ence-That seriousness is the greatest wisdom, temperance the best physic, and a good conscience the best estate. And, were I to live again, I would change the court for a cloister; my privy counsellor's bustle for a hermit's retirement, and the whole life I have lived in the palace for an hour's enjoyment of GOD in the chapel*." 30. PHILIP the Third, King of Spain, when he drew near the end of his days, expressed his deep regret for a careless and worldly life in the following emphatical words:-" Ah! how happy would it have been for me had I spent these twenty-three years, that I have held my kingdom, in a retirement!" 31. Cardinal MAZARINE, one of the greatest statesmen in Europe, cried out a little before his death with astonishment and tears:-" Oh! my poor soul! what will become of thee? Whither wilt thou go? Were I to live again I would be a capuchin rather than a courtier." 32. GEORGE VILLIERS, the younger, Duke of Buckingham, was the richest man, and one of the greatest wits in the * JAMES Earl of Marlborough, who was killed in a battle at sea on the coast of Holland, A.D. 1665, having a kind of presentiment of his own death, wrote to his friend Sir HUGH POLLARD a letter, of which the following is an extract:-" I will not speak aught of the vanity of this world; your own age and experience will save that labour; but there is a certain thing that goeth up and down the world, called Religion, dressed and pretended fantastically, and to purposes bad enough, which yet by such evil dealing loseth not its being. Moreover, God in his infinite mercy hath given us his Holy Word, in which, as there are many things hard to be understood, so there is enough plain and easy to quiet our minds, and direct us concerning our future being. I confess to GOD and you, I have been a great neglecter, and I fear, a despiser of it. GOD, of his infinite mercy, pardon me the dreadful fault. But when I retired myself from the noise and deceitful vanity of the world, I found no comfort in any other resolution than what I had from thence. I commend from the bottom of my heart, the same to your happy use. Dear Sir HUGH, let us be more generous than to believe we die as the beasts that perish; but with a Christian, manly, brave resolution, look to what is eternal. I will not trouble you further. Shew this letter to my friends, and to whom you please. The only great GOD, and holy GOD, FATHER, SON, and HOLY GHOST, direct you to a happy end of your life, and send us a joyful resurrection. court of CHARLES H.; and yet such were his vices and extravagancies, that before he died, he was reduced to poverty and general contempt. In this situation, however, he seems to have been brought to a sense of his folly, and the danger of his condition, from the letter which he wrote to Dr. BARLOW, of whom he had a high opinion*, on his death-bed; and which is well worth the attention of every man of pleasure and dissipation. "DEAR DOCTOR, "I always looked upon you as a man of true virtue; and know you to be a person of sound judgment. For, however I may act in opposition to the principles of religion, or the dictates of reason, I can honestly assure you I had always the highest veneration for both. The world and I may shake hands, for I dare affirm we are heartily weary of each other. O Doctor, what a prodigal have I been of the most valuable of all possessions, Time! I have squandered it away with a persuasion it was lasting; and now, when a few days would be worth a hetacomb of worlds, I cannot flatter myself with a prospect of half a dozen hours, "How despicable is that man who never prays to his GOD, but in the time of his distress! In what manner can he supplicate that omnipotent BEING in his affliction with reverence, whom, in the tide of his prosperity, he never remembered with dread? Do not brand me with infidelity, when I tell you I am almost ashamed to offer up my petitions to the throne of grace; or of imploring that divine mercy in the next world which I have so scandalously abused in this. Shall ingratitude to man be looked on as the blackest of crimes, and not ingratitude to GOD? Shall an insult offered to the king be looked on in the most offensive light; and yet no notice taken when the KING of kings is treated with indignity and disrespect? "The companions of my former libertinism would scarce believe their eyes, were you to shew them this epistle. They would laugh at me as a dreaming enthusiast, or pity me as a timorous wretch, who was shocked at the appearance of futurity. They are more entitled to my pity than my resent * This appears in a very strong light from the anecdote which is recorded concerning the Doctor's preaching before King CHARLES the Second, and the Duke's severe address to him. ment. A future state may very well strike terror into any man who has not acted well in this life; and he must have an uncommon share of courage indeed, who does not shrink at the presence of GOD. "You see, my dear Doctor, the apprehensions of death will soon bring the most profligate to a proper use of their understanding. I am haunted by remorse, despised by my acquaintance, and, I fear, forsaken by my GOD. There is nothing so dangerous, my dear Doctor, as extraordinary abilities. I cannot be accused of vanity now, by being sensible that I was once possessed of uncommon qualifications; as I sincerely regret that I was ever blessed with any at all. My rank in life still inade these accomplishments more conspicuous; and, fascinated with the general applause which they procured, I never considered about the proper means by which they should be displayed. Hence, to purchase a smile from a blockhead, whom I despised, I have frequently treated the virtuous with disrespect; and sported with the holy name of Heaven, to obtain a laugh from a parcel of fools, who were entitled to nothing but my contempt. "Your men of wit, my dear Doctor, look on themselves as discharged from the duties of Religion; and confine the doctrines of the Gospel to people of meaner understandings; and look on that man to be of a narrow genius who studies to be good. What a pity that the Holy Writings are not made the criterion of true judgment! Favour me, my dear Doctor, with a visit as soon as possible. Writing to you gives me some ease. I am of opinion this is the last visit I shall ever solicit from you. My distemper is powerful. Come and pray for the departing spirit of the unhappy-BUCKINGHAM*." *This Nobleman is described to have been a gay, capricious person, of some wit, and great vivacity. He was the minister of riot, and counsellor of infamous practices; the slave of intemperance, a pretended Atheist, without honour or principle, œconomy or discretion. At last, deserted by all his friends, and despised by all the world, he died in the greatest want and obscurity. It is of him tha Mr. POPE says: "In the worst inn's worst room, with mat half hung, Great VILLIERS lies; Alas! how chang'd from him; 33. We have also an uncommon alarm given us in a Letter from another Nobleman, but whose name is concealed from motives of delicacy, on his death-bed, to an intimate companion; which no man can seriously read, and not find himself deeply affected. I will produce it at length. "DEAR SIR, "Before you receive this, my final state will be determined by the JUDGE of all the earth. In a few days at most, perhaps in a few hours, the inevitable sentence will be past, There, victor of his health, of fortune, friends Besides ten thousand freaks that died in thinking.". WENTWORTH DILLON, Earl of Roscommon, contemporary with BUCKINGHAM, was also a man of considerable learning and abilities, but a man of dissipation and licentious principles. He addicted himself immoderately to gaming, by which he was engaged in frequent quarrels, and brought into no little distress. But, however we may be disposed to play the devil when we are in no apparent danger, there is a time coming, when we shall all see things in a more serious point of view. Accordingly, we are told, at the moment this merry Nobleman expired, he was constrained to utter, with an energy of voice, that expressed the most ardent devotion "My GOD, my FATHER, and my FRIEND, Do not forsake me in the end!" Something like the case of BUCKINGHAM and ROSCOMMON likewise, was the last scene of JOHN SHEFFIELD, Duke of Buckingham, who died in the reign of GEORGE the First, if we may credit the lines inscribed by his own order on his monument— "Dubius, sed non improbus vixi. ENS ENTIUM, miserere mei!" Sir RICHARD STEEL hath given us another affecting confession of a dying Infidel, in No. LXXXI. of the Guardian; and a humorous account of two other gentlemen of the same cast in Nos. CXI. and CXXXV. of the Tutler, which the reader may consult at his pleasure. that shall raise me to the heights of happiness, or sink me to the depths of misery. While you read these lines, I shall be either groaning under the agonies of absolute despair, or triumphing in fulness of joy. "It is impossible for me to express the present disposition of my soul-the vast uncertainty I am struggling with! No words can paint the force and vivacity of my apprehensions. Every doubt wears the face of horror, and would perfectly overwhelm me, but for some faint beams of hope, which dart across the tremendous gloom! What tongue can utter the anguish of a soul suspended between the extremes of infinite joy and eternal misery? I am throwing my last stake for eternity, and tremble and shudder for the important event. "Good GOD! how have I employed myself! what enchantment hath held me? In what delirium has my life been past? What have I been doing, while the sun in its race and the stars in their courses, have lent their beams, perhaps only to light me to perdition. "I never awaked till now. I have but just commenced the dignity of a rational being. Till this instant 1 had a wrong apprehension of every thing in nature. I have pursued shadows, and entertained myself with dreams. I have been treasuring up dust, and sporting myself with the wind. I look back on my past life, and but for some memorials of infamy and guilt, it is all a blank-a perfect vacancy! I might have grazed with the beasts of the field, or sung with the winged inhabitants in the woods, to much better purpose than any for which I have lived. And, Oh! but for some faint hope, a thousand times more blessed had I been, to have slept with the clods of the valley, and never heard the ALMIGHTY'S fiat; nor waked into life at his command! . "I never had a just apprehension of the solemnity of the part I am to act till now. I have often met death insulting on the hostile plain, and, with a stupid boast, defied his terrors; with a courage, as brutal as that of the warlike horse, I have rushed into the battle, laughed at the glittering spear, and rejoiced at the sound of the trumpet, nor had a thought of any state beyond the grave, nor the great tribunal to which I must have been summoned; Where all my secret guilt had been reveal'd, |