received the laft Year, which I always register in a Book, I find the Medium to be Two hundred Weight, fo that I cannot discover that I am impaired one Ounce in my Health during a whole Twelvemonth. And yet, Sir, notwithstanding this my great Care to • ballaft myself equally every Day, and to keep my Body in its proper Poife, fo it is that I find myself in a fick and languishing Condition. My Complexion is grown very fallow, my Pulfe low, and my Body Hy. dropical. Let me therefore beg you, Sir, to confider me as your Patient, and to give me more certain Rules to walk by than those I have already observed, ' and you will very much oblige

6

Your humble Servant.

THIS Letter puts me in mind of an Italian Epitaph written on the Monument of a Valetudinarian; Stavo ben, ma per ftar Meglio fto qui: Which it is impoffible to tranflate. The Fear of Death often proves Mortal, and fets People on Methods to fave their Lives, which infallibly destroy them. This is a Reflexion made by fome Hiftorians, upon obferving that there are many more thousands killed in a Flight than in a Battle; and may be applied to thofe Multitudes of imaginary Sick Perfons that break their Constitutions by Phyfick, and throw themselves into the Arms of Death, by endeavouring to escape it. This Method is not only dangerous but below the Practice of a Reasonable Creature. To confult the Prefervation of Life, as the only End of it, To make our Health our Bufinefs, To engage in no Action that is not part of a Regimen, or Course of Phyfick; are Purposes fo abject, fo mean, fo unworthy human Nature, that a generous Soul would rather die than submit to them. Befides, that a continual Anxiety for Life vitiates all the Relishes of it, and cafts a Gloom over the whole Face of Nature; as it is impoffible we fhould take Delight in any thing that we are every Moment afraid of lofing.

; I do not mean, by what I have here faid, that I think any one to blame for taking due Care of their Health. On the contrary, as Chearfulness of Mind, and Capacity for Bufinefs, are in a great measure the Effects of a

well

well-temper'd Conftitution, a Man cannot be at too much Pains to cultivate and preferve it. But this Care, which we are prompted to, not only by common Sense, but by Duty and Inftinet, fhould never engage us in groundless Fears, melancholy Apprehenfions, and imaginary Distempers, which are natural to every Man who is more anxious to Live than How to live. In fhort, the Preservation of Life should be only a fecondary Concern, and the Direction of it our Principal. If we have this Frame of Mind, we fhall take the best Means to preferve Life, without being over-folicitous about the Event; and shall arrive at that Point of Felicity which Martial has mentioned as the Perfection of Happiness, of neither fearing nor wishing for Death.

IN answer to the Gentleman, who tempers his Health by Ounces and by Scruples, and, inftead of complying with thofe natural Solicitations of Hunger and Thirst, Drowfinefs or Love of Exercife, governs himself by the Prescriptions of his Chair, I fhall tell him a fhort Fable. Jupiter, fays the Mythologift, to reward the Piety of a certain Countryman, promifed to give him whatever he would ask: The Countryman defired that he might have the Management of the Weather in his own Estate: He obtained his Request, and immediately diftributed Rain, Snow, and Sunshine among his feveral Fields, as he thought the Nature of the Soil required. At the end of the Year, when he expected to fee a more than ordinary Crop, his Harvest fell infinitely short of that of his Neighbours: Upon which (fays the Fable) he defired Jupiter to take the Weather again into his own Hands, or that otherwife he should utterly ruin himself.

C

OPCOCHEADSDSD

N° 26. Friday, March 30.

Pallida mors æquo pulfat pede pauperum tabernas
Regumque turres, O beate Sexti.

Vita fumma brevis fpem nos vetat inchoare longam,
Fam te premet nox, fabulæque manes,

Et domus exilis Plutonia

Hor. Od. 4. 1. 1. V. 13.

With equal Foot, rich Friend, impartial Fate
Knicks at the Cottage, and the Palace Gate:
Life's Span forbids thee to extend thy Cares,
And fretch thy Hopes beyond thy Years:
Night foon will feize, and you must quickly go
To ftory'd Ghofts, and Pluto's Houfe below.

W

CREECH.

HEN I am in a ferious Humour, I very often walk by myself in Westminster-Abbey; where the Gloominefs of the Place, and the Ufe to which it is applied, with the Solemnity of the Building, and the Condition of the People who lie in it, are apt to fill the Mind with a kind of Melancholy, or rather Thoughtfulness, that is not disagreeable. I Yesterday paffed a whole Afternoon in the Church-yard, the Cloifters, and the Church, amufing myself with the Tomb-ftones and Infcriptions that I met with in thofe feveral Regions of the Dead. Most of them recorded nothing elfe of the buried Perfon, but that he was born upon one Day and died upon another: The whole Hiftory of his Life being comprehended in those two Circumftances, that are common to all Mankind. I could not but look upon thefe Regifters of Exiftence, whether of Brass or Marble, as a kind of Satire upon the departed Perfons; who had left no other Memorial of them, but that they were born and that they died. They put me in mind of several Perfons men

tioned

tioned in the Battles of Heroic Poems, who have founding Names given them, for no other Reafon but that they may be killed, and are celebrated for nothing but being knocked on the Head..

Γλαύκον τε Μεδόν]α τε Θερσιλοχόν τε. Hom.
Glaucumque, Medontaque, Therfilochumque. Virg.

Glaucus, and Medon, and Therfilochus.

The Life of these Men is finely described in Holy Writ by the Path of an Arrow, which is immediately closed up and loft.

UPON my going into the Church, I entertained myself with the digging of a Grave; and faw in every Shovel-full of it that was thrown up, the Fragment of a Bone or Skull intermixt with a kind of fresh mouldering Earth that fome time or other had a Place in the Compofition of an human Body. Upon this I began to confider with myself what innumerable Multitudes of People lay confused together under the Pavement of that ancient Cathedral; how Men and Women, Friends and Enemies, Priests and Soldiers, Monks and Prebendaries, were crumbled amongst one another, and blended together in the fame common Mafs; how Beauty, Strength, and Youth, with Old-age, Weakness, and Deformity, lay undistinguished in the fame promifcuous Heap of Matter.

AFTER having thus furveyed this great Magazine of Mortality, as it were in the Lump; I examined it more particularly by the Accounts which I found on feveral of the Monuments which are raised in every Quarter of that ancient Fabrick. Some of them were covered with fuch extravagant Epitaphs, that if it were poffible for the dead Perfon to be acquainted with them, he would blush at the Praises which his Friends have bestowed upon him. There are others fo exceflively Modeft, that they deliver the Character of the Perfon departed in Greek or Hebrew, and by that means are .not understood once in a Twelvemonth. In the Poetical Quarter, I found there were Poets who had no Monuments, and Monuments which had no Poets. I obferved

obferved indeed that the prefent War had filled the Church with many of thefe uninhabited Monuments, which had been erected to the Memory of Perfons whofe Bodies were perhaps buried in the Plains of Blenheim, or in the Bofom of the Ocean.

I could not but be very much delighted with several modern Epitaphs, which are written with great Elegance of Expreffion and Juftnefs of Thought, and therefore do Honour to the Living as well as to the Dead. As a Foreigner is very apt to conceive an Idea of the Ignorance or Politeness of a Nation from the Turn of their publick Monuments and Infcriptions, they fhould be fubmitted to the Perufal of Men of Learning and Genius before they are put in Execution. Sir Cloudesley Shovel's Monument has very often given me great Offence: Inftead of the brave rough English Admiral, which was the distinguishing Character of that plain gallant Man, he is reprefented on his Tomb by the Figure of a Beau, dressed in a long Periwig, and repofing himself upon Velvet Cushions under a Canopy of State. The Infcription is anfwerable to the Monument; for inftead of celebrating the many remarkable Actions he had performed in the Service of his Country, it acquaints us only with the Manner of his Death, in which it was impoffible for him to reap any Honour. The Dutch, whom we are apt to defpife for want of Genius, fhew an infinitely greater tafte of Antiquity and Politenefs in their Buildings and Works of this Nature, than what we meet with in thofe of our own Country. The Monuments of their Admirals, which have been erected at the publick Expence, reprefent them like themfelves; and are adorned with roftral Crowns and naval Ornaments, with beautiful Feftoons of Sea-weed, Shells, and Coral.

BUT to return to our Subject. I have left the Repofitory of our English Kings for the Contemplation of another Day, when I fhall find my Mind difpofed for fo, ferious an Amufement. I know that Entertainments of this Nature are apt to raise dark and difmal Thoughts in timorous Minds, and gloomy Imaginations;