to all kind of Superiours is
founded methinks upon Instinct; and yet what is so ridiculous as Age? I
make this abrupt Transition to the Mention of this Vice more than any
other, in order to introduce a little Story, which I think a pretty
Instance that the most polite Age is in danger of being the most
vicious.

'It happen'd at _Athens_, during a publick Representation of some Play
exhibited in honour of the Common-wealth that an old Gentleman came
too late for a Place suitable to his Age and Quality. Many of the
young Gentlemen who observed the Difficulty and Confusion he was in,
made Signs to him that they would accommodate him if he came where
they sate: The good Man bustled through the Crowd accordingly; but
when he came to the Seats to which he was invited, the Jest was to sit
close, and expose him, as he stood out of Countenance, to the whole
Audience. The Frolick went round all the Athenian Benches. But on
those Occasions there were also particular Places assigned for
Foreigners: When the good Man skulked towards the Boxes appointed for
the _Lacedemonians_, that honest People, more virtuous than polite,
rose up all to a Man, and with the greatest Respect received him among
them. The _Athenians_ being suddenly touched with a Sense of the
_Spartan_ Virtue, and their own Degeneracy, gave a Thunder of
Applause; and the old Man cry'd out, _The_ Athenians _understand what
is good, but the_ Lacedemonians _practise it_.'

R.

[Footnote 1: Richard Blackmore, born about 1650, d. 1729, had been
knighted in 1697, when he was made physician in ordinary to King
William. He was a thorough Whig, earnestly religious, and given to the
production of heroic poems. Steele shared his principles and honoured
his sincerity. When this essay was written, Blackmore was finishing his
best poem, the 'Creation', in seven Books, designed to prove from nature
the existence of a God. It had a long and earnest preface of
expostulation with the atheism and mocking spirit that were the legacy
to his time of the Court of the Restoration. The citations in the text
express the purport of what Blackmore had written in his then
unpublished but expected work, but do not quote from it literally.]

* * * * *

No. 7. Thursday, March 8, 1711. Addison.

'Somnia, terrores magicos, miracula, Sagas,
Nocturnos lemures, portentaque T