"Mem. Having waited a whole week for an answer to this letter, I hurried to town, where I found the perfidious creature married to my rival. I will bear it as becomes a man, and endeavour to find out happiness for myself in that retirement which I had prepared in vain for a false, ungrateful woman.”

'I am, &c.'.

No. 628. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 3, 1714.

Labitur et labetur in omne volubilis ævum.

HOR. 1 Ep. ii, 43. It rolls, and rolls, and will for ever roll.

6 MR. SPECTATOR,

• THERE are none of your speculations which please me more than those upon infinitude and eternity. You have already considered that part of eternity which is past, and I wish you would give us your thoughts upon that which is

to come.

'Your readers will perhaps receive greater pleasure from this view of eternity than the former, since we have every one of us a concern in that which is to come: whereas a speculation on that which is past is rather curious than useful.

'Besides, we can easily conceive it possible for successive duration never to have an end; though, as you have justly observed, that eternity which never had a beginning is altogether incomprehensible; that is, we can conceive an eternal duration which may be, though we cannot an eternal duration which hath been; or, if I may

use the philosophical terms, we may apprehend a potential though not an actual eternity.

This notion of a future eternity, which is natural to the mind of man, is an unanswerable argument that he is a being designed for it; especially if we consider that he is capable of being virtuous or vicious here; that he hath faculties improveable to all eternity; and, by a proper or wrong employment of them, may be happy or miserable throughout that infinite duration. Our idea indeed of this eternity is not of an adequate or fixed nature, but is perpetually growing and enlarging itself toward the object, which is too big for human comprehension. As we are now in the beginnings of existence, so shall we always appear to ourselves as if we were for ever entering upon it. After a million or two of centuries, some considerable things, already past, may slip out of our memory, which, if it be not strengthened in a wonderful manner, may possibly forget that ever there was a sun or planets; and yet, notwithstanding the long race that we shall then have run, we shall still imagine ourselves just starting from the goal, and find no proportion between that space which we know had a beginning, and what we are sure will never have an end.

But I shall leave this subject to your management, and question not but you will throw it into such lights as shall at once improve and entertain your reader.

'I have, enclosed, sent you a translation* of the speech of Cato on this occasion, which hath accidentally fallen into my hands, and which, for conciseness, purity, and elegance of phrase, cannot be sufficiently admired.

* This translation was by Mr. afterwards Dr. Bland, once schoolmaster, then provost of Eton, and dean of Durham.

VOL. X.

Z

ACT. V. SCEN. I.

CATO solus, &c.

Sic, sic se habere rem necesse prorsus est,
Ratione vincis, do lubens manus, Plato.
Quid enim dedisset, quæ dedit frustra nihil,
Eternitatis insitam cupidinem
Natura? Quorsum hæc dulcis expectatio;
Vitaque non explenda melioris sitis?

Quid vult sibi aliud iste redeundi in nihil
Horror, sub imis quemque agens præcordiis?
Cur territa in se refugit anima, cur tremit
Attonita, quoties, morte ne pereat, timet?
Particula nempe est cuique nascenti indita
Divinior; que corpus incolens agit;
Hominique succinit, tua est æternitas.
Eternitas! O lubricum nimis aspici,
Mixtumque dulci gaudium formidine!

Qua demigrubitur alia hinc in corpora?
Que terra mox incognita? Quis orbis novus
Manet incolendus? Quanta erit mutatio ?
Hæc intuenti spatia mihi quaqua patent
Immensa: sed caliginosa nox premit
Nec luce clará vult videri singula.
Figendus hic pes; certa sunt hæc hactenus
Si quod gubernet numen humanum genus,
CAt, quod gubernet, esse clamant omnia)
Virtute non gaudere certè non potest :
Nec esse non beata, quâ gaudet, potest.
Sed quâ beata sede? Quove in tempore?
Hæc quanta quanta terra, tota est Cæsaris.
Quid dubius hæret animus usque adeo? Brevi
Hic nodum hic omnem expediet. Arma en induor,
[Ensi manum admovens.
In utramque partem facta; quæque vim inferant,
Et que propulsent! Dextera intentat necem;
Vitam sinistra: vulnus hæc dabit manus ;
Altera medelam vulneris: hic ad exitum
Deducet, ictu simplici; hæc vetant mori.
Secura ridet anima mucronis minas,
Ensesque strictos, interire nescia.
Extinguet atas sidera diuturnior :
Etate languens ipse sol obscurus
Emittet orbi consenescenti jubar :
Natura et ipsa sentiet quondam vices
Etatis; annis ipsa deficiat gravis »

At tibi juventus, at tibi immortalitas :
Tibi parta divûm est vita. Periment mutuis
Elementa sese et interibunt ictibus.
Tu permanebis sola semper integra,
Tu cuncta rerum quassa, cuncta naufraga,
Jam portu in ipso tuta, contemplabere.
Compage ruptâ, corcuent in se invicem,
Orbesque fractis ingereatur orbibus;
Illesa tu sedebis entra fragmina'

ACT V. SCENE I.

CATO alone, &c.

· It must be so- -Plato, thou reason'st, wellElse whence this pleasing hope, this fond desire, This longing after immortality?

Or whence this secret dread, and inward horror,
Of falling into nought? Why shrinks the soul
Back on herself, and startles at destruction?
"Tis the divinity that stirs within us;

"Tis Heaven itself that points out an hereafter,
And intimates eternity to man.

Eternity! thou pleasing dreadful thought!

C

Through what variety of untry'd being, Thro' what new scenes and changes must we pass ? The wide, th' unbounded prospect lies before me; But shadows, clouds, and darkness, rest upon it. Here will I hold. If there's a Power above us, (And that there is all Nature cries aloud Through all her works,) he must delight in virtue; And that which he delights in must be happy: But when, or where?This world was made for Cæsar, I'm weary of conjectures-This must end them. [Laying his hand on his sword.

"Thus am I doubly armed; my death and life,
My bane and antidote, are both before me.
This in a moment brings me to an end;
But this informs me I shall never die.
The soul, secur'd in her existence, smiles
At the drawn dagger, and defies its point.
The stars shall fade away, the sun himself
Grow dim with age, and nature sink in years;
But thou shalt flourish in immortal youth,
Unhurt amidst the war of elements,

The wreck of matter, and the crush of worlds."

No. 629. MONDAY, DECEMBER 6, 1714.

Experiar quid consedatur in illos,

Quorum Flaminia tegitur cinis, atque Latina.
Juv. Sat. i. 170.

-Since none the living dare implead
Arraign them in the persons of the dead.

DRYDEN.

NEXT to the people who want a place, there are none to be pitied more than those who are solicited for one. A plain answer with a denial in it is looked upon as pride, and a civil answer as a promise.

Nothing is more ridiculous than the pretensions of people upon these occasions. Every thing a man hath suffered, whilst his enemies were in play, was certainly brought about by the malice of the opposite party. A bad cause would not have been lost, if such an one had not been upon the bench: nor a profligate youth disinherited, if he had not got drunk every night by toasting an outed ministry. I remember a tory, who, having been fined in a court of justice for a prank that deserved the pillory, desired upon the merit of it to be made a justice of the peace when his friends came into power; and shall never forget a whig criminal, who, upon being indicted for a rape, told his friends, 'You see what a man suffers for sticking to his principles.'

The truth of it is, the sufferings of a man in a party are of a very doubtful nature. When they are such as have promoted a good cause, and fallen upon a man undeservedly, they have a right to be heard and recompensed beyond any other pretensions. But when they rise out of rashness or in