than lafting, and who expected to grow wife on other terms than those of patience and obedience.

MANY of the bleffings univerfally defired, are very frequently wanted, because most men, when they should labour, content themselves to complain, and rather linger in a state in which they cannot be at reft, than improve their condition by vigour and refolution.

PROVIDENCE has fixed the limits of human enjoyment by immoveable boundaries, and has fet different gratifications at such a diftance from each other, that no art or power can bring them together. This great law it is the business of every rational being to underftand, that life may not pass away in an attempt to make contradictions confiftent, to combine oppofite qualities, and to unite things which the nature of their being must always keep afunder.

Or two objects tempting at a distance on contrary fides it is impoffible to approach one

but

but by receding from the other; by long deliberation and dilatory projects, they may be both loft, but can never be both gained. It is, therefore, neceffary to compare them, and when we have determined the preference, to withdraw our eyes and our thoughts at once from that which reafon directs us to reject. This is more neceffary, if that which we are forfaking has the power of delighting the fenfes, or firing the fancy. He that once turns afide to the allurements of unlawful pleasure, can have no fecurity that he shall ever regain the paths of virtue.

THE philofophick goddess of Boethius, having related the ftory of Orpheus, who, when he had recovered his wife from the dominions of death, loft her again by looking back upon her in the confines of of light, concludes, with a very elegant and forcible application, Whoever you are that endeavour to elevate your minds to the illuminations of Heaven, confider yourselves as reprefented in this fable; for he that is once fo far overcome as to turn back his eyes towards the

infernal

infernal caverns, lofes at the first fight all that influence which attracted him on high.

Vos hæc fabula refpicit,

Quicunque in fuperum diem
Mentem ducere quæritis.

Nam qui Tartareum in fpecus
Victus lumina flexerit,
Quidquid præcipuum trahit,
Perdit, dum videt inferos.

Ir may be obferved in general, that the future is purchased by the present. It is not poffible to fecure diftant or permanent happiness but by the forbearance of fome immediate gratification. This is fo evidently true with regard to the whole of our existence, that all the precepts of theology have no other tendency than to enforce a life of faith; a life regulated not by our fenfes but our belief; a life in which pleasures are to be refused for fear of invifible punishments, and calamities fometimes to be fought and always endured in hope of rewards that shall be obtained in another state.

EVEN if we take into our view only that particle of our duration which is terminated by the grave, it will be found that we cannot enjoy one part of life beyond the common limitations of pleasure, but by anticipating fome of the fatisfaction which fhould exhilarate the following years. The heat of youth may spread happiness into wild luxuriance, but the radical vigour requifite to make it perennial is exhaufted, and all that can be hoped afterwards is languor and fterility.

THE reigning error of mankind is, that we are not content with the conditions on which the goods of life are granted. No man is infenfible of the value of knowledge, the advantages of health, or the convenience of plenty, but every day fhews us those on whom their conviction is without effect.

KNOWLEDGE is praised and defired by multitudes whom her charms could never roufe from the couch of floth; whom the fainteft invitation of pleasure draws away from their studies; to whom any other method of wearing out the day is more eligible than the use of books, and who are more

eafily engaged by any conversation than such as may rectify their notions or enlarge their comprehenfion.

EVERY man that has felt pain knows how little all other comforts can gladden him to whom health is denied. Yet who is there does not fometimes hazard it for the enjoyment of an hour? All affemblies of jollity, all places of publick entertainment exhibit examples of strength wafting in riot, and beauty withering in irregularity; nor is it easy to enter a house in which part of the family is not groaning in repentance of past intemperance, and part admitting difcafe by negligence, or foliciting it by luxury.

THERE is no pleafure which men of every age and sect have more generally agreed to mention with contempt, than the gratifications of the palate; an entertainment so far removed from intellectual happiness that fcarcely the moft fhameless of the fenfual herd have dared to defend it; yet even to this, the lowest of our delights, to this, though neither quick nor lafting, is health with all its activity and sprightliness daily facrificed; and

for