that are within view, but burns only thfe who make too near approaches. Yet fince good or harm must be received for the most part from those to whom we are familiarly known, he whole vices overpower his virtues, in the compafs to which his vices can extend, has no reason to complain that he meets It with affection or veneration, when tole with whom he paffes his life are more corrupted by his practice than enlight ered by his ideas. Admiration begins where acquaintance ceales; and his faTourers are diftant, but his enemies at hand.

Yet many have dared to boast of negleted merit, and to challenge their age for cruelty and folly, of whom it cannot be alleged that they have endeavoured to increase the wifdom or virtue of their readers. They have been at once profligate in their lives, and licentous in their compofitions; have not only forfaken the paths of virtue, but attempted to lure others after them. They Lave finoothed the road of perdition, covered with flowers the thorns of guilt, and taught temptation fweeter notes, Efter blandifluments, and ftronger alburements.

It has been apparently the fettled purpofe of fome writers, whofe powers and acquifitions place them high in the rank of literature, to fet fashion on the fide of wickedness; to recommend debauchtry and lewdnefs, by affociating them with qualities moft likely to dazzle the difcernment and attract the affections; and to fhew innocence and goodness with fuch attendant weakneffes as neceffarily expose them to contempt and derifion.

Such naturally found intimates among the corrupt, the thoughtlefs, and the istemperate; pafled their lives amidst the levities of fportive idlenefs, or the warm profeffions of drunken friendship; and fed their hopes with the promifes of wretches, whom their precepts had taught to fcoff at truth. But when fools had laughed away their fprightlinefs, and the languors of excefs could no longer be relieved, they faw their protectors hourly drop away, and wondered and ftormed to find themfelves abandoned. Whether their companions perfifted in wickelaefs, or returned to virtue, they were ft equally without affiftance; for debauchery is felfish and negligent, and from virtue the virtuous only can expa regard.

It is faid by Florus of Catiline, who died in the midst of flaughtered enemies, that his death had been illufirious, had it been fuffered for his country. Of the wits who have languished away life under the preffures of poverty, or in the reitleifnefs of fufpenfe, careffed and rejected, flattered and defpifed, as they were of more or lefs ufe to those who tiled themfelves their patrons, it might be obferved, that their miferies would en force compaffion, had they been brought upon them by honcity and religion.

The wickedness of a loofe or profane' author is more attrocious than that of the giddy libertine, or drunken ravisher; not only because it extends it's effects wider, as a peftilence that taints the air is more deftructive than poifon infufed in a draught, but because it is commit ted with cool deliberation. By the inftantaneous violence of defire, a good man may fometimes be furprifed before reflection can come to his refcue; when the appetites have ftrengthened their influence by habit, they are not eafily refitted or fuppreffed; but for the frigid villainy of ftudious lewdnefs, for the calma malignity of laboured impiety, what apology can be invented? What punishment can be adequate to the crime of hun who retires to folitudes for the refinement of debauchery; who tortures his fancy, and ranfacks his memory, only that he may leave the world leis virtuous than he found it; that he may intercept the hopes of the riling generation; and fpread fares for the foul with more dexterity?

What were their motives, or what their excufes, is below the dignity of reafon to examine. If having extinguifhed in themselves the diftinction of right and wrong, they were infentible of the mitchief which they promoted, they deferved to be hunted down by the general compact, as no longer partaking of focial nature; if influenced by the corruption of patrons, or readers, they facrificed their own convictions to vanity or intereft, they were to be abhorred with more acrimony than he that murders for pay; fince they committel greater crimes without greater temptations.

Of bim, to whom much is given, much fhall be required. Thof whom God has favoured with fuperior faculties, and made eminent for quicknefs of intuition, and accuracy of diftinétions, will certainly be regarded as culpable in his eye,

for

for defects and deviations which, in fouls lefs enlightened, may be guiltlefs. But, furely, none can think without horror on that man's condition who has been more wicked in proportion as he had

more means of excelling in virtue, ard ufed the light imparted from Heaven only to embellish folly, and thed luftre up

on crimes.

L MORS SOLA FATETUR

Juv.

ORPORAL fenfation is known

to

Codepend fo much upon novelty, that cuftom takes away from many things their power of giving pleafure or pain. Thus a new drefs becomes eafy by wearing it, and the palate is reconciled by degrees to dishes which at firft difgufted it. That by long habit of carrying a burden, we lofe, in great part, our fenfibility of it's weight, any man may be convinced by putting on for an hour the armour of our ancestors; for he will fcarcely believe that men would have had much inclination to marches and battles, encumbered and oppreffed, as he will find himself, with the ancient panoply. Yet the heroes that overrun regions, and ftormed towns in iron accoutrements, he knows not to have been bigger, and has no reafon to imagine them stronger than the prefent race of men; he therefore must conclude, that their peculiar powers were conferred only by peculiar habits, and that their familiarity with the drefs of war enabled them to move in it with eafe, vigour, and agility.

Yet it feems to be the condition of our prefent ftate, that pain fhould be more fixed and permanent than pleafure. Uneafinefs gives way by flow degrees, and is long before it quits it's poffeffion of the fenfory; but all our gratifications are volatile, vagrant, and eafily diffipated. The fragrance of the jeffamine bower is loft after the enjoyment of a few moments, and the Indian wanders among his native fpices without any fenfe of their exhalations. It is, indeed, not necellary to fhew by many inftances what all mankind confefs, by an incessant call for variety, and reftlefs purfuit of enjoyments, which they value only because unpolluffed.

DRYDEN.

Something fimilar, or analogous, may be obferved in effects produced immediately upon the mind; nothing can ftrongly ftrike or affect us, but what is rare or fudden. The most important events, when they become familiar, are no longer confidered with wonder or folicitude, and that which at firft filled up our whole attention, and left no place for any other thought, is foon thruft afide into fome remote repofitory of the mind, and lies among other lumber of the memory, overlooked and neglected. Thus far the mind refembles the body, but here the fimilitude is at an end.

The manner in which external force acts upon the body is very little fubject to the regulation of the will, no man can at pleature obtund or invigorate his fenfes, prolong the agency of any image traced upon the eye, or any found infufed into the ear. But our ideas are more fubjected to choice; we can call them before us, and command their stay; we can facilitate and promote their recurrence, we can either reprefs their intrufion, or haften their retreat. It is therefore the bufinefs of wifdom and virtue, to felect among numberless objects striving for our notice, fuch as may enable us to exalt our reafon, extend our views, and fecure our happiness. But this choice is to be made with very little regard to rareness or frequency; for nothing is valuable merely because it is either rare or common, but because it is adapted to fome ufeful purpofe, and enables us to fupply fome deficiency of our

of Vifion. For, furely, nothing can fo much difturb the paffions, or perplex the intellects of man, as the difruption of his union with vifible nature; a feparation from all that has hitherto delighted or engaged him; a change not only of the place, but the manner of his being; an entrance into a state not fimply which he knows not, but which perhaps he has not faculties to know; an immediate and perceptible communication with the Supreme Being, and, what is above all distressful and alarming, the final fentence, and unalterable allot

ment.

Yet we to whom the shortness of life has given frequent occafions of contemplating mortality, can, without emotion, fee generations of men pafs away, and are at leisure to establish modes of forrow, and adjust the ceremonial of death. We can look upon funeral pomp as a common spectacle in which we have no concern, and turn away from it to trifles and amusements, without dejection of look, or inquietude of heart.

It is, indeed, apparent from the conftitution of the world, that there must be a time for other thoughts; and a perpetual meditation upon the last hour, however it may become the folitude of a monaftery, is inconfiftent with many duties of common life. But furely the remembrance of death ought to predominate in our minds, as an habitual and fettled principle, always operating, though not always perceived; and our attention fhould feldom wander fo far from our own condition, as not to be recalled and fixed by fight of an event, which muft foon, we know not how foon, happen likewife to ourselves, and of which, though we cannot appoint the time, we may fecure the confequence.

Every inftance of death may juftly awaken our fears and quicken our vigilance; but it's frequency fo much weakens it's effect, that we are seldom alarmed unless fome clofe connection is broken, fome scheme frustrated, or fome hope defeated. Many therefore feem to pals on from youth to decrepitude without any reflection on the end of life, becaufe they are wholly involved within themselves, and look on others only as inhabitants of the common earth, with out any expectation of receiving good, or intention of beftowing it..

Events, of which we confels the importance, excite little fenfibility, unless

they affect us more nearly than as fharers in the common intereft of mankind; that defire which every man feels of being remembered and lamented, is often mortified when we remark how little concern is caufed by the eternal departure even of those who have paffed their lives with publick honours, and been diftinguished by extraordinary performances. It is not poffible to be regarded with tenderness, except by a few. That merit which gives greatnefs and renown, diffufes it's influence to a wide compafs, but acts weakly on every fingle breast; it is placed at a distance from common fpectators, and shines like one of the remote stars, of which the light reaches us, but not the heat. The wit, the hero, the philofopher, whom their tempers or their fortunes have hindered from intimate relations, die, without any other effect than that of adding a new topick to the converfation of the day. They imprefs none with any fresh conviction of the fragility of our nature, because none had any particular interest in their lives, or was united to them by a reciprocation of benefits and endearments.

Thus it often happens, that those who in their lives were applauded and admired, are laid at last in the ground without the common honour of a stone; becaufe by thofe excellencies with which many were delighted, none had been obliged; and, though they had many to celebrate, they had none to love them.

Cuftom fo far regulates the fentiments, at least of common minds, that I believe men may be generally observed to grow lefs tender as they advance in age. He who, when life was new, melted at the lofs of every companion, can look in time, without concern, upon the grave into which his last friend was thrown, and into which himself is ready to fall; not that he is more willing to die than formerly, but that he is more familiar to the death of others, and therefore is not alarmed fo far as to confider how much nearer he approaches to his end. But this is to fubmit tamely to the tyranny of accident, and to fuffer our reafon to lie ufelefs. Every funeral may justly be confidered as a fummons to prepare for that ftate into which it fhews us that we muft fometime enter; and the fummons is more loud and piercing, as the event of which it warns us is at lefs diftance. To neglect at any time preparation for death, is to fleep on our

poft

SUSPI

USPICION, however neceffary it may be to our fafe paffage through ways belet on all fides by fraud and malice, has been always confidered, when it exceeds the common mcafures, as a token of depravity and corruption; and a Greek writer of fentences has laid down as a standing maxim, that be who believes not another on his oath, knows himself to be perjured.

We can form our opinions of that which we know not, only by placing it in comparison with fomething that we know: whoever, therefore, is over-run with fufpicion, and detects artifice and ftratagem in every propofal, muft either have learned by experience or obfervation the wickedness of mankind, and been taught to avoid fraud by having often fuffered or feen treachery; or he muft derive his judgment from the confcioufnels of his own difpofition, and impute to others the fame inclinations which he feels predominant in himfelf.

To learn caution by turning our eyes upon life, and obferving the arts by which negligence is furprifed, timidity overborne, and credulity amufed, requires either great latitude of converfe and long acquaintance with bufinefs, or uncommon activity of vigilance, and acuteness of penetration. When therefore a young man, not diftinguifhed by ngour of intellect, comes into the world

F. LEWIS.

MART.

full of fcruples and diffidence; makes a bargain with many provifional limitations; hefitates in his anfwer to a common question, left more fhould be intended than he can immediately discover; has a long reach in detecting the projects of his acquaintance; confiders every carefs as an act of hypocrify, and feels neither gratitude nor affection from the tenderness of his friends, because he believes no one to have any real tenderness but for himself; whatever expectations this early fagacity may raife of his future eminence or riches, I can feldom forbear to confider him as a wretch incapable of generofity or benevolence, as a villain early completed beyond the need of common opportunities and gradual temptations.

Upon men of this clafs, inftruction and admonition are generally thrown away, because they confider artifice and deceit as proofs of understanding; they are misled at the fame time by the two great feducers of the world, vanity and intereft; and not only look upon thofe who act with opennefs and confidence, as condemned by their principles to obfcurity and want, but as contemptible for narrowness of comprehenfion, thortnefs of views, and flowness of contrivance.

The world has been long amufed with the mention of policy in publick trans

actions