mifchievous notions fhould have in it fome particular circumftances of fhame and infamy; that thofe who are flaves to them may fee, that inftead of advancing their reputations, they lead them to ignominy and difhonour. Death is not fufficient to deter men who make it their glory to defpife it; but if every one that fought a duel were to stand in the pillory, it would quickly leffen the number of thefe imaginary men of honour, and put an end to fo abfurd a practice. When honour is a fupport to virtuous principles, and runs parallel with the laws of God and our country, it cannot be too much cherished and encouraged: But when the dictates of honour are contrary to thofe of religion and equity, they are the greateft depravations of human nature, by giving wrong ambitions and falfe ideas of what is good and laudable; and fhould therefore be ex ploded by all governments, and driven out as the bane and plague of human fociety. A Man advanced in years that thinks fit to look back upon his former life, and calls that only life which was paffed with fatisfaction and enjoyment, excluding all parts which were not pleafant to him, will find himself very young, if not in his infancy. Sickness, ill-humour, and idlenefs, will have robbed him of a great fhare of that fpace we ordinarily call our life. It is therefore the duty of every man that would be true to himself, to obtain, if poffible, a difpofition to be pleafed, and place himself in a conftant aptitude for the fatifactions of his being. Inftead of this, you hardly fee a man who is not uneafy in proportion to his advancement in the arts of life. An affected delicacy. is the common improvement we meet with in those who pretend pretend to be refined above others: They do not aim at true pleafures themselves, but turn their thoughts upon obferving the false pleasures of other men. Such people are valetudinarians in fociety, and they should no more come into company than a fick man fhould come into the air: If a man is too weak to bear what is a refreshment to men in health, he muft ftill keep his chamber. When any one in Sir ROGER's company complains he is out of order, he immediately calls for fome poffetdrink for him; for which reafon that fort of people who are ever bewailing their conftitution in other places are the chearfuleft imaginable when he is prefent. It is a wonderful thing that fo many, and they not reckoned abfurd, fhall entertain thofe with whom they converfe by giving them the hiftory of their pains and aches; and imagine fuch narrations their quota of the converfation. This is of all other the meanest help to difcourfe, and a man must not think at all, or think himfelf very infignificant,' when he finds an account of his head-ach anfwer'd by another asking what news în the last mail ? Mutual good-humour is a drefs we ought to appear in whenever we meet, and we fhould make no mention of what concerns ourselves, without it be of matters wherein our friends ought to rejoice: But indeed there are crowds of people who put themfelves in no method of pleafing themfelves or others; fuch are thofe whom we ufually call indolent perfons. Indolence is, methinks, an intermediate ftate between pleafure and pain, and very much unbecoming any part of our life after we are out of the nurfe's arms. Such an averfion to labour creates a conftant wearinefs, and one would think fhould make exiftence itfelf a burden. The indolent man defcends from the dignity of his nature, and makes that being which was rational merely vegetative: His life confifts only in the mere increafe and decay of a body, which, with relation to the reft of the world, might as well have been uninformed, as the habitation of a reasonable mind. Of this kind is the life of that extraordinary couple, Harry Terfett and his lady. Harry was in the days of his celibacy one of thofe pert creatures who have much vivacity and little underftanding; Mrs. Rebecca Quicklý, D 4 whom. whom he married, had all that the fire of youth and a lively manner could do towards making an agreeable woman. Thefe two people of feeming merit fell into each others arms; and paffion being fated, and no reason or good-fenfe in either to fucceed it, their life is now at a Rand; their meals are infipid, and their time tedious; their fortune has placed them above care, and their tofs of taste reduced them below diverfion. When we talk of these as inftances of inexiftence, we do not mean, that in order to live it is neceffary we thould always be in jovial crews, or crowned with chaplets of rofes, as the merry fellows among the ancients are defcribed; but it is intended by confidering these contraries to pleasure, in→ dolence, and too much delicacy, to fhew that it is pru dence to preferve a difpofition in ourselves to receive a sertain delight in all we hear and fee. This portable quality of good-humour feafons all the parts and occurrences we meet with, in fuch à mauner, that there are no moments loft; but they all pafs with fo much fatisfaction, that the heavier of loads (when it is a load) that of time, is never felt by us. Varilas has this quality to the highest perfection, and communicates it wherever he appears: The fad, the merry, the fevere, the melancholy, fhew a new chearfulness when he comes amongst them. At the fame time no one can repeat any thing that Varilas has ever faid that deferves repetition; but the man has that innate goodness of temper, that he is welcome to every body, because every man thinks he is fo to him. He does not feem to contribute any thing to the mirth of the company; and yet upon reflection you find it all happened by his being there. I thought it was whimfically faid of a gentleman, that if Varilas had wit, it would be the best wit in the world. It is certain, when a well-corrected lively imagination and good-breeding are added to a sweet difpofition, they qualify it to be one of the greatest bleffings, as well as pleasures of life, Men would come into company with ten times the pleasure they do, if they were fure of hearing nothing which fhould fhock them, as well as expected what would please them. When we know every person that is spoken of is reprefented by one who has no ill-will, and every thing that is mentioned defcribed by one that is apt to fet it in the best light, the entertainment must be delicate, because the cook has nothing brought to his hand but what is the moft excellent in its kind. Beautiful pictures are the entertainments of pure minds, and deformities of the corrupted. It is a degree towards the life of angels, when we enjoy converfation wherein there is nothing prefented but in its excellence; and a degree towards that of dæmons, wherein nothing is fhewn but in its degeneracy, L N° 101 Tuesday, June 26. Romulus, & Liber pater, & cum Caftore Pollux, Speratum meritis: [IMITATED.] Edward and Henry, now the boast of fame, C Por E.. YENSURE, fays a late ingenious author, is the tax a man pays to the publick for being eminent. It is a folly for an eminent man to think of efcaping it, and a weakness to be affected with it. All the illuftrious perfons of antiquity, and indeed of every age in the world, have paffed through this fiery perfecution. There is no defence against reproach but obfcurity; it is a kind of concomitant to greatnefs, as fatires and invectives were an effential part of a Roman triumph. If men of eminence are expofed to cenfure on one hand, they are as much liable to flattery on the other. If they receive reproaches which are not due to them, they likewife receive praises which they do not deserve. In a word, the man in a high poft is never regarded with an indifferent eye, but always confidered as a friend or an enemy. For this reafon perfons in great ftations have feldom their true characters drawn till feveral years after their deaths. Their perfonal friendships and enmities muft ceafe, and the parties they were engaged in be at an end, before their faults or their virtues can have justice done them. When writers have the least, opportunities of knowing the truth, they are in the best difpofition to tell it.. It is therefore the privilege of pofterity to adjust the characters of illuftrious perfons, and to fet matters right between thofe antagonists, who by their rivalry for greatnefs divided a whole age into factions. We can now allow Cæfar to be a great man, without derogating from Pompey; and celebrate the virtues of Cato without detracting from thofe of Cæfar. Every one that has been long dead has a due proportion of praise allotted him, in which whilft he lived his friends were too profufe and his enemies too fparing. According to Sir Ifaac Newton's calculations, the laft comet that made its appearance in 1680, imbib'd fo much heat by its approaches to the fun, that it would have been two thousand times hotter than red hot iron, had it been a globe of that metal; and that fuppofing it as big as the earth, and at the same distance from the fun, it would be fifty thousand years in cooling, before it recovered its natural temper. In the like manner, if an Englishman confiders the great ferment into which our political world is thrown at prefent, and how intenfely it is heated in all its parts, he cannot fuppofe that it will cool again in lefs than three hundred years. In fuch a tract of time it is poffible that the heats of the prefent age may be extins guished, and our feveral claffes of great men reprefented under their proper characters. Some eminent hiftorian may then probably arife that will not write recentibus odiis (as Tacitus expreffes it) with the paffions and prejudices of a cotemporary author, but make an impartial diftribution of fame among the great men of the pre-. fent age. I cannot |