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lives that it ran much faster than it does. Several hours of the day hang upon our hands, nay we wish away whole years; and travel through time as through a country filled with many wild and empty wastes, which we would fain hurry over, that we may arrive at those several little settlements or imaginary points of rest which are dispersed up and down in it.

If we divide the life of most men into twenty parts, we shall find that at least nineteen of them are mere gaps and chasms, which are neither filled with pleasure nor business. I do not however include in this calculation the life of those men who are in a perpetual hurry of affairs, but of those only who are not always engaged in scenes of action; and I hope I shall not do an unacceptable piece of service to these persons, if I point out to them certain methods for the filling up their empty spaces of life. pose to them are as follow.

The methods I shall pro

The first is the exercise of virtue, in the most general acceptation of the word. That particular scheme which comprehends the social virtues may give employment to the most industrious temper, and find a man in business more than the most active station of life. To advise the ignorant, relieve the needy, comfort the afflicted, are duties that fall in our way almost every day of our lives. A man has frequent opportunities of mitigating the fierceness of a party; of doing justice to the character of a deserving man; of softening the envious, quieting the angry, and rectifying the prejudiced; which are all of them employments suited to a reasonable nature, and bring great satisfaction to the person who can busy himself in them with dis

cretion.

There is another kind of virtue that may find employment

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ployment for those retired hours in which we are altogether left to ourselves, and destitute of company and conversation; I mean that intercourse and communication which every reasonable creature ought to maintain with the great Author of his being. The man who lives under a habitual sense of the divine presence keeps up a perpetual cheerfulness of temper, and enjoys every moment the satisfaction of thinking himself in company with his dearest and best of friends. The time never lies heavy upon him: it is impossible for him to be alone. His thoughts and passions are the most busied at such hours when those of other men are the most unactive. He no sooner steps out of the world but his heart burns with devotion, swells with hope, and triumphs in the consciousness of that presence which every where surrounds him; or, on the contrary, pours out its fears, its sorrows, its apprehensions, to the great supporter of its existence.

I have here only considered the necessity of a man's being virtuous, that he may have something to do; but if we consider further, that the exercise of virtue is not only an amusement for the time it lasts, but that its influence extends to those parts of our existence which lie beyond the grave, and that our whole eter‐. nity is to take its colour from those hours which we here employ in virtue or in vice, the argument redoubles upon us for putting in practice this method of passing away our time.

When a man has but a little stock to improve, and has opportunities of turning it all to good account, what shall we think of him if he suffers nineteen parts of it to lie dead, and perhaps employs even the twen-. tieth to his ruin or disadvantage? But because themind cannot be always in its fervours, nor strained up

to

to call honest people names; for that bears very hard on some of those rules of decency which you are justly famous for establishing. They may find fault, and correct speeches in the senate, and at the bar; but let them try to get themselves so often, and with so much eloquence, repeated in a sentence, as a great orator doth frequently introduce me.

My lords! (says he) with humble submission, That that I say is this; that, That that that gentleman has advanced, is not That that he should have proved to your lordships. Let those two questionary petitioners try to do thus with their Whos and their Whiches.

What great advantage was I of to Mr. Dryden in his Indian Emperor,

You force me still to answer you in That,

to furnish out a rhyme to Morat! And what a poor figure would Mr. Bayes have made without his Egad, and all That! How can a judicious man distinguish one thing from another, without saying This here, or That there? And how can a sober man, without using the expletives of oaths (in which indeed the rakes and bullies have a great advantage over others), make a discourse of any tolerable length, without That is; and, if he be a very grave man indeed, without That is to say? And how instructive as well as entertaining are those usual expressions in the mouths of great men, Such things as That, and The like of That!

I am not against reforming the corruptions of speech you mention, and own there are proper seasons for the introduction of other words besides That; but I scom as much to supply the place of a Who or a Which at every turn, as they are unequal always to fill mine; and I expect good language and civil treat

ment,

ment, and hope to receive it for the future: That, that

I shall only add is, that I am,

STEELE.

• Yours,

• That.'

PARTY PATCHING. No. 81.

ABOUT the middle of last winter I went to see an opera at the theatre in the Haymarket, where I could not but take notice of two parties of very fine women that had placed themselves in the opposite side-boxes, and seemed drawn up in a kind of battle-array one against another. After a short survey of them, I found they were patched differently; the faces on one hand being spotted on the right side of the forehead, and those upon the other on the left. I quickly perceived that they cast hostile glances upon one another; and that their patches were placed in those different situations, as party-signals to distinguish friends from foes. In the middle-boxes, between these two opposite bodies, were several ladies who patched indifferently on both sides of their faces, and seemed to sit there with no other intention but to see the opera. Upon inquiry, I found that the body of Amazons on my right hand were whigs, and those on my left tories; and that those who had placed themselves in the middle. boxes were a neutral party, whoes faces had not yet declared themselves. These last, however, as I afterwards found, diminished daily, and took their party with one side or the other; insomuch that I observed in several of them, the patches, which were before dispersed

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spersed equally, are now all gone over to the whig or tory side of the face. The censorious say that the men, whose hearts are aimed at, are very often the occasions that one part of the face is thus dishonoured, and lies under a kind of disgrace, while the other is so much set off and adorned by the owner; and that the patches turn to the right or to the left, according to the principles of the man who is most in favour. But, whatever may be the motives of a few fantastical coquettes, who do not patch for the public good so much as for their own private advantage, it is certain that there are several women of honour who patch out of principle, and with an eye to the interest of their country. Nay, I am informed that some of them adhere so stedfastly to their party, and are so far from sacrificing their zeal for the public to their passion for any particular person, that in a late draught of marriage articles a lady has stipulated with her husband, that, whatever his opinions are, she shall be at liberty to patch on which side she pleases.

I must here take notice, that Rosalinda, a famous whig partisan, has most unfortunately a very beautiful mole on the tory part of her forehead; which being very conspicuous, has occasioned many mistakes, and given a handle to her enemies to misrepresent her face, as though it had revolted from the whig interest. But, whatever this natural patch may seem to intimate, it is well known that her notions of government are still the same. This unlucky mole however has misicd several coxcombs, and, like the hanging out of false colours, made some of them converse with Roslinda in what they thought the spirit of her party, when on a sudden she has given them an unexpected fire, that has sunk them all at once. If Rosalinda is unfortu

nate

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