we advance to Manhood, we are held wise in proportion to our Shame and Regret for the Rashness and Extravagance of Youth.  Old Age fills us with mortifying Reflections upon a Life, mis-spent in the Pursuit of anxious Wealth or uncertain Honour.  Agreeable to this Gradation of Thought in this Life, it may be reasonably supposed, that in a future State, the Wisdom, the Experience, and the Maxims of old Age, will be looked upon by a separate Spirit in much the same Light, as an ancient Man now sees the little Follies and Toyings of Infants.  The Pomps, the Honours, the Policies, and Arts of mortal Men, will be thought as trifling as Hobby-Horses, Mock Battles, or any other Sports that now employ all the Cunning, and Strength, and Ambition of rational Beings from four Years old to nine or ten.

’If the Notion of a gradual Rise in Beings, from the meanest to the most High, be not a vain Imagination, it is not improbable that an Angel looks down upon a Man, as a Man doth upon a Creature which approaches the nearest to the rational Nature.  By the same Rule (if I may indulge my Fancy in this Particular) a superior Brute looks with a kind of Pride on one of an inferior Species.  If they could reflect, we might imagine from the Gestures of some of them, that they think themselves the Sovereigns of the World, and that all things were made for them.  Such a Thought would not be more absurd in Brute Creatures, than one which Men are apt to entertain, namely, That all the Stars in the Firmament were created only to please their Eyes and amuse their Imaginations.  Mr. Dryden, in his Fable of the Cock and the Fox, makes a Speech for his Hero the Cock, which is a pretty Instance for this Purpose,

    ’Then turning, said to_ Partlet, See, my Dear,
    How lavish Nature hath adorn’d the Year;
    How the pale Primrose and the Violet spring,
    And Birds essay their Throats, disus’d to sing: 
    All these are ours, and I with Pleasure see
    Man strutting on two Legs, and aping me.’

’What I would observe from the Whole is this, That we ought to value our selves upon those Things only which superior Beings think valuable, since that is the only way for us not to sink in our own Esteem hereafter.

* * * * *

No. 622.  Friday, November 19, 1714.

  ‘—­Fallentis Semita Vitae.’

  Hor.

  Mr.  SPECTATOR,

’In a former Speculation you have observed, that true Greatness doth not consist in that Pomp and Noise wherein the Generality of Mankind are apt to place it.  You have there taken Notice, that Virtue in Obscurity often appears more illustrious in the Eye of superior Beings, than all that passes for Grandeur and Magnificence among Men.

When we look back upon the History of those who have born the Parts of Kings, Statesmen,