There are at Paris, Madrid, Lisbon, Rome, and many other large towns, great hospitals built like our colleges. In the walls of these hospitals are placed machines, in the shape of large lanthorns, with a little door in the side of them turned towards the street, and a bell hanging by them. The child is deposited in this lanthorn, which is immediately turned about into the inside of the hospital. The person who conveys the child, rings the bell, and leaves it there, upon which the proper officer comes and receives it without making further enquiries. The parent, or her friend, who lays the child there, generally leaves a note with it, declaring whether it be yet christened, the name it should be called by, the particular marks upon it, and the like.

It often happens that the parent leaves a note for the maintenance and education of the child, or takes it out after it has been some years in the hospital. Nay, it has been known that the father has afterwards owned the young foundling for his son, or left his estate to him. This is certain, that many are by this means preserved, and do signal services to their country, who without such a provision might have perished as abortives, or have come to an untimely end, and perhaps have brought upon their guilty parents the like destruction.

This I think is a subject that deserves our most serious consideration, for which reason I hope I shall not be thought impertinent in laying it before my readers.

ADDISON.

K.

N° 106. MONDAY, JULY 13, 1713

Quod latet arcanà non enarrabile fibrâ.

PERS. Sat. v. 29.

The deep recesses of the human breast. As I was making up my Monday's provision for the public, I received the following letter, which being a better entertainment than any I can furnish out myself, I shall set it before the reader, and desire him to fall on without farther ceremony.

'SIR,

'Your two kinsmen and predecessors of immortal memory', were very famous for their dreams and visions; and, contrary to all other authors, never pleased their readers more than when they were nodding. Now it is observed, that the second sight generally runs in the blood; and, sir, we are in hopes that you yourself, like the rest of your family, may at length prove a dreamer of dreams, and a seer of visions. In the mean while I beg leave to make you a present of a dream, which may serve to lull your readers until such time as you yourself shall think fit to gratify the public with any of your nocturnal discoveries.

'You must understand, sir, I had yesterday been reading and ruminating upon that passage where Momus is said to have found fault with the make of a man, because he had not a window in his breast. The moral of this story is very obvious, and means no more than that the heart of man is so full of wiles and artifices, treachery and deceit, that there is no guessing at what he is, from his speeches, and out

'Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq. and the Spectator, VOL. II. H

ward appearances. I was immediately reflecting how happy each of the sexes would be, if there was a window in the breast of every one that makes or receives love. What protestations and perjuries would be saved on the one side, what hypocrisy and dissimulation on the other! I am myself very far gone in this passion for Aurelia, a woman of an unsearchable heart. I would give the world to know the secrets of it, and particularly whether I am really in her good graces, or, if not, who is the happy person.

'I fell asleep in this agreeable reverie, when on a sudden methought Aurelia lay by my side. I was placed by her in the posture of Milton's Adam, and with looks of cordial love" hung over her enamour'd." As I cast my eye upon her bosom, it appeared to be all of crystal, and so wonderfully transparent, that I saw every thought in her heart. The first images I discovered in it were fans, silk, ribands, laces, and many other gewgaws, which lay so thick together, that the whole heart was nothing else but a toyshop. These all faded away and vanished, when immediately I discerned a long train of coaches and six, equipages and liveries, that ran through the heart one after another in a very great hurry for above half an hour together. After this, looking very attentively, I observed the whole space to be filled with a hand of cards, in which I could see distinctly three mattadors. There then followed a quick succession of different scenes. A playhouse, a church, a court, a puppet-show, rose up one after another, until at last they all of them gave place to a pair of new shoes, which kept footing in the heart for a whole hour. These were driven off at last by a lap-dog, who was succeeded by a guinea-pig, a squirrel, and a monkey. I myself, to my no small

joy, brought up the rear of these worthy favourites. I was ravished at being so happily posted and in full possession of the heart: but as I saw the little figure of myself simpering and mightily pleased with its situation, on a sudden the heart methought gave a sigh, in which, as I found afterwards, my little representative vanished; for upon applying my eye, I found my place taken up by an ill-bred, aukward puppy, with a money-bag under each arm. This gentleman however did not keep his station long, before he yielded it up to a wight as disagreeable as himself, with a white stick in his hand. These three last figures represented to me in a lively manner the conflicts in Aurelia's heart, between Love, Avarice, and Ambition, for we justled one another out by turns, and disputed the post for a great while. But at last, to my unspeakable satisfaction, I saw myself entirely settled in it. I was so transported with my success, that I could not forbear hugging my dear piece of crystal, when to my unspeakable mortification I awaked, and found my mistress metamorphosed into a pillow.

This is not the first time I have been thus disappointed.

O venerable Nestor, if you have any skill in dreams, let me know whether I have the same place in the real heart, that I had in the visionary one. To tell you truly, I am perplexed to death between hope and fear. I was very sanguine until eleven o'clock this morning, when I overheard an unlucky old woman telling her neighbour that dreams always went by contraries. I did not indeed before much like the crystal heart, remembering that confounded simile in Valentinian, of a maid "as cold as crystal never to be thawed." Besides, I verily believe if I had slept a little longer, that aukward whelp with his

money-bags would certainly have made his second entrance. If you can tell the fair-one's mind, it will be no small proof of your art, for I dare say it is more than she herself can do. Every sentence she speaks is a riddle; all that I can be certain of is, that I am her and

N° 107. TUESDAY, JULY 14, 1713.

-tentanda via est

I'll try the experiment.

VIRG. Georg. iii. 8.

I HAVE lately entertained my reader with two or three letters from a traveller', and may possibly, in some of my future papers, oblige him with more from the same hand. The following one comes from a projector, which is a sort of correspondent as diverting as a traveller; his subject having the same grace of novelty to recommend it, and being equally adapted to the curiosity of the reader. For my own part, I have always had a particular fondness for a project, and may say without vanity, that I have a pretty tolerable genius that way myself. I could mention some which I have brought to maturity, others which have miscarried, and many more which I have yet by me, and are to take their fate in the world when I see a proper juncture: I had a hand in the land bank, and was consulted with, See No 101, and 104.

A bank was once really proposed, to lend money upon land security,