This could not but be understood by his difciples as an inviolable injunction to live in a garret, which I have found frequently vifited by the echo and the wind. Nor was the tradition wholly obliterated in the age of Auguftus, for Tibullus evidently congra tulates himself upon his garret, not without fome allufion to the Pythagorean precept:

Quàm juvat immites ventos audire cubantem—
Aut, gelidas hybernus aquas cùm fuderit auster,
Securum fomnos, imbre juvante, fequi!

How sweet in sleep to pass the careless hours,
Lull'd by the beating winds and dashing show'rs!

And it is impoffible not to discover the fondness of Lucretius, an earlier writer, for a garret, in his description of the lofty towers of ferene learning, and of the pleasure with which a wife man looks down upon the confufed and erratick ftate of the world moving below him;

Sed nil dulcius eft, bene quàm munita tenere
Edita doctrinâ fapientum templa ferena ;
Defpicere unde queas alios, paffimque videre
Errare, atque viam palanteis quærere vita.

'Tis fweet thy lab'ring fteps to guide
To virtue's heights, with wisdom well supply'd,
And all the magazines of learning fortify'd :
From thence to look below on human kind,
Bewilder'd in the maze of life, and blind.

}

DRYDEN.

The inftitution has, indeed, continued to our own time; the garret is still the usual receptacle of the philofopher and poet; but this, like many ancient

cuftoms,

customs, is perpetuated only by an accidental imitation, without knowledge of the original reafon for which it was established:

Caufa latet; res eft notiffima.

The cause is fecret, but th' effect is known. ADDISON.

Conjectures have, indeed, been advanced concerning these habitations of literature, but without much fatisfaction to the judicious inquirer. Some have imagined, that the garret is generally chofen by the wits as most easily rented; and concluded that no man rejoices in his aërial abode, but on the days of payment. Others fufpect, that a garret is chiefly convenient, as it is remoter than any other part of the house from the outer door, which is often observed to be infested by visitants, who talk inceffantly of beer, or linen, or a coat, and repeat the same founds every morning, and fometimes again in the afternoon, without any variation, except that they grow daily more importunate and clamorous, and raife their voices in time from mournful murmurs to raging vociferations. This eternal monotony is always deteftable to a man whofe chief pleasure is to enlarge his knowledge, and vary his ideas. Others talk of freedom from noife, and abstraction from common business or amusements; and fome, yet more vifionary, tell us, that the faculties are enlarged by open profpects, and that the fancy is more at liberty, when the eye ranges without confinement.

These conveniencies may perhaps all be found in a well-chofen garret; but furely they cannot be fuppofed

U 4

fuppofed fufficiently important to have operated unvariably upon different climates, diftant ages, and separate nations. Of an univerfal practice, there must still be presumed an universal cause, which, however recondite and abftrufe, may be perhaps referved to make me illuftrious by its difcovery, and you by its promulgation.

It is univerfally known that the faculties of the mind are invigorated or weakened by the ftate of the body, and that the body is in a great measure regulated by the various compreffions of the ambient element. The effects of the air in the production or cure of corporeal maladies have been acknowledged from the time of Hippocrates; but no man has yet fufficiently confidered how far it may influence the operations of the genius, though every day affords inftances of local understanding, of wits and reafoners, whose faculties are adapted to fome fingle fpot, and who, when they are removed to any other place, fink at once into filence and ftupidity. I have discovered, by a long series of obfervations, that invention and elocution fuffer great impediments from denfe and impure vapours, and that the tenuity of a defecated air at a proper distance from the furface of the earth, accelerates the fancy, and fets at liberty thofe intellectual powers which were before fhackled by too ftrong attraction, and unable to expand themselves under the preffure of a grofs atmosphere. I have found dulnefs to quicken into sentiment in a thin ether, as water, though not very hot, boils in a receiver partly exhaufted; and heads, in appearance empty, have teemed with notions upon rifing ground, as the flaccid fides of a

football would have fwelled out into stiffness and extenfion.

For this reason I never think myfelf qualified to judge decifively of any man's faculties, whom I have only known in one degree of elevation; but take some opportunity of attending him from the cellar to the garret, and try upon him all the various degrees of rarefaction and condensation, tenfion and laxity. If he is neither vivacious aloft, nor ferious below, I then confider him as hopeless; but as it seldom happens, that I do not find the temper to which the texture of his brain is fitted, I accommodate him in time with a tube of mercury, first marking the points most favourable to his intellects, according to rules which I have long ftudied, and which I may, perhaps, reveal to mankind in a complete treatise of barometrical pneumatology.

Another caufe of the gaiety and sprightliness of the dwellers in garrets is probably the increase of that vertiginous motion, with which we are carried round by the diurnal revolution of the earth. The power of agitation upon the fpirits is well known; every man has felt his heart lightened in a rapid vehicle, or on a galloping horfe; and nothing is plainer, than that he who towers to the fifth ftory, is whirled through more fpace by every circumrotation, than another that grovels upon the groundfloor. The nations between the tropicks are known to be fiery, inconstant, inventive, and fanciful; because, living at the utmoft length of the earth's diameter, they are carried about with more fwiftness than those whom nature has placed nearer to the poles; and therefore, as it becomes a wife man to struggle

struggle with the inconveniencies of his country, whenever celerity and acutenefs are requifite, we must actuate our languor by taking a few turns round the center in a garret.

If you imagine that I afcribe to air and motion effects which they cannot produce, I defire you to confult your own memory, and confider whether you have never known a man acquire reputation in his garret, which, when fortune or a patron had placed him upon the first floor, he was unable to maintain; and who never recovered his former vigour of understanding, till he was restored to his original fituation. That a garret will make every man a wit, I am very far from fuppofing; I know there are fome who would continue blockheads even on the fummit of the Andes, or on the peak of Teneriffe. But let not any man be confidered as unimproveable till this potent remedy has been tried; for perhaps he was formed to be great only in a garret, as the joiner of Aretaus was rational in no other place but his own fhop.

I think a frequent removal to various distances from the center, fo neceffary to a juft eftimate of intellectual abilities, and confequently of fo great use in education, that if I hoped that the publick could be perfuaded to fo expenfive an experiment, I would propose, that there fhould be a cavern dug, and a tower erected, like those which Bacon describes in Solomon's houfe, for the expanfion and concentration of understanding, according to the exigence of dif ferent employments, or conftitutions. Perhaps fome that fume away in meditations upon time and space in the tower, might compofe tables of intereft at a certain