SIR

’I was the other Day reading the Life of Mahomet.  Among many other Extravagancies, I find it recorded of that Impostor, that in the fourth Year of his Age the Angel Gabriel caught him up, while he was among his Play-fellows, and, carrying him aside, cut open his Breast, plucked out his Heart, and wrung out of it that black Drop of Blood, in which, say the Turkish Divines, is contained the Fomes Peccati, so that he was free from Sin ever after.  I immediately said to my self, tho’ this Story be a Fiction, a very good Moral may be drawn from it, would every Man but apply it to himself, and endeavour to squeeze out of his Heart whatever Sins or ill Qualities he finds in it.

’While my Mind was wholly taken up with this Contemplation, I insensibly fell into a most pleasing Slumber, when methought two Porters entered my Chamber, carrying a large Chest between them.  After having set it down in the middle of the Room they departed.  I immediately endeavour’d to open what was sent me, when a Shape, like that in which we paint our Angels, appeared before me, and forbad me.  Enclosed, said he, are the Hearts of several of your Friends and Acquaintance; but before you can be qualified to see and animadvert on the Failings of others, you must be pure your self; whereupon he drew out his Incision Knife, cut me open, took out my Heart, and began to squeeze it.  I was in a great Confusion, to see how many things, which I had always cherished as Virtues, issued out of my Heart on this Occasion.  In short, after it had been thoroughly squeezed, it looked like an empty Bladder, when the Phantome, breathing a fresh Particle of Divine Air into it, restored it safe to its former Repository:  and having sewed me up, we began to examine the Chest.

’The Hearts were all enclosed in transparent Phials, and preserved in a Liquor which looked like Spirits of Wine.  The first which I cast my Eye upon, I was afraid would have broke the Glass which contained it.  It shot up and down, with incredible Swiftness, thro’ the Liquor in which it swam, and very frequently bounced against the Side of the Phial.  The Fomes, or Spot in the Middle of it, was not large, but of a red fiery Colour, and seemed to be the Cause of these violent Agitations.  That, says my Instructor, is the Heart of Tom. Dread-Nought, who behaved himself well in the late Wars, but has for these Ten Years last past been aiming at some Post of Honour to no Purpose.  He is lately retired into the Country, where, quite choaked up with Spleen and Choler, he rails at better Men than himself, and will be for ever uneasie, because it is impossible he should think his Merit sufficiently rewarded.  The next Heart that I examined was remarkable for its Smallness; it lay still at the Bottom of the Phial, and I could hardly perceive that it beat at all.  The Fomes was quite black, and had almost diffused it self over the whole