Et neque jam color est misto candore rubori; OVID. Met. Lib. iii. There was a great change in the hill of money bags, and the heaps of money, the former shrinking, and falling into so many empty bags, that I now found not above a tenth part of them had been filled with money. The rest that took up the same 5 space, and made the same figure as the bags that were really filled with money, had been blown up with air, and called into my memory the bags full of wind, which Homer tells us his hero received as a present from Æolus. The great heaps of gold, 10 on either side the throne, now appeared to be only heaps of paper, or little piles of notched sticks, bound up together in bundles, like Bath faggots. Whilst I was lamenting this sudden desolation that had been made before me, the whole scene van- 15 ished in the room of the frightful spectres, there now entered a second dance of apparitions very agreeably matched together, and made up of very amiable phantoms. The first pair was Liberty with Monarchy at her right hand: the second was Mod- 20 eration leading in Religion; and the third a person whom I had never seen, with the genius of Great Britain. At the first entrance 2 the lady revived, the bags swelled to their former bulk, the piles of faggots and heaps of paper changed into pyramids of 25 guineas and for my own part I was so transported with joy, that I awaked, though I must confess, I would fain have fallen asleep again to have closed my vision, if I could have done it. 2 1711, at their first entrance. No. 7. THURSDAY, MARCH 8. [1711.] Somnia, terrores magicos, miracula, sagas, Nocturnos lemures, portentaque Thessala rides ?-HOR. 66 GOING yesterday to dine with an old acquaintance, I had the misfortune to find his whole family very much dejected. Upon asking him the occasion of it, he told me that his wife had dreamt a 5 strange dream 1 the night before, which they were afraid portended some misfortune to themselves or to their children. At her coming into the room I observed a settled melancholy in her countenance, which I should have been troubled for, had I not 10 heard from whence it proceeded. We were no sooner sat down but after having looked upon me a little while, "My dear," (says she, turning to her husband) you may now see the stranger that was in the candle last night." Soon after this, as they 15 began to talk of family affairs, a little boy at the lower end of the table told her, that he was to go into join-hand on Thursday. "Thursday?" (says she,) "No, child, if it please God, you shall not begin upon Childermas-day: tell your writing-mas20 ter that Friday will be soon enough." I was reflecting with myself on the oddness of her fancy, and wondering that anybody would establish it as a rule to lose a day in every week. In the midst of these my musings, she desired me to reach her a little salt 25 upon the point of my knife, which I did in such a trepidation and hurry of obedience, that I let it drop by the way; at which she immediately startled, and 1 1711, a very strange dream. said it fell towards her. Upon this I looked very blank; and, observing the concern of the whole table, began to consider myself, with some confusion, as a person that had brought a disaster upon the family. The lady however recovering herself, after 5 a little space, said to her husband, with a sigh, "My dear, misfortunes never come single." My friend, I found, acted but an under part at his table, and being a man of more good-nature than understanding, thinks himself obliged to fall in with 10 all the passions and humours of his yoke-fellow. "Do not you remember, child," (says she,) "that the pigeon-house fell the very afternoon that our careless wench spilt the salt upon the table?" "Yes," (says he,) "my dear, and the next post 15 brought us an account of the battle of Almanza." The reader may guess at the figure I made, after having done all this mischief. I dispatched my dinner as soon as I could, with my usual taciturnity; when, to my utter confusion, the lady seeing 20 me quitting my knife and fork, and laying them across one another upon my plate, desired me that I would humour her so far as to take them out of that figure, and place them side by side. What the absurdity was which I had committed I did not 25 know, but I suppose there was some traditionary superstition in it; and therefore, in obedience to the lady of the house, I disposed of my knife and fork in two parallel lines, which is the figure I shall always lay them in for the future, though I do not 30 know any reason for it. 2 It is not difficult for a man to see that a person 2 1711, cleaning my knife and fork. has conceived an aversion to him. For my own part, I quickly found, by the lady's looks, that she regarded me as a very odd kind of fellow, with an unfortunate aspect. For which reason I took my 5 leave immediately after dinner, and withdrew to my own lodgings. Upon my return home, I fell into a profound contemplation 3 of the evils that attend these superstitious follies of mankind; how they subject us to imaginary afflictions, and additional Io sorrows, that do not properly come within our lot. As if the natural calamities of life were not sufficient for it, we turn the most indifferent circumstances into misfortunes, and suffer as much from trifling accidents, as from real evils. I have known 15 the shooting of a star spoil a night's rest; and have seen a man in love grow pale and lose his appetite, upon the plucking of a merry-thought. A screechowl at midnight has alarmed a family more than a band of robbers; nay, the voice of a cricket hath 20 struck more terror than the roaring of a lion. There is nothing so inconsiderable, which may not appear dreadful to an imagination that is filled with. omens and prognostics. A rusty nail, or a crooked pin, shoot up into prodigies. 25 I remember I was once in a mixed assembly, that was full of noise and mirth, when on a sudden an old woman unluckily observed there were thirteen of us in company. This remark struck a panic terror into several who were present,5 insomuch that 30 one or two of the ladies were going to leave the room; but a friend of mine taking notice that one of our female companions was big with child, affirmed there were fourteen in the room, and that, instead of portending one of the company should die, it plainly foretold one of them should be born. Had not my friend found this expedient to break the 5 omen, I question not but half the women in the company would have fallen sick that very night. An old maid, that is troubled with the vapours, produces infinite disturbances of this kind among her friends and neighbours. I know a maiden aunt 10 of a great family, who is one of these antiquated Sibyls, that forebodes and prophecies from one end of the year to the other. She is always seeing apparitions, and hearing death-watches; and was the other day almost frighted out of her wits by 15 the great house-dog, that howled in the stable at a time when she lay ill of the tooth-ache. Such an extravagant cast of mind engages multitudes of people, not only in impertinent terrors, but in supernumerary duties of life; and arises from that fear 20 and ignorance which are natural to the soul of man. The horror with which we entertain the thoughts of death (or indeed of any future evil) and the uncertainty of its approach, fill a melancholy mind with innumerable apprehensions and suspicions, and consequently dispose it to the observation of such groundless prodigies and predictions. For as it is the chief concern of wise men to retrench the evils of life by the reasonings of philosophy; it is the employment of fools to multiply them by the senti- 30 ments of superstition. For my own part, I should be very much troubled were I endowed with this divining quality, 25 |