nacious in defence, disabled by his own violence and confused by his haste to triumph.

The graces of writing and conversation are of different kinds; and though he who excels in one might have been, with opportunities and application, equally successful in the other, yet, as many please by extemporary talk, though utterly unacquainted with the more accurate method and more laboured beauties which composition requires, so it is very possible that men wholly accustomed to works of study may be without that readiness of conception and affluence of language always necessary to colloquial entertainment. They may want address to watch the hints which conversation offers for the display of their particular attainments, or they may be so much unfurnished with matter on common subjects, that discourse not professedly literary glides over them as heterogeneous bodies, without admitting their conceptions to mix in the circulation.

A transition from an author's book to his conversation is too often like an entrance into a large city after a distant prospect. Remotely, we see nothing but spires of temples and turrets of palaces, and imagine it the residence of splendour, grandeur, and magnificence; but, when we have passed the gates, we find it perplexed with narrow passages, disgraced with despicable cottages, embarrassed with obstructions, and clouded with smoke.

THE CONSIDERATION OF THE BREVITY OF LIFE SHOULD MODERATE OUR PASIONS.

"Let those weak minds who live in doubt and fear,

To juggling priests for oracles repair;

One certain hour of death to each decreed,

My fix'd, my certain soul from doubt has freed."

LUCAN.-ROWE'S Trans.

It is recorded of some Eastern monarch, that he kept an officer in his house whose employment it was to remind him of his mortality, by calling out every morning at a stated hour, Remember, prince, that thou shalt die! And the contemplation of the frailness and uncertainty of our present state appeared of so much importance to Solon of Athens, that he left this precept to future ages: Keep thine eye fixed upon the end of life.

A frequent and attentive prospect of that moment which must put a period to all our schemes and deprive us of all our acquisitions, is indeed of the utmost efficacy to the just and rational regulation of our lives; nor would ever anything wicked, or often anything absurd, be undertaken or prosecuted by him who should begin every day with a serious reflection that he is born to die.

The disturbers of our happiness in this world are our desires, our griefs, and our fears; and to all these, the consideration of mortality is a certain and adequate remedy. Think, says Epictetus, frequently on poverty, banishment, and death, and thou wilt then never indulge violent desires or give up thy heart to mean sentiments.

That the maxim of Epictetus is founded on just observation, will easily be granted when we reflect how that vehemence of eagerness after the common

We rep

objects of pursuit is kindled in our minds. resent to ourselves the pleasures of some future possession, and suffer our thoughts to dwell attentively upon it, till it has wholly engrossed the imagination, and permits us not to conceive any happiness but its attainment, or any misery but its loss every other satisfaction which the bounty of Providence has scattered over life, is neglected as inconsiderable in comparison of the great object which we have placed before us, and is thrown from us as encumbering our activity, or trampled under foot as standing in our way.

Every man has experienced how much of this ardour has been remitted when a sharp or tedious sickness has set death before his eyes. The extensive influence of greatness, the glitter of wealth, the praises of admirers, and the attendance of supplicants, have appeared vain and empty things when the last hour seemed to be approaching; and the same appearence they would always have if the same thought was always predominant. We should then find the absurdity of stretching out our arms incessantly to grasp that which we cannot keep, and wearing out our lives in endeavours to add new turrets to the fabric of ambition, when the foundation itself is shaking, and the ground on which it stands is mouldering away.

All envy is proportionate to desire; we are uneasy at the attainments of another, according as we think our own happiness would be advanced by the addition of that which he withholds from us; and therefore, whatever depresses immoderate wishes, will, at the same time, set the heart free from the corrosion of envy, and exempt us from that vice which is, above most others, tormenting to ourselves, hateful to the world, and productive of mean artifices and sordid projects. He that considers how soon he must close his life, will find nothing of so much importance as to close it well; and will,

therefore, look with indifference upon whatever is useless to that purpose. Whoever reflects frequently upon the uncertainty of his own duration, will find out that the state of others is not more permanent, and that what can confer nothing on himself very desirable, cannot so much improve the condition of a rival as to make him much superior to those from whom he has carried the prize; a prize too mean to deserve a very obstinate opposition.

Even grief, that passion to which the virtuous and tender mind is particularly subject, will be obviated or alleviated by the same thoughts. It will be obviated if all the blessings of our condition are enjoyed with a constant sense of this uncertain tenure. If we remember that whatever we possess is to be in our hands but a very little time, and that the little which our lively hopes can promise us may be made less by ten thousand accidents, we shall not much repine at a loss of which we cannot estimate the value, but of which, though we are not able to tell the least amount, we know with sufficient certainty the greatest, and are convinced that the greatest is not much to be regretted.

But if any passion has so much usurped our understanding as not to suffer us to enjoy advantages with the moderation prescribed by reason, it is not too late to apply this remedy when we find ourselves sinking under sorrow, and inclined to pine for that which is irrecoverably vanished. We may then usefully revolve the uncertainty of our own condition, and the folly of lamenting that from which, if it had stayed a little longer, we should ourselves have been taken away.

With regard to the sharpest and most melting sorrow, that which arises from the loss of those whom we have loved with tenderness, it may be observed, that friendship between mortals can be contracted on no other terms than that one must some time mourn for the other's death; and this grief will al

ways yield to the surviver one consolation proportionate to his affliction; for the pain, whatever it be, that he himself feels, his friend has escaped.

Nor is fear, the most overbearing and resistless of all our passions, less to be temperated by this universal medicine of the mind. The frequent contemplation of death, as it shows the vanity of all human good, discovers likewise the lightness of all terrestrial evil, which certainly can last no longer than the subject upon which it acts; and, according to the old observation, must be shorter as it is more violent. The most cruel calamity which misfortune can produce, must, by the necessity of nature, be quickly at an end. The soul cannot long be held in prison, but will fly away, and leave a lifeless body to human malice:

"And soaring mocks the broken frame below."

The utmost that we can threaten to one another is that death, which, indeed, we may precipitate, but cannot retard, and from which, therefore, it cannot become a wise man to buy a reprieve at the expense of virtue, since he knows not how small a portion of time he can purchase, but knows that, whether short or long, it will be made less valuable by the remembrance of the price at which it has been obtained. He is sure that he destroys his happiness, but is not sure that he lengthens his life.

The known shortness of life, as it ought to moderate our passions, may likewise, with equal propriety, contract our designs. There is not time for the most forcible genius and most active industry to extend its effects beyond a certain sphere. To project the conquest of the world is the madness of mighty princes; to hope for excellence in every science has been the folly of literary heroes; and both have found, at last, that they have panted for a height of eminence denied to humanity, and have lost many opportunities of making themselves useful and hap