Transcriber's note

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ADVENTURES
IN
THE MOON,
&c.

London:

Printed by A. Spottiswoode,
New-Street-Square.

ADVENTURES
IN
THE MOON,
AND
OTHER WORLDS.

LONDON:
PRINTED FOR
LONGMAN, REES, ORME, BROWN, GREEN, & LONGMAN,
PATERNOSTER-ROW.
1836.

[CONTENTS.]

[ A
JOURNEY TO THE MOON.]

Ove mirabilmente era ridutto
Ciò che si perde o per nostro difetto,
O per colpa di tempo o di fortna.
Ciò che si perde qui là si raguna.—Ariosto.

Je vous parle d'une des plus agréables foliès de l'Arioste, et je suis sûr que vous serez bien aise de la savoir.—Fontenelle.

Amongst inquisitive persons there has always been a wish to know something about the moon, its surface, its inhabitants, and their manners; and several philosophers, to satisfy this curiosity, have, with much sagacity, construed its spots into mountains, volcanoes, and other commodities which a world is supposed to want. But these travels must be considered very imperfect; for by visiting a country through a telescope, but little is to be known of its people, their manner of living, their literature, their arts, or opinions. Accordingly, while that was the only way of travelling, we knew little more of the moon than that there was one.

Amongst the other speculations on this subject, many ingenious men exercised themselves in guessing what service the moon has to discharge for the earth, since it was generally agreed impossible that our satellite should revolve round us merely for its own advantage, though it might perhaps in some measure be consulting its private ends; and it was most commonly supposed to be transacting our business and its own at the same time.

First, then, it was supposed that the moon had been ordained with its mountains, valleys, and volcanoes, that it might give us light in the absence of the sun; and this was declared a powerful argument for the bounty of Providence, which did not forget us even in the night, when all other beings are asleep. But it was objected, that according to this, reasoning Providence is bountiful only during a part of the month; and that any argument in favour of Providence ought to last through the whole year.

To pass over all these uncertainties, I must remind my readers that our moon was at length proved to be the receptacle of every thing lost upon earth. This truth was the discovery of a great philosopher, and has nothing in it of theory or conjecture, but was attained by experiment and the strictest rules of induction. The knowledge of this must very much increase the interest with which we look at the moon; since every person has some loss to lament, and may gaze upon that heavenly body with a certainty that it contains what has been dear to him.

I had often wished that we could procure admission into the moon, in order to regain what had once belonged to us, and had amused myself with imagining the eager search that would take place; but without having the least suspicion that this could ever be really effected, since the want of air, and other conveniencies, is sufficient to discourage most travellers; besides which, the having no ground to tread upon must increase the difficulty of the journey. It cannot, therefore, be wondered, that in former times only one journey to the moon was known to have been accomplished, which is that related by Ariosto. But nothing seems too difficult for modern science; and it is well known that, by a most ingenious invention, we have lately been enabled to walk up into our satellite with safety. As I, amongst others, have accomplished this journey, I shall give a short narrative of my adventures, for the amusement of those who have been deterred by the distance from travelling in person.

The nature of this invention is so well known, that I need give no description of the journey. I saw great numbers travelling on the same expedition; some being led by curiosity, but most by a hope of retrieving the several losses that they had met with during life. I inquired of many, what prizes they hoped to recover. Some decayed people were going up in search of the health which they had once enjoyed; a woman with a melancholy look told me she had undertaken this journey with the hope of recovering her husband's good humour, which he had totally lost, to her great discomfort. There was a lady who refused to tell the motive of her journey, but it was whispered that she went to look for her character. Many old people were going to regain their youth. There seemed a great uncertainty as to the success of all these projects; for, first, it might be very difficult to find the lost advantages, and if they were found, none knew whether they could be used a second time: all, however, had great hopes; and I saw two or three men, who appeared incurably old, and were nevertheless convinced that, as soon as they arrived in the moon, they should revoke their wrinkles, and find some contrivance for not having lived the last fifty years.

As I approached the moon, I enjoyed the splendour of the sight. Its mountains far surpass ours in size; and in the shape of the surface there is a greatness not to be found in the noblest parts of our earth. I landed in the moon upon a plain, where I found grass and trees, the particular nature of which I shall not describe, as this short narrative is not intended to include botany and natural history—subjects which I leave to those who travelled into our satellite for the express purpose of studying them. I wish that my forbearance in this instance may be imitated by some of the more confined travellers on this earth, who, in the description of a country, thinking that no circumstance or production must be omitted, are very apt to give information on subjects of which they are profoundly ignorant. A traveller, who, in his own country, has not skill to distinguish one herb from another, is a sudden botanist on the other side of the globe, lest the book he is writing should be incomplete. Many of them involve themselves in shells, minerals, and other intricacies, on which they would not hazard a conjecture at home. He who is silent on any subject, leaves his knowledge in doubt; whereas, if he speaks, there can no longer be a question. Upon many productions of the moon, therefore, I shall avoid the indiscretion of being learned.

When I landed there, my attention was first engaged by a singular change in my sensations, through an increase of strength and activity. I had known that this change must take place, and had expected some amusement by observing it in my fellow travellers. As the weight of a body depends not on its own mass alone, but also on the force of attraction in the globe where it is placed, and as this attraction is in proportion to the mass of the globe, a man who goes out of our earth into the moon, which is much smaller, finds a great diminution of his weight. Still his muscular strength remains the same, so that he gains a great advantage in vigour and activity, and at the same time has a sensation of lightness not to be described. Though prepared for this, I could not immediately accommodate myself to the change. There was a small ditch in my way, and thinking to step over it, I sprung as far as a deer could leap. Nor could I at first regulate the effort of my muscles in walking, but every step was a great bound; and until I had had some experience, I was not able to walk with any moderation.

While I was endeavouring to discipline my movements, I was amused by the astonishment of my fellow travellers, who knew not the cause of their own gambols, and were exhibiting great feats of activity when they intended to be perfectly sedate. A number of persons were seen bounding about like balls of Indian rubber. Some of them laughed, and others were terrified at their sudden want of substance. A large man, who in his own world had also been heavy, came bounding towards me with great consternation in his face: I seized him in one hand, raised him from the earth, and twirled him round my head with as much ease as a woman finds in tossing a young child; at which his terror and astonishment were redoubled. I endeavoured to make him understand why we were suddenly so active and so strong; but gravitation was a new study to him, for he had never had so frivolous a curiosity as to inquire the reason why he had always remained on the earth in preference to flying away from it, and accordingly I could not succeed in making his frolics intelligible. I perceived he did not believe me, when I told him, that before we reached the moon I had foreseen what gambols we should execute at our first arrival.

As I was determined to travel alone, I soon left my companions, endeavouring not to jump about. After a short practice in walking I attained a tolerable steadiness; and as my journey was to be on foot, I found great advantage in the reduction of my weight, for I soon was able to move along with wonderful speed, and scarcely ever was weary. The sense of lightness was so singular, that it was impossible to make others imagine what I felt. Not only had my whole body acquired a new ease in moving, but every limb had a strange alacrity, and I could not raise my hand without being surprised by its readiness. It seemed as if I had been newly released from fetters.

I found in myself another strange alteration, which I attributed to the same cause. I arrived in the moon early in the morning, and left it in the evening of the same day: this is a fortnight of our time; for as the moon turns only once on its axis during a revolution round the earth, it has only one day and night during our month. In this long day or fortnight I never slept, and felt not the slightest desire for sleep. I conclude that the relief from weight prevented the perpetual want of restoration which we here labour under.

Each country on our earth has a separate district in the moon, to which its lost things repair; and these territories are divided from each other by high and difficult mountains. Every thing which takes flight from the earth has a strange intelligence, which guides it to its own country in the moon. I had landed on the English domain, and now walked along in expectation of meeting with some of the lost advantages of my own world. My chief motive for this journey had been curiosity, accompanied perhaps by that desire which makes so many travellers,—the desire of having been where others have not. But besides these inducements, I had entertained a design of bringing back some of my past pleasures, if I should be able to find them, and if they were in a condition to bear removal. Amongst the things that I had to regret, was a considerable portion of time, which I had not used with all the frugality that I now could wish. I was, therefore, in hope that this commodity, though perhaps of no very great value, would appear to me in the moon, and that I might find means of carrying it back. But I was apprehensive that I might find it without knowing what it was; for I could not imagine how time would appear to the eye, nor by what art it could be laid by and preserved.

As I walked along, being now quite alone, I heard a voice near me, and turned towards it in the hope of being informed which way to betake myself in order to find some of the curiosities that I was in search of. When I reached the spot whence this voice proceeded, to my astonishment I saw not a human being near, though the talking continued close to me. I listened, and soon discovered that what I heard was the advice of a father to his son against gambling; and then I concluded that it had repaired to the moon as having been lost. In this admonition I recognised the voice of an old friend of mine, whose son had devoted himself with great energy to the gaming table. The aged voice spoke with much earnestness and wisdom, showing clearly the consequences of play to the fortune, the disposition, and the character. The lecture had arrived in the moon with the proper tone, the pauses, and the emphasis; so that I could distinguish every shake of the head, and every blow of the withered hand upon the table. The old gentleman omitted no efficacious topic; it seemed impossible to stop a bad practice more eloquently; and I wondered how this insurmountable advice could have failed. I listened to all its arguments, its infamy, distress, and ruin; but finding at the conclusion that it began again without respite, and proceeded in the same words as before, I walked out of hearing, sufficiently advised against play.

I may here mention, that before I left the moon I met with the very young man who had undergone this eloquence; the purpose of his journey being to search for the money that he had distributed in his vocation. I told him that I knew the place where he might find what had been lost by his indiscretion. He eagerly inquired where his treasure was kept, and I directed him to the spot whence this noble admonition proceeded.

"What!" said he; "is all that I have lost collected there?"

"Yes," I answered; "every argument, every word is preserved."

"Arguments, and words!" he exclaimed; "I am looking for money."

I then explained to him that the lost treasure, which I had found, was the advice of his father; and I urged him to repair to the spot, and be fortified against future losses. He was angry with me for disappointing him; said he did not think the advice likely to be more efficacious in the moon than it had been upon earth; besides which, his father was still alive, so that he could have advice fresh from his lips whenever he was in need of it, for the old man was so munificent as never to refuse him a supply in any difficulty.

"He is old now," said the son; "but the faculty of advising commonly remains in full vigour when all others have decayed."

This meeting with the advised son occurred, as I have said, at a later period of my travels. I was now in retreat from the father's lecture, and had just walked beyond its reach, when a confused noise came towards me, which at first I could by no means interpret, for a solemn declamatory tone, and a shrill railing voice, seemed to be united in it. As the sound approached me, I heard what I should have thought a sermon, had not some angry and profane expressions been inserted in it. As it went slowly along, I accompanied it, and by a little attention was able to understand this singular combination; for in the solemn part of the clamour I remembered the voice of a celebrated preacher, whom I had often listened to. It appeared that one of his sermons, not being the cause of much virtue on the earth, and accordingly discharged, had taken refuge in the moon, where, while it was floating about in the air, and preaching with great solemnity, it had unfortunately been entangled in the invective of a fish-woman, which no doubt had been lost by the fortitude of her antagonist. Thus these two pieces of eloquence, having by some means been involved in each other, continued with equal vehemence, and without the least chance of one being silenced by the other. I was scandalised to hear the solemn words interrupted by such abominable phrases, and waved my hat about the place in hope of separating the two harangues; but they were so confused together, that though I drove them about by disturbing the air, my efforts to disengage them were vain, and I was obliged to leave a fine moral discourse loaded with these vile execrations.

The divine and his associate the fish-woman were no sooner out of hearing than I walked into a long story, which was telling itself with great pomp and emphasis. I listened, and heard some passages, where I was sure that an explanatory finger had been stretched out. I could not, however, discover the purport of the narrative, which seemed to be wholly destitute of all the three particulars required by Aristotle,—a beginning, a middle, and an end; but it had this excellence, that it might have been undertaken at any period of it without disadvantage. I afterwards found that the tellers of long stories provide the moon with a great abundance of sound. I now heard other attempts at conversation, and amongst them many of the small enterprises which are called puns.

But now, from a different quarter, a sudden wind sprung up, which was encumbered with a great variety of sounds, and I was quite overwhelmed with the clamour. First it blew sermons for a short time, and doctrines of every sect flew past me. This hurricane of divinity was succeeded by speeches in parliament: I was entertained by a declamatory breeze on the grievances of Ireland; then came a zealous wind in defence of the Church of England, and afterwards a prolix gale on free trade. I was at first amused by the novelty of all this piety, anger, learning, and eloquence in the air; but when it was no longer new, I found the clamour intolerable; and it is certainly a discouragement to those who would visit the moon, that any breeze which rises may preach and declaim so immoderately.

I may here mention that all sounds from the earth are at first allotted to separate districts in the moon. There is the region of puns, that of speeches, of sermons, and of every other fruitless noise. To each kind of noise a valley is assigned; the surface of the moon being very much varied, and the valleys very deep. Each sound, upon its first arrival, repairs of its own accord to the valley which is its proper habitation; but when the wind is violent, and happens to blow through one of these valleys, it sweeps away many of the sounds, and scatters them over the moon. Thus the most unsuitable alliances are formed of the different sounds, and the precepts of religion are often enforced by oaths; for a violent gale having passed through the residence of sermons, and carried many discourses away with it, may blow them through the valley where the Billingsgate rhetoric is preserved, by which means an unusual energy is added to those pious compositions: and many other sounds equally averse to each other are in this manner united. But when the air becomes calm, each by degrees returns to its own habitation; and no doubt the sermon, which I had vainly endeavoured to set free from the scurrilous abuse annexed to it, would in time escape from its intemperate colleague by its own efforts, and go home to the other divines. The eloquent wind, in which I have said that I was involved, by degrees became less copious, and at last quite silent.

I now saw a young woman running towards me in pursuit of something which rolled along in the wind. As she approached, I perceived that it bore the figure of a heart; and the lady I knew to be one who had lately been very much dejected on account of a hopeless passion. She had come to the moon to recover her lost heart, and was just about to possess herself of it when the wind had snatched it away, and she pursued it with all the speed she could exert. I should explain, that things do not ascend into the moon in the same substantial form that they bear upon earth: this heart was a mere shadow or ghost, and so light as to be blown about by every breath of air. I placed myself in the way, and endeavoured to catch it; but it bounded past me, and the poor girl continued the chase.

Another young lady, who had once sung extremely well was come in search of her voice, which she had lost by an illness. She had heard it at a distance singing an Italian song with great taste, and hastened to the spot in hope that she might inhale it; but a wind springing up had swept it along singing as it flew, and in despair she heard her own sweet notes dying away in the distance.

I now saw a well-known English statesman, who had come here in search of his integrity, which he had lost in the service of his country. Without it he had found himself quite disabled in the pursuit of his designs, being no longer eloquent in parliament or dexterous in council.

Soon after this I met a very beautiful woman, but extremely pale, with whom I was acquainted. She told me that she was endeavouring to find her complexion, which she had lost very early in life, and never ceased to regret. Her countenance was so attractive that I could not forbear offering to assist her in the search, though I told her that I knew not where the lost complexions were kept; for being very lately arrived in the moon, I was not yet conversant with its geography. She said that no farther search was necessary, for she was convinced that she had discovered her complexion, though she had not been able to regain possession of it; but perhaps I by a little vigour might succeed. It had been seized, she said, and was now worn, by a young man, in whose face she had detected it; for she instantly recognised her own bloom though after a separation of some years; besides which, it evidently did not fit the face of the usurper. I inquired where the young man was to be found; and as the lady knew what road he had taken, we followed at our utmost speed and soon overtook him. He was a young man of effeminate appearance, and studied dress. It was plain at first sight that the beautiful bloom, which he wore, had no natural affinity with his features; for he had not been able to make it adhere to them with any exactness, but in several places it was separate from the skin. I observed him endeavouring by delicate touches to contrive a better alliance; but with all these inducements he could not detain it with any confidence, nor reconcile it to his cheeks, and he seemed every moment apprehensive lest it should drop.

I asked him very courteously, whether he was quite sure that he had his own complexion on. He answered "Yes," with some indignation; upon which I endeavoured to convince him of his mistake, representing that in some places there was a separation between his complexion and his skin, and that he would never bring them to unite in any security. But as he did not seem disposed to relinquish his prize, I approached him on pretence of examining his face more closely, and grasped him by the chin; when the disputed complexion slipped off with the greatest ease, and I presented it to the lady, who applied it to her face, where it instantly fitted itself on, and seemed to be quite at home. I could not forbear smiling at the sallow cheeks of the young man, who had been thus despoiled. He remonstrated very angrily against the violence done to his face, and persisted in claiming what he called his property. I desired him to observe that the complexion was so settled and established in the lady's face, as to make a removal impossible, which was a proof that he must have been mistaken when he believed it to be his. I told him I was convinced that his own complexion, when he had it, was of equal beauty with this; and no doubt, by a diligent search, might be found, being certainly in the moon, since by his cheeks he had evidently lost it. He was not to be satisfied; but still insisted, that even if this complexion had originally been produced in the lady's face, yet by coming to the moon it had been forfeited, and became the lawful prize of any person who could seize it. I remarked, that it was now useless to dispute against the lady's right to wear her complexion, since it was immoveably fixed; and therefore, if he were determined to wear no other bloom, his only expedient was to wait till it should again arrive in the moon, and endeavour to gain possession of it a second time. He turned away with great resentment; and the lady, being now perfectly beautiful, took leave of me with many acknowledgments of the service I had done her. I afterwards met this young man again with a fine florid bloom, to which I believe he had no right, for he turned away his head as he passed me.

After restoring this lady to her beauty, I walked on to seek new adventures, and had not proceeded far before I saw a large building, which I approached, and the doors being open I walked in. The building consisted of one vast room, the walls of which were covered with shelves, containing a vast multitude of small bottles with their corks tied down as if to confine some liquor that was ready to escape. In the room I found some persons, who gave me an explanation of what I saw.

These bottles contained the lost spirits of those, who for some melancholy reason, or without reason, had, from being cheerful, become unhappy. The bottles appeared to be filled, not with any liquor, but with a sort of vapour, which was constantly in very active motion. Each bottle had a label, inscribe with the name of the person from whom its contents had escaped, to which was added the misfortune that had caused this loss of cheerfulness.

I found a great amusement in walking round the shelves and reading these little narratives, by which I discovered the concealed sorrows of several of my acquaintance, who had become pensive without any apparent pretext, and exercised in vain the penetration of their friends. By far the greater number of these bottles were female. Many ladies had been deprived of their mirth by disappointed affection, some by unhappy marriages, others by the want of children, and several by wanting nothing. Some labels had blank spaces where the calamity ought to have been recorded; these blanks, I learned, were the histories of those whose vivacity had dropped off them without any real cause, and only because it was not of a durable kind.

The reading of these bottles alone might be a sufficient inducement to visit the moon, with those persons who excel in providing their friends with motives, and in explaining every thing in the look or manner, which is abstruse; for here, in a few minutes, such discoveries are made, as must be unattainable by mere inquiry and sagacity; and I think that amongst all the incentives to curiosity and study, there is nothing that so much provokes research as a mysterious melancholy in one who seemingly has every title to mirth.

It appeared to me that many of the owners of these bottled spirits had become unhappy on very slight provocation. Some of the reasons assigned, I thought hardly sufficient to justify a frown of a day's duration; part of these afflictions ought rather, in my opinion, to have been received as advantages; others seemed altogether fanciful, and it was manifest that the sufferer had become unfortunate merely by the force of a lively imagination. Amongst these bottles I observed some that were empty, and inquiring the reason, I was told that they had contained the mirth of persons who, after a certain period of melancholy, had regained their happiness by fortitude, philosophy, religion, a change of wind, or some other consolation; for whenever a person, whose mirth has been under this confinement, is ready to be cheerful again, and wants his spirits back, they make so great an effort to escape from the bottle as to force out the cork, and immediately they return into the possession of their owner, performing the journey in a few minutes. When this liberation is effected, the attendants who manage the bottles inscribe on the label the length of time that the spirits had remained in prison; and the empty bottle is still left to receive them again, should they be banished from their owner a second time. This often occurs by the vicissitudes incident to many tempers, in which the being happy to-day affords no security for happiness to-morrow. By these inscriptions, I found that the spirits of some people are engaged in perpetual journeys between the earth and the moon.

Upon one of the empty bottles I saw the name of a friend of mine, who had been in great affliction from the loss of his wife. I was surprised to read on the inscription that his spirits had driven out the cork, and returned to him at an early period of his sorrow, since which time I had seen him in profound melancholy; and it then appeared evident that he was to be unhappy much longer. I thought there must be an error in the date, but was informed that these bottles are infallible; that they estimate sorrow by the heart, and not by the countenance; and that as soon as a secret disposition to mirth returns, they certainly release the cork, though the face should remain inconsolable. It appeared, therefore, that though my friend had been so plausibly grieved, the bottle knew he was fit to receive its contents, and I had merely wanted penetration to detect his clandestine cheerfulness. I rejoiced in the discovery, having never thought that the being melancholy is so great a duty or public good as is sometimes believed. I entertained myself here in detecting the real duration of sorrow in some others for the death of friends, and I saw with pleasure how soon a resignation to the will of Heaven had sometimes taken place after the most grievous loss. Some had begun to submit on the day after the funeral; others had wept with so much despatch that, the death having occurred in the morning, and their spirits being immediately sent to the bottle, they had wanted them again in the evening of the same day.

The bottles being arranged in order according to the time when each was filled, I could easily find any cases of affliction which had come within my own knowledge; and I discovered that, in several instances, I had wasted much friendly compassion upon people so speedy in submission as to attain a Christian serenity of mind long before others had ceased to be distressed for them,—a lasting melancholy having been apprehended from the skilful gloom which was preserved.

There were many people engaged, like myself, in examining these bottles; and amongst them I found a pretty woman of my acquaintance, who had once been remarkable for vivacity, but had suddenly fallen into a pensive dejection, for which she could give no reason, except that assigned in Shakspeare,—that she was sad because she was not merry. Feeling severely the want of her former mirth, she had travelled to the moon in quest of it, where, being directed to this building, she had discovered the bottle containing her own spirits, and I found her considering by what expedient she could transfer them to herself. She had intended to carry away the bottle, and meditate some contrivance at her leisure; but they were all fixed immoveably in the shelves, so that whatever plan should be tried it could only be practised on the spot. She consulted me in her difficulty; and remembering the invention described by Ariosto, I advised her, when the cork should be removed, to hold her head over the bottle, and endeavour to inhale the vapour which should issue forth. She stood ready, and I cut the string which confined the cork; when it instantly flew out with a loud report, and a roar of laughter rushed after it: this was the imprisoned merriment escaping, and it lasted as long as the vapour continued to come forth. The lady applied herself to it as if to a smelling-bottle as long as this violent evaporation lasted. When the bottle had ceased to laugh she raised her head, and I immediately saw that my invention had succeeded; her eyes had regained their mirth, and her mouth its beautiful smile. She walked away in great delight at finding herself happy again.

There were many other people in the room who, having found the bottles belonging to themselves, were in perplexity about the means of recovering the contents; and now, having observed the success of my contrivance, they began to practise it upon themselves, so that very soon I heard corks flying and bottles laughing on every side. The first restoration of lost mirth had a violent effect upon most of the patients, and raising their heads at the end of the operation they burst into a vehement fit of laughter; some danced about very zealously, and performed other exploits. But this frantic delight sunk gradually, and in a few minutes was turned into a steady and reasonable cheerfulness. The first senseless joy from these bottles very much resembled the wild behaviour from nitrous oxide, popularly called laughing gas, which he who inhales commonly has recourse to a violent career of laughter, without being able to assign any just grounds of merriment.

Those who have seen this common experiment, may conceive exactly the extravagances acted in consequence of these bottles.

The most ridiculous frolics were exhibited by an old woman, who, having found the bottle containing the spirits of her youth, applied herself to it in order to be young again. Immediately the features of seventy were animated by the mirth of sixteen, the old woman was intoxicated by her new feelings, laughed immoderately, danced, and sung, with many other achievements, which greatly disturbed her daughter, who accompanied her, and endeavoured in vain to control this aged vivacity.

I took notice of a lady with a very grave countenance, who was making a most diligent search amongst the bottles of that time, from which she dated the absence of her own cheerfulness, but still she was unable to find one bearing her name. I heard another lady, her companion, endeavouring to persuade her that she had always been as phlegmatic as she was then, and not at any part of her life able to furnish the contents of a bottle, so that it was vain to search for vivacity which was neither there nor in any other place. The solemn lady, however, was resolved to be lively, and not finding any mirth that she could justly claim, she prepared to invade the bottle of some other person, which, she said, would do no injury; for the person whom she should despoil might take her bottle in exchange, since it was undoubtedly there, though at that moment she could not find it. Accordingly she released the cork of a bottle which, by the explosion, seemed to have been very well provided with merriment, and she inhaled it all to the concluding laugh; but raising her head after this instigation, she remained as sedate as before, and found to her great disappointment that she could not be lively with the spirits of another person. I afterwards saw the same theft committed by others, and in every case it proved that the bottled spirits were ineffectual in any person except the owner. This might perhaps have been foretold, as we frequently see persons who have no vivacity of their own, endeavour, without success, to borrow it from others, though not out of a bottle. I speak of the emulation of those who, being solemn by birth, attempt vivacity by a strict execution of those gestures, looks, and sayings which they have observed to be the practice of lively persons, and with all their study can never contrive that those gestures, looks, and sayings shall be received as life and spirit, though in certain people they pass without dispute.

I saw an unfortunate lady in great distress: she had been endeavouring to practise my contrivance upon the bottle which preserved her spirits; but by being too slow to intercept them as they hastened out, and then by holding her head in a wrong place she had suffered the whole mirth to escape, and it flew laughing through a window as if in derision of her. The poor girl stood at the window in despair to hear herself laughing at a distance, being now condemned to hopeless dejection for the rest of her life. I had, however, the satisfaction of restoring many to a cheerful mind; and it was a great amusement to see the melancholy faces of many as they entered this room, and the happy countenances with which they left it after exhilarating themselves in this manner.

Having entertained myself here some time, I departed, and continued my wandering journey. It was not long before I came to another building which I entered, and found it full of bottles like the last. These contain the hopes, which have never been fulfilled, and to the eye they appear to hold a clear transparent liquor. Upon each bottle is the name of the person to whom it belongs, together with a short account of the hopes within, and the circumstances in which they were entertained. At the first glance on the outside of the bottles, I saw coronets, mitres, riches, and other amusements, in great abundance, which made me think, that if, as we often hear asserted, hope is the most agreeable employment of the mind, it is with great injustice that we complain of the misery of life. According to the same doctrine, we ought to rejoice that so few of the advantages within sight are attainable, because what is once gained can no longer be hoped for, and the chief delight from it, therefore, must be lost. The happiness of every man ought to be estimated, not by the number of his successes, but by the multitude of his hopes; and whatever seeming adversity he may have laboured under, yet if nature has provided him with an alacrity in hoping, he must be declared a prosperous man. For some, the most unfortunate in their undertakings, yet have through life been succeeding in prospect, and thus been fully recompensed for actual disappointment. The office of this passion is to make men equal in happiness, since every advantage obtained must take away a hope.

Seeing on one of these bottles the primacy of England, as the hope contained in it, I looked for the name in some curiosity, to know who had aspired so high, expecting it to be some celebrated divine. The name was that of a clergyman, who had passed his whole life on a curacy of a hundred pounds a year. He had died at the age of seventy-six, and no doubt his age, poverty, and infirmities had been greatly relieved by the expectation of being primate. The office of prime minister had for many years been the hope of a man, who had been known to speak in parliament twice, on one of which occasions he was manifestly applauded. To be the greatest of English poets, was hoped for by a young man, on no other provocation than the having written some verses in a newspaper. A family of two fine boys and four beautiful girls, was the secure hope of a lady who had been married at the age of forty-six.

I found here many hopes so fantastical, and having so little regard for possibility, that they made me think less incredible a certain wish, recorded by Rabelais, which I had before thought a high strain of imagination. The projector of this wish desired that, a certain church being filled with needles from the floor to the roof, he might be in possession of as many ducats as would be required to fill all the bags, which could be sewn with these needles, till every one of them had lost either its point or its eye. This computation of a livelihood, hardly exceeds in boldness some of the designs which I observed here.

I saw an old man reading the bottle which contained his own past hopes; he laughed heartily at their extravagance, declaring that to have fulfilled them all he must have lived a thousand years, and that many of them could not have been accomplished unless all mankind had been in a confederacy to complete his schemes. Some bottles contained a vast number of hopes, the owner having had so much fertility in hoping; other persons seemed to have had no room for more than one hope at a time. I amused myself with pursuing the hopes of a man from youth to age, and observing the variation in the different stages of life. Some of the young hopes diverted me; a girl of sixteen had been entirely occupied with the hope that the outline of her nose might improve before she grew up. Another young lady of the same age had been equally busy with the hope of her hair becoming darker.

Seeing my own name on a bottle I read my early hopes, which however I do not intend to divulge. I was surprised by the extravagance and absurdity of them; for till that moment I had imagined myself a rational man, and I could not conceive how such projects had ever been let into my brain.

I observed another old man studying his bottle and recapitulating the brilliant hopes of his youth. He lamented that he was no longer capable of transacting such visions, and declared he would try to recover the faculty of hope by drinking the contents of the bottle. Accordingly, having obtained a glass, he drew the cork and poured out the liquor, which sparkled like champagne, and he drank it hastily, seeming to think that the escape of every bubble was the loss of a hope. He finished the draught, which was about a pint, and was immediately thrown into the most violent transports. All the hopes of his life took possession of him at once, and he fancied himself about to perform some mighty exploit, though unable to conjecture what it was to be. His words, looks, and gestures were wild and incoherent; and if two friends by whom he was accompanied had not taken him into custody, he would probably have attempted some dangerous enterprise. They forced him out of the room, and I afterwards heard that it was several hours before his delirium abated; and even when he had recovered his composure of mind he remained subject to occasional visions, and from time to time is still elevated by chimerical fancies.

It occurred to me that, although the whole bottle of hope swallowed at once produced madness, yet perhaps a small quantity at a time might be drunk with benefit and encouragement in the decline of life; and I resolved to take my bottle with me for cheerfulness in old age, the bottles of hope not being fastened to the shelves like those containing lost spirits, which I have mentioned before. On one occasion since, having been a little dispirited, I drank a very small quantity of my hopes diluted with water, and found a very agreeable elevation of mind from it.

One caution, however, is to be observed, which I learned from the example of an old gentleman, who had brought his bottle of hopes from the moon, and had recourse to it after it had stood undisturbed for some time. By standing still the several hopes had been separated from each other, so that he had poured out a single hope from the top, and drunk that alone. It appeared that the hopes were arranged according to their weight, and not according to the order in which they had entered the bottle; that which he drank first, therefore, happened to be one of his early youth. It was a hope that he might obtain favour with a certain married woman of great beauty, and, according to the most received opinion, by no means inaccessible; but, after he had prosecuted his plot for three years without an approach to success, he discreetly resolved to abandon it, and accordingly the hope flew up into its bottle. This hope, being now swallowed from the top, possessed him again with all its former vehemence. It had been perfectly suitable to the time of life when he had first entertained it, but agreed very ill with his present venerable appearance.

The same lady was no longer in sight, but he was acquainted with another of as much beauty and ambiguity, every age being furnished with such enterprises, and to her he immediately had recourse through the inspiration of his bottle, soliciting her by every known artifice, to the great amusement of many observers, and the surprise of his friends; for before this he had always conformed himself to the lapse of time, and never pretended to an indiscretion above his years. This hope continued to molest him for three weeks, during which he was indefatigable; but the effects of the draught having then passed away, he discovered the fallacy, and was in great confusion at what he had been doing. He told me that if he was to commit such absurdities through his bottle, he should prefer despair and dejection. I advised him to shake his bottle thoroughly, so as to confound all the hopes together before he poured out a draught, whence I conceived that he would not be instigated to any single project, but obtain only a general encouragement. This he practises with great success, repeating his draught from time to time; after each dose, he is possessed with a conviction of some speedy good fortune, though he can gain no insight into the particular nature of it, and he is thus quite fortified against the melancholy of old age. It is true that to drink for hope and prosperity is not a new invention; but the complacency obtained in the manner I describe has the advantage of not being followed by any of those injuries which attend the peace of mind from a common bottle.

Leaving the House of Hopes, and pursuing my travels, I met with an old gentleman, who told me he had come to the moon in search of the time that he had lost during his life; "for," said he, "if I could recover all the hours that I have mis-applied, I should be a young man again."

"But," said I, "is it not probable, that if these hours had to be employed again, they would be engaged in the very same occupations which have brought them to the moon before?"

"No," he answered, "I believe there are some old men who lament their loss of time only because it is a loss of pleasure; but I rejoice in having freed myself from my errors. I lately undertook a complete reformation of my habits, and succeeded. I wish to regain my time, only that I might pass it all in the virtue which I now enjoy; for, alas! I have discovered the pleasure of virtue so late, that I cannot expect much time for the practice of it."

I walked on with this old man till we came to a building, which, according to the information of one whom we met, contained "lost vices." Inquiring what was meant by that expression, I was told that in this building are preserved all the profligate habits, which have been unwillingly relinquished by those, whom old age alone can reform, and who never part with an infirmity till they lose the faculty of being frail.

We entered the building; and found, as before described, a large room with innumerable shelves, on which the bad habits are kept by a singular contrivance. The vices of every man are contained in a little instrument, exactly resembling in appearance and use that ingenious toy called a kaleidoscope. On each of these instruments is inscribed the name of the libertine who has filled it. On one of them I observed the name of a man with whose past life and character I am acquainted. He once accepted very frankly of all the blessings offered him by Providence, but now lives in the strict practice of every virtue which decrepitude enforces. I took his kaleidoscope from the shelf; and looking into it, saw him carousing at a table with some companions, according to the morals of a former time, when the worship of Bacchus was more diligently prosecuted than it is now. I knew his person, though in this scene he was a young man. His colleagues I had never seen, for I believe he had buried them all by his example. Their figures in this vision were very small, but quite perfect, and all their looks and gestures faithfully exhibited; no sounds were heard, though much clamour was intimated. I could perceive that songs were sung, and stories told, with all the usual literature of such meetings. While I was entertained by seeing this company drink in miniature, I accidentally gave the kaleidoscope a turn, upon which the scene vanished in an instant, and another adventure appeared, the same man being still the hero. He was now soliciting a beautiful girl with great energy; and, from her reluctance and alarm, I supposed it to be the first interview. He seemed to make no progress while I held the kaleidoscope still; but I gave it a slight turn, which advanced his suit considerably, and a great part of her austerity was now omitted; whence I found that I must continue to turn the instrument, in order to bring his addresses to a conclusion. I therefore turned it round very gradually, not to lose any stage of the transaction, according to the injunction of Ovid:—

Non est properanda voluptas,
At sensim longâ prolicienda morâ.

When this exploit was ended, another took its place; and I found that by still turning the kaleidoscope, I might bring all the debaucheries of this old man in succession before me. But my curiosity did not last through many years of his life, which was crowded with incidents.

I lamented that Le Sage and Smollett had not had access to these kaleidoscopes for inspiration. If there is now any writer who believes himself their descendant, he could not employ his time more profitably than in a journey to the moon, in order to consult these little instruments, from which he may derive a fertility of adventures that he cannot possibly gain by observation of real life. The readers too of such novels, as well as the authors, may find here the best of libraries: for, by a few turns of a kaleidoscope, they will pass through a greater variety of adventures than by turning over a hundred pages; and no mortal pen can relate an enterprise with as much spirit and fidelity as one of these kaleidoscopes. I had recourse to several of them, and gained much useful information.

While I was engaged in this study of biography, I perceived the old man with whom I had entered the room very intent on the same employment. I walked up to him, and saw his own name on the kaleidoscope into which he was looking. This surprised me; for he had spoken of his past vices with so much contrition, that I imagined he would have chosen to avoid these apparitions of them, instead of wilfully distressing himself with the sight. I supposed, therefore, that he must be reviewing his life for the benefit of reproach and mortification; but when I looked into his face, expecting to see it full of horror, I observed his eye glistening with delight at the remembrance of his pleasures. He examined them one after another, pausing at each, and turning the kaleidoscope with the slowest caution, so as not to hurry the enjoyment, nor pass over any material circumstance; and while he made these confessions, there was a voluptuous joy in his face, very ill suited to his venerable appearance. I found that these visions of the past have a singular power over the owner of the kaleidoscope, reviving his former thoughts and sensations, and imparting at the moment a fancied vigour.

"I see," said I, "that you have returned to the amusements of your youth. You have here the means of retrieving your lost time."

"How so?" he inquired.

"Why," I answered, "you have only to take back with you this little instrument, and then you can be a young man in your arm-chair whenever you please. The actual performance of these things would require an effort inconvenient to you; but, having this kaleidoscope, you may enjoy any vice you wish, with no other labour than shutting one eye."

"That is true," said he; "it will be a great comfort to me in my old age."

"But," I asked, "will it not interfere with the strict temperance and virtue which you are to practise for the rest of your life?"

"Not at all," answered he, "because none of the consequences of vice will follow these repetitions; I can do no harm by looking into this little thing. I may carouse with the friends of my youth in this kaleidoscope, and awake the next morning without a pain in my head. The wine that was drunk forty years ago will now furnish a very innocent debauch; or, if I choose to prosecute a design against a village beauty, I can accomplish the plot here, and no woman on earth will lose her peace of mind by my success. I have full confidence in my reformation, I have thoroughly reclaimed myself from actual vice; but I know not why I should be so austere as to refuse my old age the comfort of these recollections, in which I find a remarkable charm." So speaking, he put his kaleidoscope into his pocket, and walked away to practise temperance.

I saw several other old men here, each of whom had found his own kaleidoscope, and was repeating the vices of his youth with great satisfaction. Under this inspiration, their venerable countenances were disfigured with a most unbecoming look of enjoyment. Every one of them carried away his instrument for the support of his declining age. It is probable that all these old men, like the one mentioned before, had for some time past been admiring their own temperance, and extolling themselves for a complete victory over the bad passions of their youth, having become abstemious by means of seventy years, and attained a habit of refraining from all those vices which require bodily strength. Men act alike towards their vices and their friends, no one will confess himself forsaken by either. A man who finds himself avoided and discountenanced by one whose acquaintance is advantageous to him, assures himself first that the friendship is irrecoverable, and then begins to devise retaliation, endeavours to exceed the neglect with which the other treats him, and disputes his claim to the first coolness. Thus an old man, when his pleasures abandon him, pretends to priority; and being convinced by fair trial that a bad habit is irrevocably lost, he firmly demands that he and his vice shall part. This forbearance from what we cannot do resembles what is sometimes called resignation in a dying man, who, having tried in vain every expedient for remaining alive, begins to prefer death, descants on the disadvantage of being a man, and earnestly endeavours to justify his choice.

I cannot here avoid a reflection on the hard lot of virtue in being so commonly the successor of vice. When the house being torn to pieces by the riots of vice is abandoned as no longer habitable, with the foundations undermined, the roof fallen in, the furniture destroyed, and the walls tottering, it is made over to virtue, and she is desired to take possession of the ruin, and make herself comfortable for life.

Not far from the house of lost vices is a building, which contains lost virtues, and I entered it as soon as I had left the other. These virtues are not preserved in the same manner as the vices, but turned into a liquid, and kept in bottles. On each bottle is declared what virtues are within, together with the period of life or particular occasion that had caused the loss. The good qualities lost by age appeared to be chiefly benevolence and generosity, from which inconveniences men had been released at very different times, some being qualified for avarice and ill-nature much sooner than others. As I have lately made some remarks on the indecorous regret of certain old men at the decay of their vices, I must now do justice to their patience under the loss of virtue. Old men have been known to shed tears on finding themselves unable to be riotous; but I believe none have ever wept at failing to do a generous action: and however culpable may be their discontent at missing their pleasures, they amply atone for it by a perfect resignation under the decay of liberality, and by giving up without a sigh the whole pleasure of doing good. Covetousness has been appropriated to old men from the earliest times; and when a man has nothing left except vigour in saving money, and joy in keeping it from others, it would be a great cruelty to forbid him the exercise of those qualities.

I here observed a young man seeking some particular bottle very earnestly, which having found, he took possession of it with great joy. It contained certain virtues, which had once been in the mind of his father, and had dropped out as he proceeded through life. The father, though very old, persisted in remaining alive, without considering how much pain his son suffered by this usurpation. Amongst other virtues which had failed him in his latter years, his generosity had quite decayed; and his son had very dutifully undertaken a journey to the moon in hope of recovering it. Having gained the bottle, he intended to contrive that the old man should insensibly drink this generosity with his tea, taking care to be present himself, that he might intercept any bounty which might be the consequence of the draught.

I have since heard the success of this stratagem. The young man's sister, who commanded the tea table, was easily engaged in the plot; and having supplied her tea with a portion of this medicine from the moon, she was very urgent in recommending it as composed with uncommon art, and exactly agreeing with her father's judgment. It had an instant effect; and the old man, with a sudden look of beneficence, having descanted for a short time on his own declining years, and his inability to enjoy wealth, declared he would make over to his son a considerable portion of his estate, and desired him to send for an attorney on the following morning that the gift, might be legal and secure. But when morning arrived, and the young man was punctually proceeding to execute the order, his father suddenly revoked it, having been cleared from these fumes of generosity in his sleep. Some expedient, therefore, was to be devised for making the father's gift irrevocable before his benevolence should have time to escape.

The teapot was again corrupted, and an excuse contrived for a visit of an attorney while the medicine was in full vigour. Thus the desired deed was accomplished; and the father, at the return of his avarice, found himself strangely dispossessed of his property by his own consent.

Amongst the virtues lost by advance in life, I saw a great quantity of pity and sensibility. Grief for the misfortunes of others is one of those follies that seldom fail to be cured by age, being the benefit of experience, which, amongst other lessons, demonstrates the absurdity of claiming a share in the afflictions of another man.

I here became melancholy by seeing how ready our best qualities are to slip out of our minds; and I soon, therefore, left the building and entered another, where I found a vast room containing what at first appeared to me a collection of statues: but I was informed that what I saw was the female beauty that has been lost by time, sickness, or other calamities to which it is liable. These statues, therefore, are merely bloom and outline without any substance. In the walls of the room there are as many niches as can be inserted from the bottom to the top, in each of which stands one of these beautiful outlines, and a multitude of others placed on pedestals are distributed over the whole room. They are beautiful from posture as well as shape, being adjusted in every graceful variety of attitude and purpose; and it may easily be supposed that this room far surpasses any gallery of statues in our world.

As soon as I was in the midst of these beauties, I began to think myself guilty of an unfair examination, and of inquiring into secrets which were not designed for me; but seeing no displeasure or retirement in the lovely forms as I looked at them, I was emboldened to continue my studies.

These beautiful figures are in appearance real women, being perfect both in shape and colour; and, indeed, they seemed to have every female excellence, except the being alive. I had a great curiosity to know how these beings would affect the touch; and, being now on terms of familiarity with them, I approached one, which looked the most indulgent of those round me, and ventured to lay my hand upon her: but never was man more disappointed in such an enterprise; for I could scarcely feel any thing; and though I proceeded to the most resolute pressure, my solicitations were quite ineffectual:—

"Frustra comprensa manus effugit imago."

The surface yielded, and when I removed my hand immediately regained its shape. I raised the whole figure from the ground, and could perceive no weight. I placed a hand on each side of the body, and squeezed it quite flat without the least resistance; and when it was loosed, it recovered itself in a moment. Putting my finger on the nose, I pushed it into the face quite out of sight, and it was restored as soon as my finger was taken away. I proceeded so far in disfiguring the lady as to hold her concealed between my two hands, and compressed into a little ball, which, when released, shot out into a beautiful woman, who had sustained no injury by the confinement.

I observed that some of these statues were mutilated, wanting arms, legs, or other appendages to the human figure. This I understood to happen when the lady retains a part of her beauty. Thus, if her arms have not lost their perfection, while all the rest has undergone some decay, a figure of her appears in the moon without arms, which however are added as soon as she has relinquished them. I saw a nose resting on a pedestal by itself, the beauty of its outline having been destroyed by an accident, while the owner was otherwise uninjured. In another place was some beautiful dark hair, being the spoils of a fever. But the most common of these particular beauties separate from the rest was the complexion, which seemed to have frequently preceded all other endowments in its journey to the moon. Each of these fragments had a pedestal, upon which was engraved the name of the lady, as amongst ancient statues we see a beard or a foot, and are told it is Phocion.

I was pleased to see the restoration of beauty to a young woman who had lost it by the small-pox. She had found her former face, which was a mere surface like a mask; and applying it to her features, perceived that it adjusted itself, and adhered to them without needing any care or contrivance. I saw some depredations committed by women, who never having been able to acquiesce in their own features would not lose this opportunity of obtaining others: and I was amused by the incoherent faces which they constructed; for whenever a feature was appropriated to a strange face, it evidently dissented from all the other parts of it. There was a girl, who never having regarded her nose with approbation, was earnestly engaged in fixing to it a new outline that she had found; but at first sight this nose was not at all to the purpose. She was adjusting it by a small mirror, and I heard her expressing her fears that it never would be made to co-operate with her chin. Another woman, endowed with long sallow features, had obtained possession of a beautiful complexion off a small face, and without any regard to the disproportion had pressed it down upon her boundless features, whence it projected and had a very ridiculous appearance. However, she walked away, seeming very well pleased with her new bloom.

When I had left this building and was wandering on for new adventures, I heard a confused sound, which I supposed to proceed from a valley the receptacle of some particular kind of eloquence or noise. I soon arrived at the place, and found it to be the valley containing lost advice, whence had escaped the father's counsel against gambling, which I had heard on my first arrival in the moon.

In this valley innumerable voices were striving to hinder various kinds of imprudence; and I wondered how it happens that with so much good advice in the world there is also so much folly. When I compared the excellent precepts which I heard all round me with the actions of men, I could not avoid considering why it is that we are so much wiser for our friends than for ourselves; why, in our own case, we are liable to be misled by every temptation, and usually pursue the most agreeable course instead of the wisest, while in any other person's case we find ourselves inspired with invincible resolution, can resist the strongest temptations and make the greatest sacrifices. From this reflection I determined that were I to receive a commission to alter and reform the human race, I would contrive that, instead of being obliged to act for ourselves, we should all act for each other, by which invention there would be no such thing as vice or imprudence in the world.

While these admonitions reiterated themselves all round me, I admired the generosity with which all men are ready to give away advice; and it appeared to me that if, as some have said, this is the chief office of friendship, the fidelity of mankind is not to be disputed, since I never knew an instance of one who would withhold a largess of this kind from a friend who needed it.

I found here exhortations pronounced in all the several capacities in which men are qualified to impede others with advice. The counsel of parents was transacted in one place, that of friends in another; here the advice of husbands proceeded, and there of wives. I also heard guardians and tutors imparting discretion to those under their charge. There was besides much exhortation in a feeble voice from those who have no right from consanguinity, but are advisers by old age; it being a well known law of nature that when the faculties of a man are decayed through time so as to be of no use to himself, they become available to others. Besides these, I heard many of those universal advisers, whose vocation it is that nothing indiscreet be done by any of their acquaintance. In short, there are assembled in this place the words of all who have any kind of title to provide other people with prudence.

I listened for some time to these rejected counsels in the hope of discovering by what fault they had failed to persuade, and thinking they might possibly show what relation the adviser ought to bear to the sufferer in order to prevail. But I could draw no conclusions from what I heard. The generality of advisers succeed so far as to make their friend angry, but not to make him wise; and it is observable that the advised person, who can find any pretext for being incensed against his counsellor, always thinks it a valid reason for refusing to do what is recommended. The skill, therefore, must be to avoid all grounds of offence. But then occurs another difficulty; for he who can find no reasonable cause of displeasure either in the advice given, or in its coming from the particular person who offers it, is still more exasperated at finding himself without the means of anger. I think it may be remarked, that the most judicious advice is the most apt to be resented; for we are displeased with counsel only when we are conscious that it ought to be followed; when we are convinced that it is mistaken, we commonly receive it with proper gratitude, because we can neglect it without self-reproach. The interpretation we put upon good advice is, that our friend, in order to show his own wisdom, has made us dissatisfied with ourselves.

From what I heard, therefore, I could not judge what relation an adviser ought to stand in towards the person advised in order to obviate this anger, which is always ready. If it be a man who by situation has some right and authority to advise, the dictation is intolerable; and if he has no such right, his impertinent interference is not to be borne.

Nor could I learn any thing as to the manner in which advice ought to be bestowed; for I heard voices in this place advising in every possible variety of style, and by their being here I knew they had failed to persuade.

Some advisers tried to make men wise by reproach, others applied entreaty, and a third class taught by alternately railing and beseeching. One voice conveyed prudence by a hint, another by resolute frankness; some pretended great alarm, which made silence impossible; and I thought that not the least plausible were the confident advisers, who had not a doubt that what they enjoined would be done: for I knew by experience that to refuse advice, offered confidently, and confront the surprise of the giver, requires great firmness. There was here, also, much of that counsel which enforces an action by showing that nothing else can possibly be done; and yet it appeared that the ingenuity of the advised person had found another way. I heard intermitting advice,—that which revives at stated times, and much, too, of the incessant counsel which never wants renewal.

This fruitless wisdom, therefore, having been offered in all the different figures of advice, I found it impossible to conclude any thing concerning the manner, or tone of voice, the looks or nods most conducing to prudence. But perhaps an habitual adviser may not think the inquiry important, since his purpose is usually gained though his counsel should not be followed, and he succeeds in proving himself a wise man though he fails to make his friend one.

The general failure of advice is usually imputed to the obstinacy of those who receive it, but from what I heard in this place I was inclined to think that the person who gives it is as often in fault. Most of those whose counsel was here collected did not seem to have considered what advice would most benefit their friend, but what would best evince their own prudence, sagacity, or other virtue which they had to demonstrate; and they appeared very eager to have it concluded, that what they desired another to do they would practise themselves if the case were their own. Thus, there are men of courage, who, if their friend has had a quarrel, will with great intrepidity advise him to fight a duel; and he must be shot that they may show their spirit. In this multitude of voices, I heard one in a resolute tone giving counsel to a friend, who was labouring under that domestic affliction called the tooth-ache, which the adviser very courageously exhorted him to relieve by extraction, giving many hints of what he would do himself if a tooth of his gave him similar provocation. It is a great advantage that in all exigencies requiring a painful remedy there is always some man who thus freely undertakes to furnish resolution while his friend undergoes the pain.

This valley contains, also, much of that advice which I think the most discreet in all emergencies, and the least likely to be proved erroneous, which is, to recommend some expedient for which the opportunity is past. A prudent adviser, consulted in hurry and danger, will always endeavour, first, to discover something which ought to have been done before, and which cannot be done now. Accordingly, in this valley I heard many faithful counsellors dissuading their friends from something past, and teaching them how to have prevented yesterday some misfortune which has happened to-day.

Having left this valley of advice, I entered a very large building not far from it, which I was told was a library. It consists of one room, containing all the books which are lost upon earth. The hapless volumes resort to this room as soon as they cease to be read; some had come up on the day of their publication, others had lived below a whole year, and the immortality of many had been cut off in a month.

My eye was caught by some shelves, on which were ranged a vast multitude of books, all bound alike, and on approaching them, I saw that on the back of each was the title "Similes." When I found that these volumes comprised all the fruitless similes of English literature, I did not wonder at the number of them.

I here found an Englishman of my acquaintance conversing with an Italian, who had applied to him for an explanation of this great assembly of similes. "I am conversant," said he, "with the old writers of your country, but have not much studied the moderns: now it seems to me that all the similes of your best writers collected together would scarcely fill one of these volumes. Your recent authors must greatly excel them in imagination, if they have produced such a library of similes."

"Undoubtedly," said the Englishman, "there is a great poverty of these beauties in our old writers. Similes have now invaded all our literature, both prose and verse, and make a part of every thing we speak or write."

"I have looked into one of these volumes," said the Italian, "and some of the similes appear to me difficult of application. A poet is here describing a greyhound in chase of a hare, and, in order to increase the speed of the dog, he compares it to Westminster Abbey."

"And how," said the other, "does he effect a likeness?"

"That," he answered, "is what I cannot arrive at. I have read it over many times, but cannot discover what he would wish the resemblance to be."

"That is a true modern simile," said the Englishman. "In the similes of the old writers, a natural resemblance is instantly apparent between the two things compared. Now the moderns are of opinion that when two things are in themselves similar, there is no invention shown in comparing them, but that the imagination and ingenuity of a writer are proved by his bringing together two objects obstinately unlike, and forcing them into a comparison in spite of all resistance. Therefore, as no two things could easily be more different than a greyhound in pursuit of a hare and Westminster Abbey, the poet, with a great deal of invention, has coupled them together, by which he thinks that he has very much accelerated his greyhound."

The Italian, turning round, saw another row of shelves, equally extensive, covered with books, upon the backs of which he read "Description."

"Your modern writers," said he "must excel those of former times in description, as much as in similes."

"Yes," answered his informer: "description is another beauty in which the old writers were very barren and defective. By universal consent, this is now the noblest way of writing; and those authors who are conversant only with the reason, and the passions are proved, by incontestable arguments, to be far inferior to those who treat of mountains, woods, and water. Modern literature, therefore, is overrun with trees, and diversified with hill and valley, far beyond the bleak writings of former ages. Nor are these landscapes confined to poetry. It is impossible that even a novel should succeed without several well-wooded chapters, and indeed there is scarcely any subject too austere to admit this kind of beauty: the most abstruse reasoning may be rendered more clear by a well-written grove or mountain. Any young man, therefore, who resolves to be a poet, instead of applying himself to books, and filling his mind with the thoughts of others, has recourse for his education to rocks and woods, which, in modern language, are called nature, and from these he derives all his knowledge and poetical spirit. Indeed, he has only to roam amongst mountains, and write down the verses which they dictate. Some of our best modern poems were entirely composed at the instigation of wood and water, and without any assistance from books."

One division of this library is filled with novels, and the Italian expressed his astonishment at the number of them. "You do not consider," said the Englishman, "how many people read novels: they are the books from which our young men and women derive the chief part of their instruction. These works come out every spring with the butterflies, are quite as numerous, and live about the same length of time. There are several kinds of romance: the most abundant species, I think, is that in which the events of modern life are related with so much fidelity that in every page men and women do exactly what we see them doing elsewhere. The author is at great pains to make a true representation of society; and therefore, that he may not exceed nature, he takes care that in all his dialogues there shall be no more than that limited portion of wit and amusement which is usually found in conversation.

There is an admirable expedient frequently practised in romances of this kind. The author introduces into his narrative some of the newest incidents of society, relates them with the utmost exactness as they really happened, and describes the characters, circumstances, and persons of those engaged in them. You may easily imagine the noble exercise of mind with which readers are thus provided in recognising the adventures of the last year; you may conceive the pleasure with which they adjust the book to the real event,—how they explain the agreement to those who are not in the secret; how they praise the author for so artfully describing persons they know, even to the colour of their hair. This copying of real life is carried to its utmost perfection by some writers, who introduce not only the events and characters, but the names also with a slight disturbance of the letters, contriving, with wonderful skill, that the last syllable of the name shall take precedence, or by some other invention displacing the several parts of it, so that discerning persons may have an opportunity of rectifying the letters and restoring the name to its true sound. It would surprise you to see the sagacity with which all these mysteries are explained in a few days after the book has appeared.

Another kind of romance is the history of some imaginary person, who is to charm the reader by the most abominable crimes. The author frees him from every restraint of morality, honour, integrity, and kindness. This monster is always in some plot, and is of so peculiar a disposition that he has no pleasure in success except with the ruin and misery of others. Murder is merely the trifling of his leisure; he merits death in every page, but with great dexterity always evades the law. By these perfections he is very acceptable to all women he approaches, and they are sacrificed to him one after another in a deplorable manner. He is commonly a wanderer, and infests many parts of the globe; but at last, having arrived at the end of the third volume, he either dies in a distraction of mind from his crimes, or is rewarded with the hand of a beautiful woman, and leads an exemplary life ever afterwards. Few novels succeed better than those with a monster. The historical novel is another kind. In this composition the endeavour of the author is to show us the true genius and character of the remarkable persons who lived at the time of which he writes: thus, if it be recorded of a great man, that he wore a hat with three feathers, you may be sure that he will wear a hat with three feathers in the novel. The author dresses him with a strict adherence to truth, and does not venture to omit a single button of history, or to introduce so much as a bit of lace that is fabulous; every ornament he wears is attested by writers of acknowledged veracity; even his shoe-buckles are facts. Sir Walter Scott having acquired great fame by historical romances, which represent the thoughts and designs of uncommon men, has instigated others to embroil themselves in the same undertaking; but since the thoughts and designs of great men are not amongst their studies, their discernment being limited to that part of the human character which is called the dress, they have contented themselves with narratives of hats, cloaks, and other parts of apparel, in which their success cannot be disputed."

"I observe," said the Italian, "that each of these novels consists of three volumes. Is that one of the modern laws of writing?"

"Yes," answered the Englishman: "it is a new discovery; and now a writer of novels produces three volumes as punctually as a pigeon lays two eggs. This is a great hardship to the lovers, who are delighted with each other in the first chapter, and might accomplish their union in a few pages, if they were not maliciously undermined by the author, who involves them in difficulties which cost him infinite thought and study, and thus are they obliged to pass through the three volumes with perpetual disappointment and vexation. I am not able to give any reason for this modern law, that every novel should be divided into three, any more than I can account for the ancient decree that comedies should consist of five acts; but it is well known that any romance in more or fewer volumes than three would be instantly rejected by the booksellers, who have a peculiar sagacity in judging what circumstances will gain a good reception for a new book. Thus the author of the 'Tale of a Tub' informs us, that a bookseller, to whom he first offered that work, assured him it could not possibly succeed unless in the following year there should be a scarcity of turnips."

At this moment I was startled by a quarto volume which flew close to my head; it had just arrived from the earth, and coming in at the window flew two or three times round the room like a bird, as if looking for a place to light upon; it then perched on a shelf of quartos, and pressed itself into a vacant space. On examining these quartos I found them to be books of travels; the one which had just flown in had arrived quite new, and full of fresh intelligence.

From this multitude of travels the Italian took occasion to admire the adventurous spirit of Englishmen, who wander about the world to increase our knowledge of it, and make a book. "These large and numerous works," said he, "must contain abundant information on the laws, customs, and natures of men."

"There are travellers," answered the other, "from whom such knowledge is to be derived; but these works being found in the moon, we may conjecture that the authors of them have not been conversant with any such abstruse studies. Many of our recent travellers go out to explore countries in which there are no laws, customs, or men to be found; they undergo great hardships, and at their return the knowledge they impart to us is, that in one place they were hot, in another cold, and in a third hungry."

When I had listened for some time to this conversation, I took a cursory survey of the several divisions in which the library is arranged, and found it to contain a great variety of works in every kind of literature. There is a collection of divinity sufficient to perplex the reason of all the inhabitants of Europe. The poets occupy a very large space; the names of some I had never heard before. The political writers, too, stretch over a great territory; there is a whole library of those small undertakings called pamphlets, which redress all abuses, and extricate the country out of every distress.

A large extent of shelves is covered with the lives of men written by themselves: this is a kind of literature much increased in modern times. It was formerly the custom of celebrated men to let posterity decide whether their actions were worthy of remembrance; but it is now the undoubted right of every one to determine this matter for himself. Our ancestors erroneously believed that praise was a good which every man must owe to the kindness of others, and could not confer upon himself: we have detected this mistake amongst many others committed by our forefathers, and it is now well known that men labour under no such natural disability as was supposed, but that any one can extol himself with much greater ease, confidence, and zeal, than any other person. Through this discovery we abound with lives written without the least envy or detraction. Johnson says, "Who does not wish that the author of the 'Iliad' had gratified succeeding ages with a little knowledge of himself?" Accordingly, the moderns resolve to avoid this culpable silence of Homer, by freely imparting to the world all their undertakings, hopes, and fears,—all that they have done, and all that they have failed to do. Every man now imitates Julius Cæsar, and relates his own exploits. Very little renown is enough to justify a life, and indeed many have been written without any such instigation at all; for if a man has only tried to be famous, the story of his disappointment cannot fail to be instructive.

It is also a great discovery of modern times, that a man may publish his own adventures during his life. Formerly, it was thought decorous to die before the divulging of any private particulars; but, by the new invention, a man is able to combine the glory from memoirs with the advantage of being alive. It is now justly thought that a person famous by writing, or any other stratagem, would betray a culpable indifference to the impatience of mankind, if he delayed till his death all satisfaction of the general curiosity concerning his private habits; and there is hardly a writer of plays or romances so regardless of the world as to keep it in suspense with respect to the hours when he is used to write, the books that he reads, and the places where he dines.

I looked over the shelves of biography, and amongst all the authors of their own praises, I could hardly find one name that I had heard before. This gave me occasion to consider that memoirs are not so effectual a provision against the being forgotten as they are usually thought; and I could not help comparing the precaution of these writers with the device of Panurge in Rabelais, who, being at sea in a storm, and the ship expected to sink, could think of no rescue except making his will; for anxiety had not left him sagacity to discern that all the benefactions he might record must be drowned with him. So those writers, who are just about to be overwhelmed in oblivion, betake themselves with all the foresight of Panurge, to inform posterity of their virtues, forgetting that this intelligence must be included in the destruction.

Happening to look through the window of the library, I saw a great flight of new books approaching. They came in, and flew up and down in search of places. There were works of every size: the quartos soared backwards and forwards like swans, and the duodecimos fluttered about in the manner of sparrows. Being endued with a sagacity to find their own places, they all settled themselves in the class of books to which they belonged; the several volumes of a work remained together, and one followed another in a line, like wild geese; volume the first taking the lead, and so in succession. I saw a history consisting of fourteen octavos, which made a splendid flight; and it was amusing to see them wind round the room, still preserving their order, and then light one by one upon a shelf.

My curiosity was excited by a thin book, which, having just flown in, hovered about unable to find a resting place, and seemed to be in great distress. It had first approached the district of religious writings, and, finding room, was just preparing to light when the surly volumes closed themselves together with one accord, and refused to admit the new comer amongst them. It attempted several different openings on these shelves, but still found the same want of hospitality, and wherever it appeared the divines shut up their ranks. It then flew round the room in great trouble, and I observed that as it passed the political pamphlets they opened of their own accord and offered it an asylum, but it turned away in disdain, and again made trial of the clergy; these inexorable octavos still refused, and it fluttered about appearing to be almost exhausted. I endeavoured to catch it, but it was too active to be entrapped. I then took aim at it with another book, and was so dexterous as to bring it down stunned and crippled by the blow. I found it to be a bishop's "Charge," which, instead of enforcing the topics that belong to that sort of exhortation, was almost entirely a political treatise. The religious writings, therefore, had not acknowledged it as divinity, but the pamphlets had supposed it to be one of themselves. I thought that this "Charge" was justly excluded from the religious shelves, and that it had no right to look with contempt upon the political writings, the language of which it had thought proper to assume. I therefore pushed it in amongst the pamphlets, though it flapped violently and made great efforts to escape.

As I left the library I observed two men, who were likewise quitting it, each of them having a roll of parchment in his hand, about which they were engaged in a violent controversy. I found that they had come up to the moon in search of the British Constitution, which they agreed had long ago been lost. Each fancied that he had found it, and vehemently asserted that what he carried was the real constitution, and the parchment of the other a fiction. One of them triumphantly pointed to the date, asking whether that was not the time when the constitution flourished. The other denied that there had been any constitution in being at that time, and asserted that his own date was the true one. Neither of them would give up the pretensions of his parchment, and they parted in some anger, each of them being convinced that he had the British constitution under his arm.

I next entered a valley containing the consolation which has been lavished in vain upon those stubborn people who will not cease to be unhappy at the desire of a friend. A great multitude of exhortations were proceeding here in every tone and cadence of sympathy. I heard the several topics of comfort under all earthly evils, so that any unfortunate man, who comes to this valley, may find the particular harangue suited to his case, and thus be reasoned out of his calamity.

Every saying to be cheerful by is here repeated without intermission, and the folly of being grieved under any affliction is so forcibly represented, that he who listens might wonder for what reason men are ever so perverse as to be miserable.

One person was desired to be easy, because he could not possibly have prevented his misfortune; another was told that he had no right to mourn, because his calamity might have been easily avoided. One comforter represented that, notwithstanding what had been taken away, the world was still full of happiness; while another declared that every thing in the world being utterly worthless, it was ridiculous that any man should imagine he had sustained a loss. Many were desired to console themselves with the advantage of others being in the same adversity. I also heard it urged, that Providence was certainly the best qualified to conduct the affairs of the world, and that we had no right to remonstrate, even by our tears, against what he might choose to do. One comforter would have cured all grief by affirming that we are altogether governed by imagination, and that the being either happy or miserable is a mere act of fancy. Some were very peremptory in their consolation, and inveighed against the grief of their friend as the most reprehensible of errors. Another consolation, of which I heard many specimens, was, that adversity is beneficial, and that there is nothing so much to a man's advantage as the being in affliction. To be grieved, therefore, was said to be altogether erroneous; and the reasonable deportment under all troubles was to rejoice. It was also declared that an admirable remedy against affliction is to consider that there has been sorrow from the beginning of the world; for how can men be troubled by something which has been from the beginning of the world?

By listening to these several ways of dissuading a man from having been unfortunate, I was confirmed in an opinion which I had formed before, that nature, fearing lest fortune should not be careful enough to provide us with calamities for our good, has annexed consolation to every disaster as an additional evil. It is said in a comedy of Molière, that no sick man ought to consult a physician unless he be sure that his constitution is strong enough to bear not only the disease but the remedies also; and perhaps it would be a caution equally proper that no man in distress should have recourse to a comforter unless confident that he has patience to undergo consolation as well as his calamity.

Leaving these remedies against adversity, I wandered on, and hearing a confused noise at a distance, walked towards it in expectation of another instructive valley. I was soon met by a man who was walking in a great hurry away from this sound, and I inquired of him what it was.

"Are you a married man?" said he; "if so, I advise you to fly from those murmurs; for in that valley are collected the noises of all the wives that have scolded since our first parents. The first I heard was the eloquence of my own excellent partner, which put me to flight, as it has often done before."

Notwithstanding the warning given me by this fugitive husband, I boldly approached the scene of domestic oratory; and as I drew near I heard female reprimands uttered in every variety of English phrase, ancient and modern, whence I learned that this species of rhetoric has been cultivated in our island from the earliest times, and continued to flourish without interruption through every change of the language. These invectives having arrived in the moon, it was plain that they had all been lost upon the inaccessible husbands, and I could not help admiring the firmness of men.

I was amused by observing the different styles of eloquence; there were several florid scolds, who declaimed with great copiousness, while others railed in a brief and forcible manner. Some spoke in a style of earnest remonstrance, many abandoned themselves to invective, and not the least powerful were those who conveyed censure in a sneer. In short, here might be studied all those varieties of reproof by which certain wives are accustomed to enforce domestic peace.

It was easy to distinguish the different ranks of life to which these connubial noises belonged; for some of them expressed a well-bred displeasure in good English, while others were so disguised by a provincial dialect that I was unable to interpret them. From the great variety of accent I concluded that every county in England was scolding here.

Soon after I had left this valley, I saw at a little distance from me a gentleman of my acquaintance, who with a stick was distributing some very vigorous blows in the air, as if defending himself from a swarm of bees, yet I could see no enemy against which all these efforts were directed. As I approached him, I heard an angry voice, very loud and voluble; and I then discovered his difficulty. He had been in the valley which I have last mentioned, where was a considerable quantity of his own wife's rhetoric, which, as soon as he approached it, had recognised him by a strange instinct, and swarming round his head, had assailed him with great fury. He instantly quitted the valley, hoping to leave this attendant behind, but it adhered to him with wonderful fidelity wherever he went, and he was now vainly endeavouring to drive it away with a stick, which instrument, whatever power it may sometimes have had to silence a similar clamour, was applied to this reproof without the least mitigation. I endeavoured to assist him in repelling it by disturbance of the air, but all we could do was to cut some of the words through the middle, and thus cause a little hesitation in the harangue. I could not forbear smiling to hear the lady's voice, which I knew very well, uttering a groundless invective upon domestic matters of very little importance. The husband perceiving my inclination to mirth, was much troubled that I should be a witness of the discipline he was undergoing. He said something about every family being liable to misunderstandings, and as the voice then entered upon a very private topic he walked hastily away, and carried his reproaches out of my hearing. I afterwards heard that he could not free himself from his incumbrance as long as he remained in the moon; but when he left it, the oratory could follow him no farther, and returned to its valley. I have been told that several other husbands who entered this valley were assailed in the same manner, and afterwards walked about the moon surrounded by these reprimands.

As I walked along, my attention was caught by a humming sound at a distance, which, as I was told, proceeded from the valley of lost sermons, whence an accidental wind had dispersed those discourses which had already assailed me in another part of the moon. I advanced into the valley, and stood surrounded by the uproar of divinity which filled it.

Notwithstanding the vast multitude of voices preaching in defiance of each other, I had no difficulty in distinguishing the words of each, but could single out any one that I chose to listen to. In all these valleys the same peculiarity is observable, that any voice can be heard without confusion, and separately from the rest.

The sermons in this place are divided according to their persuasion; the Church of England having its own district, and each body of Dissenters being limited to one place. The sects are sometimes confounded together by the wind, but when it is calm again they are all speedily reclaimed. Here are collected all the fruitless English sermons, that is, all which have failed to effect either of the two great ends of preaching,—the virtue of the hearers, and the preferment of the clergyman.

I heard much Christian anger uttered with great sincerity. Some of these compositions had more the sound of political speeches delivered to a body of electors than of discourses written for morality; and I imagined they must have been enrolled in the sermons by mistake.

Most of the sermons aiming at a reformation of manners which I here listened to were, as it seemed to me, guilty of wanton calumny in describing the vices of mankind; for they agreed that not one virtuous man could be discovered on the earth by the most diligent search. Had these preachers been any thing more than sound, I should certainly have remonstrated with some of them against traducing us to the moon with so much zeal.

This comprehensive invective has long been the established practice of the pulpit, and many specimens of it are found in our oldest divines. Indeed, it seems to be a common opinion, that no writing could be an authentic sermon unless it contained at least one bold assertion—that the whole world is abandoned to vice. But notwithstanding the authority of an established practice, if it were my function to make men good from the pulpit, I should certainly dispense with this rule, whatever uneasiness I might feel at the sacrifice of an old custom. To affirm the universal prevalence of vice, appears to me a most preposterous method of recommending virtue. The clergyman, in order to discourage those who are inclined to frailty, informs them that, although they gratify every bad inclination, they will always be countenanced by the similar conduct of all other men. Instead of engaging the influence of example on his own side, he exerts himself to make vice more pleasing by the attraction which there is in the practice of others. Our preachers in this might take a hint from our political orators, who, wishing to discredit any particular opinions, always represent them as embraced by a very small party. The most ignorant declaimer on politics has never endeavoured to make converts to his principles by affirming that there is not another man in the country who entertains them: yet by this argument virtue is enjoined from the pulpit, though against all common methods of persuasion; and I can hardly conceive, that when men are reasoned with from a small enclosed place, called a pulpit, they are to be moved by arguments exactly opposite to those which affect them from any other spot. I think, therefore, a preacher would furnish his hearers with a more natural inducement to virtue if, instead of labouring to convince them that by a dissolute life they will merely conform to established custom, he endeavoured to show that vicious practices will connect them with a small condemned party.

And, besides the attraction of example, these invectives against all mankind afford another discouragement to those who would practise morality; for he who learns from a sermon that there is not a good man in the world, must conclude goodness to be impracticable. Not having, therefore, the vanity to suppose that he can accomplish what no man living has succeeded in, and having heard that no man has been able to be virtuous, he infers, that he may spare himself the trouble and vexation of trying.

The sermons to which I was now listening, after having affirmed an universal depravity, proceeded to lament the uselessness of preaching, and to wonder how men could contrive their vicious enjoyments in defiance of so many sermons. Amongst all the reproaches with which a clergyman assails his congregation, there is none more frequent than imputing to them that he does not preach with any success; and he always concludes, without scruple, that the blame of not listening effectually must accrue to them.

It is observable, that the mind and the body, being committed for safety to two different artists, and many satirical observations being made against the success and utility of both, there is this difference in the two cases,—that all reflections on the art of medicine are directed against the physician by other people; while the satire concerning the efficacy of preaching is applied by the clergyman himself to his congregation. The preacher reproaches men with not becoming virtuous by his sermons; but a patient would think a physician very unreasonable, who should upbraid him with remaining ill in contempt of medicine. A sick man, who finds no health in the remedies prescribed, thinks himself entitled to call in question the skill of his physician: yet I believe there is no example of a profligate man complaining to his clergyman of not having been reclaimed. Now, I would propose it as a question to be considered, whether the preacher can justly claim this peculiar advantage of having his patients supposed incurable, because he has failed to cure them; whether he has in all cases a right to complain of having been heard without amendment of life, and should not rather share, at least, with his hearers the blame of their not being reformed?

Not that I would enforce against the clergy that rigorous computation of service which Lucian recommends against the philosophers who had to furnish men with virtue in his time. He relates, that a philosopher demanding payment from a young man who had attended his lectures, the guardian of this pupil interposed, and accused the philosopher of not having fulfilled the contract; "for," said he, "you engaged to supply this young man with morality; and it is but a few days since he basely corrupted a young woman in our neighbourhood. How, then, can you have the confidence to require payment for goodness which he has never received from you?" Lucian advises that this exaction of the morals, before they be paid for, should be generally practised against the providers of virtue. I wonder the expedient has not occurred to those modern statesmen who have discovered that our prosperity depends upon our obtaining doctrine from the clergy at the lowest possible price; for I think nothing could so effectually impoverish them as that all under their charge should insist upon having virtue before they paid for it: so that any one accosted by the collector of tithe should, in surprise, plead such an immunity as this:—"By what right can the clergyman demand payment for morals which he has not given me? Was I not intoxicated last night? Did I not beat my wife yesterday? Have not I taught my children to steal?"

When I had satisfied myself with the Valley of Sermons, and was proceeding in my travels, I met with a gentleman who formerly acquired considerable renown by some poems which were much read and admired. He told me, in confidence, that he was in search of his poetical fame, which he had unaccountably lost without any demerit of his own. When his works were first published, he said, they had been universally admitted as authentic poetry; yet they were now generally exploded, though every word had remained in the situation where he had first placed it. He had for some time connived at the decay of his reputation, but at length felt himself so obsolete, that he had no longer the confidence to walk into a room as a poet, but had relapsed into an ordinary man.

I endeavoured to comfort him by observing, that the same fate had happened even to the illustrious dead: Pope was once in high esteem, but is now by no means a poet according to the most received doctrine. The greatest man has genius only on permission; and how long even Homer and Virgil may remain poets, depends upon the indulgence of those writers who furnish us with taste and admiration.

The neglected poet, however, thought that the loss of fame by others was but little advantage to himself. He said, that Pope, being dead, was not embarrassed about the behaviour to be assumed in a decay of reputation; and he seemed to think that he ought at least to have been read as long as he lived, that he might have escaped this perplexity. He said he could have borne the want of success if from the beginning men had committed the injustice of not reading him; but obscurity after fame was so irksome, that he knew not what to do. To evince the outrage he had suffered, he began to enlarge upon his forgotten works, and to argue in favour of their being poetry, in which I knew not how to help him. I was, indeed, innocent of having ceased to read his poems, for I had never attained to any farther knowledge of them than the names. However, I acquiesced in his praises as plausibly as I could.

He said his downfal gave him additional regret, because he had written his own life, which he had expected to be as much read and esteemed as that of either Alfieri or Goldoni; but he now should not have the confidence to publish it. When it was written, the world had evinced a great curiosity concerning him; and now nobody asked a question about the way in which he passed his time. I expressed my sense of the injustice committed by the world in having no curiosity about him.

He told me he had learned that a building within sight contained the lost renown of Englishmen, who from greatness had fallen into the adversity that he now suffered; and he had some hope of recovering his fame there. We advanced, and entered this building, which is very similar to that described before, as containing the cheerfulness of dejected persons. In a large room we saw great numbers of phials, which, we were told, preserve the fame that has left men before their death. As they are all arranged according to chronology, my companion, by a search into that period when his reception had become less certainly that of a poet, discovered the phial that bore his name. He took it into his hand, and held it up to the light; but, although it was of transparent glass, nothing could be seen within. But now it occurred to him, that he had not recovered his fame by acquiring this phial. He knew not what measures to take, and was at a loss to conceive how the phial could contribute to the general reading of his works.

I advised him to remove the stopper, and apply his nose, to receive any virtue that might ensue. This he did; when immediately his eyes began to sparkle, and he told me that the perfume he enjoyed was the greatest pleasure he had ever felt. He then held the phial to me: but I could perceive nothing, this renown being no pleasure to any but the owner. He exulted as much as a young author during the sale of his first book, and seemed to think himself suddenly restored to his honours; repeating several times, "I am a poet again!" I hinted to him, that the consequences of this phial must be fallacious, and expressed a doubt whether it were possible to become a poet through the nose, as he now believed himself to have done; since it was hardly to be supposed that, because he had found an agreeable perfume, men would read his poems with new eagerness. He took no notice of what I said, but exclaimed, "The tenth edition is wanted! the press cannot work fast enough! the public must have patience!" I perceived that the phial had made him delirious; but, concluding that its suggestions would soon cease, I let him enjoy his greatness without any farther interruption. He walked away; and I know not how long it was before he was undeceived.

I now took a farther survey of the room. Each phial had a label recording the name of the person whose renown it contained, the means by which he had become famous, and the cause of his losing reputation, with some other particulars. They are divided into the different classes of writing, oratory, and other contrivances for being great. I first examined the authors, who led me into speculations on the instability of a writer's fame, and on the causes by which a work full of genius last year has now no merit, and that without any apparent change, except that twelve months have elapsed.

On the labels of these phials I read the several artifices practised by authors for renown. The device of some had been obscurity, which had charmed those judges who think a passage of no value if it can be read without delay, and ascribe the greatest genius to him who can obstruct his reader the most frequently, and oppose to him the greatest number of impassable phrases.

Another way to greatness recorded here is, the combining together of words the most repugnant to each other. I saw the name of a man who had eminently practised this deception, and obtained by it a great renown for a few weeks. In every page of his writings, those words which might have been supposed irreconcileable were found side by side, to the great admiration of the public. These unusual alliances, as being imagination, were very successful; and it was thought that none but an extraordinary man could have brought together words which offered so much resistance. But these words having remained in conjunction for a few weeks, the wonder ceased, and it began to be thought that, with an ample collection from diligent study of a dictionary, this style would not be so difficult as at first had been imagined. From observing the several stratagems for greatness, I concluded, that the most efficacious expedient is surprise. The author who can so perplex his readers, that they know not what to think, is sure of renown. And, not only in writing, but all other kinds of imposition, he who can devise some project for giving men a surprise, will be a celebrated person, until they are recovered from it. This, indeed, soon happens, for men will not remain astonished; and, as soon as their wonder has ceased, they always impute fraud to the author of their amazement, and despise him accordingly. But still they cannot take from him the advantage of having once been famous, which sometimes is sufficient for peace of mind; since ambitious men differ much in their wants; and although some, like my friend the poet, cannot live in comfort without constant supplies of applause, yet others, by having once been gazed at for a month, are cheerful and serene till death.

I saw here the names of many authors who were once famous by a contrivance which has often been practised with great success: it is not in the power of a single man, but requires a confederacy. This stratagem is no more than a secret agreement amongst certain writers to extol each other; every one in this league, therefore, continues to affirm that the others are great men, till the world can no longer avoid believing it. Sometimes a man performs this office for himself, and endeavours to be a great author on his own assertion: but it is far safer to depend on the word of an accomplice. While one, in such a combination, is eagerly prosecuting the plot by encomiums on the rest, he seems merely to be acting with great candour towards his competitors for fame; and the world admires the generous spirit in which these men of genius live together. This invention is exactly described by Horace:—

"Discedo Alcæus puncto illius, ille meo quis?
Quis nisi Callimachus? Si plus adposcere visus
Fit Mimnermus, et optivo cognomine crescit."

In this room, also, I found some who had been illustrious by another kind of conspiracy—the founding of mysterious sects in poetry. For this purpose, a few writers enter into a league, and agree upon a style (if so it can be called) in which, to prevent criticism, they take care that there shall be no meaning. The art is to give their words such a sound, that the reader shall be persuaded they signify something remarkable, though he cannot reach it; and that he shall always seem just about to understand what he reads, without ever quite arriving at the sense. So great is the charm of reading in this confusion of mind, that he who has once contracted a love of it lays aside with contempt any composition that he can understand, and derides those who had before been received as poets, and who, in truth, are so far from being so, that a plain man of competent sagacity may in any passage discern their meaning without much difficulty. It is true, that the followers of these mysterious poets, being those who read for the sake of not understanding, are a small body: but this is a cause of pride to the poets, as being suited only to a few exalted minds; and any person, who complains of not understanding what he reads, is readily answered that he is not one of the chosen few. The readers, too, are as proud of the singularity as their author, and assume a superiority over all men who insist on comprehending what they read.

——"Illud
Quod mecum ignorat solus vult scire videri."

Horace.

Next to the phials which contain the lost reputation of authors are some which hold the decayed fame of orators; those who, in their first session of parliament, cause wonder by their eloquence; and in the second, by their silence. I also saw the names of some orators of a lower kind; those statesmen in the open air, who distribute strange noises to any who will listen, and undertake to redress the hunger and raggedness of their hearers.

I observed on each of these phials containing the past renown of exploded men the name of the merit with which he was once supposed to be endowed, and under it the true quality, which had been erroneously construed into that merit. Thus, on the phial of one of these orators to the crowd, I read "Eloquence," as his claim to greatness; and this word, underneath, was translated into "Impudence," which was also the interpretation of many other excellencies; and I was surprised to find in how many different ways a man may be great by this single endowment. He who has not this inspiration imagines that confidence must denote the possession of something to rely upon, and ignorantly supposes, that a man cannot be assured of his own eloquence without a subject to speak upon, and words to utter; while those who are endued with this great quality lie under no such necessities, but are intrepid without any means of confidence, except their own inward vigour and alacrity.

I learned here, that this gift of impudence had been wit and humour, argument, eloquence, industry, courage, zeal for the public good, and, indeed, any other virtue convenient to the owner. However, the renown by impudence never lasts long, which seems to be the only defect of that attribute.

Having examined these phials with many reflections on the perishable nature of fame, I walked forth, and soon reached a building, which contains the good intentions that have never been executed. There is a vast accumulation of these virtuous endeavours; and I found amongst them many actions so noble, that I greatly regretted they should have been put in practice only so far as to be thought of. Some persons appeared to have entertained only two or three of these excellent projects during their lives; others had been incessantly occupied in schemes of future goodness. I found a great number of resolutions to reform voluptuous habits: many had determined to repeat a beloved vice no more after a certain time; some deferred their abstinence till the following year; and others declared that it should begin the next day. This contrivance, of beginning virtue at an appointed time, seemed to have been much practised: one man, in the month of April, had resolved that he would be good after the first of June, retaining a license for the intervening weeks.

It is a precept of Lord Bacon's, that those who are endeavouring to assume an authority over their bad habits should contrive that what they undertake at one time be neither too easy nor too difficult; since, by attempting too little, they make no progress, and by aiming at too much, they fail altogether, and are discouraged. This plan seems plausible; but I here found innumerable instances in which it had been useless: nor from these examples was I able to form any opinion as to what quantity of reformation is the most likely to be endured at one time. Some confident men had been very peremptory with their faults, and resolved to dismiss them altogether; the consequence of which was, that these faults adhered to each other, and all remained where they were. Others had been content to begin with prohibiting one little enjoyment at a time, and had found the same disobedience; while others, who had tried the moderate amendment prescribed by Lord Bacon, had succeeded no better.

There were several who, after the frequent failing of a resolution, had desisted in despair, and for the rest of their lives permitted the error to remain unmolested; but many had continued to repeat the same unsuccessful effort, and as soon as one resolution gave way, had supplied its place with another, exactly similar, so as to equal the perseverance with which the spider renews his web whenever it is swept away.

A man, who lived principally in bed, had every day entered into a determination to rise at six; one, whose health suffered by the achievements of his appetite at meals, had employed the morning of every day in a resolution to dine sparingly; a third, while he was zealously dispersing a good fortune, had not passed a day without resolving to commence a rigid scrutiny into his accounts, and to have a personal acquaintance with every shilling he possessed. A man who, by an angry temper, put both his family and himself to great inconvenience, had undertaken from that moment to be the most peaceable man alive: this resolution had wanted repairing several times every day.

Men are apt to commit the error of believing, that a resolution, once fixed in the mind, will remain there till they authorise it to leave its post. Another mistake is, the supposing that, because a certain bad inclination is not troublesome at the present moment, it can never return. Some animals have a property which naturalists call hybernation (they remain a part of every year without apparent life); and many persons do not know that their faults are amongst the creatures which undergo this intermission. From ignorance of this part of natural history, they believe a vice to be dead, and exult at having destroyed it, when it is only taking this natural rest, from which it is to have new vigour. The bad success of these persons, who all their lives were about to be excellent men, made me reflect on the deficiency of the ancient and celebrated injunction, "Know thyself," which "e cœlo descendit," and was delivered and received as comprehending all wisdom and virtue; whereas, to know our faults, and to abstain from them, are two achievements so obviously distinct, that I wonder how they could have been confounded.

It has been said, that hell is paved with good intentions; by which all efficacy seems to be denied to these unsuccessful attempts. This judgment appears to me a little too severe; and I would allow some merit to the good that we do in prospect. The chief praise, no doubt, must be given to the inexorable man who is actually virtuous; but he who makes an effort, though in vain, must, I think, be acknowledged superior to the numbers who continue to sin with perfect resignation. Moralists usually agree, that he who intends to do ill is culpable, though he should not accomplish his schemes; and I think, therefore, it is but just, that he who designs to do good, though without success, should be allowed some portion of praise.

Pursuing my journey, I arrived at a valley, in which I saw a crowd of seeming men and women, dressed in fantastic habits, and walking up and down: but one whom I there met informed me, that this was the Valley of Lost Fashions, and that the persons I saw were only dresses which had formerly reigned. I walked down into the valley; and then perceived that these dresses had no person to guide and conduct them: yet they stood upright, as if the wearers had been within, and moved about as gracefully as they could have done under their command. The several parts of the same suit adhered together, each occupying its proper place; and the hat hovered over, as if supported by a head. These dresses were of both sexes; and I saw every variety of apparel that has inhabited England. The dresses of the different ages were mingled together: there was the scanty and simple concealment of savage times, and the several sorts of gorgeous and cumbersome robes formerly worn in our country; in looking at which, I wondered how people could ever have been induced to involve themselves in such impediments.

I here found, not only the dresses once in fashion, but also the gestures which have been practised in former ages; for every suit of clothes retained the manner and behaviour to which it had been accustomed. There were some ceremonious clothes, which were incessantly paying homage to others, and, in particular, made very low bows to every female dress which they met. Some moved with a solemn sedate pace, and others were very lively. I observed several ladies' gowns that had a great deal of vivacity.

All these dresses conducted themselves so naturally, that I could hardly be satisfied there was not a prompter within each. Seeing, therefore, an embroidered petticoat, which walked in a very stately manner, I ventured to raise it, in order to disclose whatever might be there. To this inquiry it made no resistance; and I found that it had none of those secrets to keep, which are usually entrusted to a petticoat.

I observed a gold-headed cane walking up and down with a great deal of medical dignity and learning, and above this, at about six feet from the ground, there floated in the air a redundant wig, as being part of the same physician.

I was here convinced how many of the estimable qualities of human nature are comprehended in dress and gesture; for when I saw these suits of clothes walking about, each with its own grace and manner, I could not avoid feeling some respect for them as human beings. When the splendid apparel of a nobleman in Queen Elizabeth's time stalked past me with a slow solemn step, I admired its profound reflection, and political abilities; and I was several times inclined to laugh at the wit of a lively coat and waistcoat.

I think, in our estimation of those suits of clothes which discharge all the duties of this life with propriety and applause, we do not sufficiently acknowledge where the true merit lies. Lord Burleigh was so sensible of the rights of dress, that in throwing off his gown, he frequently said to it, "Lie there, Lord Treasurer," as being the real officer of state.

As I was walking about amongst these actors, I was suddenly startled by a formidable oath, which was pronounced near me; and I turned round to see which of the garments was the profane one. I found, however, that they were not capable of such an accomplishment as swearing. Another oath, still more copious than the first, was uttered close to me, where there was no suit of clothes to be seen; and I then found that these imprecations were preserved here amongst the exploded fashions. I soon heard every variety of them uttered without anger, and, as it seemed, merely for the purpose of adding grace or vigour to the sentiments which they had accompanied. There were some poetical oaths, which seemed to come from a swearer of imagination, and others very concise and simple. Many were so obscure, that I found it impossible to discover their meaning; while some were intelligible enough. As swearing is now a dead language, we could not, without considerable study, become thoroughly versed in that literature. But I think it might admit of dispute, whether the suppression of oaths has been a wise or useful measure, since they certainly added great facility to conversation. It is known that, in the days of oaths, there were many who swore with much invention, but had little ability to converse in any other style; so that we may suppose there are persons who, by the prohibition of the only language they can speak, are excluded from all conversation, and must distinguish themselves by silence. Our ancestors applied oaths to a great variety of purposes: to enforce an argument, or supply the want of one; to evince sincerity; to ratify a sentiment; to gain time for preparation: they used them, also, as invective, wit, fancy, repartee, and, indeed, as the representatives of every beauty of speech; so that, manifestly, a great loss and barrenness must have accrued to our conversation from this supposed refinement.

But in favour of this art, we may allege an antiquity far beyond our ancestors, since we find specimens of it in the oldest writings. The orators have always used it in great abundance: it was successfully cultivated both by Demosthenes and Cicero; and it is to be observed, that it remained in the modern oratory of England after it had been exploded in conversation. In both Houses of Parliament, a well-timed "Good God!" has been frequently known to have great force, and sometimes was the chief argument that a speech contained.

Whilst I was wandering amongst the departed garments, having escaped from the oaths, I heard a voice near me exclaim, "Whatever is, is;" and very soon was added, "It is impossible for the same thing to be, and not to be." I could not conjecture whence this important intelligence came, till I met with a person, who informed me, that the maxims which have passed for truths amongst men, as soon as they are exploded, arrive in the moon, and are associated with the other dismissed fashions. In what I had just heard, I recognised the innate ideas with which philosophers formerly stored the mind of an infant, supposing that, for our safety through life, we are born fully instructed, that "Whatever is, is," and provided, also, with some other truths equally useful.

I afterwards heard many other maxims, which once were undisputed: for in this Valley of Lost Fashions the air was filled with truths, religious, moral, political, and physical; and, finding here so much of the learning of our ancestors, I trembled for the fate of many things which are now undoubtedly true amongst us: for the reason of man is certainly as variable as his dress; and that secret power, which we call fashion, regulates opinions, as it does skirts and collars. Different doctrines come and go in succession, just as one form of apparel supplants another: a particular kind of dress is dismissed, not for any demerit, but because it has been worn for a certain time. By the same law of variety, that which has been true for several years is therefore not entitled to be true any longer; and as those who abandon a particular dress can assign no reason for it, except the example of others, so, when an opinion is universally renounced in any country, the chief part of the nation know not why they now consider it false, nor why they before believed it to be true. There are, indeed, some stubborn enemies of fashion, both in dress and reason: one man prides himself on fidelity to notions which all others have deserted, and disdains to think any thing which was not thought a century ago; another, of the same character, but differently manifested, continues to dress himself with equal firmness, resists all innovation in the brim of his hat, and never deviates in his coat or his gaiters from the example set him by his father.

It has been an eager study, with some writers, to trace the progress and succession of opinions in past ages, and to explain how one prevalent notion has been naturally derived from another; but in such speculations there is usually this imperfection, that they stop at the present time, instead of proceeding to deduce future opinions from the present. For it is singular, that men who have sagacity to demonstrate that the maxims prevalent in one age must unavoidably have followed those in the preceding, yet from our present doctrines can derive no opinions at all for the future; and can no more invent maxims to be entertained five years hence, than a milliner can invent dresses to be worn at that time.

In this assembly of the deceased fashions I found many ancient and venerable maxims, which served our ancestors for truth; and some of them, I thought, might have been retained amongst us with advantage, though many had certainly been dismissed with justice. I began to think of catching a few of these past truths which I most approved of, and turning them out in England; but was informed that they would immediately return to the moon. Besides the ancient truths, I found here some which had been born and had died within my own memory, and some which had been truths one year, and delusions the next.

The noise of these contending opinions, each as positive as its antagonist, each enjoying its short popularity, and thus succeeding and undermining each other like statesmen, could not fail to make me consider with regret how very little of real durable truth there is in the world. However, we have this consolation, that if truth is not to be found on the earth, its place is amply supplied by belief, which is an excellent substitute for it.

Belief has, indeed, many advantages over truth; it serves equally well to stop inquiry, and satisfy the curiosity which harasses mankind; and it may be attained without the labour and search by which truth must be pursued; for it happens fortunately that it is as easy to believe as it is difficult to know. He, too, who follows truth with a life of meditation, can seldom arrive at any firm conviction, but is continually perplexed by doubt; while the resolute believer is not disturbed in his tenets by the slightest distrust. Besides this, the truths that we can reach are but few, and the greatest part of nature is inaccessible to inquiry; while the knowledge of him who believes is unlimited: he finds nothing obscure, but is admitted into all the secrets of the universe. This, too, must be considered, that he who, after great labour, fancies himself possessed of a truth, may, upon further discoveries, see his hypothesis taken from him; but the believer, who has a resolute mind, can by no art or reasoning be deprived of his belief. It is also a great evil of truth, that we must receive it as it is by nature, and not as we would wish it to be. On the other hand, we have it in our power to believe whatever we desire; and in our plans of the universe may take care to admit nothing to our disadvantage. This flexible nature of belief is well understood by those reasoners who, when they would refute a doctrine, consider it sufficient if they prove it to be pernicious; whence, without hesitation, it is to be false. For the reasons I have assigned, my advice to all persons is, that they leave the perplexities of truth, and resort to belief, as of much greater ease, certainty, and serenity.

The place I visited after the territory of fashions, was a house preserving the female characters that have been lost. They are kept in bottles; and upon the label of each is recorded the accident or temptation under which the character was let go; and I found much amusement in this enumeration of the disasters incident to the female reputation. One character had entered the bottle by surprise, another by perseverance; society had been fatal to some, and solitude to others; some perished by flattery, others by argument; here I saw a character lost by thoughtlessness, and there by contemplation.

While I was reading the narratives of these accidents I observed a lady whom I knew to have incurred this important loss, in search of the bottle that contained her own reputation, which having found, she seized it very eagerly, when immediately it dropped from her hands and was broken. The character flowed out, resembling quicksilver in appearance, and the lady in great anxiety endeavoured to collect it, but in vain, for it escaped with the utmost agility whenever she touched it.

From this house I proceeded to another, filled also with bottles, containing the lost popularity of statesmen. I here found a well known politician who has occupied a place in the English cabinet. He told me in confidence that he had been sent to the moon to regain the lost popularity of his party. It had escaped from them, he said, in a very singular manner, and without any misconduct of theirs. He soon found the bottle he was in search of; but these bottles being fixed to their shelves he had contrived a plan for catching and detaining the popularity, which he had been told would issue forth as soon as the cork should be removed. He produced a paper bag, composed of an act of parliament, which had been designed for endless popularity, supposing that if he could once enclose the lost popularity of himself and his colleagues in that bag he could carry it back without any danger of losing it on the road.

Just as he was about to release the prize, and with much preparation was holding his bag ready to catch it, another statesman of a different party entered the room, and advancing to the spot produced a bag, with which he also stood ready to dispute the possession of this valuable popularity. His bag also was made out of a parliamentary bill, but it had not yet been passed, and he seemed to be confident that it would be strong enough to secure the captive.

But the first invader of the bottle seeing this new competitor desisted from his undertaking, and began to remonstrate against the interference. He said the popularity, that he was going to regain, belonged to himself and his colleagues, and no other party could have a just claim to it; their rivals, he added, ought to invent a popularity for themselves, and not attempt to steal that which others had made by their own industry. He affirmed, too, that the bag which his adversary had brought was made of paper stolen out of his desk.

To this the second politician answered, that the popularity in this bottle was not the property of one party rather than another, but the prize of any who could gain possession of it. "You and your colleagues," said he, "have devised a convenient maxim, that whoever obtains the good will of the public is usurping something that belongs to you. You have bespoken for yourselves every benefit to the country that can be thought of, and any other man who attempts to do good is encroaching on your rights. You declare yourselves the authors of every useful law that any man may hereafter propose; you are the sole proprietors of the people's applause, and nobody can acquire approbation except by defrauding you."

In the midst of this dispute, a third statesman, armed with a bag, came to claim the contents of the bottle. He derided the pretensions of the other two, saying that no party could have popularity by just means except himself and his friends, and whatever portion other men might enjoy they must have gained by deceit. However, he was convinced that the bags of the other two would be incapable of holding the popularity, and that his own would succeed, for he said it was made out of some admirable laws. I looked at his bag, and saw it was composed of blank paper, for the laws he spoke of were yet to come, being only in his intentions, and the paper kept vacant for them.

After some farther dispute it seemed impossible that these claims to the bottle should be settled by negotiation; and the only agreement that the three statesmen could arrive at was, that the popularity being let loose should remain in the possession of any one of the three to whom it should be allotted by that kind of justice called a scramble, which is a mode of arbitration very useful and decisive in adjusting many political contests.

The three politicians, therefore, standing watchfully with their bags, the cork was drawn, when a loud shout of English huzzas rushed from the bottle. This was the popularity; and the first of the three statesmen lost no time in placing his bag over the mouth of the bottle, when it was instantly torn into a thousand pieces by the wild shout. The second politician had placed his bag immediately over that of his rival, to provide for this accident; but the precious huzzas escaped through it with the same ease as through the first, and left it a similar ruin. The third statesman laughed triumphantly, and held out his bag with great confidence; but not a single cry would enter it, and the whole clamour flew through an open window, and was heard gradually becoming more distant. The three baffled statesmen ran to the window, and listened eagerly to the retiring uproar, imagining sometimes that it approached them again. When at length it had quite died away, they began to dispute in which bag it ought to have been enclosed, and continued the debate for some time with much argument and anger.

As I walked along, looking for new adventures, I was surprised by the sight of a church, with a parsonage house near to it, the scene having an appearance entirely English. I approached the house, wondering at so exact a copy of things in my own world; but when I had come close to it, I was still more astonished to see the house shrink suddenly, and convert itself into the dress of a bishop, the roof dwindling to a wig, and the walls becoming robes; at the same instant the church was increased into a cathedral, which I recognised as the cathedral of Worcester. While I gazed in wonder, the cathedral underwent another change, and in a moment was that of Canterbury. Immediately afterwards the bishop's robes raised themselves, and stood upright as vigorously as if they had enclosed a real bishop, while the wig hung over them as if supported by a head. The robe then stretched out its right sleeve as being in the act of oratory. I had a great curiosity to understand this mysterious transaction, and fortunately I met with a person who was able to explain it. He told me that all this was merely a vision, which had passed through the mind of one of those contemplative persons who are usually called castle builders; that fortunate race of beings, who, if they are left alone but a few minutes, can bring to pass whatever they wish for. He said the moon was amply supplied with such meditations, the name of the dreamer being always to be found upon the figure which he had sent there.

On learning this, I approached Canterbury Cathedral to look for the name of the person who had built it, and I found inscribed over the door the name of a young clergyman whom I knew. He had taken orders without either money or interest, and did not seem likely to benefit Christianity, otherwise than by wearing a black coat. Having, therefore, time for meditation, he had been busy in making the only kind of provision for himself that lay in his power. When I saw his name I could easily interpret his vision: in the beginning of it he had been settled in a country living, which was the church and parsonage house that had first drawn my attention; from this, by some celebrated works on divinity, he had been raised to the bishopric of Worcester, and thence transferred to Canterbury with a remarkably rapid promotion. The robes and the wig were now evidently addressing the House of Lords. In this office the lawn sleeves performed many explanatory and convincing gestures; and the wig supporting itself in the air, at a suitable distance from the robes, duly executed all that significant nodding and trembling by which such a wig usually defends the church. The dress, indeed, had every perfection of oratory except meaning. While this eloquence proceeded, he who had attained all this preferment was probably wandering solitary and neglected.

I now found that I was in the territory allotted to these castles; and proceeding a little farther, I was surrounded by visionary sights, the several objects changing every instant as the dream went on. In the midst of these chimeras I observed a beautiful woman seated, and was surprised by her not taking the least notice of any thing round her; but on going behind her I saw a name inscribed on the back of her neck, and so discovered that she was herself a castle. The name was that of a young lady endued with a very homely person, who being unable to acquiesce in the face and shape imposed upon her, had secretly provided herself with another form more to her taste. What I now saw, therefore, was the figure which she had appointed to personate her in her imaginary actions. This elegant apparition was a dark beauty when I first observed her, but soon after became suddenly fair, the lady in the course of her dream having chosen a new complexion. She was at first in an evening dress; but in an instant a riding habit grew over her, and she was on horseback with a very graceful seat. Soon after she resumed the evening dress and was dancing.

At the same time I saw a lawyer's wig and gown, and by the eloquent gestures of the sleeves and the forcible nods of the wig, I perceived that it was pleading a cause. This was the apparel of a young lawyer, which, finding no employment in court, was frequently exercised in the imagination of the wearer.

While I was examining these visions a sudden wind sprung up and swept them away. Canterbury Cathedral glided along in a very majestic manner, and the wig and gown continued to argue as far as I could see them. Amongst the fictitious actions here, which I had time to observe, were many pairs of young men and women engaged in very agreeable conversation. These were the dreams of those hapless persons, who, unable to obtain a real accomplishment of their tenderness, have recourse to imagination, where no accident or prohibition can interrupt their interviews. But I must here warn those who practise such clandestine meetings, that since the road to the moon has been opened their private meditations are no longer safe. An action only thought of has formerly been judged secure from the most inquisitive; but now, when all have access to the moon, where the tenderest visions are thus exposed, it will be advisable to dream with great caution. I here saw two or three young ladies of my acquaintance engaged in confederacies of which the world has had no suspicion, and the apparitions bore an exact resemblance to the ladies themselves. It is true that in one of these chimerical scenes of tenderness two figures must concur, and, therefore, it cannot be known which of the two has transacted the vision; but a probable conjecture may often be formed by those who know them. I have thought it right to give this warning to the builders of castles, who have hitherto been secure against curiosity, and in all their forbidden meetings have enjoyed an exemption from the common danger of discovery. Their privilege of secrecy is now lost; and henceforth, when they wish to retire for the customary enjoyment, they will do well to remember that all they are to think of must be acted also before the eyes of profane and satirical observers.

The castles being blown away from me, I walked forward reflecting on the happy lot of those who build castles, and are thus enabled to determine what events shall happen to them. There are many persons so dull, that through life they have no incidents except those which really occur; and if an advantage, which they desire, does not actually take place, they are quite unable to obtain the enjoyment of it. These persons cannot conceive the life of a castle builder. He is the only man who can set fortune at defiance, being entirely the master of his own destiny. He does not, therefore, distribute prosperity to himself in that sparing and imperfect manner which fortune always observes: he is subject neither to delay nor disappointment in his undertakings; and instead of needing the labour and perseverance which are necessary to others for success, he can accomplish all that he wishes in walking about, in sitting still, or at full length. The best gifts of fortune are not comparable to his fictions; for in real life there is always something defective to impair the happiest lot, but he who lives in vision takes care to exclude every circumstance that could disturb his serenity. It is to be considered, too, that an actual event can happen only once, but in imagination the same fortunate casualty may be repeated as often as it is wished for. It has always been a complaint that the successes of life are followed by satiety; but an able builder of castles is never satisfied. Those who are subservient to real occurrences are perpetually stopped in their designs by an obstacle called impossibility, but this is no impediment to a true visionary: he can recover a fortune which has been squandered, recall a lost friend to life, and restore ruined health to vigour. It is true that those who devote themselves to the pursuit of these fancies are soon disqualified for the real affairs and successes of life, but so great is the happiness by a proficiency in dreaming that they can willingly relinquish all other advantages.

I was now attracted by the loudest valley that I had yet heard, and was told by one whom I met, that it contained the disputes of conversation, so that I no longer wondered at the great eagerness and confusion of voices. I soon arrived at the place, and walked into these controversies, which are divided into separate districts according to the subjects of them.

I first found myself in the political disputes to which every place of resort and conversation throughout England had contributed. Clamours on public affairs were assembled in this spot from the clubs of London, the coffee-rooms of all the towns in the kingdom, the dinner tables of country gentlemen, and innumerable other places where men talk for the welfare of their country; and since every Englishman is both a statesman and an orator, it may be imagined there is here a noble exhibition of eloquence. I heard with some amusement these voices talking with all the zeal of men engaged in a public duty; for most of those who are politicians in private believe that their country cannot prosper if they are silent. I listened to several of those who are statesmen out of history, and in their reasonings about present events always argue two hundred years back. I heard the dispute of two voices, which contrived to embroil Hampden in all the transactions of the present time. There were many other reasoners who combated on the events of former ages with as much zeal and anger as they could have done on the laws which concerned their own property. Indeed, few Englishmen are neutral readers of history: almost all enrol themselves as party men in all contests since Elizabeth, and with great fidelity adhere to their friends in every page. A true Englishman is persuaded that his own credit depends on the reputation of certain statesmen of past times, in whose designs he is so deeply engaged that he must share their praise or ignominy, and he is defending his own character when he decries their adversaries, who must be villains before he can be an honest man.

After listening to these historical disputes, I advanced a few steps, and found myself in modern times, where all the late vicissitudes were debated with much indignation. I heard animadversions on certain politicians, in voices which by an earnest sincerity of tone betrayed suffering for the want of office.

I amused myself here with observing the several arts of controversy which are practised by private disputants, and perhaps are in greatest perfection on political subjects, such as a louder voice than the adversary may be willing or able to arrive at; a sudden anger, which may make him silent from fear or decency; the not hearing any thing that he says, a resolution which must baffle the best reasoner; the beginning to talk while he is in the crisis of his argument. I found here an admirable expedient for making an argument unanswerable, which is to repeat it till the adversary is tired of answering it. Another artifice, much practised in this place, was, that when one disputant had urged something inconvenient, the other, with great confidence, would say something wholly foreign to the question, as if in answer, and then the surprise and silence of the first, while he considers how this can be applied to the subject, must be construed into a defeat.

There are other arts, perhaps, not less victorious than these, as a contemptuous silence, and disdaining to argue any longer; a smile of superiority, a look of having much more to say were it worth the trouble, a pretended yielding to the adversary, as if encouraging him to talk, and expose his ignorance.

Being tired of politics, I wandered through the valley, and heard innumerable subjects debated. I here found a proof that nature leaves no creature altogether without defence; for when she does not empower a man to argue, she enables him to be angry.

I had occasion to consider the extravagance of those philosophers, who from time to time have embraced a singular project of bringing all the world to one opinion, for I observed here how naturally our friend, by maintaining one side of a question, provokes us to undertake the other. And yet this wild design of making men unanimous is still entertained by certain persons, who believe that they are appointed to think for all the world, and that mankind have nothing to do but think after them. It is true, they allow, that men are now stubborn; but the age of thinking alike will arrive.

I remarked, in this valley, that there is nothing so efficacious in prolonging and enforcing a controversy as for men not to know what they are disputing about. There were also many instances of another endless way of reasoning, when two disputants agree without suspecting it, and in different words contend vehemently for the same thing.

I found in this valley a great number of what may be called domestic disputes, being those contests in which some families pass all their leisure and retirement. I listened to some of these, and greatly admired the invention of the reasoners, and their vigilance in seizing opportunities for a difference of opinion. I heard a lady and six daughters debating whether a certain person had grey eyes or hazel: the mother and two daughters contended for the hazel, while the four others supported grey. Both sides maintained their own hypothesis with great vehemence, dexterity, and strength of argument. Each reasoner insisted on her own superior opportunities of information, for one had seen the eyes most frequently, but another had viewed them in the most advantageous light. Neither party could gain a proselyte from the other. I heard another family disputing with equal earnestness, whether a certain person, lately dead, had been good-natured or not. I listened to several other controversies of the same kind, as acute, angry, and useful, as many famous disputes amongst scholars and divines.

Being at last quite weary of all this wrangling, I continued my journey, and soon reached a building that contains lost experience, being the opportunities which men have neglected of becoming wise at their own expense. Over the door is a statue representing Experience. It is the figure of an old man, expressing very significantly the pretence to wisdom, from a long life, appearing to be in the act of imparting caution, and asserting a title to know more than others, from having lived longer. This figure reminded me of several old men whom I have known to gain great confidence in their own opinion from a long seclusion, supposing themselves practised in the conduct of life by a continuance of infirmity and decay, and concluding that by an absence of twenty years from the world they must understand it better than those who are still conversant with it. Most old men need to be told that the being alive is not experience, and that the longer their old age has been, the more time they have had to forget.

I entered the building, and found one large room of the same appearance as I have before described, being full of bottles, which preserve the wasted experience. Each bottle had a label giving a history of its contents. This room made me consider how erroneous is the common opinion concerning the efficacy of experience. It is usually said, that we are not to be taught by what happens to others, but only by what befalls ourselves, yet I think most who reflect on their lives must confess that the warnings they give themselves are to little purpose. To prove the vanity of experience, I would have any man consider how often he has failed to effect that improvement in his own character or conduct, which he now promises himself shall be very soon concluded. When we have every day endeavoured not to do a thing, and have yet done it every day for some years past, we are still convinced that to-morrow it really will be omitted; such is the authority of experience over our judgment. A stone, says Aristotle, being thrown up a thousand times does not learn to ascend. In many laudable endeavours, men benefit no more by experience than the stone, but still come back to the same place. I think, therefore, it may be said that experience has just force enough to make men lament that they are doing wrong, but not enough to make them do right.

In this room I saw many persons examining their own bottles, where they found the follies which they had diligently repeated after learning the bad consequences of them. They all were struck with melancholy at finding how many occasions of becoming prudent they had neglected. Gamblers found here the frequent losses and turns of fortune which had warned them of ruin, and in defiance of which they had proceeded with admirable resolution. The spendthrift was reproached with having still forgotten the want and difficulty which many times in his life had admonished him of the habits by which he was now a beggar.

I read with some amusement the histories on many of these bottles. One of them containing the wasted experience of a friend of mine, a member of parliament, records his endeavours to be an orator. Though every experiment has been conclusive in favour of silence, he still persists in his design of being the first orator in the House of Commons. Next to this bottle is one, which proves that experience has no greater force against poetry. It belongs to the author of a yearly volume, the reception of which every year has bid him desist from being a poet, but has not retarded the composition for the year following.

I observed a gentleman of my acquaintance studying attentively the label of his own bottle, which was covered with a long narration of neglected warnings, for he is thoroughly conversant with almost every enterprise of imprudence. He told me that he should take possession of his bottle, and carrying it to the earth make use of it to resist temptations; for he had seen another man drink a small quantity out of his bottle, by which he was immediately inspired with experience, and resolute against all follies. My friend, therefore, intended to have recourse to his bottle upon every urgent occasion, and so keep himself prudent as long as its contents lasted. I have since inquired the success of his scheme, and learned that at first, on the approach of any dangerous allurement, he applied himself to his bottle, and by a few drops mixed with water was quite fortified against it, having a painful remembrance and awe of former evils. While the influence of his draught continued, he remembered only the satiety and weariness of pleasure, with every inconvenience and shame of his several transgressions. These visions of prudence soon passed away, and each separate temptation required a new draught. But when the first charm of temperance was over, another difficulty occurred; for when an opportunity of being frail was expected, it required as much firmness to drink from the bottle as to resist without drinking. He still, however, continued this excellent medicine; but took care to be austere only when there was no occasion of enjoyment, and when any pleasure was near, he carefully abstained from the bottle. Timing his draughts thus judiciously, he still benefits by past experience.

Not long after I had quitted this house, I arrived at a valley which yielded a sound quite different from all the rest, not resembling either the human voice or any instrument that I had ever heard. Being told that it was the valley of Cant I did not wonder that it should give an unintelligible noise. I entered the valley, and found myself in the midst of these sounds, which I had been unable to interpret, and I then discovered that they were the religious tones which have prevailed in England since the first introduction of cant. There were no articulate words, but only tones in every variety of zeal and devotion.

I found here a gentleman very learned in antiquities, who was delighted with this multitude of noises; for he said that the most eloquent and faithful historian being unable to describe a sound, we have had no real knowledge of the tones of different sects, though we read much about them, but here he had found the authentic whining of every persuasion in past times. He listened attentively, endeavouring to assign the tones to their respective ages, which he imagined himself able to do with great exactness, though I knew not by what rules he was guided. He declared he should catch specimens of all these sounds, and shut them up in a box, so as to have by him all the tones in which our ancestors have served God, and thus supply a great defect in history.

I did not stay long amongst these strange noises, which at different times have served as piety, but passing further into the valley, I found cant under another representation. I was surrounded by a vast multitude of faces, or appearances of faces, which hovered in the air without being allied to bodies, or any other visible support. These faces were employed in the different contortions and grimaces which have been thought acceptable to God by adherents of the several sects. I was not a little amused by the violent endeavours of these faces; I saw features let out to an immoderate length; eye-brows with wonderful skill conveyed to a place far remote from that where nature had settled them: and eyes most ingeniously put out of sight without the lids being shut. Some of these artists had great advantages from nature in uncommon gifts of ugliness, and others had by industry supplied their natural defects in that endowment.

Being soon satisfied with this morality I left the faces frowning for their faith, and walking on saw a crowd of hands in the air performing their office also in the rites of cant. Some pairs of hands appeared to be preaching, and others praying; some were held upwards for a time, then stretched out, probably to the conviction of all who listened; some were clasped together with a violent effort of the muscles.

As soon as I had walked out of the district of hands, I found the air darkened by a flight of religious tracts, a crowd of which hovered round me in the air. When I appeared amongst them they rushed to me and opened themselves before my eyes that I might read them, struggling and contending with each other for the preference. Many of these tracts had been great travellers, and bore on the outside the names of the places they had visited. Some of them had preached in the East Indies, others in the West; and I felt a pride in considering how great a part of the world we supply with cant; nor is there the least fear of our stock being exhausted.

In another part of the valley I found a book recording the designs of cant, which are not yet completed. The first I cast my eye upon was a project to suppress eating, drinking, and breathing on a Sunday, particularly amongst tradesmen. Rabelais mentions some people whose practice was to breakfast on yawning; but this proposed law would make it serve for breakfast and dinner too on one day in every week. It appeared that the authors of this design have great hopes of persuading parliament very soon to enforce yawning on Sunday, and also of inducing people voluntarily to devote fifty-two days of the year to that laudable exercise, most advantageous to the public and most pleasing to heaven.

After this valley I came to another, whence issued a great uproar, which I found was the debates of parliament. I was soon in the midst of them, and heard a formidable din on various subjects, together with the many sounds of acquiescence and dissent. English orators will be pleased to find their speeches preserved in this manner; for it may spare them the expense and solicitation by which they must obtain a place in certain volumes for what they have said. I observed here several renowned senators who listened with exemplary attention to their own harangues. The speeches are preserved by this valley more faithfully than they can be by printing; for they are uttered without the loss of a single hesitation, repetition, or any other beauty with which they were first delivered. A speech, by losing these delays loses much of its length, which is now acknowledged the chief merit of oratory, as appears by the practice in both our houses of parliament. Cicero being asked which oration of Demosthenes he thought the best, answered, "The longest." All speeches are now estimated by the same rule, but our English orators far excel the ancients in duration; and we have many who, on any important subject, are at least two hours more eloquent than Demosthenes. In judging of speeches by their length there is this great convenience, that there can be no dispute about the superiority of one to another; for when speeches were praised according to the force of reasoning, choice of words, and other particulars once in esteem, it was impossible from the difference of taste in men that they should agree which of two speeches had those merits in the greatest perfection; but now the preference between two orations can make no question, provided the clock be carefully consulted.

I may mention in this place a project which I have devised for greatly improving the debates in parliament, and freeing the despatch of business. In explaining my plan, I must confess that it is borrowed, having been practised in the following case with great success. A married woman once complained to a female friend of the bitter and incessant disputes between herself and her husband, and asked advice about the means of avoiding them. Her friend answered that she had in her possession a certain water, of singular virtue in preventing quarrels between married people, and she would give her a bottle of it, with instructions for using it to that excellent purpose. Having filled a bottle with the peaceful liquid, she presented it to her friend, desiring that whenever her husband was beginning to be angry and contentious, she would fill her mouth with this water, and keep it there till he had become perfectly quiet. Soon after, the wife came back to have the bottle replenished, and to thank her friend for the miraculous cure and peace effected in her household, for the water had put an end to all disputes. Now I have been informed by a great chemist that the water of the Thames has the same wonderful property; and my contrivance is, that every member of parliament, at the beginning of each debate, should hold a sufficient quantity of it in his mouth, until the question be passed. I am convinced that this practice would infinitely improve the deliberations of our senate, by preventing the delays of business, and the perplexing of many subjects.

In the building which I next entered, the lost friendships of English people are preserved. I found a large room filled with urns of a beautiful shape, each of which contains a past friendship. On the outside of the urn is inscribed the cause which alienated the two friends, the duration of their kindness, with some other circumstances. I became melancholy at surveying this great assemblage of urns, and reflecting on the instability of friendship. When we lose our kindness towards a friend, we commonly pass into the contrary emotion, and entertain something like aversion towards him. Two men thus altered cannot meet without uneasiness; and I believe most people very early in life can name several whose presence reproaches them in this manner.

There is often no reason to be assigned for these separations: we formerly loved our friend without knowing why, and now his voice, his countenance, his gestures give us offence, which is equally inexplicable. We may be mortified that our judgment in reasoning is so liable to vary at different times of our life; but perhaps this want of firmness in our affections is still more lamentable.

It is said by Swift that every man is born with a certain portion of friendship, which he is to distribute amongst those he lives with, so that he cannot give to one without taking from another. I think there is some truth in this observation; and it may explain the cessation of many friendships, which otherwise would be very mysterious. There are some who pretend to have an unlimited stock of this commodity, and are liberal in bestowing it upon all who approach them; but this alacrity in loving only confirms the maxim of Swift: for the little value of the kindness, which in this case falls to the share of each, proves that friendship is not to be so divided.

On many of these urns I read the causes of estrangement. Some friends had lost their kindness for each other by being too long separate, others by being too long together; some by having different interests, and others by pursuing the same thing.

Lord Bacon says that admonition is the chief office and benefit of friendship; but I found here numberless instances of friends having been divided for ever by too faithful an execution of this office.

In wandering about when I had left the house of friendship I approached a valley, which I learned was the receptacle of lost vanity, and I was surprised to hear of such a place, because I had always thought that this endowment is never lost, but remains with a man till his death. Having often seen it in full vigour after the decay of strength, memory, benevolence, and almost every faculty, I had supposed that where it once is it must be inseparable from a human being, and consequently that it wanted no asylum in the moon.

I had always thought it the chief mitigation of old age, that whoever is in that difficulty, though he should lose every other ease, can still keep his vanity, which is certainly the principal comfort of life.

But I found there was here a valley full of this excellent attribute without any loss to the owners; for the vanity kept in this place is the fruitless ostentation of those who erroneously believe themselves admired, and are at the pains to assume a superiority which is altogether groundless.

When I arrived at the edge of the valley, I saw first a crowd of what I conceived to be young men employed in very singular movements; but on walking amongst them, I found they were only the outsides of men, or rather apparitions. They were all dressed with exact propriety; and I soon discovered that these shadows represented the elaborate behaviour of that race of men who claim greatness from a superiority in moving about. Each of these figures was engaged in executing the gestures peculiar to it in walking along a street, in entering a room, in bowing, and in every other momentous transaction. They went through their arts very rapidly, so as to make a great confusion in the different duties and situations of life. Their gestures passed from the park to the opera, and thence to a ball-room without the least delay, the exploits of each place being performed with wonderful despatch. Many of these figures smiled perpetually, and some with great skill. It was a ridiculous thing to see them bowing without any provocation, and performing other gestures, which there was nothing to justify.

They had no voice, but they moved their lips, and greatly excelled in conversation so far as it is a beauty to the eye. But all the gifts exhibited here had been lost by the dulness of mankind, the superiority of these men being of such a nature that no one could discover the grounds upon which they reasoned.

I had a wish to take one of these actors a prisoner, thinking he might be an useful warning to certain young men of my acquaintance. I therefore seized the one of greatest pretensions, and compressed him till he was concealed within the palms of my hands, but, notwithstanding this restraint, I felt him endeavouring to continue his exercises. I then suddenly let him go, when, being instantly restored to his size and shape, he began without delay to renew the practice of his accomplishments. Supposing, therefore, that he would not lose his energy by a temporary confinement, I again pressed him into a small compass and secured him in a pocket-book. When, at my return to the earth, he was released to his right dimensions, he retained all his vigour, and still he goes through his manœuvres without cessation.

When I advanced farther into this valley I found it filled with a great variety of characters, innumerable shapes of people being engaged in a rapid exhibition of their several kinds of vanity, all being transacted in silence, for none of the apparitions could speak. I was amused by the loftiness and pretence of these shadows: here and there I saw a learned lady dictating to all round with authoritative gestures, nodding with great erudition, and sometimes stretching out an instructive finger. Several shapes of young men wandered about quite unable to suppress their greatness through having spoken once in parliament. The authors, too, are very abundant here: I remarked the appearance of a man which seemed to labour extremely with its dignity, and I discovered that the person whom it represented had fought a duel the day before. One figure sat with a look of greatness, but quite immovable: this was the ostentatious reserve of one of those men who would impose their silence upon the world as learning and superiority, and so much mistake the reception given them as to construe dislike into respect. This error, indeed, is not at all uncommon: every one must know people who fancy themselves universally esteemed only because they put a visible constraint on every company they enter.

When I looked at the great crowd assembled here, all believing themselves admired, and all really despised, I could not help considering how very little admiration there is in the world, and how many are in pursuit of it. If we except the few solitary men of remarkable genius, who in the vast crowd that is left obtains any real admiration? Still the belief of being admired is what gives life all its spirit. Mankind is in a perpetual plot to obtain applause, and yet every one prides himself on detecting vanity, and denies to all others what he expects from them. He who in conversation hears any thing ostentatiously spoken remarks the vanity of it to his neighbour, who secretly imputes to him an equal vanity for pretending to this quick discernment of a fault.

Being now told that I was near the valley of lost labour, I walked towards it, expecting a very large collection of curiosities, if here were the efforts of all those Englishmen, who have been laborious to no purpose. The end of the valley, where I entered, was occupied by a vast crowd of students. Innumerable shapes or apparitions of men were here reading for future eminence, being destined to no other reward than the remembrance of their industry. Each of them fixed his eyes on his book with great zeal, removing them from time to time as if to enjoy a vision of his future greatness. I could not avoid some melancholy thoughts at seeing the pale resolute faces of these persons, who had given up their health and pleasure for the sake of disappointment, and I considered how much endeavour there is in the world, and how little reward.

These shadows appeared to be of various ages, some not arrived at manhood, and others far advanced in life, representing the different periods at which men desist from trying to be great. Some had given up renown as soon as they became men, others did not despair to the end of their lives, but in their old age were still preparing to be famous in spite of experience. He who means to be eminent usually fixes an early time for the first appearance of his genius: the time arrives, and his genius has not yet appeared, but this is no just cause of despair; for he has only fallen into the common error of expecting a too hasty success, and he gives a new allowance of time with the same confidence as before. In the mean time he has a comfort, that early fame is often pernicious, and his greatness will be more secure by beginning later. He is also encouraged by the celebrated men who were unknown till long after his age,—a reflection which has supported many a pensive candidate for fame. These hopes and alleviations occur at certain cheerful moments, but there are many hours when the hardship of not being famous is bitterly felt. And despair, though often deferred, must come at last, in which emergency consolation is to be sought in the notorious injustice of the world, and its ignorance of merit. The sufferer in this disaster has not mistaken his own abilities, but the judgment of other men: he has failed, not from a deficiency of true genius, but from the want of some dexterity, or fraudulent art, without which genius cannot be manifested. Thus a man encourages himself in his youthful hopes by the sagacity of the world, which insures success to real ability, and afterwards in his despair he comforts himself by the dulness of the world, which denies all opportunity to genius. After the final disappointment, therefore, he is still a great man in secret, and corrects the injustice of the world, by privately maintaining himself in his true rank. I believe it is little suspected how many of these concealed men of genius there are.

Having passed through these laborious readers, I came to a company of writers equally industrious. A crowd was here afflicted in the composition of books never to be read. Amongst these authors, I saw two or three of my acquaintance, whom I had never suspected of such practices, so carefully had they concealed their infirmity, intending, probably, to surprise the world with the sudden appearance of a great work; but through the inexorable temper of booksellers, or some other impediment, the surprise had never occurred.

The sight of these unsuspected writers confirmed an opinion I have long had, that the clandestine authors are a very numerous race. And whatever mortification there may be in finding that what we have written is not to be a book, yet a writer of this kind has great advantages by his concealment; for his work, not spreading beyond himself, he is sure of unanimous approbation, and is the only author who can securely write without censure. Besides which, while his works are confined to his desk, he may assign that to himself as an excuse for their not having been read; but he who by publication has given men an opportunity of reading him, which they have declined, has no justification. To my friends, therefore, who must write, I recommend secrecy as the best art to defend their works from censure, ridicule, neglect, feeble praise, and other calamities incident to a book.

In examining these appearances of authors, I observed that there were some of every rank in life; many of them betrayed that they could not be clothed without difficulty, while several seemed to belong to the highest order of society. All gave proofs of being affected by the force and merit of what they were writing; some appeared ready to weep for the distress which they were causing in a romance; and others were much diverted by their own wit. I saw two or three authors who could not contain their laughter at every new sentence that came from their pens. The works were of various kinds, with which all these persons were trying to enrich the world. I looked over the shoulders of some, and saw poems and novels, politics, history, divinity, and every other undertaking.

Leaving the authors, and advancing farther into the valley of lost labour, I saw a crowd of young men, who with much energy were throwing their bodies into many different postures. At first I could not imagine the purpose of this peculiar diligence, but soon discovered that these young men were in the practice of oratory, and that all the strange attitudes I saw were for parliament. As I approached the orators, I found they were reciting speeches to these gestures, each having a mirror before him, to direct that part of eloquence which lies in the arms and legs. All of them argued vehemently with their limbs, and I lamented that so many convincing gestures should have been lost.

After seeing many other lost labours, which it would be tiresome to enumerate, I left the valley, and before I had gone far, observed a pretty woman, with a disconsolate countenance, sitting to rest herself, as it appeared, from some fruitless search. I asked whether I could assist her in finding what she wanted, and she gladly accepted of my aid, informing me that she was in quest of her husband's affection, which she had unaccountably lost, two years after their marriage, and had vainly attempted to regain. She had been told that somewhere near the place where she now sat there was a receptacle for the lost affection both of husbands and wives, but she had not yet succeeded in finding it. I comforted her with observing, that a place which should contain all the lost love of married people must be of considerable extent, and therefore easily found.

We walked on together, and making inquiries, were directed to a large building where the affection which has dropped out of the bosoms of married people is preserved in the shape of small hearts, white and shining, like alabaster. On each is an inscription, recording the fault of the wife or husband, by which it had been lost. On one male heart I read "Decay of beauty," that being the wife's misconduct, by which this heart had been estranged from her. Almost every heart alleged some excellent reason for the ceasing of affection, such as a hasty temper, jealousy, dulness, vivacity, scolding, growing old, the having been married two years, with many other equally good causes for the discontinuance of domestic kindness. On some of the hearts was a blank, and no reason assigned for the alienation, which intimated that the affection of the husband or wife had not been extinguished by any violence, but had gone out of itself.

I saw a considerable number both of men and women searching for the hearts that they desired to regain. There is no name on any of these hearts, but all people were enabled to discover that which had once loved them, by a very singular property in the heart; for when they took hold of that which had formerly entertained a kindness for them, it instantly began to beat and palpitate violently, though to the eye it appeared common alabaster; but if it had never felt any passion for them it remained perfectly still.

There was an old man who seized every female heart that he met with; and as I came up to him, I heard him mutter, "This certainly beats a little." He then requested me to feel the heart, which he held in his hand, and give my judgment whether there was any thing amounting to a real palpitation while he held it. I could not perceive the least motion, except from the trembling of his hands, which greatly mortified him. He told me he had been married late in life to a young woman, who had very soon become extremely cool towards him, though he had done nothing to displease her, and always spoke to her with the greatest kindness. I represented to him that unless he was quite sure he had once been really possessed of her heart it was vain to search for it here; but he declared he was confident that when he married the lady her heart was his own, though it escaped from him in so singular a manner soon after. He then continued to try all the hearts in his way, imagining a palpitation in each.

One male heart was vehemently disputed by half-a-dozen women, each of whom pleaded a lawful claim to it, and, indeed, it actually beat whichever of them held it, thus owning a passion for them all. One of them was wife to this heart; but her right was contested by the others, on the pretence that the palpitation of the heart when she touched it was much weaker than when it was held by any of them. There were many other hearts, both male and female, which, having been pluralists, were disputed by many competitors, each of whom was able to produce a real palpitation.

I was informed that somebody had invented a method by which these hearts might restore the lost affection; and as the wife whom I accompanied had found the heart of her husband, I explained to her the invention, which she has since practised with complete success. According to the direction given her, she dissolved the heart in a certain liquid, and, keeping it in a bottle, secretly mixed a small quantity with whatever her husband drank. The effect was, that after the first draught he intimated some return of kindness, which still increased as he proceeded through the bottle; and when he had drank the whole heart he had resumed all his former affection.

When I had left this building, I soon arrived at another which contains groundless fears. I entered it, and found, as in many others, a spacious room filled with bottles, containing the apprehensions that have troubled mankind without necessity. On studying the labels of these bottles, I thought the fears of men little less wild and visionary than their hopes; and it appeared to me that the worst calamities of life are those which are never to happen. Moralists have often praised the concealment of the future from man as a most ingenious invention against approaching evils; but since we are so much tormented by evils that are not coming, I think this ignorance is but an imperfect security.

I diverted myself in reading the terrors with which these bottles are stored. Every gale of wind supplies them with apprehensions from those who are at sea; and I was surprised to observe how many people there are who, in a thunder-storm on shore, are fully convinced that the lightning will choose their persons in preference to every other spot where it could light. Great numbers in a trifling sickness had suffered all the horrors of approaching death. I knew not before how many there are who use the precaution of being always uneasy, and have so much foresight as to lose all the comfort of life.

One part of this room is assigned to public fears, which are contained in large urns. These are the apprehensions which have seized a great part of our nation from time to time. There is great variety in the nature of them. At one time a small party of men are suddenly convinced that all the rest of the nation are soon to be mad by agreement at the same instant, leaving only themselves in possession of reason: every thing they see tends to a general insanity; and by the expectation of this event they are much harassed, as is reasonable. Sometimes those who are earnest in religion apprehend that the people, at a stated time, are going to disbelieve Christianity and abolish it. And sometimes the farmers of England are seized with a belief that parliament, instigated by a bad ministry, intends to pass a law forbidding the practices of ploughing and sowing, to the manifest injury of agriculture.

These epidemic fears are so frequent in England that every body must remember a great number of them. Sometimes they seem to invade the country of their own accord, and at other times are contrived by the invention and industry of certain statesmen,—for one of these terrors has often power to ruin or secure a ministry; so that the great wisdom of state in England is a skill in prompting and regulating fears. I know not whether there is more art or fortune in the beginning and progress of a fear: very able men often undertake to be the authors of one without any success; and in spite of the reasoning with which they tell the world to be afraid, not a man will consent to feel any alarm. Sometimes a most plausible apprehension is invented, and sent into the world with the countenance of eminent men, and every other advantage for its promotion, and yet it can obtain no credit, but is almost immediately lost, while, at another time, a terror is obscurely raised, and, although without probability, favour, or any arts of advancement, it is instantly spread and established.

It is vain to oppose a successful fear: a wise minister attacked by one will enrol himself under it, and be as much terrified as any body. These apprehensions differ much in duration, the life of some being only a few weeks, and others lasting for many months, or even for some years.

I have said that the public fears are kept in large urns, with this difference from the private fears, that a bottle contains the apprehensions of only one person, while an urn holds the terror of a whole party, each public fear having an urn to itself. Every urn is inscribed with the name of the fear that it preserves, and is larger or smaller according to the numbers who have been possessed by its contents. On one urn I read "Popery," on another, "Revolution."

But while I was reading the names of these past disturbances, a fearful clamour rushed into the room, sounding like the sudden shout of a vast crowd, but incessantly repeated. I found it was a public terror newly arrived from the earth, and the guardian of the room made haste to secure it. He brought an urn, the size of which he had determined by his ear, and enticed the uproar into it by a proceeding very similar to the art which inveigles a swarm of bees into a hive. This clamour was the repetition of a single word by thousands of voices. What the word was I shall not disclose; for since it has very lately been a prevalent fear, some excellent persons not yet dispossessed, on learning its departure to the moon, would be distressed by the fatal security that has befallen us.

It is possible that a skilful statesman might employ these urns in his service by letting out some terror judiciously chosen at a time favourable to its progress. I am not able to say whether it would prosper a second time, or return instantly to the moon, as having been discharged, but I think the experiment worthy of being tried by any administration that wants aid. Great care and judgment would be required in the selection of a fear for release, lest it should turn against its deliverers.

I next entered a building filled with the unavailing projects of Englishmen, and spent a short time in examining these enterprises, which are political, moral, religious, mechanical, and chemical. The collection has been much enriched by recent contributions. Many excellent designs of the present age for the benefit of England and the rest of the world are here honourably preserved. I saw numerous projects for making morality: every virtue had some contrivance to be practised by; and these schemes appeared very easy of execution, requiring nothing for their success except the universal concurrence of mankind in receiving them.

I found here plans for dispensing with all laws, and extinguishing crime by a general resolution of men in favour of virtue, for preventing the birth of children by argument, for discontinuing war throughout the world, for converting all nations to the true religion, that is, the religion of the projector.

Amongst all the noble schemes that I saw here, I most admired those which were not content with the improvement of England, but designed the good of the whole world, such as the plan last mentioned, for including all the inhabitants of the globe in one religion. The means of effecting so great a work were not described, but the inventor of this unanimity was said to have devised so infallible a project, that for spreading truth over the earth he required nothing but a steam vessel, and undertook by a few tons of coal to convince all mankind.

I saw many other English schemes for the welfare of distant nations, so that not a people was to remain vicious, ignorant, or oppressed. In examining these ample designs, I felt a secret pride in the noble spirit of some amongst my countrymen; and it appeared to me that nothing has been so much improved in modern times as the virtue of humanity. Men were formerly satisfied with relieving the distresses which they saw and heard; but there is now a large body of men in England who busy themselves with the troubles of distant nations, and consider all sufferings on the farther side of the globe as their own calamities. It is well known how many persons of all ranks in England pined away under the lashes inflicted upon the negroes in the West Indies. Others could not be cheerful as long as Greece was under the dominion of Turkey; and another party, who were not concerned either about Greece or the negroes, regarded themselves as the most unfortunate of men because in India widows sometimes burned themselves at the funerals of their husbands. How would one of the ancient moralists admire the dismay which has been caused in England by the conflagration of an old woman in the East!

It is observable that one who is thoroughly inspired with this remote pity disdains to do a kindness in his own hemisphere, and despises that superficial humanity which makes us supply the wants of those who are immediately round us. He can only pity at a distance, and feels compassion in proportion to the number of leagues that intervene between him and the sufferer. He can see with firmness the starvation of those who live near him, but shudders to think that a man may be hungry two thousand miles off. Thus he claims a share in the misery of every man at a sufficient distance: a lash inflicted on the other side of the Atlantic makes a mark upon his back—he is flogged with the negro, enslaved with the Greek, and burned to ashes with the Indian widow.

I had now been wandering in our satellite almost a fortnight, according to the earth, and almost a day according to the moon, for I arrived there in the morning, and the day was now almost ended. I have not related all that I saw, but selected a few of the most remarkable places that I visited; nor have I instructed the world in what manner I provided for my own personal comforts, according to the practice of many travellers, who rescue every one of their meals from oblivion, and never eat or drink without recording it. I have also omitted all mention of the moon's inhabitants, because they are to be fully described by other travellers.

When I left the House of Projects, I was informed that I was very near to the Valley of Lost Time, and I hastened towards it, that I might observe whatever was there, before it should be dark. I descended into the valley, and found myself surrounded by the sounds of innumerable clocks. These sounds did not proceed from any visible mechanism, but lived in the air like the other preserved clamours. They are the ghosts of minutes and hours that have perished. It was remarkable that in this confused clamour, every man knew his own time, and could distinguish the hours he had lost when he heard them struck; yet he knew not what it was that discovered them to him: all were alike in sound; only at the striking of particular hours, he was seized with a conviction that he heard his own time.

There were many persons in the valley, and I observed that some of them heard their own lost hours with great emotion. They turned pale, trembled, and were overpowered by the reproach. And not only could a man discern his own losses amongst these sounds, but knew what particular hour or minute of his past life he was listening to, which very much aggravated the rebuke. Men heard the striking of the very crisis which might have saved, enriched, or advanced them. In some men the emotion from these sounds continued a long time, others soon recovered themselves.

I saw two or three running about in chase of their time with a hat, as a boy follows a butterfly. The hours were very nimble, escaping by an irregular flight, and the pursuit was long continued in vain. At last one of these men succeeded in the capture of a portion of time, which he had followed with much perseverance. The chase being finished close to me, I heard the stifled hours striking under his hat. As he had been present in the room of lost spirits when I had shown the means of recovering mirth from the phial containing it, he had contracted a high opinion of my skill and invention in rendering available these regained prizes, and he now earnestly consulted me about the means of making the time under his hat serve the purpose which it ought to have been applied to before. He told me he was a London tradesman, and not very prosperous, through the misapplication of three particular days which he now had in captivity. A few years ago he had been in pursuit of a rich widow, from whom though he had extorted no promise, yet he had been convinced that she was waiting only till a decorous time had elapsed since her first husband. But this confidence ruined him: he was absent three days with some friends; and on returning to his vocation found the lady had so much resented his neglect of office as to supply his place with another candidate, whom soon after she married. "Now," he continued, "I have caught these three days, and here they are, but still I know not how to make them answer my purpose. However, since you, sir, could restore a lady her spirits out of a phial, perhaps you can restore me my widow from under a hat."

"I fear," said I, "your case is beyond my skill; for I know not how the noise under your hat can by any artifice prevent the widow from having been married as you remember. Whatever use you make of these sounds, I fear you must still have misemployed the three days and lost the widow. It appears to me, that the only way of retrieving lost time is to make better use of what remains; I therefore advise you to make diligent search for another rich widow, and when you have found one, remember you are not to have a respite of three days."

"So, then, I have come to the moon in vain," he said; "and I may as well let these three days go again, after I have taken so much trouble to catch them."

"No," I answered: "a contrivance occurs to me by which, perhaps, they may be useful."

"What is that?" he inquired eagerly.

"You may shut them up in a box," said I, "and always keep them by you, to remind you of former neglect, and enforce vigilance in case of another widow." He seemed to think this an ineffectual invention for correcting his former mistake; however he carried away his three days with a discontented face.

Another man, who had stood in dismay, and quite overcome by the striking of his lost hours, hearing what I said, declared he would try the same expedient, and keep his misemployed time in a box for the sake of prudence and industry in time to come; and immediately he betook himself to the chase.

I saw a pretty young woman in pursuit of some portion of time, which she seemed to consider a valuable opportunity. It led her up and down at her utmost speed: but at last, as I stood in its course, it was entangled in the skirts of my coat; I seized it before it could escape, and presented it to her. It was a single hour: she accepted it with joy; but I could not prevail upon her to tell me what advantage she had lost with this hour. This young woman, and some other persons, followed their time very earnestly with a confused notion of benefit from it, when it should be caught, though without any plan for applying it to a real purpose. The truth was, that most of those who heard the striking of their own hours, by awe and regret from the sound, were incapable of thinking accurately, and were driven by a desire of retrieving the past they knew not how.

Without any such reproach, it was impossible to stand in this valley, and hear the destruction of time all round, without sorrow for the waste of this commodity. There was a reasoning in the place not to be opposed. I considered that time and money being the two things most earnestly desired in our world, the ingenuity of men is chiefly exercised in devising arts for the waste of both. It appeared to me also that amongst all the errors in the plan of a human being, the most fatal is that the present moment should be so much the most plausible instant of our lives, and capable of persuading us to whatever it chooses. By universal agreement and practice, the present time is for ease and enjoyment, the future for abstinence, resolution, and insatiable industry; and since the present moment is only one, while our future moments, by the blessing of Providence, may be many, we judge that this distribution of time is greatly to the advantage of industry and virtue, and we seem to be treating ourselves with admirable severity, when we allot no portion of our lives to pleasure, except the present moment; but in this computation it is forgotten that life is made of present moments. The bargain, however, is concluded; and pleasure exacts the observance of it by still claiming the present moment, while industry, abstinence, and other virtues included in the agreement, stand waiting for their turn with helpless simplicity.

While I was engaged in these thoughts, I first heard the striking of my own lost hours, which impressed upon me a horror that I cannot describe. I knew each particular hour as I heard it, and remembered the abused opportunities which I had long before ceased to lament. I stood in the persuasion and despair of having lived in vain, and no more thought of inquiring into the grounds of this trouble and conviction, than we do in an anxious dream. Suddenly I was seized with a desire of recovering what I had thrown away: I reproached myself with wandering for amusement in the moon, and resolved to return without delay, in order to use my remaining hours with rigorous frugality. I instantly set out, and travelled with great zeal, nor did I lose the impression from the sound of my lost time till I had nearly completed the journey.

At last, however, the illusion left me, and I was able to regard time as the frivolous bauble which I have always considered it, except under the deception of this valley. For however scrupulously we may turn every moment to advantage, our most probable conclusion in every undertaking is, that we are labouring to provide ourselves with repentance; and to me it seems that a secure contempt of time, and an easy trifling with that portion of it called human life, is the only adequate remedy against the common lot of man, who, according to a celebrated author, "is born crying, lives complaining, and dies disappointed."

Is it not a great folly that we, who know we are immortal beings, should always perplex ourselves about the hurry and use of time? For when we have before us such a supply as eternity, it is surely absurd to be sparing of hours and days.

I regret that by this groundless consternation my travels in the moon were so prematurely ended. I design another journey, and hope it may produce something more worthy of being read than this imperfect narrative.

[ MAHOMET AND THE SPIDER.
A DIALOGUE.]

(A Cave in Mount Hara.)

MAHOMET SPEAKS.

I begin to be very much tired of this cave, and my thoughts grow so dull, that I have added only one line to the Koran during the last two days. Yet here I must stay; for if I go out, and live amongst men, they will never allow me to be a prophet; my doctrine will not be received unless it comes out of a cave. Such is the nature of men: provided they have not seen me for a month, and know not where I have been, they are convinced of my intelligence with heaven, and do not consider that any man might hide himself for a month, and so be a prophet. If they see me write, they will not receive my words as revelation; but whatever I compose out of their sight is unquestionably inspired. Certainly this solitude is irksome. My only companion is that spider on the wall. I begin to think he is the happiest of the two: it has never occurred to him to be a prophet, and write a Koran, but he keeps his web in repair, and eats flies, like other spiders.

SPIDER.