Cato: A Tragedy, and Selected Essays

Tatler 161 (April 20, 1710)

1. “Never does liberty appear in a more gracious form than under a pious king.” Claudian (a.d. 370 –405), De Laudibus Stilichonis III.113. 2. Cebes of Thebes was a disciple of Socrates and one of the characters in Plato’s Phaedo. The Table of Cebes is a dialogue about the different stages of the human life. Tatler, No. 161 Thursday, April 20, 1710 ———Nunquam libertas gratior exstat Quam sub rege pio.1——— From my own Apartment, April 19. I was walking two or three days ago in a very pleasing retirement, and amusing my self with the reading of that ancient and beautiful Allegory, called The Table of Cebes.2 I was at last so tired with my walk, that I sate down to rest my self upon a Bench that stood in the midst of an agreeable Shade. The musick of the Birds, that filled all the Trees about me, lulled me asleep before I was aware of it; which was followed by a Dream, that I impute in some measure to the foregoing Author, who had made an impression upon my Imagination, and put me into his own way of thinking. I fancied my self among theAlpes, and, as it is natural in a Dream, seemed every moment to bound from one Summit to another, till at last, after having made this airy progress over the tops of several Mountains, I arrived at the very Centre of those broken Rocks and Precipices. I here, methought, saw a prodigious circuit of Hills, that reached above the clouds, and encompassed a large space of ground, which I had a great curiosity to look into. I thereupon continued my former way of travelling through a great variety of winter scenes, till I had gained the top of these white mountains, which seemed 104 selected essays another Alpes of Snow. I looked down from hence into a spacious Plain, which was surrounded on all sides by this Mound of hills, and which presented me with the most agreeable prospect I had ever seen. There was a greater variety of colours in the embroidery of the meadows, a more lively green in the leaves and grass, a brighter chrystal in the streams, than what I ever met with in any other region . The light it self had something more shining and glorious in it than that of which the day is made in other places. I was wonderfully astonished at the discovery of such a Paradise amidst the wildness of those cold hoary Landskips which lay about it; but found at length, that this happy region was inhabited by the Goddess of Liberty; whose presence softened the rigours of the Climate, enriched the barrenness of the Soil, and more than supplied the absence of the Sun. The place was covered with a wonderful profusion of Flowers, that without being disposed into regular borders and parterres, grew promiscuously , and had a greater beauty in their natural luxuriancy and disorder , than they could have received from the checks and restraints of art. There was a river that arose out of the south-side of the mountain , that by an infinite number of turns and windings, seemed to visit every plant, and cherish the several beauties of the Spring, with which the fields abounded. After having run to and fro in a wonderful variety of Meanders, it at last throws it self into the hollow of a mountain, from whence it passes under a long range of Rocks, and at length rises in that part of the Alpes where the inhabitants think it the first source of the Rhone. This river, after having made its progress through those Free Nations, stagnates in a huge Lake at the leaving of them, and no sooner enters into the regions of Slavery, but runs through them with an incredible rapidity, and takes its shortest way to the Sea. I descended into the happy fields that lay beneath me, and in the midst of them, beheld the Goddess sitting upon a Throne. She had nothing to enclose her but the bounds of her own Dominions, and nothing over her head but the Heavens. Every glance of her eye cast a track of light where it fell, that revived the spring, and made all things smile about her. My heart grew chearful at the sight of her, tatler 161 105 and as she looked upon me...