se Funeral Rites I my self performed,
whereas he ought rather to have attended mine. Yet has not his Soul
deserted me, but, seeming to cast back a Look on me, is gone before
to those Habitations to which it was sensible I should follow him.
And though I might appear to have born my Loss with Courage, I was
not unaffected with it, but I comforted myself in the Assurance that
it would not be long before we should meet again, and be divorced no
more.

_I am, SIR, &c._"'

_I question not but my Reader will be very much pleased to hear, that
the Gentleman who has obliged the World with the foregoing Letter, and
who was the Author of the 210th Speculation on the Immortality of the
Soul, [the 375th on Virtue in Distress,] the 525th on Conjugal Love, and
two or three other very fine ones among those which are not lettered at
the end, will soon publish a noble Poem, Intitled_ An Ode to the Creator
of the World, _occasioned by the Fragments of_ Orpheus.

[Footnote 1: _Pensees_. Part I. Art. iv. 7.]

[Footnote 2: Cyropaedia, Book viii.]

* * * * *

No. 538. Monday, November 17, 1712. Addison.

'--Ultra
Finem tendere opus.'

Hor.

Surprize is so much the Life of Stories, that every one aims at it, who
endeavours to please by telling them. Smooth Delivery, an elegant Choice
of Words, and a sweet Arrangement, are all beautifying _Graces_, but not
the particulars in this Point of Conversation which either long command
the Attention, or strike with the Violence of a sudden Passion, or
occasion the burst of Laughter which accompanies Humour. I have
sometimes fancied that the Mind is in this case like a Traveller who
sees a fine Seat in Haste; he acknowledges the Delightfulness of a Walk
set with Regularity, but would be uneasy if he were obliged to pass it
over, when the first View had let him into all its Beauties from one End
to the other.

However, a knowledge of the Success which Stories will have when they
are attended with a Turn of Surprize, as it has happily made the
Characters of some, so has it also been the Ruin of the Characters of
others. There is a Set of Men who outrage Truth, instead of affecting us
with a Manner in telling it; who over-leap the Line of Probability, that
they may be seen to move out of the common Road; and endeavour only to
make their Hearers stare, by imposing upon t