Notwithstanding all his endeavours, he is ftill poor. This has flung him into a most deplorable state of melancholy and defpair. He is a compofition of envy and idleness; hates mankind, but gives them their revenge by being more uneasy to himself than to any ' one else.

6

The phial I looked upon next contained a large fair heart which beat very strongly. The fomes or fpot in it was exceeding fmall; but I could not help obferving, that which way foever I turned the phial it always 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 most noble soul, and is poffeffed of a thousand good qualities. The fpeck • which discover is vanity.

6

you

rancour.

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 overcast with My teacher commanded me to look upon it: I did fo; and, to my unspeakable furprife, found that a fmall fwelling fpot, which I at firft 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 beft-natured men alive.

This,' fays my teacher, is a female heart

⚫ of your acquaintance. I found the fomes in

4

• it

it of the largest size, and of an hundred different colours, which were ftill varying every moment. Upon my asking to whom it belonged, I was informed that it was the heart • of Coquetilla.

I fet 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 fteadfastly upon it, it grew ftill larger. It was the heart of Meliffa, a noted prude who lives next door to me.

I fhew 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 hand a hand a large crystal glafs, that enclosed 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 these last words he pointed to the hearts of several of her female acquaintance which lay in different phials, and had very large fpots 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. fmall to be discovered by • human eyes.'

6

I laid it down and took up the hearts of other females, in all of which the fomes ran in • feveral

feveral veins, which were twifted together, and made a very perplexed figure. I asked the meaning of it, and was told it represented

• deceit.

'I fhould 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 until another opportunity, and flung down 'the cover of the cheft with fo much violence as immediately awoke me.'

*By Mr. JOHN BYROM.

This "Vifion of Hearts," the "Differtation of the Beau's Head," SPECT. Vol. IV. No. 275, and of the "Coquette's Heart," Ibidem, No. 281, probably fuggefted to Alexander Stevens the first idea of his juftly celebrated "Lectures on Heads."

Mr. John Byrom, the ingenious author of this and the preceding Paper, &c. was born at Manchester in 1691. Having incurred the difpleasure of his nearest relations by an early marriage with a young lady who had little or no fortune, he fupported himself principally by teaching fhort hand in a very ingenious way, till, by the death of an elder brother without iflue, the family eftate of Kerfal came to him by inheritance. He was a Fellow of the Royal Society, and a great proficient in polite literature and fine taste. The general tenour of his life was innocent and inoffensive, at a great diftance from any reproachful vice. He died at Manchefter, September 26, 1763, An. Ætat. 72.

To all his productions the diftich of Ovid is juftly applicable Non ego mordaci diftrinxi carmine quenquam,

Nulla venenato eft litera mista joco.

See SPECT. No. 603, and Note.

This eighth volume, in Dr. Johnfon's opinion the best of the SPECTATOR, might ftill have been better, had Mr. Byrom's contributions to it been more numerous, and not inferior to the few fpecimens he has given of his abilities. See NICHOLS's "Select Collection of Poems," with Notes, &c. Vol. VII. p. 156, & feqq.

N°. 588.

1

N° 588. Wednesday, September 1, 1714.

Dicitis, omnis in imbecillitate eft & gratia, & caritas.

CICERO. You pretend that all kindness and benevolence is 6 founded in weakness.'

MA

AN may be confidered in two views, as a reasonable and as a focial being; capable of becoming himself either happy or miferable, and of contributing to the happiness or mifery of his fellow-creatures. Suitable 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 utmoft affiftance to all engaged in the fame purfuit. This is fuch an account of our frame, fo agreeable to reason, so 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 difadvantage; or, having drawn it with a little fordid afpect, what pleasure they can poffibly take in fuch a picture. Do they reflect that it is their own, and, if we would believe themfelves, is not more odious than the original? One of the first that talked in this lofty strain of

our

our nature was Epicurus. Beneficence, would his followers fay, is all founded in weaknefs; and, whatever he 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 men up out of the four elements, attributes his being to chance, and derives all his actions from an unintelligible declination of atoms. And for these glorious discoveries the poet is beyond measure tranfported in the praifes of his hero, as if he muft 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 speak 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 himfelf and confiders what he doth when he thinks, hopes, fears, &c. and upon what grounds, he fhall hereby read and know what are the thoughts and paffions of all other the like occafions.' Now we will

་

men upon

* This cenfure of Mr. Hobbes appears to be illiberal and unfounded. Many teftimonies, apparently unfufpicious, lead to the belief that he was a good and an amiable man, as well as poffeffed of fuperior understanding and uncommon perfpicacity and penetration. However exceptionable his writings may be, his life it feems was irreproachable.

allow