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T has been my custom, as I grow old, to allow myself fome little indulgences, which I never took in my youth. Among others is that of an afternoon's nap, which I fell into in the fifty-fifth year of my age, and have continued for the three laft years paft. By this means I enjoy a double morning, and rife twice a day fresh to my fpeculations. It happens very luckily for me, that fome of my dreams have proved inftructive to my countrymen, fo that I may be faid to fleep, as well as to wake, for the good of the public. I was yesterday meditating on the account with which I have already entertained my readers concerning the cave of Trophonius. I was no fooner fallen into my ufual flumber, but I dreamed that this cave was put into my poffeffion, and that I gave public notice of its virtue, inviting every one to it who had a mind to be a serious man for the remaining part of his life. Great multitudes immediately reforted to me. The first who made the experiment was a merry-andrew, who was put into my hands by a neighbouring juftice of peace, in order to reclaim him from that profligate kind of life. Poor pickle-herring had not taken above one turn in it, when he came out of the cave like a hermit from his cell, with a penitential look, and a most rueful countenance. I then put in a young laughing fop, and watching for his return, asked him, with a smile, how he liked the place? he replied, pr'ythee friend, be not impertinent; and ftalked by me as grave as a judge. Á citizen then defired me to give free ingrefs and egrefs to his wife, who was dreffed in the gayeft coloured ribbons I had ever feen. She went in with a flirt of her fan and a fmirking countenance, but came out with the feverity of a veftal, and throwing from her feveral female gewgaws, told me with a figh, that the refolved to go into deep mourning, and to wear black all the rest of her life. As I had many coquettes recommended to me by their parents, their husbands, and their lovers, I let them in all at once, defiring them to divert themfelves together as well as they could. Upon their emerging again into day-light, you would have fancied my cave to have been a nunnery, and that you had feen a folemn proceffion of religious marching out, one behind another, in the most profound filence and the moft exemplary decency. As I was very much delighted with fo edifying a fight, there came towards me a great company of males and females laughing, finging and dancing, in fuch a manner, that I could hear them a great while before I faw " them. Upon my afking their leader, what brought them thither? they told me all at

once, that they were French proteftants lately arrived in Great-Britain, and that finding themfelves of too gay a humour for my country, they applied themfelves to me in order to compose them for British converfation. I told them that to oblige them I would foon fpoil their mirth; upon which I admitted a whole shoal of them, who after having taken a furvey of the place, came out in very good order, and with looks entirely English. I afterwards put in a Dutchman, who had a great fancy to fee ferve that I had made any alteration in him. the kelder, as he called it, but I could not ob

A comedian, who had gained great reputation in parts of humour, told me, that he had a mighty mind to act Alexander the Great, and. fancied that he fhould fucceed very well in it, if he could strike two or three laughing features out of his face: he tried the experiment, but contracted fo very folid a look by it, that I am afraid he will be fit for no part hereafter but a Timon of Athens, or a mute in the Funeral.

I then clapt up an empty fantastic citizen, in order to qualify him for an alderman. He was fucceeded by a young rake of the middle Temple, who was brought to me by his grandmother; but to her great forrow and furprife, he came out a Quaker. Seeing myself surrounded with a body of Free-thinkers, and fcoffers at religion, who were making themselves merry at the fober looks and thoughtful brows of those who had been in the cave, I thrust them all in, one after another, and locked the door upon them. Upon my opening it, they all looked, as if they had been frighted out of their wits, and were marching away with ropes in their hands to a wood that was within fight of the place. I found they were not able to bear themfelves in their firft ferious thoughts; but knowing thefe would quickly bring them to a better frame of mind, I gave them into the cuftody of their friends until that happy change was wrought in them.

The laft that was brought to me was a young woman, who at the firft fight of my short face fell into an immoderate fit of laughter, and was forced to hold her fides all the while her mother was fpeaking to me. Upon this I interrupted the old lady, and taking her daughter by the hand, Madam, faid I, be pleased to retire into my clofet, while your mother tells me your cafe. I then put her into the mouth of the cave, when the mother after having begged pardon for the girl's rudeness told me, that the often treated her father and the graveft of her relations in the fame manner; that she would fit giggling and laughing with her companions from one end of a tragedy to the other; nay, that fhe would fometimes burst out in the middle of a fermon, and fet the whole congregation a ftaring at her. The mother was going on, when the young lady came out of the cave to us with a compofed countenance, and a low curtly. She was a girl of fuch exuberant mirth, that her vifit to Trophonius only reduced her to a more than ordinary decency of behavior, and made a very pretty prude of her. After having performed innumerable cures, I looked about me with great fatisfaction, and faw all my patients walking by themfelves in a very penfive and mufing posture, fo that the whole place feemed covered with phi

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ties, is for the better enabling us to exprefs our felves in fuch abstracted fubjects of fpeculation, not that their is any fuch divifion in the foul itself.

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Seeing then that the foul has many different faculties, or, in other words, many different ways of acting; that it can be intenfely pleafed, or made happy by all thefe different faculties, or ways of acting; that it may be endowed with feveral latent faculties, which it is not at prefent in a condition to exert; that we cannot believe, the foul is endowed with any faculty which is of no use to it; that whenever any one of thefe fa-. culties is tranfcendently pleafed, the foul is in a ftate of happiness; and in the laft place, confidering that the happiness of another world is to be the happiness of the whole man; who can queftion but that there is an infinite variety in thofe pleasures we are speaking of; and that this. fulness of joy will be made up of all thofe pleafures which the nature of the foul is capable of receiving?

We shall be the more confirmed in this doc-. trine, if we obferve the nature of variety, with regard to the mind of man. The foul does not care to be always in the fame bent. The faculties relieve one another by turns, and receive an. additional pleasure from the novelty of thofe ob-. jects about which they are converfant.

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Revelation likewife very much confirms this. notion, under the different views which it gives us of our future happiness. In the defcription of the throne of God, it reprefents to us all thofe objects which are able to gratify the fenfes and imagination in very many places it intimates. to us all the happinefs which the understanding can poffible receive in that state, where all things: fhall be revealed to us, and we shall know, even as we are known; the raptures of devotion, of divine love, the pleasure of converfing with our Bleffed Saviour, with an innumerable hoft of angels, and with the fpirits of just men made perfect, are likewife revealed to us in feveral parts of the holy writings. There are alfo men tioned thofe hierarchies or governments, in which the bleffed fhall be ranged one above another, and in which we may be fure a great part of our happinefs will likewife confift; for it will not be there as in this world, where every one is aiming at power and fuperiority; but, on the contrary, every one will find that ftation the moft proper for him in which he is placed, and will probably think that he could not have been fo happy in any other station. Thefe, and many other particulars, are marked in divine revelation, as the feveral ingredients of our happinets in Heaven, which all imply such a variety of joys, and such a gratification of the foul in all its different faculties, as I have been here mentioning.

Some of the Rabbins tell us, that the cherubims are a fet of angels who know most, and the feraphims a fet of angels who love moft. Whether this diftinction be not altogether imaginary, I fhall not here examine; but it is highly probable, that among the fprits of good men, there may be fome who will be more pleased with the employment of one faculty than of another, and this perhaps according to thofe innocent and virtuous habits or inclinations which have here taken the deepest root.

I might here apply this confideration to the fpirits of wicked men, with relation to the pain which they fhall fuffer in every one of their fa

There cannot be a ftronger argument that God has defigned us for a state of future happiness, and for that Heaven which he has revealed to us, than that he has thus naturally qualified the foul for it, and made it a being capable of receiving fo much blifs. He would never have made fuch faculties in vain, and have endowed us with powers that were not to be exerted on fuch objects as are fuited to them. It is very manifeft, by the inward frame and conftitution of our minds, that he has adapted them to an infinite variety of pleasures and gratifications, which are not to be met with in this life. We fhould therefore at all times take care that we do not difappoint this his gracious purpose and intention towards us, and make thofe faculties which he formed as fo many qualifications for happiness and rewards, to be the inftruments of pain and punishment.

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Otwithstanding a narrow contracted tem» per be that which obtains most in the world, we must not therefore conclude this to be the genuine characteristic of mankind; because there are fome who delight in nothing fo much as in doing good, and receive more of 'their happiness at fecond hand, or by rebound from others, than by direct and immediate fenfation. Now though these heroic fouls are but few, and to appearance fo far advanced ' above the groveling multitude, as if they were of another order of beings, yet in reality their nature is the fame, moved by the fame fprings," and endowed with all the faine effential qualities, only cleared, refined, and cultivated. Water is the fame fluid body in winter and in 'fummer; when it ftands fiffened in ice, as when it flows along in gentle ftreams, gladdening a thoufand fields in its progrefs. It is a property of the heart of man to be diffufive: its kind wishes fpread abroad over the face of the creation; and if there be thofe, as we may obferve too many of them, who are all wrapt up in their own dear felves, without Y y any

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any visible concern for their species, let us fappofe that their good nature is frozen, and by the prevailing force of fome contrary quality reftrained in its operation. I fhall therefore endeavour to affign fome of the principle checks upon this generous propenfion of the human foul, which will enable us to judge whether, and by what method, this moft ufeful principle may be unfettered, and restored to its native freedom of exercise.

The first and leading caufe is an unhappy complexion of body. The heathens, ignorant of the true fource of moral evil, generally charged it on the obliquity of matter, which, ⚫ being eternal and independent, was incapable

of change in any of its properties, even by the · Almighty mind, who, when he came

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fathion it into a world of beings, muft take it as he found it. This notion, as most others of theirs, is a compofition of truth and error. That matter is eternal, that, from the first • union of a foul to it, it perverted its inclinations, and that the ill influence it hath upon the mind is not to be corrected by God him• felf, are all very great errors, occasioned by a 'truth as evident, that the capacities and difpo'fitions of the foul depend, to a great degree, · on the bodily temper. As there are some fools,

others are knaves, by conftitution; and par⚫ticularly, it may be faid of many, that they are born with an illiberal caft of mind; the matter that composes them is tenacious as birdlime, and a kind of cramp draws their hands and their hearts together, that they never care to · open them, unless to grasp at more. It is a 'melancholly lot this; but attended with one advantage above theirs, to whom it would be as painful to forbear good offices, as it is to thefe men to perform them; that whereas per◄ fons naturally beneficent often miftake in'ftinct for virtue, by reafon of the difficulty of diftinguishing when one rules then, and when the other, men of the opposite character may be more certain of the motive that predominates in every action. If they cannot confer a benefit with that ease and frankness which are neceffary to give it a grace in the eye of the world, in requital, the real merit of what they do is enhanced by the oppofition they furmount in doing it. The ftrength of their virtue is feen in rifing against the weight of nature, and every time they have the refolution to difcharge < their duty, they make a facrifice of inclination to confcience, which is always too grateful to let its followers go without fuitable marks of its approbation. Perhaps the entire cure of this ill quality is no more poflible, than of fome "diftempers that defcend by inheritance. How

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ever, a great deal may be done by a courfe of beneficence obftinately perfifted in; this, if 6 any thing, being a likely way of establishing a moral habit, which fhall be somewhat of a counterpoife to the force of mechanifm. Only

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it must be remembered that we do not intermit, upon any pretence whatfover, the custom of doing good, in regard, if there be the leaft ceffation, nature will watch the opportunity to return, and in a fhort time to recover the ground it was fo long in quitting for there is *this difference between mental habits, and fuch < as have their foundation in the body; that thefe laft are in their nature more forcible and violent, and, to gain upon us, nced only not

to be oppofed; whereas the former must be continually reinforced with fresh supplies, or they will languish and die away. And this suggests the reason why good habits, in general require longer time for their fettlement than bad; and yet are fooner difplaced; the reason is, that vicious habits, as drunkennefs for inftance, produce a change in the body, which the others not doing, must be maintained the fame way they are acquired, by the mere dint of industry, refolution, and vigilance.

Another thing which fufpends the operations of benevolence, is the love of the world; pro⚫ceeding from a falfe notion men have taken up, that an abundance of the world is an effential ingredient in the happinefs of life. Worldly things are of fuch a quality as to leffen upon 'dividing, fo that the more partners there are the lefs muft fall to every man's private fhare. The confequence of this is, that they look upon < one another with an evil eye, each imagining all the reft to be embarked in an interest, that 'cannot take place but to his prejudice. Hence

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are thofe eager competitions for wealth or power, hence one man's fuccefs becomes another's difappoinment; and like pretenders to the fame miftrefs, they can feldom have common charity for their rivals. Not that they are naturally difpofed to quarrel and fall out, but it is 'natural for a man to prefer himself to all others and to fecure his own intereft first. If that which men efteem their happiness were, like the light, the fame fufficient and unconfined good, whether ten thousand enjoy the benefit of it, or but one, we fhould fee mens good-will, and kind endeavours, would be as • univerfal.

Homo qui erranti comiter monftrat viam, Quafi lumen de fuo lumine accendat, facit, Nibilominus ipfi luceat, cum illi accenderit. "To direct a wanderer in the right way, is "to light another man's candle by one's own, "which lofes none of its light by what the other "gains."

But, unluckily, mankind agree in making 'choice of objects, which inevitably engage 'them in perpetual differences. Learn there" fore, like a wife man, the true eftimate of things. Defire not more of the world than is necef-. ( fary to accommodate you in paffing through < it; look upon every thing beyond, not as ufe lefs only, but burdenfome. Place not your

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< quiet in things which you cannot have without putting others befide them, and thereby making them your enemies, and which, when attained, will give you more trouble to keep, than a fatisfaction in the enjoyment. Virtue is

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a good of a nobler kind; it grows by commu'nication, and fo little refembles earthly riches, that the more hands it is lodged in, the greater is every man's particular stock. So, by pro، pagating and mingling their fires, not only all the lights of a branch together caft a more extenfive brightnefs, but each fingle light burns with a stronger flame. And lastly, take this along with you, that if wealth be an inftrument of pleasure, the greateft pleasure it can put into your power, is that of doing good. It is worth confidering, that the organs of fenfe act within a narrow compafs, and the appetites will foon fay they have enough: which of the two therefore is the happier man? he, who confining all his regard to the gratifica

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