o puzzled upon the Point, that it might have fared ill
with his Son, had he not seen all the Prints about three Days after
filled with the same Terms of Art, and that _Charles_ only writ like
other Men.

L.

[Footnote 1: The motto in the original edition was

'Semivirumque bovem Semibovemque virum.'

Ovid.]

[Footnote 2: that]

[Footnote 3: _Atique_]

[Footnote 4: Dr Richard Bentley]

[Footnote 5: Mile]

* * * * *

No. 166. Monday, September 10, 1711. Addison.

'... Quod nec Jovis ira, nec ignis,
Nec poterit ferrum, nec edax abolere vetustas.'

Ovid.

Aristotle tells us that the World is a Copy or Transcript of those Ideas
which are in the Mind of the first Being, and that those Ideas, which
are in the Mind of Man, are a Transcript of the World: To this we may
add, that Words are the Transcript of those Ideas which are in the Mind
of Man, and that Writing or Printing are the Transcript of words.

As the Supreme Being has expressed, and as it were printed his Ideas in
the Creation, Men express their Ideas in Books, which by this great
Invention of these latter Ages may last as long as the Sun and Moon, and
perish only in the general Wreck of Nature. Thus _Cowley_ in his Poem on
the Resurrection, mentioning the Destruction of the Universe, has those
admirable Lines.

'_Now all the wide extended Sky,
And all th' harmonious Worlds on high,
And_ Virgil's _sacred Work shall die_.'

There is no other Method of fixing those Thoughts which arise and
disappear in the Mind of Man, and transmitting them to the last Periods
of Time; no other Method of giving a Permanency to our Ideas, and
preserving the Knowledge of any particular Person, when his Body is
mixed with the common Mass of Matter, and his Soul retired into the
World of Spirits. Books are the Legacies that a great Genius leaves to
Mankind, which are delivered down from Generation to Generation, as
Presents to the Posterity of those who are yet unborn.

All other Arts of perpetuating our Ideas continue but a short Time:
Statues can last but a few Thousands of Years, Edifices fewer, and
Colours still fewer than Edifices. _Michael Angelo_, _Fontana_, and
_Raphael_, will hereafter be what _Phidias_, _Vitruvius_, and _Apelles_
are at present; the Names of great Statuaries, Architects and Painters,
whose Works are lost. The several Arts are