Abracadabra
  Abracadabr
  Abracadab
  Abracada

and so on, till there remained only the initial A. His word was taken, and this use of the charm was popular even in the Spectators time.  It is described by Defoe in his History of the Plague.]

[Footnote 4:  The number Four was called Tetractys by the Pythagoreans, who accounted it the most powerful of numbers, because it was the foundation of them all, and as a square it signified solidity.  They said it was at the source of Nature, four elements, four seasons, &c., to which later speculators added the four rivers of Paradise, four evangelists, and association of the number four with God, whose name was a mystical Tetra grammaton, Jod, He, Vau, He.]

[Footnote 5:  Where it is explained that Adam meaning Man; Seth, placed; and Enosh, Misery:  the mystic inference is that Man was placed in Misery.]

* * * * *

No. 222.  Wednesday, November 14, 1711.  Steele.

  Cur alter fratrum cessare, et ludere, et ungi,
  Praeferat Herodis palmetis pinguibus

  Hor.

  Mr.  SPECTATOR,

There is one thing I have often look’d for in your Papers, and have as often wondered to find my self disappointed; the rather, because I think it a Subject every way agreeable to your Design, and by being left unattempted by others, seems reserved as a proper Employment for you; I mean a Disquisition, from whence it proceeds, that Men of the brightest Parts, and most comprehensive Genius, compleatly furnished with Talents for any Province in humane Affairs; such as by their wise Lessons of Oeconomy to others have made it evident, that they have the justest Notions of Life and of true Sense in the Conduct of it—­:  from what unhappy contradictious Cause it proceeds, that Persons thus finished by Nature and by Art, should so often fail in the Management of that which they so well understand, and want the Address to make a right Application of their own Rules.  This is certainly a prodigious Inconsistency in Behaviour, and makes much such a Figure in Morals as a monstrous Birth in Naturals, with this Difference only, which greatly aggravates the Wonder, that it happens much more frequently; and what a Blemish does it cast upon Wit and Learning in the general Account of the World?  And in how disadvantageous a Light does it expose them to the busy Class of Mankind, that there should be so many Instances of Persons who have so conducted their Lives in spite of these transcendent Advantages, as neither to be happy in themselves, nor useful to their Friends; when every Body sees it was entirely in their own Power to be eminent in both these Characters?  For my part, I think there is no Reflection more astonishing, than to consider one of these Gentlemen spending a fair Fortune, running in every Body’s Debt without the least Apprehension of a future Reckoning, and at last leaving not only his own