• but of a red fiery Colour, and seemed to be the Cause • of these violent Agitations. That, says my Instructor, • is the Heart of Tom. Dread-Nought, who behaved him• felf well in the late Wars, but as for these ten Years • last paft been aiming at some Post of Honour to no Purpose. He is lately retired into the Country, where, quite choaked up with Spleen and Choler, he rails • at better Men than himself, and will be for ever uneafy, because it is impossible he should think his Me• rit sufficiently rewarded. The next Heart that I ex• amined was remarkable for its Smallness; it lay still

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at the Bottom of the Phial, and I could harldly per⚫ceive that it beat at all. The Fomes was quite black, and had almost diffused it felf over the whole Heart. This, says my Interpreter, is the Heart of Dick Gloomy, • who never thirsted after any Thing but Money. Notwithstanding all his Endeavours, he is still poor. This has flung him into a most deplorable State of Melancholy and Despair. He is a composition of Envy and Idleness, hates Mankind, but gives them their • Revenge by being more uneasy to himself, than to any one elfe.

THE Phial I looked upon next contained a large fair Heart, which beat very strongly. The Fomes or Spot in it was exceeding small; but I could not help ' observing, that which way foever I turned the Phial • it always appeared uppermost, and in the strongest • Point of Light. The Heart you are examining, says

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my Companion, belongs to Will. Worthy. He has, • indeed, a most noble Soul, and is poffefsed of a thou• fand good Qualities. The Speck which you difcover 'is Vanity.

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HERE, fays the Angel is the Heart of Freelove, • your intimate Friend. Freelove and I, faid I, are at present very cold to one another, and I do not care • for looking on the Heart of a Man, which I fear is overcast with Rancour. My Teacher commanded me to look upon it; I did so, and, to my unspeak• able Surprize, found that a small swelling Spot, which • I at first took to be Ill-Will towards me, was only Paffion, andthat upon my nearer Inspection it wholly dif

disappeared; upon which the Phantome told me Free• love was one of the beft-natured Men alive.

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THIS, says my Teacher, is a Female Heart of your • Acquaintance. I found the Fomes in it of the largest Size, and of a 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 Sight to be very small, but was • amazed to find, that as I looked stedfastly upon it, it grew still larger. It was the Heart of Melissa, a noted Prude who lives the next Door to me.

• I show you this, fays the Phantome, because it is • indeed a Rarity, and you have the Happiness to know the Persons to whom it belongs. He then put into my Hands a large Chrystal Glass, that enclosed an • Heart, in which, though I examined it with the ut• moft Nicety, I could not perceive any Blemish. I • made no Scruple to affirm that it must be the Heart of Seraphina, and was glad, but not surprized, to find that it was fo. She is, indeed continued my Guide, the Ornament, as well as the Envy, of her Sex; at these last • Words, he pointed to the Hearts of several of her Fe• male Acquaintance which lay in different Phials, and had very large Spots in them, all of a deep Blue. You are not to wonder, says he, that you fee no Spot in an • Heart, whose Innocence has been Proof againft all the • Corruptions of a depraved Age. If it has any Ble• mish, it is too small to be discovered by human Eyes.

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• I laid it down, and took up the Hearts of other Fe• males, in all of which the Fomes ran in several Veins, • which were twifted together, and made a very per

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plexed Figure. I asked the Meaning of it, and was ⚫ told it reprefented Deceit.

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I should have been glad to have examined the Hearts • of several of my Acquaintance, whom I knew to be particularly addicted to Drinking, Gaming, Intreaguing, • &c. but my Interpreter told me I must let that alone till ⚫ another Opportunity, and flung down the Cover of the •Chest with so much Violence, as immediately awoke me. Wednesday,

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No.588. Wednesday, September 1.

Dicitis, Omnis in Imbecillitate eft et Gracia, et Caritas.. Cicero de Nat. Deor. L.

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AN may be confidered in two Views, as a reafonable, and as a fociable Being; capable of be

coming himself either happy or miferable, and of contributing to the Happiness or Misery of his Fellow Creatures. Suitably to this double Capacity, the Contriver of human Nature hath wisely furnished it with two Principles of Action, Self-love and Benevolence; defigned one of them to render Man wakeful to his own perTonal Interest, the other to dispose him for giving his utmost Assistance to all engaged in the same Pursuit. This is fuch an Account of our Frame, so agreeable to Reason, so much for the Honour of our Maker, and the Credit of our Species, that it may appear somewhat unaccountable what should induce Men to represent human Nature as they do under Characters of Disadvantage, or, having drawn it with a little and fordid Afpect, what Pleasure they can possibly take in such a Picture. Do they reflect that it is their own, and, if we will believe themselves, is not more odious than the Original? One of the first that talked in this lofty Strain of our Nature was Epicurus. Beneficence, would his Followers say, is all founded in Weakness; and, whatever he pretended, the Kindness that passeth between Men and Men is by every Man directed to himself. This, it must be confessed, is of a Piece with the rest of that hopeful Philosophy, which having patched Man up out of the four Elements, attributes his Being to Chance, and derives all his Actions from an unintelligible Declination of Atoms.

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Atoms. And for these glorious Discoveries the Poet is beyond Measure transported in the Praises of his Hero, as if he must needs be something more than Man, only for an endeavour to prove that Man is in nothing fuperior to Beasts. In this School was Mr. Hobbes instructed to speak after the fame Manner, if he did not rather draw his Knowledge from an Obfervation of his own Temper; for he somewhere unluckily lays down this as a Rule, That from the Similitudes of Thoughts and Paf• fions of one Man to the Thoughts and Paffions of an

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other, whosoever looks into himself and confiders ' what he doth when he thinks, hopes, fears, &c. and upon what Grounds, he shall hereby read and know • what are the Thoughts and Paffions of all other Men upon the like Occafion. Now we will allow Mr. Hobbes to know best how he was inclined; But in earnest, I should be heartily out of Conceit with myself, if I thought myself of this unamiable Temper, as heaffirms, and should have as little Kindness for myself as for any Body in the World. Hitherto I always imagined that kind and benevolent Propenfions were the Original Growth of the Heart of Man, and however checked and overtopped by counter Inclinations that have fince sprung up within us, have still fome force in the worst of Tempers, and a confiderable Influence on the best. And, methinks, it is a fair Step towards the Proof of this, that the most beneficial of all Beings is He who hath an abfolute Fulness of Perfection in Himself, who gave Existence to the Universe, and fo cannot be supposed to want that which He communicated, without diminishing from the Plentitude of his own Power and Happiness. The Philofophers before-mentioned have indeed done all that in them lay to invalidate this Argument; for placing the Gods in a State of the most elevated Blessedness, they describe them as selfish as we poor miferable Mortals can be, and shut them out from all Concern for Mankind, upon the Score of their having no Need of us. But if He that fitteth in the Heavens wants not us, we stand in continual Need of Him; and furely, next to the Survey of the immenfe Treasures of his own Mind, the moit xalted Pleasure He receives is from beholding Millions of Creatures

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Creatures, lately drawn out of the Gulph of Non-existence, rejoycing in the various Degrees of Being and Happiness imparted to them. And as this is the true, and glorious Character of the Deity, so in forming a reafonable Creature he would not, if possible, suffer his Image to pass out of his Hands unadorned with a Resemblance of Himself in this most lovely Part of his Nature. For what Complacency could a Mind, whose Love is as unbounded as his Knowledge, have in a Work so unlike Himself? a Creature that should be capable of knowing and converfing with a vast Circle of Objects, and love none but Himself? What Proportion would there be between the Head and the Heart of fuch a Creature, its Affections and its Understanding? Or could a Society of such Creatures, with no other Bottom but Self-Love on which to maintain a Commerce, ever flourish ? Reason, tis certain, would oblige every Man to pursue the general Happiness, as the Means to procure and establish his own; and yet if, befides this Confideration, there were not a natural Instinct, prompting Men to defire the Welfare and Satisfaction of others, Self-Love, in Defiance of the Admonitions of Reason, would quickly run all Things into a State of War and Confufion. As nearly interested as the Soul is in the Fate of the Body; our provident Creator faw it necessary by the constant Returns of Hunger and Thirst, those importunate Appetites, to put it in Mind of its Charge; knowing, that if we should eat and drink no oftner than cold abstracted Speculation should put us upon these Exercises, and then leave it to Reason to prescribe the Quantity, we should foon refine ourselves out of this bodily Life. And indeed, 'tis obvious to remark, that we follow nothing heartily, unless carried to it by inclinations which anticipate our Reafon, and like a Biafs, draw the Mind ftrongly towards it. In order, therefore to establish a perpetual Intercourse of Benefits amongst Mankind, their Maker would not fail to give them this generous Prepoffeffion of Benevolence, if, as I have faid, it were poffible. And from whence can we go about to argue its Impossibility? Is it inconsistent with Self-Love? Are their Motions contrary? No more than the diurnal Rotation of the Earth is opposed to its Annual;