9. [ADDISON.

From _Tuesday, Jan. 10_, to _Thursday, Jan. 12, 1709-10_.

In tenui labor.--VIRG., Georg. iv. 6.

* * * * *

_Sheer Lane, January 11._

I have lately applied myself with much satisfaction to the curious
discoveries that have been made by the help of microscopes, as they are
related by authors of our own and other nations. There is a great deal
of pleasure in prying into this world of wonders, which Nature has laid
out of sight, and seems industrious to conceal from us. Philosophy had
ranged over all the visible creation, and began to want objects for her
inquiries, when the present age, by the invention of glasses, opened a
new and inexhaustible magazine of rarities, more wonderful and amazing
than any of those which astonished our forefathers. I was yesterday
amusing myself with speculations of this kind, and reflecting upon
myriads of animals that swim in those little seas of juices that are
contained in the several vessels of a human body. While my mind was thus
filled with that secret wonder and delight, I could not but look upon
myself as in an act of devotion, and am very well pleased with the
thought of the great heathen anatomist,[24] who calls his description of
the parts of a human body, "A Hymn to the Supreme Being." The reading of
the day produced in my imagination an agreeable morning's dream, if I
may call it such; for I am still in doubt, whether it passed in my
sleeping or waking thoughts. However it was, I fancied that my good
genius stood at my bed's head, and entertained me with the following
discourse; for upon my rising, it dwelt so strongly upon me, that I
wrote down the substance of it, if not the very words.

"If," said he, "you can be so transported with those productions of
nature which are discovered to you by those artificial eyes that are the
works of human invention, how great will your surprise be, when you
shall have it in your power to model your own eye as you please, and
adapt it to the bulk of objects, which, with all these helps, are by
infinite degrees too minute for your perception. We who are unbodied
spirits can sharpen our sight to what degree we think fit, and make the
least work of the creation distinct and visible. This gives us such
ideas as cannot possibly enter into your present conceptions. There is
not the least particle of matter which may not furnish one of us
su