[Footnote 1: Just published, 1712, by Dr. Samuel Clarke, then 37 years
old. He had been for 12 years chaplain to the Bishop of Norwich, and
Boyle Lecturer in 1704-5, when he took for his subject the Being and
Attributes of God and the Evidences of Natural and Revealed Religion. He
had also translated Newton's Optics, and was become chaplain to the
Queen, Rector of St. Jamess, Westminster, and D. D. of Cambridge. The
accusations of heterodoxy that followed him through his after life date
from this year, 1712, in which, besides the edition of Cæsar, he
published a book on the Scripture Doctrine of the Trinity.]
* * * * *
No. 368. Friday, May 2, 1712. Steele.
'Nos decebat
Lugere ubi esset aliquis in lucem editus
Humanæ vitæ varia reputantes mala;
At qui labores morte finisset graves
Omnes amices laude et lætitia exequi.'
Eurip. apud Tull.
As the Spectator is in a Kind a Paper of News from the natural World, as
others are from the busy and politick Part of Mankind, I shall translate
the following Letter written to an eminent French Gentleman in this Town
from Paris, which gives us the Exit of an Heroine who is a Pattern of
Patience and Generosity.
Paris, April 18, 1712.