[66] "Epig." i. 20.
[67] See No. [130], Advertisement.
No. 130.
[? Addison.[68]
From Saturday, Feb. 4, to Tuesday, Feb. 7, 1709-10.
——At me
Cum magnis vixisse invita fatebitur usque
Invidia.—Hor., 2 Sat. i. 75.
Sheer Lane, February 6.
I find some of the most polite Latin authors, who wrote at a time when Rome was in its glory, speak with a certain noble vanity of the brightness and splendour of the age in which they lived. Pliny often compliments his Emperor Trajan upon this head; and when he would animate him to anything great, or dissuade him from anything that was improper, he insinuates, that it is befitting or unbecoming the claritas et nitor sæculi, that period of time which was made illustrious by his reign. When we cast our eyes back on the history of mankind, and trace them through their several successions to their first original, we sometimes see them breaking out in great and memorable actions, and towering up to the utmost heights of virtue and knowledge; when, perhaps, if we carry our observation to a little distance, we see them sunk into sloth and ignorance, and altogether lost in darkness and obscurity. Sometimes the whole species is asleep for two or three generations, and then again awakens into action, flourishes in heroes, philosophers, and poets, who do honour to human nature, and leave such tracts of glory behind them, as distinguish the years in which they acted their part from the ordinary course of time.
Methinks a man cannot, without a secret satisfaction, consider the glory of the present age, which will shine as bright as any other in the history of mankind. It is still big with great events, and has already produced changes and revolutions which will be as much admired by posterity, as any that have happened in the days of our fathers, or in the old times before them. We have seen kingdoms divided and united, monarchs erected and deposed, nations transferred from one sovereign to another; conquerors raised to such a greatness as has given a terror to Europe, and thrown down by such a fall, as has moved their pity.