, I must tell
you, you talk most confoundedly silly. Flavilla_ had a Heart naturally
as well dispos'd for all the Tenderness of Love as that of _Laetitia_;
but as Love seldom continues long after Esteem, it is difficult to
determine, at present, whether the unhappy _Flavilla_ hates or despises
the Person most, whom she is obliged to lead her whole Life with.

[X.]

[Footnote 1: Steele's _Funeral_, or _Grief a la Mode_, Act III.]

[Footnote 2: [an] and in first reprint.]

* * * * *

No. 507. Saturday, October 11, 1712. Addison.

'Defendit numerus, junctaeque umbone Phalanges.'

Juv.

There is something very Sublime, tho' very fanciful, in _Plato's_
Description of the Supreme Being, That _Truth is his Body, and Light his
Shadow_. According to this Definition, there is nothing so contradictory
to his Nature, as Error and Falshood. The Platonists have so just a
Notion of the Almighty's Aversion to every thing which is false and
erroneous, that they looked upon _Truth_ as no less necessary than
_Virtue_, to qualifie an human Soul for the Enjoyment of a separate
State. For this reason as they recommended Moral Duties to qualifie and
season the Will for a future Life, so they prescribed several
Contemplations and Sciences to rectifie the Understanding. Thus _Plato_
has called Mathematical Demonstrations the Catharticks or Purgatives of
the Soul, as being the most proper Means to cleanse it from Error, and
to give it a Relish of Truth; which is the natural Food and Nourishment
of the Understanding, as Virtue is the Perfection and Happiness of the
Will.

There are many Authors who have shewn wherein the Malignity of a _Lie_
consists, and set forth in proper Colours, the Heinousness of the
Offence. I shall here consider one Particular Kind of this Crime, which
has not been so much spoken to; I mean that abominable Practice of
_Party-lying_. This Vice is so very predominant among us at present,
that a Man is thought of no Principles, who does not propagate a certain
System of Lies. The Coffee-Houses are supported by them, the Press is
choaked with them, eminent Authors live upon them. Our
Bottle-Conversation is so infected with them, that a Party-Lie is grown
as fashionable an Entertainment, as a lively Catch or a merry Story: The
Truth of it is, half the great Talkers in the Nation would be struck
dumb, were this Fountain of Dis