FOOTNOTES:
[346] "Sir Richard Steele joined in this paper" (Tickell)
[347] An account of the effects of this gentleman is given by Hughes in No. 113.
[348] See Nos. 113 and 116.
[No. 111. [Addison and Steele.][349]
From Thursday, Dec. 22, to Saturday, Dec. 24, 1709.
----Procul O! procul este, profani!—Virg., Æn. vi. 258.
Sheer Lane, Dec. 23.
The watchman, who does me particular honours, as being the chief man in the lane, gave so very great a thump at my door last night, that I awakened at the knock, and heard myself complimented with the usual salutation of "Good morrow, Mr. Bickerstaff; good morrow, my masters all." The silence and darkness of the night disposed me to be more than ordinarily serious; and as my attention was not drawn out among exterior objects by the avocations of sense, my thoughts naturally fell upon myself. I was considering, amidst the stillness of the night, what was the proper employment of a thinking being? what were the perfections it should propose to itself? and what the end it should aim at? My mind is of such a particular cast, that the falling of a shower of rain, or the whistling of wind, at such a time, is apt to fill my thoughts with something awful and solemn. I was in this disposition, when our bellman began his midnight homily (which he has been repeating to us every winter night for these twenty years) with the usual exordium: