abject spirits will despise you for those distresses, for which the generous mind will pity, and endeavour to befriend you; a hint, to whom only you should disclose, and from whom you should conceal them. Yet, perhaps, in general, it may be prudent to conceal them from persons of an opposite party. The sacrificing of our anger to our interest is oftentimes no more than the exchange of a painful passion for a pleasurable one. There are not five in five hundred that pity, but, at the same time, also despise; a reason that you should be cautious to whom and where you complain. The farthest a prudent man should proceed in general, is to laugh at some of his own foibles: when this may be a mean of removing envy from the more important parts of his character. Effeminacy of appearance, and an excessive attention to the minuter parts of dress, is, I believe, properly, in the general run, esteemed a symptom of irresolution. But, yet, instances are seen to abound in the French nation to the contrary. And in our own, that of Lord Mark Kerr was an instance equal to a thousand. A snuffbox hinge, rendered invisible, was an object on which his happiness appeared to turn; which, however, might be clouded by a speck of dirt, or wounded by a hole in the heel of his stocking. Yet this man's intrepidity was shewn beyond all contradiction. What shall we say then of Mr. Gray, of manners very delicate, yet possessed of a poetic vein fraught with the noblest and sublimest images, and of a mind remarkably well stored with the more masculine parts of learning?—Here, perhaps, we must remain in suspense.-For tho' taste does not imply manners, so neither does it preclude them: or what

hinders that a man should feel that same delicacy in regard to real honour, which he does in regard to dress? If beneficence be not in a person's will, what imports it to mankind, that it is ever so much in his power? And yet we see how much more regard is generally paid to a worthless man of fortune, than to the most benevolent beggar that ever uttered an ineffectual blessing. It is all agreeable to Mr. Burke's thesis, that the formidable idea of power affects more deeply than the most beautiful image we can conceive of moral virtue. A person that is not merely stupid, is naturally under the influence of the acute passions, or the slow.-The principle of revenge is meant for the security of the individual; and supposing a person has not courage to put it immediately into practice, he commonly strives to make himself remarkable for the perseverance of his resentment. Both these have the same

motive to impress a dread on our enemies of injuring us for the future: and tho' the world be more inclined to favour the rash than the phlegmatic enemy, it is hard to say which of the two has given rise to more dismal consequences. The reason of this partiality may be deduced from the same original, as the preference that is given to down-right impudence before hyprocrisy. To be cheated into an ill-placed esteem, or to be undermined by concealed malignity, discovers a contempt for our understanding, and lessens the idea we entertain of it ourselves. They hurt our pride more than open violence or undisguised impudence. King James the First, willing to involve the regal power in mystery, that, like natural objects, it might appear greater through the fog, declared it presumption for a subject to say,

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"what a king might do in the fulness of his power.” —This was absurd; but it seems presumption in a man of the world, to say what means a man of nius may think instrumental to his happiness. Wused to say, it was presumption for him to make conjectures on the occasion. A person of refinement seems to have his pleasures distinct from the common run of men: what the world calls important is to him wholly frivolous; and what the world esteems. frivolous, seems essential to his tranquillity. The apparatus of a funeral among the middle rank of people, and sometimes among the great, bas one effect that is not frivolous. It in some measure dissipates and draws off the attention from the main object of concern. Weaker minds find a sort of relief in being compelled to give directions about the manner of interment and the grave solemnity of the hearse, plumes, and escutcheons, tho' they add to the force of terror diminish that of simple grief.

There are some people whom you cannot regard, tho' they seem desirous to oblige you; nay, even tho' they do you actual services. This is the case wherever their sentiments are too widely different from your own. Thus a person truly avaricious can never make himself truly agreeable to one enamoured with the arts and sciences. A person of exquisite sensibility and tenderness can never be truly pleased with another of no feelings; who can see the most intimate of his friends or kindred expire without any greater pain than if he had beheld a pitcher broken. These, properly speaking, can be said to feel nothing but the point of a sword; and one could more easily pardon them, if this apathy were the effect of philosophy, and not want of thought. But what I would

inculcate is, with tempers thus different one should never attempt any close connection:

"Lupis & agnis quanta sortito obtigit,

tecum mihi discordia est."

Yet it may be a point of prudence to shew them civility, and allow a toleration to their various propensities. To converse much with them would not only be painful, but tend to injure your own disposition: and to aim at obtaining their applause, would only make your character inconsistent. There are

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some people who find a gloomy kind of pleasure in glouting, which could hardly be encreased by the satisfaction of having their wishes granted. This is, seemingly, a bad character, and yet often connected with a sense of honour, of conscious merit, with warm gratitude, great sincerity, and many other valuable qualities. There is a degree of understanding in women, with which one not only ought to be contented, but absolutely pleased.-One would not, in them, require the unfathomable abyss. worst consequence of gratifying our passions, in regard to objects of an indifferent nature, is, that it causes them to proceed with greater violence towards other and other objects; and so ad infinitum. wish, for my pocket, an elegant etui; and gold to remove the pain of wishing, and partake the pleasure of enjoyment. money, for which I have less regard; but the gratification of this wish would generate fifty others that would be ruinous. See Epictetus; who, therefore, advises to resist the first. Virtue and agreeableness are, I fear, too often separated; that is, externals affect and captivate the fancy, where internal worth is wanting, to engage and attach one's reason.

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I would part with the purchase

གང བར བ པ ས བ

-A most perplexing circumstance; and no where more remarkable, than when we see a wise man totally enslaved by the beauty of a person he despises. I know not whether encreasing years do not cause one to esteem fewer people, and bear with more.

Quere, whether friendship for the sex do not tend to lessen the sensual appetite; and vice versâ. I think, I never knew an instance of great quickness of parts being joined with great solidity. The most rapid rivers are seldom or never deep. Το be at once a rake, and to glory in the character, discovers at the same time a bad disposition and a bad taste. There are persons who slide insensibly into a habit of contradiction. Their first endeavour, on hearing aught asserted, is to discover wherein it may be plausibly disputed. This, they imagine, gives an air of great sagacity; and if they can mingle a jest with contradiction, think they display great superiority. One should be cautious against the advances of this kind of propensity, which loses us friends, in a matter generally of no consequence.

The solicitude of peers to preserve, or to exalt, their rank, is esteemed no other than a manly and becoming ambition. The care of commoners, on the same subject, is deemed either vanity, formality, or pride.

An income for life only seems the best calculated for the circumstances and situation of mortal man: the farther property in an estate encreases the difficulty of disengaging our affections from this world, and of thinking in the manner we ought to think of a system from which we must be entirely separated: "I trust that sinking fund, my life."-Pope.

Surprise quickens enjoyment, and expectation banishes surprise; this is the simple reason why few