when they acted their respective parts among the living. Suppose, therefore, a gentleman, full of his illustrious family, should, in the same manner as Virgil makes Æneas look over his descendants, see the whole line of his progenitors pass in review before his eyes with how many varying passions would he behold shepherds and soldiers, statesmen and artificers, princes and beggars, walk in the procession of five thousand years! How would his heart sink or flutter at the several sports of fortune, in a scene so diversified with rags and purple, handicraft tools and scepters, ensigns of dignity and emblems of disgrace! And how would his fears and apprehensions, his transports and mortifications, succeed one another, as the line of his genealogy appeared bright or obscure!

"In most of the pedigrees hung up in old mansionhouses, you are sure to find the first in the catalogue a great statesman, or a soldier with an honorable commission. The honest artificer that begot him, and all his frugal ancestors before him, are torn off from the top of the register; and you are not left to imagine that the noble founder of the family ever had a father. Were we to trace many boasted lines further backward, we should lose them in a mob of tradesmen, or a crowd of rustics, without hope of seeing them emerge again; not unlike the old Appian way, which, after having run many miles in length, loses itself in a bog.

"I lately made a visit to an old country gentleman, who is very far gone in this sort of family madness. I found him in his study perusing an old register of his family, which he had just then discovered as it was branched out in the form of a tree, upon a skin of parchment. Having the honor to have some of his blood in my veins, he permitted me to cast my eye over the boughs of this venerable plant; and

asked my advice in the reforming of some of the superfluous branches.

"We passed slightly over three or four of our immediate forefathers, whom he knew by tradition, but were soon stopped by an alderman of London, who I perceived made my kinsman's heart go pit-a-pat. His confusion increased when he found the alderman's father to be a grazier; but he recovered his fright upon seeing justice of the quorum at the end. of his titles. Things went on pretty well as we threw our eyes frequently over the tree, when unfortunately he perceived a merchant-tailor perched on a bough, who was said greatly to have increased the estate; he was just going to cut him off if he had not seen gent. after the name of his son; who was recorded to have mortgaged one of the manors his honest father had purchased. A weaver, who was burnt for his religion in the reign of Queen Mary, was pruned away without mercy; as was likewise a yeoman who died of a fall from his own cart. But great was our triumph in one of the blood who was beheaded for high-treason; which, nevertheless, was not a little allayed by another of our ancestors who was hanged for stealing sheep. The expectations of my good cousin were wonderfully raised by a match into the family of a knight; but unfortunately for us this branch proved barren; on the other hand, Margery the milk-maid, being twined round a bough, it flourished out into so many shoots, and bent with so much fruit, that the old gentleman was quite out of countenance. To comfort me under this disgrace, he singled out a branch ten times more fruitful than the other, which he told me he valued more than any in the tree, and bade me be of good comfort. This enormous bough was a graft out of a Welsh heiress, with so many Aps upon it that it might have made a little grove by itself. From the trunk

of the pedigree, which was chiefly composed of laborers and shepherds, arose a huge sprout of farmers; this was branched out into yeomen, and ended in a sheriff of the county, who was knighted for his good service to the crown in bringing up an address. Several of the names that seemed to disparage the family, being looked upon as mistakes, were lopped off as rotten or withered; as, on the contrary, no small number appearing without any titles, my cousin, to supply the defects of the manuscript, added esq. at the end of each of them.

"This tree, so pruned, dressed, and cultivated, was, within a few days, transplanted into a large sheet of vellum, and placed in the great hall, where it attracts the veneration of his tenants every Sunday morning, while they wait until his worship is ready to go to church; wondering that a man who had so many fathers before him should not be made a knight; or at least a justice of the peace."

No. 615.]

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 1714.

-Qui Deorum

Muneribus sapienter uti,

Duramque callet pauperiem pati,
Pejusque letho flagitium timet;
Non ille pro caris amicis

Aut patria timidus perire.-HOR. 4 Od. ix, 47.

Who spend their treasure freely as 'twas giv'n
By the large bounty of indulgent Heav'n;
Who in a fix'd unalterable state

Smile at the doubtful tide of fate,

And scorn alike her friendship and her hate;
Who poison less than falsehood fear,
Loath to purchase life so dear;

But kindly for their friend embrace cold death,

And seal their country's love with their departing breath.

STEPNEY.

It must be owned that fear is a very powerful passion, since it is esteemed one of the greatest of vir

tues to subdue it. It being implanted in us for our preservation, it is no wonder that it sticks close to us as long as we have anything we are willing to preserve. But as life, and all its enjoyments, would be scarce worth the keeping if we were under a perpetual dread of losing them, it is the business of religion and philosophy to free us from all unnecessary anxieties, and direct our fear to its proper object.

If we consider the painfulness of this passion, and the violent effects it produces, we shall see how dangerous it is to give way to it upon slight occasions. Some have frightened themselves into madness, others have given up their lives to these apprehensions. The story of a man who grew gray in the space of one night's anxiety is very famous.

O! nox quam longa es, quæ facis una senem!

A tedious night indeed, that makes a young man old.

These apprehensions, if they proceed from a consciousness of guilt, are the sad warnings of reason; and may excite our pity, but admit of no remedy. When the hand of the Almighty is visibly lifted against the impious, the heart of mortal cannot withstand him. We have this passion sublimely represented in the punishment of the Egyptians, tormented with the plague of darkness, in the apocryphal book of Wisdom, ascribed to Solo

man

mon.

"For when unrighteous men thought to oppress the holy nation; they being shut up in their houses, the prisoners of darkness, and fettered with the bonds of a long night, lay there exiled from the eternal Providence. For while they supposed to lie hid in their secret sins, they were scattered under a dark

veil of forgetfulness, being horribly astonished and troubled with strange apparitions. For wickedness, condemned by her own witness, is very timorous, and, being oppressed with conscience, always forecasteth grievous things. For fear is nothing else but a betraying of the succors which reason offereth. For the whole world shined with clear light, and none were hindered in their labor. Over them only was spread a heavy night, an image of that darkness which should afterward receive them; but yet were they unto themselves more grievous than the darkness."

To fear so justly grounded no remedy can be proposed; but a man (who hath no great guilt hanging upon his mind, who walks in the plain path of justice and integrity, and yet, either by natural complexion, or confirmed prejudices, or neglect of serious reflection, suffers himself to be moved by this abject and unmanly passion) would do well to consider that there is nothing which deserves his fear, but that beneficent Being who is his friend, his protector, his father. Were this one thought strongly fixed in the mind. what calamity would be dreadful? What load can infamy lay upon us when we are sure of the approbation of him who will repay the disgrace of a moment with the glory of eternity? What sharpness is there in pain and diseases, when they only hasten us on to the pleasures that will never fade? What sting is in death, when we are assured that it is only the beginning of life? A man who lives so as not to fear to die, is inconsistent with himself if he delivers himself up to any incidental anxiety.

The intrepidity of a just good man is so nobly set forth by Horace, that it cannot be too often repeated:

* Wisd. xvii. passim.