[Footnote 3:  Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham.]

* * * * *

No. 463.  Thursday, August 21, 1712.  Addison.

  ’Omnia quae sensu volvuntur vota diurno
  Pectore sopito reddit amica quies. 
  Venator defessa toro cum membra reponit
  Mens tamen ad sylvas et sua lustra redit. 
  Judicibus lites, aurigis somnia currus,
  Vanaque nocturnis meta cavetur equis. 
  Me quoque Musarum studium sub nocte silenti
  Artibus assuetis sollicitare solet.’

  Claud.

I was lately entertaining my self with comparing Homer’s Ballance, in which Jupiter is represented as weighing the Fates of Hector and Achilles, with a Passage of Virgil, wherein that Deity is introduced as weighing the Fates of Turnus and AEneas.  I then considered how the same way of thinking prevailed in the Eastern Parts of the World, as in those noble Passages of Scripture, wherein we are told, that the great King of Babylon the Day before his Death, had been weighed in the Ballance, and been found wanting.  In other Places of the Holy Writings, the Almighty is described as weighing the Mountains in Scales, making the Weight for the Winds, knowing the Ballancings of the Clouds, and in others, as weighing the Actions of Men, and laying their Calamities together in a Ballance. Milton, as I have observed in a former Paper, had an Eye to several of these foregoing Instances, in that beautiful Description [1] wherein he represents the Arch-Angel and the Evil Spirit as addressing themselves for the Combat, but parted by the Ballance which appeared in the Heavens and weighed the Consequences of such a Battel.

  ‘Th’ Eternal to prevent such horrid fray
  Hung forth in Heav’n his golden Scales, yet seen
  Betwixt Astrea and the Scorpion Sign,
  Wherein all things created first he weigh’d,
  The pendulous round Earth with ballanc’d Air
  In counterpoise, now ponders all events,
  Battels and Realms; in these he puts two weights
  The sequel each of parting and of fight,
  The latter quick up flew, and kickt the Beam: 
  Which Gabriel spying, thus bespake the Fiend.

Satan, I know thy Strength, and thou know’st mine, Neither our own, but giv’n; what folly then To boast what Arms can do, since thine no more Than Heav’n permits; nor mine, though doubled now To trample thee as mire:  For proof look up, And read thy Lot in yon celestial Sign Where thou art weigh’d, and shewn how light, how weak, If thou resist.  The Fiend look’d up, and knew His mounted Scale aloft; nor more, but fled Murm’ring, and with him fled the Shades of Night.’

These several amusing Thoughts having taken Possession of my Mind some time before I went to sleep, and mingling themselves with my ordinary Ideas, raised in my Imagination a very odd kind of Vision.  I was, methought,