[178] "Æneid," i. 315 seq.
[179] "The Double Gallant; or, the Sick Lady's Cure," by Colley Cibber (1707).
[180] Addison wrote on this subject in the Spectator (No. 37); and in 1714 Steele published "The Ladies' Library," in three volumes, a gathering from the most approved religious and moral writers.
[No. 249. [Addison.]
From Thursday, Nov. 9, to Saturday, Nov. 11, 1710.
Per varios casus, per tot discrimina rerum,
Tendimus——
Virg., Æn. i. 204.
From my own Apartment, Nov. 10.
I was last night visited by a friend[181] of mine who has an inexhaustible fund of discourse, and never fails to entertain his company with a variety of thoughts and hints that are altogether new and uncommon. Whether it were in complaisance to my way of living, or his real opinion, he advanced the following paradox, that it required much greater talents to fill up and become a retired life than a life of business. Upon this occasion he rallied very agreeably the busy men of the age, who only valued themselves for being in motion, and passing through a series of trifling and insignificant actions. In the heat of his discourse, seeing a piece of money lying on my table, "I defy," says he, "any of these active persons to produce half the adventures that this twelvepenny-piece has been engaged in, were it possible for him to give us an account of his life."
My friend's talk made so odd an impression upon my mind, that soon after I was a-bed I fell insensibly into a most unaccountable reverie, that had neither moral nor design in it, and cannot be so properly called a dream as a delirium.