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which, as a man, he performs all these animal-like acts (where not. reduced to and retained in an animal state by external compulsory causes), does he distinguish and elevate himself above all other animals, and evince his human nature. For this animal that calls itself man, and this only, has an inborn feeling for beauty and order, has a heart disposed to social communication, to compassion and sympathy, and to an infinite variety of pleasing and beautiful feelings; has a strong tendency to imitate and create, and labours incessantly to improve whatever it has invented or formed.

All these peculiarities together separate him essentially from the other animals, render him their lord and master, place earth and ocean in his power, and lead him step by step so high through the nearly illimitable elevation of his capacity for art, that he is at length in a condition to remodel nature itself, and from the materials it affords him to create a new, and, for his peculiar purpose, a more perfectly adjusted world.

The first thing in which man displays this superiority is in the refining and elevating all the wants, instincts, and functions which he has in common with the animal. The time which this may require does not signify. It is sufficient that he at length succeeds; that he no longer depends on mere chance for his maintenance; and the increased security of more abundant and better food leaves him leisure to think of improving the remaining requirements of his life. He invents one art after another; each one increases the security or the pleasure of his existence; and he thus ascends unceasingly from the absolutely necessary to the convenient, from the convenient to the beautiful.

The natural society in which he is born, united to the necessity of guarding against the ill consequences of a wide dispersion of the human race, produces at length civil establishments and social modes of life.

But even then, he has scarcely provided for what is absolutely necessary for the means of inward and outward security, than we see him occupied in a thousand ways in adorning his new condition. Little villages are imperceptibly transformed into great cities, the abodes of the arts and of commerce, and the points of union between the various nations of the earth. Man extends himself on all sides, and in every sense navigation and trade increase his social relations and occupations, and they multiply the wants and goods of life. Riches

and pleasure refine every art, of which necessity and want were the parents. Leisure, love of fame, and public encouragement promote the growth of the sciences; which, by the light they shed upon every object of human life, become again rich sources of new advantages and enjoyments.

But in the same degree that man adorns and improves his external condition, are his perceptions developed also for moral beauty. He renounces the rough and inhuman customs of the savage, learns to abhor all violent conduct towards his fellows, and accustoms himself to the rules of justice and equity. The various relations cf the social state form and fix the notions of respectability and civility; and the desire of making himself agreeable to others, of obtaining their esteem, teaches him to suppress his passions, to conceal his faults, to assume his best appearance, and always to act in the most becoming manner. In a word, his manner improves with his condition.

Through all these steps he elevates himself at length to the highest degree of perfection of which the mind is capable in the present life, to an enlarged idea of the whole of which he is a part, to the ideal of the beautiful and the good, to wisdom and virtue, and to the adoration of the inscrutable First Cause, the universal Father of all, to recognise and perform whose laws is at the same time his greatest privilege, his first duty, and his purest pleasure.

All this we may at once call the advancement of human nature. And now may every one answer for himself the question-would man have made that advance if the inborn feeling for the beautiful and the becoming had remained in him inactive? Take it away, and all the effects of his formative power, all the memorials of his greatness, all the riches of nature and art in the possession of which he has placed himself, vanish; he sinks back into the merely animal rank of the stupid and insensible natives of Australia, and with him nature also sinks into barbarism and chaotic deformity.

What are all the steps by which man advances himself by degrees towards perfection but refinements ?-refinements in his wants, modes of living, his clothing, dwelling, furniture ?-refinements of his mind and his heart, of his sentiments and his passions, of his language, morals, customs, and pleasures?

What an advance from the first hut to a palace of Palladio's!—from the canoe of a Carribbean to a ship of the line!-from the three rude

idols, as the Boeotians, in the olden times, represented their protecting goddesses and the Graces of Praxiteles !—from a village of the Hottentots or wild Indians to a city like London!-from the ornaments of a female of New Zealand to a splendid dress of a Sultana!-from the language of a native of Tahiti to that of a Homer, a Virgil, a Tasso, a Milton, and a Voltaire!

Through what innumerable degrees of refinement must man and his works have proceeded, before they had placed this almost immeasurable distance behind them!

The love of embellishment and refinement, and the dissatisfaction with a lower degree as soon as a higher has been recognised, are the only true and most simple motives by which man has advanced to what we see him. Every people who have become civilised are a proof of this principle; and if any such are to be found, who, without peculiar physical or moral hindrances, continue in the same state of unimproveability, or betray a complete want of impulse to improvement, we must needs consider them rather as a sort of human animals than as actually men of our race and species.

224.-GOOD AND BAD FORTUNE.

PETRARCH.

[FRANCESCO PETRARCA is one of the greatest names of modern Europe:

"In an age

Of savage warfare and blind bigotry,
He cultured all that could refine, exalt;
Leading to better things."

So says justly the poet of Italy.' The character of Petrarch's poetry was mainly determined by his passion for Laura-a romantic history not to be told in a paragraph. His eminent services to mankind, as one of the restorers of learning, exhibit the union, which pertains to the highest intellects alone, of the imaginative with the practical. The following passage is from the dedication to his friend Azzo da Correggio, of his Treatise on the Remedies of Good and Bad Fortune,' as translated in Mrs. Dobson's Life of Petrarch."]

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When I consider the instability of human affairs, and the variations of fortune, I find nothing more uncertain or restless than the life of man.

Nature has given to animals an excellent remedy under disasters, which is the ignorance of them. We seem better treated in intelligence, foresight, and memory. No doubt these are admirable presents; but they often annoy more than they assist us. A prey to unuseful or distressing cares, we are tormented by the present, the past, and the future; and, as if we feared we should not be miserable enough, we join to the evil we suffer the remembrance of a former distress; and the apprehension of some future calamity. This is the Cerberus with three heads we combat without ceasing. Our life might be gay and happy if we would but we eagerly seek subjects of affliction, to render it irksome and melancholy. We pass the first years of this life in the shades of ignorance, the succeeding ones in pain and labour, the latter part in grief and remorse, and the whole in error: nor do we suffer ourselves to possess one bright day without a cloud.

Let us examine this matter with sincerity, and we shall agree that our distresses chiefly arise from ourselves. It is virtue alone which can render us superior to Fortune: we quit her standard, and the combat is no longer equal. Fortune mocks us; she turns us on her wheel; she raises and abases us at her pleasure, but her power is founded on our weakness This is an old-rooted evil, but it is not incurable : there is nothing a firm and elevated mind cannot accomplish. The discourse of the wise and the study of good books are the best remedies I know of; but to these we must join the consent of the soul, without which the best advice will be useless. What gratitude do we not owe to those great men who, though dead many ages before live with us by their works, discourse with us, are our masters and guides, and serve us as pilots in the navigation of life, where our vessel is agitated without ceasing by the storms of our passions! It is here that true philosophy brings us to a safe port, by a sure and easy passage; not like that of the schools, which, raising us on its airy and deceitful wings, and causing us to hover on the clouds of frivolous dispute, lets us fall without any light or instruction in the same place where she took us up.

us,

Dear friend, I do not attempt to exhort you to the study I judge so important. Nature has given you a taste for all knowledge, but Fortune has denied you the leisure to acquire it: yet, whenever you could steal a moment from public affairs, you sought the conversation of wise men; and I have remarked, that your memory often served you instead

of books. It is, therefore, unnecessary to invite you to do what you have always done; but, as we cannot retain all we hear or read, it may be useful to furnish your mind with some maxims that may best serve to arm you against the assaults of misfortune. The vulgar, and even philosophers, have decided, that adverse fortune was most difficult to sustain. For my own part I am of a different opinion, and believe it more easy to support adversity than prosperity; and that fortune is more treacherous and dangerous when she caresses than when she dis mays. Experience has taught me this, not books or arguments. I have seen many persons sustain great losses, poverty, exile, tortures, death, and even disorders that were worse than death, with courage; but I have seen none whose heads have not been turned by power, riches, and honours. How often have we beheld those overthrown by good fortune, who could never be shaken by bad! This made me wish to learn how to support a great fortune. You know the short time this work has taken. I have been less attentive to what might shine than to what might be useful on this subject. Truth and virtue are the wealth of all men; and shall I not discourse on these with my dear Azon? I would prepare for you, as in a little portable box, a friendly antidote against the poison of good and bad fortune. The one requires a rein to repress the sallies of a transported soul; the other a consolation to fortify the overwhelmed and afflicted spirit.

Nature gave you, my friend, the heart of a king, but she gave you not a kingdom, of which therefore Fortune could not deprive you. But I doubt whether our age can furnish an example of worse or better treatment from her than yourself. In the first part of your life you were blest with an admirable constitution and astonishing health and vigour some years after we beheld you thrice abandoned by the physicians, who despaired of your life. The heavenly Physician, who was your sole resource, restored your health, but not your former strength. You were then called iron-footed, for your singular force and agility: you are now bent, and lean upon the shoulders of those whom you formerly supported. Your country beheld you one day its governor, the next an exile. Princes disputed for your friendship, and afterwards conspired your ruin. You lost by death the greatest part of your friends; the rest, according to custom, deserted you in calamity. To these misfortunes was added a violent disease, which attacked you when destitute of all succours, at a distance from your country and

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