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your education-your capacity-your ftation, deferves the fame cenfure that the pencil meets with, when it errs in expreffion.

Skill in the diftribution of light and fhade, or the clair-obfcure, as, I think, the term of art is, I fhould apprehend refembled by prudence; which teaches us to fhew ourfelves in the most advantageous point of view-brings forward and brightens our good qualities, but throws back and obfcures our defects-fuffers nothing to diftinguish itself that will be to our difparagement, nor fhades any thing that will credit us.

By ordonnance is meant I apprehend, the manner of placing the feveral objects in a piece, or the difpofition of them with refpect to the whole compofure. And what can be fitter for us, than to confider where we are, and to appear accordingly? The civilities that are lefs decently fhewn in the church, it would be a great indecorum to neglect in the drawing-room. The freedom that will gain you the hearts of your inferiors, fhall, if ufed towards thofe of a higher rank, make you be thought the worlt-bred woman in the world. Let the feafon for it be difregarded, your chearfulness fhall be offenfive, your gravity feem ridiculous-your wit bring your fenfe into question, and your very friendlieft interpofition be thought not fo much a proof of your affection as of your impertinence. 'Tis the right placing of things that fhews our difcretion that keeps us clear of difficulties that raifes our credit--that principally contributes to give any of our defigns fuccefs.

To beauty in colouring correfponds, perhaps, good nature improved by good breeding. And, certainly, as the canvafs could furnish no defign fo well fancied, no draught fo correct, but what would yet fail to please, and would even difguft you, were the colours of it ill-united-not fuftained by each other-void of their due harmony; fo both fenfe and virtue go but a little way in our recommendation, if they appear not to their proper advantage in an eafine's of behaviour-in foft and gentle manners, and with all the graces of affability, courtely and complaifance. I fee, by your fmiling, you are fatis fied you cannot be accused of being a bad colou.it. Believe me, you have then gained a very material point; and the more concerns you have in the world, the more proofs you will find of its importance. I'll drop this i bjeet when

I have faid to you, That if to make a good picture is fuch a complicated task, requires fo much attention, fuch extenfive obfervation-if an error in any of the principal parts of painting fo offends, takes off fo greatly from the merit of the pieceif he, who is truly an artist, overlooks nothing that would be at all a blemish to his performance, and would call each trivial indecorum a fault, think, child, what care about the original ought to equal this for the portrait-of what infinitely greater confequence it must be, to have every thing right within ourfelves, than to give a jut appearance to the things without us; and how much lefs pardonably any violation of decorum would be charged on your life, than on your pencil.

The most finished reprefentation only pleafes by its correfpondence to what it reprefents, as nature well imitated; and if juftnefs in mere reprefentation and imitation can have the charms you find in it, you may eafily conceive the ftill greater delight that muft arife from beholding the beauties of nature itself; fuch, particularly, as the pencil cannot imitate the beauties of rational nature, those which the poffeffor gives herself-which are of ten thousand times the moment of any in her outward fymmetry-which, how highly foever they may adorn her, profit her fill more; and are not only to her own advantage, but to that of the age in which the lives, and poi fibly, of remoteft generations.

My concern to fee you this fair unblemifhed original makes me ftrangely unmindful on what topic I am got. There, furely, can be no proof wanting, how much a wife and good woman excels any portrait or any woman, who has but the merit of a portrait, a fine appearance.

In this way Emilia takes each opportu nity to form the manners of her daughter

to give her throughout juft and reafon able fentiments, and difpofe her to the exact difcharge of her duty in every relation.

Leonora, thus educated, has the fools and the follies of the age in their due contempt-judges wifely-acts prudentlyever ufefully or innocently employed-ca pafs her evenings very chearfully without a card in her hand-can be perfectly in humour when the is at home, and all her acquaintance at the afiembly; and feers likely to borrow no credit from her family, which he will not fully repay.

We will difmifs the daughter, and reprefent Emilia parting with her fon in

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terms like thefe. I am now to take my leave of you, for one campaign at least. It is the firit you ever ferved; let me advise, and do you act, as if it would be your laft: the dangers, to which you will be expofed, give both of us reafon to fear it: if it pleafe God that it should be fo, may you not be found unprepared, nor I unrefigned! This I am the lefs likely to be, when you have had my beft counfel, and I your promife to redett upon it. He bowing, and affuring her, that whatever the fhould be pleased to fay to him, it would be carefully remembered; the proceeded-I could never conceive, what induced the foldier to think that he might take greater liberties than the rea of mankind. He is, 'tis true, occafionally fubjected to greater hardships, and he runs greater hazards; but by a lead and vicious life, he makes thefe hardips abundantly more grievous than they etherwife would be-he difqualifies himfelf to bear them, What would you think of his wits, who, becaufe he is to be much in the cold, fits, as often as he can, clofe to the fire? An habitual fobriety and regularity of manners is, certainly, the best prefervative of that vigorous conflitution, which makes it leaft uneafy to endure fatigue and cold, hunger and thirft.

The dangers to which the foldier is expofed, are fo far from excufing his licenticufnefs, when he has no enemy near him, that they ought to be confidered as the frongeft motive to conform himself, at all times, to the rules of seafon and religion. A practice agreeable to them is the best apport of his fpirits, and the fureft provifou for his fafety-It will effectually remore his fears, and can alone encourage His hopes: nothing but it can give him any comfortable expectation, if what threatens Lim fhould befal him. He who is fo much in dinger, ought to be properly armed against it, and this he can never be by refecting on the women he has corrupted -on his hours of intemperance, or on any other of his extravagancies. You won't, perhaps, allow that he wants the armour I walf provide him, because he never knows the apprehenfions that require it. But I am confidering what his apprehenfions cught to be, not what they are. The nature of things will not be altered by our opinion about them.

It is granted, that a foldier's life is, frequently, in the utmost hazard; and the queftion is not, how a thoughtless, flupid, abfurd creature fhould behave in fuch a

fituation; but, what should be done in it by a man of prudence and fenfe? I fay, he will attend to the value of what he hazards

to the confequence of its lofs; and, if found of very great, he will fo act, that the lofs thereof may be, if poffible, fome or other way made up to him, or accompanied with the fewest inconveniencies. Infenfibility of danger is the merit of a bulldog. True courage fees danger, but defpifes it only from rational motivesfrom the confiderations of duty. There can be no virtue in expofing life, where there is no notion of its value; you are a brave man, when you fully underftand its worth, and yet in a good caufe difregard death.

If, thus to be ready to die is commend. able, wholly from the caufe that makes us fo, which is, unquestionably, the cafe; I don't fee how fuch an indifference to life, when honour calls you to risk it, can confift with pafling, at any feafon, immorally and diffolutely.

Here is a gallant officer who will rather be killed than quit his poft-than be wanting in the defence of his country! Is not this a fine refolution in one who, by his exceffes, makes himfelf every day lefs able to ferve his country; or who fets an example, which, if followed, would do his country as much mifchief as it could have to fear from its moft determined enemy?

The inconfiderate and thoughtless may laugh at vice-may give foft terms to very bad actions, or fpeak of them, as if they were rather matter of jeft than abhorrence: but whoever will reflect whence all the mifery of mankind arifes-what the fource is of all the evils we lament; he cannot but own, that if any thing ought to make us ferious if we ought to deteft any thing, it fhould be that, from which fuch terrible effects are derived.

For the very fame reafon that we prefer health to fickness-cafe to pain, we met prefer virtue to vice. Moral evil feems to me to have a neceflary connection with natural. According to rav notion of things, there is no crime but what creates pain, or has a tendency to create it to others or curiclves: every criminal is fuch, by doing fomething that is directly, or in its conte quences, hurtful to himfelf, or to a fellow

creature.

Is not here a foundation of religion that no objections can affect? Deprive us of it, you deprive us of the only effectual reftraint from thofe praftices, which are most detrimental to the world-you deprive us

of virtue, and thereby of all the true happinefs we have here to expect.

To charge religion with the mischief occafioned by mistakes about it, I think full as impertinent, as to decry reafon for the wrong ufe that has been made of it; or government, for the bad adminiftration of every kind of it, in every part of the world. What thall prove to the advantage of mankind, will, in all cafes, depend upon themfelves: that which is, confeffedly, most for it, in every inftance you can think of, you fee, occafionally, abufed; and by that abufe becoming as hurtful, as it would, otherwife, have been beneficial. Controverfy I hate; and to read books of it as ill fuits my leifure as my inclination: yet I do not profefs a religion, the grounds of which I have never confidered. And upon the very fame grounds that I am convinced of the truth of religion in general, I am fo of the truth of christianity. The good of the world is greatly promoted by it. If we would take chriftianity for our guide throughout, we could not have a betterwe could not have a furer to all the happinefs of which our prefent ftate admits. Its fimplicity may have been difguifed its intention perverted-its doctrines mifreprefented, and conclufions drawn, fuiting rather the intereft or ambition of the expofitor, than the directions of the text: but when I refort to the rule itfelf;-when I find it afferting, that the whole of my duty is to love God above all things, and my neighbour as my felf-to live always mind. ful by whom I am fent into, and preferved in, the world, and always difpofed to do in it the utmoft good in my power; I can no more doubt, whether this is the voice of my Creator, than I can doubt, whether it must be his will, that, when he has made me a reasonable creature, I fhould act like

one.

But I will drop a topic, on which I am fure your father muft have fufficiently enlarged: I can only fpeak to it more generally difficulties and objections I muft leave him to obviate; yet thus much confidently affirming, that if you won't adopt an irreligious fcheme, till you find one clear of them, you will continue as good a chriftian, as it has been our joint care to make you. I pray God you may do fo. He that would corrupt your principles, is the enemy you have tholt to fear; an enemy who means you worfe, than any you will draw your fword againft.

When you are told, that the fo'dier's religion is his honour, cbferve the practice of +

them from whom you hear it; you'll foon then have proof enough, they mean little more by honour, than what is requifite to keep or advance their commiflions-that they are fill in their own opinion men of nice honour, though abandoned to the groffeft fenfuality and excefs-though chargeable with acts of the fouleft perfidy and injuftice that the honour by which they govern themfelves differs as widely from what is truly fuch, as humour from reafon. True humour is to virtue what good breeding is to good nature, the polihing, the refinement of it. And the more you think of chriftianity, the more firmly you will be perfuaded, that in its precepts the ftricteft rules of bonour are con tained. By thefe I, certainly, would have you always guided, and, on that very ac count, have reminded you of the religion, which not only fhews you them, but propofes the reward likelieft to attach you to them. I have done. Take care of yourfelf. You won't fly danger, don't court it. If the one would bring your courage into queftion, the other will your fenfe. The rafh is as ill qualified for command, as the coward. May every bleffing attend you! And to fecure your happiness, live always attentive to your duty; reverence and obey Him to whom you owe your being, and from whom must come whatever good you can hope for in it. Adieu. I can't fay it would fufficiently comfort me for your lofs, that you died with honour; but it would infinitely lefs afflict me to hear of you among the dead, than among the profligate.

What has been the iffue of inftructions like thefe from both parents? Scipio, for fo we will call the worthy man, from the time he received his cominifion, has alike diftinguished himfelf by his courage and conduct. The greatet dangers have not terrified, the wort examples have not corrupted him. He has approved himfelf dif daining by cowardice to keep life, and abhorring to fhorten it by excels: the bravery with which he has hazarded it, is equalled by the prudence with which he paffes it.

149. On the Employment of Time.

S9SAY THE SECOND.

Cum animus, cognitis perceptifque virtutibus, à corporis obfequio, indulgentiaque difcefferit, voluptatemque, ficut labem aliquam decori opprefferit, omnemque mortis dolorifque timerem effugerit, focietatemque caritatis coierit

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som fave, on neíque naturâ conjun&tos, fuos duxer, culumg e diorum, & puram religionem aut excogitari poterit brates? Tull de L gas. Among the Indians there is an excellent min, called Gofeph fts: thefe I greaty mire, not as fkilled in propagating te vine in the arts of grafting or agricature. They apply not themselves to all the ground to fearch after gold to break the horie--to tame the -to fhear or feed fheep or goats. What is it then that engages them? One thing preferable to all thefe. Wifdom is the puruit as well of the old men, the teachers, as of the young, their difciples. Nor is there any thing among them that If mach praife, as their averfion to floth

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When the tables are fpread, before the ment is fet on them, all the youth, affembing to their meal, are asked by their maftes—In what useful task they have been employed from fun-rifing to that time.Ce reprefents himself as having been Chen an arbitrator, and fucceeded by his dent management in compofing a diffeacein making them friends who were variance. A fecond had been paying dience to his parents commands. A ird had made fome difcovery by his own spplication, or learned fomething by another's inftruction. The reft give an acCant of themselves in the fame way.

He who has done nothing to deferve a dinner, is turned out of doors without

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Dipping into Apuleius for my afternoon's salement, the foregoing paffage was the I read, before I fell into a flumber, wich exhibited to me a vaft concourfe of the fashionable people at the court-end of te town, under the examination of a Gymnofophift, how they had paffed their Borning. He begun with the men.

Many of them acknowledged, that the ring, properly fpeaking, was near gone, before their eyes were opened.

Many of them had only rifen to drefsto viitto amufe themfelves at the drawing-room or coffee-house.

Some had by riding or walking been Coulting that health at the beginning of the day, which the clofe of it would wholly paft in impairing.

Some from the time they had got on her own cloaths, had been engaged in ing others put on theirs--in attendg leveesin endeavouring to procure,

by their importunity, what they had dif qualified themfelves for by their idlenefs.

Some had been early out of their beds, but it was because they could not, from their ill-luck the preceding evening, reft in them; and when rifen, as they had no fpirits, they could not reconcile themfelves to any fort of appl.cation.

Some had not had it in their power to do what was of much confequence; in the former part of the morning, they wanted to speak with their tradeimen; and in the latter, they could not be denied to their friends.

Others, truly, had been reading, but reading what could make them neither wifer nor better, what was not worth their remembering, or what they fhould wish to forget.

It grieved me to hear fo many of eminent rank, both in the fea and land fervice, giving an account of themselves that levelled them with the meaneft under their command.

Several appeared with an air expreffing the fulleft confidence that what they had to fay for themfelves would be to the philofopher's entire fatisfaction. They had been employed as Virtuofi fhould be--had been exercifing their kill in the liberal arts, and encouraging the artifts. Medals, pictures, ftatues had undergone their examination, and been their purchase. They had been inquiring what the literati of France, Germany, Italy, had of late published; and they had bought what fuited their refpective taftes.

When it appeared, that the completing a Roman feries had been their concern, who had never read over, in their own language, a Latin hiftorian that they who grudged no expence for originals, knew them only by hearfay from their worst copies

that the very perfons who had paid fo much for the labour of Rybrack, upon Sir Andrew's judgment, would, if they had followed their own, have paid the fame fum for that of Bird's-That the book-buyers had not laid out their money on what they ever propofed to read, but on what they had heard commended, and what they wanted to fit a fhelf, and fill a library that only ferved them for a breakfast-room; this clafs of men the Sage pronounced the idleft of all idle people, and doubly blameable, as waiting alike their time and their fortune.

The follies of one fex had fo tired the

philofopher, that he would fuffer no account to be given him of thofe of the other. It was eafy for him to guess how the females must have been employed, where fuch were the examples in thofe they were to honour and obey.

First, by our present state and condition;

Secondly, By the relation we bear to each other;

Thirdly, By that in which we ftand to wards the Deity.

If we are raised above the brutes--if we are undeniably of a more excellent kind, we must be made for a different purpose; we cannot have the faculties they want, but in order to a life different from theirs; and when our life is not fuch--when it is but a round of eating, drinking, and fleeping, as theirs is--when, by our idlenefs and inattention, we are almott on a level with them, both as to all fenfe of duty, and all ufeful knowledge that we po fefs, our time muft have been grievouly mifemployed; there is no furer token of its having been fo, than that we have done fo little to advance ourselves above the herd, when our Creator had vouchsafed us fo far fuperior a capacity.

For a fhort space there was a general filence. The Gymnofophift at length expreffed himself to this effect: You have been reprefented to me as a people who would ufe your own reafon who would think for yourfelves--who would freely inquire, form your opinions on evidence, and adopt no man's fentiments merely becaufe they were his. A character, to which, for aught I can find, you are as ill entitled as, perl.aps, moft nations in the univerfe. The freedom with which great names are oppofed, and received opinions queftioned by fe among you, is, probably, no other than what is used by fome of every country in which liberal inquiries are purfued. The difference is, you fafely publifh your fentiments on every fubject; to them it would be penal to avow any notions that agree not with thofe of their fuperiors. But when you thus pafs your days, as if you thought not at all, have you any pretence to freedom of thought? Can they be faid to love truth, who fhun confideration? When it feems your fludy to be Were we born only to fatisfy the appeufelefs, to be of no fervice to others or tites we have in common with the brute yourselves when you treat your time kind, we fhould, like it, have no higher as a burthen, to be eafed of which is your principle to direct us--to furnish us wit whole concern--when that fit ation, other deligats. All the diftinction between thofe circumstances of life are account dus that this principle can make, was, unthe happiest, which muft tempt you to be idle and infignificant; human nature is as much dishonoured by you, as it is by any of thofe people, whofe favagenes cr fuperflition you have in the greatest contempt.

Let me not be told, how well you approve your reafon by your arguments or your fentiments. The proper uic of reafon, is to act reafonably. When you fo grofly fail in this, all the juft appielerfions you may entertain, all the right things you may fay, only prove with what abilities you are formed, and with what guilt you mifapply them.

The Sage here raifing his arm with his voice, I concluded it advifeable not to land quite fo near him. In attempting to remove I awoke, and haftened to commit to writing a dream that had to much truth in it, and therefore expreffed how feaforable it will be to confider to what ufe of our time we are directed.

The creatures below us are wholly intent on the pleasures of fenfe, because they are capable of no other: but as man is capable of much higher and nobler, he must have this privilege, that his pursuits may be accordingly--that his better nature fhould be better employed.

doubtedly, intended by our Creator to le made; and the lefs any appears, our abuse of tais principle, and confequently our op poition to our Maker's will, is the mole

notorious and blameable.

It may feem then plain, that there are advantages to be purfued, and a certain degree of excellence to be attained by us, according to the powers that we have, a the creatures below us want. How induftrious we fhould be to improve each oppor tunity for this, we may learn by attending, in the next place, to our uncertain, and, at all events, hert continuance on earth.

We are fully apprifed, that by the pairs of a few hours or days no progrefs can be made in any thing, that has the flighte pretence to commendation. Thofe accomplishments, that are confined to our fingers cals, what months, what years application do they coft us! And, alas! what trifles are the mot admired of them,

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