bated. We fee here both the allurements and difcouragements of civil employments: on one fide there is trouble, on the other honour; the management of affairs is vexatious and difficult, but it is the only duty in which wifdom can be confpicuously difplayed: it must then ftill be left to every man to chufe either cafe or glory; nor can any general precept be given, fince no man can be happy by the prefcription of another.

Thus, what is faid of children by Pofidippus, that they are occafions of fa'tigue;' and by Metrodorus, that they are objects of affection;' is equally certain; but whether they will give most pain or pleasure, muft depend on their future conduct and difpofitions, on many caufes over which the parent can have little influence: there is, therefore, room for all the caprices of imagination, and defire must be proportioned to the hope or fear that shall happen to predominate. Such is the uncertainty in which we are always likely to remain with regard to queftions, wherein we have moft intereft, and which every day affords us fresh opportunity to examine: we may examine, indeed, but we never can decide, because our faculties are unequal to the fubject: we fee a little, and form an opinion; we fee more, and change it. This inconftancy and unfteadiness, to which we must fo often find ourselves liable, ought certainly to teach us moderation and forbearance towards thofe who cannot accommodate themselves to our fentiments: if they are deceived, we have no right to attribute their mistake to obftinacy or negligence, because we likewife have been mistaken; we may, perhaps, again change our own opinion;

and what excufe fhall we be able to find for averfion and malignity conceived against him, whom we fhall then find to have committed no fault, and who offended us only by refusing to follow us into error?

It may likewife contribute to foften that refentment which pride naturally raises against oppofition, if we confider, that he who differs from us, does not always contradi&t us; he has one view of an object, and we have another; each defcribes what he fees with equal fidelity, and each regulates his fteps by his own eyes: one man, with Pofidippus, looks on celibacy as a state of gloomy folitude, without a partner in joy or a comforter in forrow; the other confiders it, with Metrodorus, as a ftate free from incumbrances, in which a man is at liberty to chufe his own gratifications, to remove from place to place in queft of pleasure, and to think of nothing but merriment and diversion: full of thefe notions one haftens to chufe a wife, and the other laughs at his rafhnefs, or pities his ignorance; yet it is poffible that each is right, but that each is right only for

himself.

The

Life is not the object of fcience: we fee a little, very little; and what is beyond we only can conjecture. If we enquire of thofe who have gone before us, we receive fmall fatisfaction; fome have travelled life without obfervation, and fome willingly mislead us. only thought, therefore, on which we can repofe with comfort, is that which prefents to us the care of Providence, whofe eye takes in the whole of things, and under whofe direction all involuntary errors will terminate in happiness. T

CATULLUS.

ADDISON.

reader, that there are certain topics which never are exhaufted. Of fome images and fentiments the mind of man may be faid to be enamoured; it meets them, however often they occur, with the fame ardour which a lover feels at the fight of his mistress, and parts from

can no longer be enjoyed.

Of this kind are many defcriptions which the poets have tranfcribed from each other, and their fucceffors will probably copy to the end of time; which will continue to engage, or, as the French term it, to flatter the imaginaM m 2

tion,

tion, as long as human nature shall remain the fame.

When a poet mentions the fpring, we know that the zephyrs are about to whisper, that the groves are to recover their verdure, the linnets to warble forth their notes of love, and the flocks and herds to frifk over vales painted with flowers: yet who is there fo infenfible of the beauties of nature, fo little delighted with the renovation of the world, as not to feel his heart bound at the mention of the fpring?

When night overfhadows a romantic fcene, all is ftillnefs, filence, and quiet; the poets of the grove ceafe their melody, the moon towers over the world in gentle majesty, men forget their labours and their cares, and every paffion and purfuit is for a while suspended. All this we know already, yet we hear it repeated without wearinefs; becaufe fuch is generally the life of man, that he is pleafed to think on the time when he hall paufe from a fenfe of his condition. When a poetical grove invites us to it's covert, we know that we fhall find what we have already feen, a limpid brook murmuring over pebbles, a bank diverfified with flowers, a green_arch that excludes the fun, and a natural grot fhaded with myrtles; yet who can forbear to enter the pleafing gloom, to enjoy coolness and privacy, and gratify himself once more by fcenes with which nature has formed him to be delighted? Many moral fentiments likewife are fo adapted to our ftate, that we find approbation whenever they folicit it, and are seldom read without exciting a gentle emotion in the mind: fuch is the comparifon of the life of man with the duration of a flower, a thought which, perhaps, every nation has heard warbled in it's own language, from the Infpired Poets of the Hebrews to our own times: yet this comparifon muft always pleafe, because every heart feels it's juftness, and every hour confirms it by example. Such likewife is the precept that directs us to use the prefent hour, and refer nothing to a diftant time, which we are uncertain whether we shall reach: this every moralift may venture to inculcate, because it will always be approved, and because it is always forgotten.

This rule is, indeed, every day enforced, by arguments more powerful than the differtations of moralifts: we fee men pleasing themselves with future

happiness, fixing a certain hour for the completion of their wifhes, and perishing fome at a greater and some at a lefs distance from the happy time; all complaining of their difappointments, and lamenting that they had fuffered the years which Heaven allowed them to pafs without improvement, and deferred the principal purpofe of their lives to the time when life itfelf was to forfake them.

It is not only uncertain, whether, through all the cafualties and dangers which befet the life of man, we shall be able to reach the time appointed for happinefs or wifdom; but it is likely, that whatever now hinders us from doing that which our reafon and confcience declare neceffary to be done, will equally obftruct us in times to come. It is eafy for the imagination, operating on things not yet exifting, to please itself with fcenes of unmingled felicity, or plan out courfes of uniform virtue: but good and evil are in real life infeparably united; habits grow ftronger by indulgence; and reafon lofes her dignity, in proportion as the has oftener yielded to temptation: He that cannot live well to-day, fays Martial, will be lefs qualified to live well to-morrow.'

Of the uncertainty of every human good, every human being feems to be convinced; yet this uncertainty is voluntarily increased by unneceffary delay, whether we refpect external caufes, or confider the nature of our own minds. He that now feels a defire to do right, and wifhes to regulate his life according to his reafon, is not fure that, at any future time affignable, he fhall be able to rekindle the fame ardour; he that has now an opportunity offered him of breaking loofe from vice and folly, cannot know but that he fhall hereafter be more entangled, and ftruggle for freedom without obtaining it.

We are fo unwilling to believe any thing to our own difadvantage, that we will always imagine the peripicacity of our judgment and the strength of our refolution more likely to increafe than to grow lefs by time; and therefore conclude, that the will to purfue laudable purposes will be always feconded by the

we fee every day the unexpected death of our friends and our enemies, we fee new graves hourly opened for men older and younger than ourfelves, for the cautious and the careless, the diffolute and the temperate, for men who like us were providing to enjoy or improve hours now irreverfibly cut off; we fee all this, and yet, instead of living, let year glide after year in preparations to live.

Men are fo frequently cut off in the midtt of their projections, that fudden death caufes little emotion in them that behold it, unless it be impreffed upon the attention by uncommon circumftances. I, like every other man, have outlived multitudes, have feen ambition fink in it's triumphs, and beauty perifh in it's bloom; but have been feldom fo much affected as by the fate of Euryalus, whom I lately loft as I began to love him.

Euryalus had for fome time flourished in a lucrative profeffion; but having fuffered his imagination to be fired by an unextinguishable curiofity, he grew weary of the fame dull round of life, refolved to harass himself no longer with the drudgery of getting money, but to quit his bufinefs and his profit, and enjoy for a few years the pleafures of travel. His friends heard him proclaim his refolution without fufpecting that he intended to purfue it; but he was conftant to his purpose, and with great expedition clofed his accounts and fold his moveables, paffed a few days in bidding farewel to his companions, and, with all the eagerness of romantic chivalry, croffed the fea in fearch of happinefs. Whatever place was renowned in ancient or modern history, whatever region art or nature had diftinguished, he determined to vifit: full of defign and hope, he landed on the continent; his friends expected accounts from him of the new fcenes that opened in his progrefs, but were informed in a few days that Euryalus was dead.

Such was the end of Euryalus. He is entered that ftate, whence none ever

fhall return; and can now only benefit his friends, oy remaining in their memories a permanent and efficacious inftance of the blindness of defire, and the uncertainty of all terreftrial good. But, perhaps, every man has like me loft an Euryalus, has known a friend die with happiness in his grafp; and yet every man continues to think himself fecure of life, and defers to fome future time of leifure what he knows it will be fatal to have finally omitted.

It is, indeed, with this as with other frailties inherent in our nature; the defire of deferring to another time, what cannot be done without endurance of fome pain, or forbearance of fome pleafure, will, perhaps, never be totally overcome or fupprefled; there will always be fomething that we fhall wish to have finished, and be nevertheless unwilling to begin: but against this unwillingness it is our duty to ftruggle, and every conqueft over our paffions will make way for an eafier conqueft; custom is equally forcible to bad and good; nature will always be at variance with reafon, but will rebel more feebly as fhe is oftener fubdued.

The common neglect of the present hour is more fhameful and criminal, as no man is betrayed to it by error, but admits it by negligence. Of the initability of life, the weakest understanding never thinks wrong, though the strongeft often omits to think juftly: reafon and experience are always ready to inform us of our real ftate; but we refule to liften to their fuggeftions, because we feel our hearts unwilling to obey them: but furely nothing is more unworthy of a reafonable being, than to fhut his eyes, when he fees the road which he is commanded to travel, that he may deviate with fewer reproaches from hinfeif; nor could any motive to tenderness, except the confcioufnefs that we have all been guilty of the fame fault, difpofe us to pity thofe who thus confign themfelves to voluntary ruin, T

N° CIX.

SIR,

TO THE ADVENTURER.

Merves, that by building pro

ONTESQUIEU wittily ob

felfed mad-houfes men tacitly infinuate, that all who are out of their fenfes are to be found only in thofe places. This remark having made fome impreffion on my mind, produced laft night the following vifion.

I imagined that Bedlam had been ordered to be rebuilt upon a more extenfive plan by act of parliament; and that Dean Swift, calling at my lodgings, offered to accompany me to fee the newerected edifice, which, he obferved, was not half capacious enough before to contain the various fpecies of madnefs that are to be found in this kingdom. As we walked through the galleries, he gave me the following account of the feveral inhabitants.

the

The lady in the first apartment had prevailed upon her husband, a man of tudy and oeconomy, to indulge her with a route twice a week at her own houfe. This foon multiplied her obligations to company fhe kept, and in a fortnight the infifted upon two more. His lordhip venturing to oppofe her demand with fteady refolution, but with equal tenderness, the lady complained, that the rights of quality and fortune were invaded; that her credit was loft with the fashionable world, and that ignorance and brutality had robbed her of the pleafures of a reasonable being, and rendered her the most unhappy wife in Great Britain. The cause of her complaints, however, still fubfifted, and by perpetually brooding over it the at length turned her brain.

Next to her is a drainatic writer, whofe comedy having been justly damned, he began to vent his fpleen against the public, by weekly abutes of the prefent age; but as neither the play nor his defences of it were read, his indignation continually increased, till at length it terminated in madness,

He on the right-hand is a philofopher,

HOR.

who has loft his reafon in a fruitlefs attempt to discover the cause of electricity.

He on the left is a celebrated jockey of noble birth, whofe favourite mare, that had enjoyed three triumphs in former featons, was distanced a few days ago at Newmarket.

Yonder meagre man has bewildered his understanding by clofely ftudying the doctrine of chances, in order to qualify himself for a profefforthip, which will be shortly established and amply endowed at an eminent chocolate-houfe, where lectures on this important fubje&t are conftantly to be read.

An unforeseen accident turned the head of the next unfortunate prifoner. She had for a long time pafled for fifteen years younger than the was, and her lively behaviour and airy drets concarred to help forward the impofition; till one evening, being animated with an extraordinary flow of fpirits, the danced out feven of her artificial teeth, which were immediately picked up, and delivered to her with great ceremony by her partner.

The merchant in the neighbouring cell had refolved to gain a plumb. He was poffeffed of feventy thousand pounds, and eagerly expected a fhip that was to compleat his wifhes. But the fhip was caft away in the channel, and the merchant is diftracted for his lofs.

That difconfolate lady had for many years affiduously attended an old gouty uncle, had affented to all his abfurdities, and humoured all his foibles, in full expectation of being made his executrix; when happening one day to affirm that his gruel had fack enough in it, contrary to his opinion, he altered his will immediately, and left all to her brother; which affords her no confolation, for avarice is able to fubdue the tenderness of nature.

Behold the beautiful and virtuous Theodora! Her fondness for an ungrateful husband was unparalleled. She detected him in the arms of a difagreeable and affected proftitute, and was driven to distraction,

Is my old friend the commentator here likewife? Alas! he has loft his wits in enquiring whether or no the ancients wore perukes: as did his neighbour, Cynthio, by receiving a frown from his patron at the last levée.

The fat lady, upon whom you look fo earneftly, is a grocer's wife in the city. Her diforder was occafioned by her feeing at court, laft Twelfth-night, the daughter of Mr. Alderman Squeeze, oil-man, in a facque far richer and more elegant than her own.

The next chamber contains an adventurer who purchased thirty tickets in the laft lottery. As he was a perfon of a fanguine complexion and lively imagination, he was fure of gaining the ten thousand pounds by the number of his chances. He spent a month in furveying the counties that lie in the neighbourhood of the metropolis, before he could find out an agreeable fite for the fine house he intended to build. He next fixed his eye on a moft blooming and beatiful girl, whom he defigned to honour as his bride. He bespoke a magnificent coach, and the ornaments of his harnefs were to be of his own invention. Mr. Degagée, the taylor, was ordered to fend to Paris for the lace with which his wedding cloaths were to be adorned. But in the midst of thefe preparations for profperity, all his tickets were drawn blanks; and inftead of his villa on the banks of the Thames, you now fee him in these melancholy lodgings.

His neighbour in the next apartment was an boneft footman, who was perfuaded likewife to try his fortune in the fame lottery; and who, obtaining a very large and unexpected fum, could not ftand the fhock of fuch fudden good fortune, but grew mad with excefs of joy. You wonder to fee that cell beautified with Chinese vafes and urns. It is inhabited by that famous virtuofo lady Harriet Brittle, whofe opinion was formerly decifive at all auctions, where the was ufually appealed to about the genuineness of porcelain. She purchased at an exorbitant price a Mandarin and a Jos, that were the envy of all the female connoiffeurs, and were allowed to

be ineftimable. They were to be placed at the upper end of a little rock-work temple of Chinese architecture, in which neither propriety, proportion, nor true beauty, were confidered, and were carefully packed up in different boxes; but the brutish waggoner happening to overturn his carriage, they were crufhed to pieces. The poor lady's understanding could not furvive fo irreparable a lofs; and her relations, to foothe her paffion, had provided thofe Chelica urns with which the has decorated her chamber, and which the believes to be the true Nanquin.

Yonder miferable youth, being engaged in a hot contention at a fashionable brothel, about a celebrated courtezan, killed a fea officer with whofe face he was not acquainted; but who proved upon enquiry to be his own brother, who had been ten years abfent in the Indies.

Look attentively into the next cell; you will there difcover a lady of great worth and fine accomplishments, whofe father condemned her to the arms of a right honourable debauchee, when he knew fhe had fixed her affections irrevocably on another, who poffeffed an unincumbered eftate, but wanted the ornament of a title. She fubmitted to the orders of a ftern father with patience, obedience, and a breaking heart. Her husband treated her with that contempt which he thought due to a citizen's daughter; and befides communicated to her an infamous distemper, which her natural modefty forbad her to discover in time; and the violent medicines which were afterwards adminiftered to her by an unfkilful furgeon, threw her into a delirious fever, from which she could never be recovered.

Here the Dean paufed; and looking upon me with great earneftness, and grafping my hand closely, spoke with an emphafis that awaked me- Think me not fo infenfible a monfter, as to deride the lamentable lot of the wretches we have now furveyed. If we laugh · at the follies, let us at the fame time 'pity the manifold miseries of man.' I am, Sir, your humble fervant,

SOPHRON

No CX.