'I know thee, O Shalum; thou art more wise and happy than any of the sons of men. Thy dwellings are among the cedars: thou searchest out the diversity of soils: thou understandest the influences of the stars, and markest the change of seasons. Can a woman appear lovely in the eyes of such an one? Disquiet me not, O Shalum; let me alone, that I may enjoy those goodly possessions which are fallen to my lot. Win me not by thy enticing words. May thy trees increase and multiply; mayest thou add wood to wood, and shade to shade: but tempt not Hilpa to destroy thy solitude, and make thy retirement populous.'

The Chinese say that a little time afterwards she accepted of a treat in one of the neighbouring hills, to which Shalum had invited her. This treat lasted for two years, and is said to have cost Shalum five hundred antelopes, two thousand ostriches, and a thousand tuns of milk; but what most of all recommended it, was that variety of delicious fruits and pot-herbs, in which no person then living could any way equal Shalum.

He treated her in the bower which he had planted amidst the wood of nightingales. The wood was made up of such fruit-trees and plants as are most agreeable to the several kinds of singing birds; so that it had drawn into it all the music of the country, and was filled from one end of the year to the other with the most agreeable concert in

season.

He shewed her every day some beautiful and surprising scene in this new region of woodlands; and, as by this means he had all the opportunities he could wish for of opening his mind to her, he succeeded so well, that upon her departure she made him a kind of a promise, and gave him her word to

return to him a positive answer in less than fifty years.

She had not been long among her own people in the valleys, when she received new overtures, and at the same time a most splendid visit from Mishpach, who was a mighty man of old, and had built a great city, which he called after his own name. Every house was made for at least a thousand years, nay there were some that were leased out for three lives; so that the quantity of stone and timber consumed in this building is scarce to be imagined by those who live in the present age of the world. This great man entertained her with the voice of musical instruments which had been lately invented, and danced before her to the sound of the timbrel. He also presented her with several domestic utensils wrought in brass and iron, which had been newly found out for the conveniency of life. In the mean time Shalum grew very uneasy with himself, and was sorely displeased at Hilpa for the reception which she had given to Mishpach, insomuch that he never wrote to her or spoke of her during a whole revolution of Saturn; but, finding that this intercourse went no further than a visit, he again renewed his addresses to her; who, during his long silence, is said very often to have cast a wishing eye upon mount Tirzah.

Her mind continued wavering about twenty years longer between Shalum and Mishpach; for though her inclinations favoured the former, her interest pleaded very powerfully for the other. While her heart was in this unsettled condition, the following accident happened, which determined her choice. A high tower of wood that stood in the city of Mishpach having caught fire by a flash of lightning, in a few days reduced the whole town to ashes. Mishpach resolved to rebuild the place, whatever it

N° 585. should cost him; and, having already destroyed all the timber of the country, he was forced to have recourse to Shalum, whose forests were now two hundred years old. He purchased these woods with so many herds of cattle and flocks of sheep, and with such a vast extent of fields and pastures, that Shalum was now grown more wealthy than Mishpach ; and therefore appeared so charming in the eyes of Zilpah's daughter, that she no longer refused him in marriage. On the day in which he brought her up into the mountains he raised a most prodigious pile of cedar, and of every sweet-smelling wood, which reached above three hundred cubits in height: he also cast into the pile bundles of myrrh and sheaves of spikenard, enriching it with every spicy shrub, and making it fat with the gums of his plantations. This was the burnt offering which Shalum offered in the day of his espousals: the smoke of it ascended up to heaven, and filled the whole country with incense and perfume.

N° 586. FRIDAY, AUGUST 27, 1714.

Quæ in vita usurpant homines, cogitant, curant, vident, quæque agunt vigilantes, agitantque, ea cuique in somno accidunt. CIC, de Div. The things which employ men's waking thoughts and actions recur to their imaginations in sleep.

By the last post I received the following letter, which is built upon a thought that is new, and very well carried on; for which reasons I shall give it to the public without alteration, addition, or amendment:

· SIR,

'IT was a piece of good advice which Pythagoras gave to his scholars-that every night before they slept they should examine what they had been doing that day, and so discover what actions were worthy of pursuit to-morrow, and what little vices were to be prevented from slipping unawares into a habit. If I might second the philosopher's advice, it should be mine, that in a morning before my scholar rose he should consider what he had been about that night, and with the same strictness as if the condition he has believed himself to be in was real. Such a scrutiny into the actions of his fancy must be of considerable advantage; for this reason, because the circumstances which a man imagines himself in during sleep are generally such as entirely favour his inclinations, good or bad, and give him imaginary opportunities of pursuing them to the utmost; so that his temper will lie fairly open to his view,

while he considers how it is moved when free from those constraints which the accidents of real life put it under. Dreams are certainly the result of our waking thoughts, and our daily hopes and fears are what give the mind such nimble relishes of pleasure, and such severe touches of pain, in its midnight rambles. A man that murders his enemy, or deserts his friend, in a dream, had need to guard his temper against revenge and ingratitude, and take heed that he be not tempted to do a vile thing in the pursuit of false, or the neglect of true honour. For my part, I seldom receive a benefit, but in a night or two's time I make most noble returns for it; which, though my benefactor is not a whit the better for, yet it pleases me to thiuk that it was from a principle of gratitude in me that my mind was susceptible of such generous transport while I thought myself repaying the kindness of my friend : and I have often been ready to beg pardon, instead of returning an injury, after considering that when the offender was in my power I had carried my resentments much too far.

I think it has been observed, in the course of your papers, how much one's happiness or misery may depend upon the imagination: of which truth those strange workings of fancy in sleep are no inconsiderable instances; so that not only the advantage a man has of making discoveries of himself, but a regard to his own ease or disquiet, may induce him to accept of my advice. Such as are willing to comply with it, I shall put into a way of doing it with pleasure, by observing only one maxim which I shall give them, viz. "To go to bed with a mind entirely free from passion, and a body clear of the least intemperance."

They, indeed, who can sink into sleep with their thoughts less calm or innocent than they