A gentle voice, gentler than gales
That wave their mufky wings,
In Eden's aromatic vales,

Or by Daphnæan springs.

• Attend, thou plaintive son of earth! Yield to the will of heaven:

To me, appointed at thy birth,
The pious charge was given,

• To guard thee from th' infidious wile
• And craft of vicious care;
The Syren fong that would beguile,
The fmile that would enfnare:

Nor lefs to guide thy reckless way • From thofe fequefter'd bowers, • Where Melancholy would betray And blast thy growing powers.

Spirits of fineft texture, oft
• Are by her fighs deceiv'd:
And by her air, and accent foft,
• Of inward peace bereav'd.

Fly then from her receffes, fly;
The gales that gently blow,

• In fancied fympathy, reply
• Harmonious to thy woe.

The turtle cooing in the dale
Will with thy grief accord;
And the deep umbrage of the vale
Congenial glooms afford.

Nor feek, with fruitlefs toil, to learn.
Why virtue fuffers pain:

Canft thou the lightning's path discern?
The lightnings fury rein?

In earthly frame, pent and confin'd,
How can thy foul pretend
The conduct of th' Almighty mind
T'arraign, or comprehend?

If in the Lybian defart wide
He flakes the Lion's thirst,
Even from the rocks reluctant fide
He bids the fountain burst:

And bids for wild-birds lofty trees
• Their ruddy harvest bear:
The father of mankind, he fees,
• Nor difregards thy care.

Nor fruitless are the ftorms of woe
To the progreffive mind :

For they give vigour; and to glow

• With

• Obferve how winds and beating rains
• Drench and deform the dale:
And how the hufbandman complains;
And how the shepherds wail.

✦ But when the rains are blown away,
Behold a thousand dyes,

And flowers, and fruit, and verdure gay
• In every field arife.

You know not, if with meek regard
You wait the will of heaven;

You know not what fublime reward
May to your grief be given.'

NUMBER XXIX.

Life's fpan forbids us to extend our cares,
And stretch our hopes beyond our years.

ON THE LOVE OF LIFE.

AGE, that leffens the enjoyment of life, increases our defire of living. Thofe dangers which, in the vigour of youth, we had learned to defpife, affume new terrors as we grow old. Our caution increasing as our years increase,

fear becomes at laft the prevailing paffion of the mind; and the fmall remainder of life is taken up in useless efforts to keep off our end, or provide for a continued existence.

Strange contradiction in our nature, and to which even the wife are liable! If I fhould judge of that part of life which lies before me by that which I have already seen, the prospect is hideous. Experience tells me, that my paft enjoyments have brought no real felicity; and fenfation affures me, that thofe I have felt are ftronger than those which are yet to come. Yet experience and fenfation in vain perfuade; hope, more powerful than either, dreffes out the diftant profpect in fancied beauty; fome happiness, in long perfpective, ftill beckons me to purfue; and, like a lofing gamefter, every new difappointment encreafes my ardour to continue the game.

Whence then is this increased love of life, which grows upon us with our years? whence comes it, that we thus make greater efforts to preferve our existence, at a period when it becomes fcarce worth the keeping? It is that Nature, attentive to the prefervation of mankind, encreafes our wishes to live, while fhe leffens our enjoyments; and, as the robs the fenfes of every pleasure, equips Imagination

in the spoils? Life would be infupportable to an old man, who, loaded with infirmities, feared death no more than when in the vigour of manhood; the numberlefs calamities of decaying nature, and the confcioufnefs of furviving every pleafure, would at once induce him, with his own hand, to terminate the fcene of mifery; but happily the contempt of death for fakes him at a time when it could only be prejudicial; and life acquires an imaginary value, in proportion as its real value is no more.

Our attachment to every object arround us, increases, in general, from the length of our acquaintance with it. I would not chufe,'

fays a French philofopher, to fee an old ( poft pulled up, with which I had been long acquainted.' A mind long habituated to a certain fet of objects, infenfibly becomes fond of seeing them; vifits them from habit, and parts from them with reluctance: from hence proceeds the avarice of the old in every kind of poffeffion; they love the world and all that it produces; they love life and all its advantages; not because it gives them pleasure, but because they have known it long.

Chinvang the Chafte, afcending the throne of China, commanded that all who were unjuftly detained in prifon during the preceding reigns fhould be fet free. Among the num