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tions; he knows how, by proper and becoming
methods, to raise himself to a level with those of
the highest rank; and his good-nature is a sufficient
warrant against the want of those who are so un-
happy as to be in the very lowest. One may say
of him, as Pindar bids his Muse say of Theron,

Swear that Theron sure has sworn
No one near him should be poor.

Swear that none ever had such graceful art,
Fortune's free gifts of freely to impart,

With an unenvious hand, and an unbounded heart. Never did Atticus succeed better in gaining the universal love and esteem of all men; nor steer with more success between the extremes of two contending parties. 'Tis his peculiar happiness that, while he espouses neither with an intemperate zeal, he is not only admired, but, what is a more rare and unusual felicity, he is beloved and caressed by both; and I never yet saw any person, of whatever age or sex, but was immediately struck with the merit of Manilius. There are many who are acceptable to some particular persons, while the rest

most disinterested persons, and at so large a distance of time, cannot read without admiration. Cæsar thought his life consisted in the breath of praise, when he professed he had lived long enough for himself, when he had for his glory. Others have sacrificed themselves for a name which was not to begin till they were dead, giving away themselves to purchase a sound which was not to commence till they were out of hearing. But by merit and superior excellencies, not only to gain, but, while living, to enjoy a great and universal reputation, is the last degree of happiness which we can hope for here. Bad characters are dispersed abroad with confusion, I hope for example sake, and (as punishments are designed by the civil power) more for the deterring the innocent than the chastising the guilty. The good are less frequent, whether it be that there are indeed fewer originals of this kind to copy after, or that, through the malignity of our nature, we rather delight in the ridicule than the virtues we find in others. However, it is but just, as well as pleasing, even for variety, sometimes to give the world a repre- of mankind look upon them with coldness and sentation of the bright side of human nature, as well as the dark and gloomy. The desire of imitation may, perhaps, be a greater incentive to the practice of what is good, than the aversion we may conceive at what is blamable; the one immediately directs you what you should do, while the other only shows what you should avoid; and I cannot at present do this with more satisfaction, than by endeavoring to do some justice to the character of Manilius.

It would far exceed my present design, to give a particular description of Manilius through all the parts of his excellent life. I shall now only draw him in his retirement, and pass over in silence the various arts, the courtly manners, and the undesigning honesty by which he attained the honors he has enjoyed, and which now give a dignity and Teneration to the ease he does enjoy. Tis here that he looks back with pleasure on the waves and billows through which he has steered to so fair a haven; he is now intent upon the practice of every virtue, which a great knowledge or use of mankind has discovered to be the most useful to them. Thus in his private domestic employments he is no less glorious than in his public; for it is in reality a more difficult task to be conspicuous in a sedentary inactive life, than in one that is spent in hurry and business; persons engaged in the latter, like bodies violently agitated, from the swiftness of their motion, have a brightness added to them, which often vanishes when they are at rest; but if it then still remain, it must be the seeds of intrinsic worth that thus shine out without any foreign aid or assistance.

His liberality in another might almost bear the name of profusion; he seems to think it laudable even in the excess, like that river which most enriches when it overflows.* But Manilius has too perfect a taste of the pleasure of doing good, ever to let it be out of his power; and for that reason he will have a just economy and a splendid frugality at home, the fountain from whence those streams should flow which he disperses abroad. He looks with disdain on those who propose their death as the time when they are to begin their munificence; he will both see and enjoy (which he then does in the highest degree) what he bestows himself; he will be the living executor of his own bounty, while they who have the happiness to be within his care and patronage, at once pray for the continuation of his life and their own good fortune. No one is out of the reach of his obliga

*The Nile.

indifference; but he is the first whose entire good fortune it is ever to please and to be pleased, wherever he comes to be admired, and wherever he is absent to be lamented. His merit fares like the pictures of Raphael, which are either seen with admiration by all, or at least no one dare own that he has no taste for a composition which has received so universal an applause. Envy and malice find it against their interest to indulge slander and obloquy. 'Tis as hard for an enemy to detract from, as for a friend to add to, his praise. An attempt upon his reputation is a sure lessening of one's own; and there is but one way to injure him, which is to refuse him his just commendations, and be obstinately silent.

It is below him to catch the sight with any care of dress; his outward garb is but the emblem of his mind. It is genteel, plain, and unaffected; he knows that gold and embroidery can add nothing to the opinion which all have of his merit, and that he gives a luster to the plainest dress, while it is impossible the richest should communicate any to him. He is still the principal figure in the \ room. He first engages your eye, as if there were some point of light which shone stronger upon him than on any other person.

He puts me in mind of a story of the famous Bussy d'Amboise, who, at an assembly at court, where every one appeared with the utmost magnificence, relying on his own superior behavior, instead of adorning himself like the rest, put on that day a plain suit of clothes, and dressed all his servants in the most costly gay habits he could procure. The event was, that the eyes of the whole court were fixed upon him; all the rest looked like his attendants, while he alone had the air of a person of quality and distinction.

Like Aristippus, whatever shape or condition he appears in, it still sits free and easy upon him, but in some part of his character, 'tis true, he dif fers from him; for, as he is altogether equal to the largeness of his present circumstances, the rectitude of his judgment has so far corrected the inclinations of his ambition, that he will not trouble himself with either the desires or pursuits of anything beyond his present enjoyments.

A thousand obliging things flow from him upon every occasion; and they were always so just and natural, that it is impossible to think he was at the least pains to look for them. One would think it was the demon of good thoughts that discovered to him those treasures, which he must have blinded others from seeing, they lay so di rectly in their way. Nothing can equal the plea

sure that is taken in hearing him speak, but the up the skull which the grave-digger threw to him satisfaction one receives in the civility and atten- with an account that it was the head of the king's tion he pays to the discourse of others. His looks jester, falls into very pleasing reflections, and cries are a silent commendation of what is good and out to his companion, "Alas, poor Yorick! I praiseworthy, and a secret reproof to what is licen- knew him, Horatio, a fellow of infinite jest, of tious and extravagant. He knows how to appear most exquisite fancy; he hath borne me on his free and open without danger of intrusion, and to back a thousand times; and now how abhorred in be cautious without seeming reserved. The gra- my imagination it is! my gorge rises at it. Here vity of his conversation is always enlivened with hung those lips that I have kissed I know not how his wit and humor, and the gayety of it is tem- oft. Where be your gibes now? your gambols? pered with something that is instructive, as well as your songs? your flashes of merriment, that were barely agreeable. Thus, with him you are sure not wont to set the table on a roar? not one now to to be merry at the expense of your reason, nor se- mock your own grinning? quite chap-fallen? Now rious with the loss of your good-humor; but by a get you to my lady's chamber, and tell her, let her happy mixture of his temper they either go to-paint an inch thick, to this favor she must come. gether, or perpetually succeed each other. In fine, Make her laugh at that." his whole behavior is equally distant from constraint and negligence, and he commands your respect while he gains your heart.

There is in his whole carriage such an engaging softness, that one cannot persuade one's-self he is ever actuated by those rougher passions, which, wherever they find place, seldom fail of showing hemselves in the outward demeanor of the person they belong to; but his constitution is a just temperature between indolence on one hand, and violence on the other. He is mild and gentle, wherever his affairs will give him leave to follow his own inclinations; but yet never failing to exert himself with vigor and resolution in the service of his prince, his country, or his friend.-Z.

No. 468.] WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 27, 1712. Erat homo ingeniosus, acutus, acer, et qui plurimum et salis haberet et fellis, nec candoris minus.-PLIN Epist.

He was an ingenious, pleasant fellow, and one who had a great deal of wit and satire, with an equal share of good-humor. My paper is, in a kind, a letter of news, but it regards rather what passes in the world of conversation than that of business. I am very sorry that I have at present a circumstance before me, which is of very great importance to all who have a relish for gayety, wit, mirth, or humor; I mean the death of poor Dick Estcourt. I have been obliged to him for so many hours of jollity, that it is but a small recompense, though all I can give him, to pass a moment or two in sadness for the loss of so agreeable a man. Poor Estcourt! the last time I saw him, we were plotting to show the town his great capacity for acting in its full light, by introducing him as dictating to a set of young players, in what manner to speak this sentence, and utter the other passion. He had so exquisite a discern ing of what was defective in any object before him, that in an instant he could show you the ridiculous side of what would pass for beautiful and just, even to men of no ill judgment, before he had pointed at the failure. He was no less skillful in the knowledge of beauty; and I dare say, there is no one who knew him well, but can repeat more well-turned compliments, as well as smart repartees of Mr. Estcourt's, than cf any other man in England. This was easily to be observed in his inimitable faculty of telling a story, in which he would throw in natural and unexpected incidents to make his court to one part, and rally the other part of the company. Then he would vary the usage he gave them, according as he saw them bear kind or sharp language. He had the knack to raise up a pensive temper, and mortify an impertinently gay one, with the most agreeable skill imaginable. There are a thousand things which crowd into my memory, which make me too much concerned to tell on about him. Hamlet holding

It is an insolence natural to the wealthy, to affix, as much as in them lies, the character of a man to his circumstances. Thus it is ordinary with them to praise faintly the good qualities of those below them, and say, It is very extraordinary in such a man as he is, or the like, when they are forced to acknowledge the value of him whose lowness upbraids their exaltation. It is to this humor only, that it is to be ascribed, that a quick wit in conversation, a nice judgment upon any emergency that could arise, and a most blameless inoffensive behavior, could not raise this man above being received only upon the foot of contributing to mirth and diversion. But he was as easy under that condition, as a man of so excellent talents was capable; and since they would have it, that to divert was his business, he did it with all the seeming alacrity imaginable, though it stung him to the heart that it was his business. Men of sense, who could taste his excellencies, were well satisfied to let him lead the way in conversation, and play after his own manner; but fools, who provoked him to mimicry, found he had the indignation to let it be at their expense who called for it, and he would show the form of conceited heavy fellows as jest to the company at their own request, in revenge for interrupting him from being a companion to put on the character of a jester.

What was peculiarly excellent in this memorable companion was, that in the account he gave of persons and sentiments, he did not only hit the figure of their faces, and manner of their gestures, but he would in his narrations fall into their very way of thinking, and this when he recounted passages wherein men of the best wit were concerned, as well as such wherein were represented men of the lowest rank of understanding. It is certainly as great an instance of self-love to a weakness, to be impatient of being mimicked, as any can be imagined. There were none but the vain, the formal, the proud, or those who were incapable of amending their faults, that dreaded him; to others he was in the highest degree pleasing; and I do not know any satisfaction of any different kind I ever tasted so much, as having got over an impatience of my seeing myself in the air he could put me when I have displeased him. It is indeed to his exquisite talent this way, more than any philosophy I could read on the subject, that my person is very little of my care, and it is indifferent to me what is said of my shape, my air, my manner, my speech, or my address. It is to poor Estcourt 1 chiefly owe that I am arrived at the happiness of thinking nothing a diminution to me, but what argues a depravity of my will.

It has as much surprised me as anything in nature, to have it frequently said, that he was not a good player; but that must be owing to a partiality for former actors in the parts in which he succeeded them, and judging by comparison of what was liked before, rather than by the nature

of the thing. When a man of his wit and smartness could put on an utter absence of common sense in his face, as he did in the character of Bullfinch in the Northern Lass, and an air of insipid cunning and vivacity in the character of Pounce in the Tender Husband, it is folly to dispute his capacity and success, as he was an actor. Poor Estcourt! let the vain and proud be at rest, thou wilt no more disturb their admiration of their dear selves; and thou art no longer to drudge in raising the mirth of stupids, who know nothing of thy merit, for thy maintenance.

It is natural for the generality of mankind to run into reflections upon our mortality, when disturbers of the world are laid to rest, but to take no notice when they who can please and divert are pulled from us. But for my part, I cannot but think the loss of such talents, as the man of whom I am speaking was master of, a more melancholy instance of mortality than the dissolution of persons of never so high characters in the world, whose pretensions were that they were noisy and mischievous.

But I must grow more succinct, and, as a Spectator, give an account of this extraordinary man, who, in his way, never had an equal in any age before him, or in that wherein he lived. I speak of him as a companion, and a man qualified for conversation. His fortune exposed him to an obsequiousness toward the worst sort of company, but his excellent qualities rendered him capable of making the best figure in the most refined. I have been present with him among men of the most delicate taste a whole night, and have known him (for he saw it was desired) keep the discourse to himself the most part of it, and maintain his good humor with a countenance, in a language so delightful, without offense to any person or thing upon earth, still preserving the distance his circumstances obliged him to; I say, I have seen him do all this in such a charming manner, that I am sure none of those I hint at will read this without giving him some sorrow for their abundant mirth, and one gush of tears for so many bursts of laughter. I wish it were any honor to the pleasant creature's memory, that my eyes are too much suffused to let me go on--T.

The following severe passage in this number of the Spectator in folio, apparently leveled at Dr. Radcliffe, was suppressed in all the subsequent editions:

It is a felicity his friends may rejoice in, that he had his senses, and used them as he ought to do, in his last moments. It is remarkable that his judgment was in his calm perfection to the utmost article; for when his wife, out of her fondness, desired that she might send for an illiterate humorist (whom he had accompanied in a thousand mirthful moments, and merit), he answered, "Do what you please, but he will not come near me. Let poor Estcourt's negligence about this message convince the unwary of a triumphant empiric's ignorance and inhumanity.

whose insolence makes fools think he assumes from conscious

mind, the best perquisites of a place are the advantages it gives a man of doing good.

Those who are under the great officers of state, and are the instruments by which they act, have more frequent opportunities for the exercise of compassion and benevolence, than their superiors themselves. These men know every little case that is to come before the great man, and, if they are possessed with honest minds, will consider poverty as a recommendation in the person who applies himself to them, and make the justice of his cause the most powerful solicitor in his behalf. A man of this temper, when he is in a post of business, becomes a blessing to the public. He patronizes the orphan and the widow, assists the friendless, and guides the ignorant. He does not reject the person's pretensions, who does not know how to explain them, or refuse doing a good office for a man because he cannot pay the fee of it. I short, though he regulates himself in all his proceedings by justice and equity, he finds a thousand. occasions for all the good-natured offices of gener osity and compassion.

A man is unfit for such a place of trust, who is of a sour untractable nature, or has any other passion that makes him uneasy to those who approach him. Roughness of temper is apt to discountenance the timorous or modest. The proud man discourages those from approaching him, who are of a mean condition, and who must want his assistance. The impatient man will not give himself time to be informed of the matter that liesbefore him. An officer, with one or more of these unbecoming qualities, is sometimes looked upon as a proper person to keep off impertinence and solicitation from his superior; but this is a kind of merit that can never atone for injustice which may very often arise from it.

There are two other vicious qualities which render a man very unfit for such a place of trust. The first of these is a dilatory temper, which commits innumerable cruelties without design. The maxim which several have laid down for a man's conduct in ordinary life, should be inviolable with a man in office, never to think of doing that to-morrow which may be done to-day. A man who defers doing what ought to be done, is guilty of a good office is very often as beneficial to the of injustice so long as he defers it. The dispatch solicitor as the good office itself. In short, if a man compared the inconveniences which another suffers by his delays, with the trifling motives and adVantages which he himself may reap by such a delay, he would never be guilty of a fault which very often does an irreparable prejudice to the person who depends upon him, and which might be remedied with little trouble to himself.

But in the last place there is no man so improper to be employed in business, as he who is in any degree capable of corruption; and such a one is the man who, upon any pretense whatsoever, receives more than what is the stated and unquestioned fee of his office. Gratifications, tokens of thankfulness, dispatch money, and the like specious terms, are the pretenses under which corruption very frequently shelters itself. An honest man

No. 469.] THURSDAY, AUGUST 28, 1712. Detrahere aliquid alteri, et hominem hominis incommodo suum augere commodum, magis est contra naturam quam mors, quam paupertas, quam dolor, quam cætera quæ posTo detract anything from another, and for one man to multi-will, however, look on all these methods as unjusply his own conveniences by the inconveniences of another, is more against nature than death, than poverty, than pain, and the other things which can befall the body, or external

sunt aut corpori accidere, aut rebus externis.-TULL.

circumstances.

I AM persuaded there are few men, of generous principles, who would seek after great places, were it not rather to have an opportunity in their hands of obliging their particular friends, or those whom hey look upon as men of worth, than to procure wealth and honor for themselves. To an honest

tifiable, and will enjoy himself better in a moderate fortune that is gained with honor and reputation, than in an overgrown state that is cankered with the acquisitions of rapine and exaction. Were all our offices discharged with such an inflexible integrity, we should not see men in all ages, who grow up to exorbitant wealth, with the abilities which are to be met with in an ordinary mechanic. I cannot but think that such a corruption proceeds chiefly from men's employing the first that offer

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themselves, or those who have the character of shrewd worldly men, instead of searching out such as have had a liberal education, and have been trained up in the studies of knowledge and virtue.

It has been observed, that men of learning who take to business, discharge it generally with greater honesty than men of the world. The chief reason for it I take to be as follows: A man that has spent his youth in reading, has been used to find virtue extolled, and vice stigmatized. man that has passed his time in the world, has often seen vice triumphant, and virtue discountenanced. Extortion, rapine, and injustice, which are branded with infamy in books, often give a man a figure in the world; while several qualities, which are celebrated in authors, as generosity, ingenuity, and good-nature, impoverish and ruin him. This cannot but have a proportionable effect on men whose tempers and principles are equally good and vicious.

There would be at least this advantage in employing men of learning and parts in business; that their prosperity would sit inore gracefully on them, and that we should not see many worthless persons shot up into the greatest figures of life.-C.

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"Tis folly only, and defect of sense,

Turns trifles into things of consequence.

I HAVE been very often disappointed, of late years, when upon examining the new edition of a classic author, I have found above half the volume taken up with various readings. When I have expected to meet with a learned note upon a doubtful passage in a Latin poet, I have only been informed, that such or such ancient manuscripts for an et write an ac, or of some other notable discovery of the like importance. Indeed, when a different reading gives us a different sense, or a new elegance in an author, the editor does very well in taking notice of it; but when he only entertains us with the several ways of spelling the same word, and gathers together the various blun. ders and mistakes of twenty or thirty different transcribers, they only take up the time of the learned reader, and puzzle the minds of the ignorant. I have often fancied with myself how enraged an old Latin author would be, should he see the several absurdities in sense and grammar, which are imputed to him by some or other of these various readings. In one he speaks nonsense; in another makes use of a word that was never heard of; and indeed there is scarce a solecism in writing which the best author is not guilty of, if we may be at liberty to read him in the words of some manuscript, which the laborious editor has thought fit to examine in the prosecution of his work.

I question not but the ladies and pretty fellows will be very curious to understand what it is that I have been hitherto talking of. I shall therefore give them a notion of this practice, by endeavoring to write after several persons who make an eminent figure in the republic of letters. To this end, we will suppose that the following song is an old ode, which I present to the public in a new edition, with the several various readings which I find of it in former editions, and in ancient manuscripts. Those who cannot relish the various readings, will perhaps find their account in the song, which never before appeared in print.

My love was fickle once and changing,
Nor e'er would settle in my heart;
From beauty still to beauty ranging,
In every face I found a dart.
"Twas first a charming shape enslav'd me,
An eye then gave the fatal stroke:
"Till by her wit Corinna sav'd me,
And all my former fetters broke.
But now a long and lasting anguish
For Belvidera I endure:

Hourly I sigh, and hourly languish,

Nor hope to find the wonted cure.
For here the false inconstant lover,
After a thousand beauties shown,
Does new surprising charms discover,
And finds variety in one.

VARIOUS READINGS.

Stanza the first, verse the first. And changing The and in some manuscripts is written thus, & but that in the Cotton library writes it in thre distinct letters.

Verse the second. Nor e'er would.] Aldus reads it ever would; but as this would hurt the meter, we have restored it to its genuine reading, by observ. ing that synæresis which had been neglected by ignorant transcribers.

Ibid. In my heart.] Scaliger and others, on my heart.

Verse the fourth. I found a dart.] The Vatican manuscript for I reads it; but this must have been the hallucination of the transcriber, who probably mistook the dash of the I for a T.

Stanza the second, verse the second. The fatal stroke] Scioppius, Salmasius, and many others, for the read a; but I have stuck to the usual reading.

Verse the third. Till by her wit.] Some manuscripts have it his wit, others your, others their wit. But as I find Corinna to be the name of a woman in other authors, I cannot doubt but it should be her.

Stanza the third, verse the first. A long and lasting anguish.] The German manuscript reads a lasting passion, but the rhyme will not admit it.

Verse the second. For Belvidera I endure.] Did not all the manuscripts reclaim, I should change Belvidera into Pelvidera; Pelvis being used by several of the ancient comic writers for a looking glass, by which means the etymology of the word is very visible, and Pelvidera will signify a lady who often looks in her glass; as indeed she had very good reason, if she had all those beauties which our poet here ascribes to her.

Verse the third. Hourly I sigh, and hourly languish.] Some for the word hourly read daily, and others nightly; the last has great authorities of its side.

Verse the fourth. The wonted cure.] The elder Stevens reads wanted cure.

Stanza the fourth, verse the second. After a thousand beauties.] In several copies we meet with a hundred beauties, by the usual error of the tran scribers, who probably omitted a cipher, and had not taste enough to know that the word thousand was ten times a greater compliment to the poet's mistress than a hundred.

Verse the fourth. And finds variety in one.j Most of the ancient manuscripts have it in two. Indeed so many of them concur in this last reading, that I am very much in doubt whether it ought not to take place. There are but two reasons which incline me to the reading as I have published it: first, because the rhyme, and secondly, because the sense is preserved by it. It might likewise proceed from the oscitancy of transcribers, who, to dispatch their work the sooner, used to write all numbers in cipher, and seeing the figure 1 followed by a little dash of the pen,

as is customary in old manuscripts, they perhaps mistook the dash for a second figure, and by casting up both together, composed out of them the figure 2. But this I shall leave to the learned, without determining anything in a matter of so great uncertainty.-C.

No. 471.] SATURDAY, AUGUST 30, 1712.
The wise with hope support the pains of life.

upon the tradition of the fall of man) shows us how deplorable a state they thought the present life, without hope. To set forth the utmost condition of misery, they tell us, that our forefather, according to the pagan theology, had a great vessel presented him by Pandora. Upon his lifting up the lid of it, says the fable, there flew out all the calamities and distempers incident to men, from which, till that time, they had been altogether exempt. Hope, who had been inclosed in the cup with so much bad company, instead of flying off THE time present seldom affords sufficient em-with the rest, stuck so close to the lid of it, that ployment to the mind of man. Objects of pain it was shut down upon her. or pleasure, love or admiration, do not lie thick enough together in life to keep the soul in constant action, and supply an immediate exercise to its faculties. In order, therefore, to remedy this defect, that the mind may not want business, but always have materials for thinking, she is endowed with certain powers, that can recall what is passed, and anticipate what is to come.

That wonderful faculty, which we call the memory, is perpetually looking back, when we have nothing present to entertain us. It is like those repositories in several animals that are filled with

stores of their former food, on which they may ruminate when their present pasture fails.

As the memory relieves the mind in her vacant moments, and prevents any chasms of thought by ideas of what is passed, we have other faculties that agitate and employ her for what is to come. These are the passions of hope and fear.

I shall make but two reflections upon what I have hitherto said. First, that no kind of life is so happy as that which is full of hope, especially when the hope is well grounded, and when the object of it is of an exalted kind, and in its nature proper to make the person happy who enjoys it. This proposition must be very evident to those who consider how few are the present enjoyments of the most happy man, and how insufficient to give him an entire satisfaction and acquiescence in them.

My next observation is this, that a religious life hope, and such a one as is fixed on objects that is that which most abounds in a well-grounded are capable of making us entirely happy. This hope in a religious man is much more sure and certain than the hope of any temporal blessing, as it is strengthened not only by reason, but by faith. It has at the same time its eye perpetually fixed on that state, which implies in the very notion of it the most full and the most complete happiness.

By these two passions we reach forward into futurity, and bring up to our present thoughts objects that lie hid in the remotest depths of time. We suffer misery and enjoy happiness be I have before shown how the influence of hope fore they are in being; we can set the sun and in general sweetens life, and makes our present stars forward, or lose sight of them by wandering condition supportable, if not pleasing; but a reinto those retired parts of eternity, when the heav-ligious hope has still greater advantages. It does not only bear up the mind under her sufferings, but makes her rejoice in them, as they may be the instruments of procuring her the great and ultimate end of all her hope.

ens and earth shall be no more.

By the way, who can imagine that the existence of a creature is to be circumscribed by time, whose thoughts are not? But I shall, in this paper, confine myself to that particular passion which goes by the name of hope.

above any other kind of hope, that it is able to Religious hope has likewise this advantage revive the dying man, and to fill his mind not only with secret comfort and refreshment, but sometimes with rapture and transport. He triumphs in his agonies, while the soul springs forward with delight to the great object which she has always had in view, and leaves the body with an expectation of being reunited to her in a glorious and joyful

resurrection.

Our actual enjoyments are so few and transient, that man would be a very miserable being, were he not endowed with this passion, which gives him a taste of those good things that may possibly come into his possession. "We should hope for everything that is good," says the old poct Linus, because there is nothing which may not be hoped for, and nothing but what the gods are able to give us." Hope quickens all the still I shall conclude this essay with those emphatiparts of life, and keeps the mind awake in her cal expressions of a lively hope, which the Psalmist most remiss and indolent hours. It gives habit-made use of in the midst of those dangers and adual serenity and good-humor. It is a kind of vital heat in the soul, that cheers and gladdens her, when she does not attend to it. It makes pain easy, and labor pleasant.

Beside these several advantages which rise from hope, there is another which is none of the least, and that is, its great efficacy in preserving us from setting too high a value on present enjoyments. The saying of Cæsar is very well known. When he had given away all his estate in gratuities among his friends, one of them asked what he had left for himself; to which that great man replied. "Hope." His natural magnanimity hin dered him from prizing what he was certainly possessed of, and turned all his thoughts upon something more valuable that he had in view. I question not but every reader will draw a moral from this story, and apply it to himself without my direction.

The old story of Pandora's box (which many of the learned believe was formed among the heathens

versities which surrounded him; for the following
passage had its present and personal, as well as
its future and prophetic sense. "I have set the
Lord always before me. Because he is at my right
hand I shall not be moved. Therefore my heart
is glad, and my glory rejoiceth. My flesh also
shall rest in hope. For thou wilt not leave my
soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine holy
Thou wilt show me the
one to see corruption.
path of life. In thy presence is fullness of joy,
at thy right hand there are pleasures for ever-
more."-C.

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