position, to what was his religion, or what his portion of liberty; and, though it may move the censure of many, I would sooner trust a wellnatured, open-hearted Turk, than a cold, calculating, ascetic Christian. Then as to happiness, my travels convinced me how very little real difference is made in the sum of it, by rank, fame, or fortune. A Duke or a link-boy has the same passions, ambition, disappointments, affections, and sufferings; and it depends entirely upon themselves whether the amount of their happiness shall not be the same. The whole is in the mind, and the minds of all ranks are equally disposed to happiness from nature. Hence, therefore, inequality of happiness is a work of our own, and altogether artificial; and all who are content have equality, spite of appearances. It is the wish for change, the panting after what we have not, or the hankering after what we have had, that generates uneasiness sometimes unbearable. He who rises in his station, a little and a little higher, though his original was the very lowest, is more gratified than he who is born in the highest class, and cannot change without descending. Alexander wept because he had no more worlds to conquer. Had he been a serjeant of Alexander, instead of Alexander himself, he would

not have wept. When Turenne was killed, one of his own drummers contented himself with saying, Eh bien, voilà un pas de gagné." Monticululli, who had opposed Turenne, had no such comfort; he was left without a rival, could reap no more laurels, and sheathed his sword.

Thus there is in reality no inequality of happiness in the world, as far as in equality of lot is concerned; all the rest belongs to ourselves.

Then what is the secret? Why are we perpetually struggling, and, therefore, un-happy? The philosopher answers, because of the false estimate of things, that often appears in the wisest and best reasoned theories of what is or is not the summum bonum; while mere animal spirits, youth, innocence, health, and fair weather (the last by no means the least of the ingredients,) tell us every thing we wish to know, better than all the treatises that ever were composed.

Were I to say, then, who was the happiest, I should point at him who had least irritability; at him

"Who Fortune's buffets and rewards

Had ta'en with equal thanks."

It may be said, this militates against the gifts of I do not undervalue them, but not the

reason.

less do I think of the lamb, gay and frolic, though doomed to the knife.

"Had he thy reason, would he skip and play ?"

It is this skip and play of life which, while it lasts, carries it hollow before all the doctors, both the proctors, and all the grave personages that ever visited the cave of Trophonius. It is here that I found happiness, as far as I could find it, in its most genuine and unadulterated form.

But, says a theorist, you confine yourself, then, to youth, and frolic, and animal spirits; to tipsy dance and jollity; you do not embrace the whole of your subject, and look not at misery, though so unavoidable. You are, therefore, a mere partial describer, not a philosopher.

Not so; I have not forgot the misery, though I paint what I think the more obvious and universal source of happiness. And if I am a partial painter, you will please to recollect I undertook to be no more. My object was to rouse the game, leaving it to others to describe its nature and qualities. This I have done; with what success, let other huntsmen decide.

But the chase is at an end. Again behold me in England; that England, once the seat of many a joy and many a sorrow; that England where I

288:

FIELDING; OR, SOCIETY.

first breathed, and first loved, and lost all that I loved; that country, (alas! no longer dear,) where, in my days of hope, I saw, or thought I saw,

"Such forms as glitter in the Muse's ray;"

forms that beckoned me to deeds of high emprise, leading, as they said, to happiness and fame; happiness often enjoyed, too often defeated. These I still see, though now only in memory, and must not think to look upon their like again. Farewell, then,

"Sweet, radiant Forms, whose looks so bright and pure,

Still seem to watch and cheer my evening road;

For still one joy remains, that not obscure

Nor useless all, my vacant years have flow'd.".

THE END OF FIELDING.

289

APPENDIX.

Note, page 282.

The au

THE Editor is under a doubt here, whether or not to notice some strictures upon the conduct of the amiable Sovereign of Nassau, which he has read with concern, not from their cogency, (for never was anything less tenable, either in fact or argument,) but because the writer, in other respects, shows himself an amusing traveller. thor of the publication called My Note-Book,' allows he has "heard many travellers lauding the Duke of Nassau; and has read passages in books, holding him up as a model for all Princes to imitate." He also believes that the Duke is a very quiet, unostentatious sort of a gentleman; for he knows that he descends from his hunting-seat, die Platte, to dine at the table d'hôte of the Kursaal.

Here, then, we have the amiable picture of a Sovereign Prince, divesting himself of his insignia