phiz. Hence it is that the intrinsic worth and merit of a son of Alma Mater is ordinarily calculated from the cast of his visage, the contour of his person, the mechanism of his dress, the disposition of his limbs, the manner of his gait and air, with a number of circumstances of equal consequence and information. The practitioners in this art often make use of a gentleman's eyes to give them light into the posture of his brains; take a handle from his nose to judge of the size of his intellects; and interpret the overmuch visibility and pertness of one ear as an infallible mark of reprobation, and a sign the owner of so saucy a member fears neither God nor man. In conformity to this scheme, a contracted brow, a lumpish downcast look, a sober sedate pace, with both hands dangling quiet and steady in lines exactly parallel to each lateral pocket of his galligaskins, is logic, metaphysics, and mathematics, in perfection. So likewise the belles lettres are typified by a saunter in the gait, a fall of one wing of the peruke backward, an insertion of one hand in the fob, and a negligent swing of the other, with a pinch of right fine Barcelona between finger and thumb, a due quantity of the same upon the upper lip, and a noddle-case loaden with pulvil. Again, a grave solemn stalking pace is heroic poetry, and politics; an unequal one, a genius for the ode, and the modern ballad; and an open breast, with an audacious display of the Holland shirt, is construed a fatal tendency to the art military. I might be much larger upon these hints, but I know whom I write to. If you can graft any speculation upon them, or turn them to the advantage of the persons concerned in them, you will do a work very becoming the British Spectator, and oblige, Your very humble servant, TOM TWEER.' There are some living creatures which are raised just above dead matter. To mention only that species of shell-fish, which are formed in the fashion of a cone, that grow to the surface of several rocks, and immediately die upon their being severed from the place where they grow. There are many other creatures but one remove from these, which have no other sense but that of feeling and taste. Others have still an additional one of hearing; others of smell, and others of sight. It is wonderful to observe by what a gradual progress the world of life advances through a prodigious variety of species, before a creature is formed that is complete in all its senses; and even among these there is such a different degree of perfection in the senses which one animal enjoys beyond what appears in another, that, though the sense in different animals be distinguished by the same common denomination, it seems almost of a different nature. If after this we look into the several inward perfections of cunning and sagacity, or what we generally call instinct, we find them rising after the same manner imperceptibly one above another, and receiving additional improvements, according to the species in which they are implanted. This progress in nature is so very gradual, that the most perfect of an inferior species comes very near to the most imperfect of that which is immediately above it. The exuberant and overflowing goodness of the Supreme Being, whose mercy extends to all his works, is plainly seen, as I have before hinted from his having made so very little matter, at least what falls within our knowledge, that does not swarm with life. Nor is his goodness less seen in the diversity than in the multitude of living creatures. Had he only made one species of animals, none of the rest would have enjoyed the happiness of exist ence: he has, therefore, specified in his creation every degree of life, every capacity of being. The whole chasm in nature, from a plant to a man, is filled up with divers kinds of creatures, rising one over another, by such a gentle and easy ascent, that the little transitions and deviations from one species to another are almost insensible. This intermediate space is so well husbanded and managed, that there is scarce a degree of perception which does not appear in some one part of the world of life. Is the goodness or the widom of the Divine Being more manifested in this his proceeding? There is a consequence, besides those I have already mentioned, which seems very naturally deducible from the foregoing considerations. If the scale of being rises by such a regular progress so high as man, we may, by a parity of reason, suppose that it still proceeds gradually through those beings which are of a superior nature to him: since there is an infinitely greater space and room for different degrees of perfection between the Supreme Being and man, than between man and the most despicable insect. This consequence of so great a variety of beings which are superior to us, from that variety which is inferior to us, is made by Mr. Locke, in a passage which I shall here set down, after having premised, that notwithstanding there is such infinite room between man and his Maker for the creative power to exert itself in, it is impossible that it should ever be filled up, since there will be still an infinite gap or distance between the highest created being and the Power which produced him. 'That there should be more species of intelligent creatures above us, than there are of sensible and material below us, is probable to me from hence: that in all the visible corporeal world we see no chasms, or no gaps. All quite down from us the descent is by easy steps, and a continued series of things, that in each remove differ very little one from the other. There are fishes that have wings, and are not strangers to the airy region; and there are some birds that are inhabitants of the water, whose blood is as cold as fishes, and their flesh so like in taste, that the scrupulous are allowed them on fish days. There are animals so near of kin both to birds and beasts, that they are in the middle between both. Amphibious animals link the terrestrial and aquatic together. Seals live at land and at sea, and porpoises have the warm blood and the entrails of a hog; not to mention what is confidently reported of mermaids, or sea-men, there are some brutes that seem to have as much knowledge and reason as some part that are called men; and the animal and vegetable kingdoms are so nearly joined, that if you will take the lowest of one, and the highest of the other, there will scarce be perceived any great difference between them: and so on, until we come to the lowest and the most inorganical parts of matter, we shall find every where that the several species are linked together, and differ but in almost insensible degrees. And, when we consider the infinite power and wisdom of the Maker, we have reason to think that it is suitable to the magnificent harmony of the universe, and the great design and infinite goodness of the Architect, that the species of creatures should also by gentle degrees ascend upward from us toward his infinite perfection, as we see they gradually descend from us downward: which if it be probable, we have reason then to be persuaded that there are far more species of creatures above us than there are beneath; we being in degrees of perfection much more remote from the infinite being of God, than we are from the lowest state of being, and that which approaches nearest to nothing. And yet of all those distinct species we have no clear distinct ideas.' In this system of being, there is no creature so wonderful in its nature, and which so much deserves our particular attention, as man, who fills up the middle space between the animal and intellectual nature, the visible and invisible world, and is that link in the chain of beings which has been often termed the nexus utriusque mundi. So that he, who in one respect, being associated with angels and archangels, may look upon a Being of infinite perfection" as his father, and the highest order of spirits as his brethren, may in another respect say to corruption, Thou art my father; and to the worm, Thou art my mother and my sister.' 0. N° 520. MONDAY, OCT. 27, 1712. Quis desiderio sit pudor aut modus Tam chari capitis! HOR. 1 Od. xxiv. 1: And who can grieve too much? What time shall end 6 MR. SPECTATOR, CREECH. THE just value you have expressed for the matrimonial state is the reason that I now venture to write to you, without fear of being ridiculous; and confess to you that though it is three months since I lost a very agreeable woman, who was my wife, my sorrow is still fresh; and I am often, in the midst of company, upon any circumstance that revives her memory, with a reflexion VOL. XIV. D |