from want of reflection, and ignorance of ourselves. Knowledge and humility come upon us together.

'The proper way to make an estimate of ourselves, is to consider seriously what it is we value or despise in others. A man who boasts of the goods of fortune, a gay dress, or a new title, is generally the mark of ridicule. We ought therefore not to admire in ourselves, what we are so ready to laugh at in other men.

6 Much less can we with reason pride ourselves in those things, which at some time of our life we shall certainly despise. 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 greater degrees of our knowledge and wisdom serve only to shew us our own imperfections.

As we rise from childhood to youth, we look with contempt on the toys and trifles which our hearts have hitherto been set upon. When we advance to manhood, we are held wise in proportion to our shame and regret for the rashness and extravagance of youth. Old age fills us with mortifying reflections upon a life misspent in the pursuit of anxious wealth or uncertain honour. Agreeable to this gradation of thought

in this life, it may be reasonably supposed, that in a future state, the wisdom, the experience, and the maxims of old age, will be looked upon by a separate spirit in much the same light as an ancient man now sees the little follies and toyings 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 strength, and ambition of rational beings from four years old to nine or ten.

If the notion of a gradual rise 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 same rule (if I may indulge my fancy in this particular) a superior brute looks with a kind of pride on one of an inferior species. If they could reflect, we might imagine, from the gestures of some of them, that they think themselves the sovereigns of the world, and that all things were made for them. Such a thought would not be more absurd in brute creatures, than one which men are apt to entertain, viz. that all the stars 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 speech for his hero the cock, which is a pretty instance for this purpose.

Then turning, said to Partlet, see, my dear,
How lavish nature hath adorn'd the year;
How the pale primrose and the violet spring,
And birds essay their throats, disus'd to sing:
All these are ours, and I with pleasure see
Man strutting on two legs, and aping me.

"What I would observe from the whole is this, that we ought to value ourselves upon those things only which superior beings think valuable, since that is the only way for us not to sink in our own esteem hereafter.'

No. DCXXII. FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 19.

..Fallentis semita vitæ.

............A safe private quiet, which betrays
Itself to ease, and cheats away the days.

Mr. Spectator,

HOR.

POOLY.

IN a former speculation you have observed, that true greatness doth not consist in that pomp and noise, wherein the generality of mankind are apt to place it. You have there taken notice, that virtue in obscurity often appears more illustrious in the eye of superior beings, than all that passes for grandeur and magnificence among men.

'When we look back upon the history of those who have borne the parts of kings, statesmen, or commanders, they appear to us stripped of those outside ornaments that dazzled their contemporarics; and we regard their persons as great or little, in proportion to the eminence of their virtues or vices. The wise sayings, generous sentiments, or disinterested conduct of a philosopher under mean circumstances of life, set him higher in our esteem than the mighty potentates of the earth, when we view them both through the long prospect of many ages. Were the memoirs of an obscure man, who lived up to the dig nity of his nature, and according to the rules of virtue, to be laid before us, we should find nothing in such a character which might not set him on a level with men of the highest stations. The following extract out of the private papers of an honest country gentleman will set this matter in a clear light. Your readers will perhaps conceive a greater idea of him from these actions done in secret, and without a witness, than of those which have drawn upon them the admiration of multitudes.