trate nor the tire-men themselves, could resolve, which of the various modes was the exact true one. Imagine now, what the effect of this must needs be; when men became persecuted thus on every side about their air and feature, and were put to their shifts how to adjust and compose their mien, according to the right mode; when a thousand models, a thousand patterns of dress were current, and altered every now and then, upon occasion, according to fashion and the humour of the times. Judge whether men's countenances were not like to grow constrained, and the natural visage of mankind, by this habit, distorted, convulsed, and rendered hardly knowable.

But as unnatural or artificial as the general face of things. may have been rendered by this unhappy care of dress, and over-tenderness for the safety of complexions; we must not therefore imagine that all faces are alike besmeared or plaistered. All is not fucus, or mere varnish. Nor is the face of Truth less fair and beautiful, for all the counterfeit vizards which have been put upon her. We must remember the carnival, and what the occasion has been of this wild concourse and medley; who were the institutors of it; and to what purpose men were thus set a-work and amused. We may laugh sufficiently at the original cheat; and, if pity will suffer us, may make ourselves diversion enough with the folly and madness of those who are thus caught, and practised on, by these impostures. But we must remember withal our Ethiopian, and beware, lest by taking plain nature for a vizard, we become more ridiculous than the people whom we ridicule.

BUT it is in vain for us to search the bulky mass of matter; seeking to know its nature; how great the whole itself, or even how small its parts.

If knowing only some of the rules of motion, we seek to trace it further, it is in vain we follow it into the bodies it has reached. Our tardy apprehensions fail us, and can reach nothing beyond the body itself, through which it is diffused. Wonderful being, (if we may call it so) which bodies never receive, except from others which lose it; nor ever lose, unless by imparting it to others. Even without change of place it has its force: and bodies big with motion labour to move, yet stir not; whilst they express an energy beyond our comprehension.

In vain too we pursue that phantom Time, too small, and yet too mighty for our grasp; when shrinking to a narrow point, it escapes our hold, or mocks our scanty thought by swelling to eternity an object unproportioned to our capacity, as is thy being, O thou ancient Cause! older than Time, yet young with fresh Eternity.

In vain we try to fathom the abyss of space, the seat of thy extensive being; of which no place is empty, no void which is not full.

In vain we labour to understand that principle of sense and thought, which seeming in us to depend so much on motion, yet differs so much from it, and from matter itself, as not to suffer us to conceive how thought can more result from this, than this arise from thought. But thought we own preeminent, and confess the reallest of beings; the only existence of which we are made sure of, by being conscious. All else may be only dream and shadow. All

which even sense

suggests may be deceitful. The sense itself remains still; reason subsists; and thought maintains its eldership of being. Thus are we in a manner conscious of that original and externally existent thought, whence we derive our own. And thus the assurance we have of the existence of beings above our sense, and of Thee (the great exemplar of thy works) comes from Thee, the all-true, and perfect, who hast thus communicated thyself more immediately to us, so as in some manner to inhabit within our souls; Thou who art original soul, diffusive, vital in all, inspiriting the whole!

All nature's wonders serve to excite and perfect this idea of their Author. It is here He suffers us to see, and even converse with Him, in a manner suitable to our frailty. How glorious is it to contemplate Him, in this noblest of His works apparent to us, the system of the bigger world!

XXVI.

SIR RICHARD STEELE.

1671-1729.

RICHARD STEELE was born in 1671 of English parents, in Dublin, where his father was secretary to the Duke of Ormond. He lost his father when he was very young, and was sent by the Duke of Ormond to the Charterhouse, where he was the schoolfellow of Addison. He was admitted a Post Master of Merton College, Oxford, in 1691, but left the University without taking a degree, and entered the army, enlisting as a private in the horse-guards. For this he was disinherited by a rich relation, but his convivial and popular qualities attracted the good-will of his officers, and he obtained a commission and rose to the rank of captain ere he quitted the service in 1703. He then obtained the appointment of Gazetteer. In 1713 he entered Parliament as Member for Stockbridge, but two years later was expelled from the House for alleged seditious libels, contained in the Englishman and the Crisis. On the accession of George the First he obtained some minor offices, received a gratuity and was knighted. In 1715 he again entered Parliament.

Some years before his death he was struck with paralysis, and retired to his country-seat in Wales, where he died in 1729.

Steele had considerable success both as a play-writer and as a pamphleteer, but he owes his chief reputation to his efforts as an essayist. The Tatler, which he commenced in 1709, was the beginning of a new era in periodical writing. It was followed in 1711 by the Spectator, in 1713 by the Guardian and by a succession of other journals of similar nature, among which were the Rambler

and the Idler. To his association with the great name of Addison, even more than to his own merits, Steele owes the reputation he has obtained in English literature. He possesses considerable dramatic and descriptive power; his style is ordinarily light and graceful, well fitted to the somewhat ephemeral subjects about which he commonly writes. But in his more serious moods, he is not without a certain unaffected tenderness, which has the powerful charm of sincerity.

1. Impudence and False Modesty.

If we would examine into the secret springs of action in the impudent and the absurd, we shall find, though they bear a great resemblance in their behaviour, that they move upon very different principles. The impudent are pressing, though they know they are disagreeable; the absurd are importunate, because they think they are acceptable. Impudence is a vice, and Absurdity a folly. Sir Francis Bacon talks very agreeably on the subject of Impudence. He takes notice, that the orator being asked, what was the first, second, and third requisite to make a fine speaker? still answered, Action. This, said he, is the very outward form of speaking; and yet it is what with the generality has more force than the most consummate abilities. Impudence is to the rest of mankind, of the same use which action is to orators.

The truth is, the gross of men are governed more by appearances than realities; and the impudent man in his air and behaviour undertakes for himself that he has ability and merit, while the modest or diffident gives himself up as one who is possessed of neither. For this reason, men of front carry things before them with little opposition; and make so skilful a use of their talent, that they can grow out