he was neither unenlightened in his mind nor vulgar in his habits; but enriched with general information, and possess ed of true English principles, he was respected by the first characters, and received in the first circles. "Infancy, without reason, cannot be supposed sensible of much deep or lasting misery, or of much ennobled and refined pleasure; and the days of my childhood glided away, like those of others, in the same monotonous succession of frivolous pursuits and unvaried occupations; I was placed at a seminary, under the direction of a man alike eminent for his piety as a divine, his erudition as a scholar, his urbanity as a member of society, and his solicitude as a preceptor. "Few left this truly good man without regret, even by the worst dispositions, his memory will lorg be reverencedby the rest he will never be forgotten. 66 Taught by the cruel familiarization this truth, in all the changes and chances of life, through the progress of above sixty years, how oft, with unavailing grief, have I reflected on these moments as the happiest of existence. With the brightest expectations for the future, and with anxieties then only extending to the present; overcome with the remembrance of such hours, how often have I dropped the tear, how many sighs breathed in useless regret of felicity for ever fled! and days for ever past! It is true, that at fifteen I sighed for the moment of manhood. In possession of a youthful mind, full of the liveliest expectancies and the most exhilarating prospects, picturing to myself the pleasures of free and uncontrolled maturity, I longed to be my own adviser and my own agent. I had before me the ocean of existence unruffled, and the sky of fortune unclouded. In imagination, my projects were already crowned with the happiest results. Glowing with fancy, I beheld in the world no cares; in its inhabitants no guile. But at one and twenty, I soon saw that the sea of life was not always without storm, nor the atmosphere of fortune constantly' without cloud. In boyhood, I had found among my companions firm friends or undisguised enemies; and in riper years, I naturally expected to have found amity more faithful and hostility more generous: but, on the contrary, I soon perceived that in friendship there was less fidelity, and in en-, mity more rancour; and I now experienced for the first time of my existence, that the former was not unfrequently assumed, nor the latter rarely disguised, till either interested" motives discovered the pretences of the one, or opportunities of injury declared the dissimulation of the other. My ear listened to the voice of love; and I learnt that this also, was neither a stranger to simulation nor insensible to selfinterest. "In the world I had fondly imagined to have seen worth properly appreciated and meritorious exertions fairly rewarded-to have beheld baseness reprobated and dishonourable conduct meet with execration. To my surprise, however, I soon saw that, in the general estimation, opu lence could exalt vice and penury degrade virtue; that sycophants were not wanting to exculpate the villanies of the one, nor calumniators to asperse the other; but what was. my astonishment when I beheld the professors of upright and sincere principles shrinking from the virtuous because obscure, and cringing to the base because prosperous. "Chilled by neglect and hardened by disappointment, disregarded and disregarding, I proposed by domestic life to make myself at once more independent of the world and more happy. Thus at thirty I became a husband; but I soon found, that if by marriage I had improved my felicity, I had at the same time increased my cares, Sickness and confined resources with a wife and five children were not to be supposed without anxiety; whilst death that robbed me of some, and calamity that divided me from the rest, were events the recollection of which reason could alone soften and years alone reconcile. To age, therefore, as a state resigned by experience and matured by judgment, I naturally looked forward, with the benevolent author of Spurinna and the sage Cicero, for the repose of life and the cessation of anxiety. But at sixty-six I find myself visited with infirmi, ties, gloomy in my thoughts, more irritable in my disposition, and, consequently, less agreeable to those around me. "Thus infancy destitute of reason and devoid of sensibi lity; puberty met with disappointment; and feebleness both of frame and intellect attendant on senility; the period of existence included between childhood and maturity, undeceived and undeceiving, replete with hope and unaccompa nied with vexation, is a state, therefore, the most enviable, as the most felicitous. "Youth! could you but know the cares of more advanced years, the self-inflicted stings of vicious courses, or the defeat of honest enterprize; could you but feel the coldness of the world and the ingratitude of man, the faithlessness of professed friendships and the infidelities of interested affections, the vicissitudes of fortune, the bitterness of indigence and the responsibility of riches, the pangs of disease and the imbecility of age; could you but feel these, how would you appreciate your condition! vigorous in mind and strong in constitution; glowing with health and abounding in spirits; if under some restraint, yet all innocent and without inquie tude; in action more confined, but in conscicnce more free, Could you be sensible that opulence with all its profusion, and title with all its pomp, damped by pride and dis turbed by envy, were little better than gilded peril and glossed anxiety; how would you reprobate the moment when you repined at life like yours. Could you experience, with myself, that the blandishment of riper years were more than overbalanced by the perplexities; how soon would you repent the change, and fly to a condition which, crowned with a thousand joys, is acquainted with no deceit, and attended with no solicitude." TO THE MOON. Slow rose the moon above the ocean's spray, Full orb'd, commenc'd her bright nocturnal race; And now the vast majestic dome displays. O'er sleeping billows wide her light had spread "Twas broad Atlantic's bosom seen afar, No longer now the mists of eve had riven From mortal sight the sparkling spheres of Heaven; They pour'd their transient radiance round the sky, And thus the bark, with ev'ry sail unfurl'd, L Before her sweeping bow were sportive seen 7 C Now rode on high the tropic-belted Moon, The Amusing Chronicle is published at No. 6, Gilbert's Passage, Portugal Street, and served at the houses of the subscribers, in the same manner as newspapers and magazines. |