tracts debts which we cannot repay; it calls that a good, which when we have found it, will in fact add nothing to our happiness.

To enjoy the prefent, without regret for the paft, or folicitude for the future, has been the advice rather of poets than philofophers. And yet the precept seems more rational than is generally imagined. It is the only general precept refpecting the pursuit of happinefs, that can be applied with propriety to every condition of life. The man of pleafure, the man of business, and the philofopher are equally interested in its difquifition. If we do not find happiness in the prefent moment, in what shall we find it; either in reflecting on the paft, or prognofticating the future. But let us fee how these are capable of producing fatisfaction.

A remembrance of what is paft, and an anticipation of what is to come, feem to be the two faculties by which man differs moft from other animals. Though brutes enjoy them in a limited degree, yet their whole life feems taken up in the prefent, regardless of the paft and the future. Man, on the contrary, endeavours to derive his happiness, and experiences most of his miferies from thefe two fources.

Is this fuperiority of reflection a prerogative of which we fhould boaft, and for which we fhould thank Nature; or is it a misfortune of which we fhould complain and be humble. Either from the abufe, or from the nature of things, it certainly makes our condition more miferable.

Had we a privilege of calling up, by the power of memory, only fuch paffages as were pleasing, unmixed with fuch as were difagreeable, we might then excite at pleasure an ideal happiness, perhaps more poignant than actual fenfation. But this is not the cafe; the paft is never reprefented without fome disagreeable circumftances, which tarnishes all

its beauty; the remembrance of an evil carries in it nothing agreeable, and to remember a good is always accompanied with regret. Thus we lofe more than we gain by the remembrance.

And we fhall find our expectation of the future to be a gift more diftrefsful even than the former. To fear an approaching evil is certainly a moft difagreeable fenfation; and in expecting an approaching good, we experience the inquietude of wanting actual poffeffion.

Thus, whichever way we look, the profpect is difagreeable. Behind we have left pleasures we fhall never more enjoy, and therefore regret; and before we fee pleatures which we languifh to poffefs, and are confcquently uneafy till we poffefs them. Was there any method of feizing the prefent, unembitterred by fuch reflections, then would our state be tolerably easy.

This, indeed, is the endeavour of all mankind, who untutored by philofophy, purfue as much as they can a life of amufement and diilipation. Every rank in life, and every fize of understanding feems to follow this alone; or not pursuing it, deviates from happinefs. The man of pleasure purfues diffipation by profeffion; the man of business purfues it not lefs, as every voluntary labour he undergoes is only diffipation in difguife. The philofopher himself, even while he reafons upon the fubject, does it unknowingly with a view of diffipating the thoughts of what he was, or what he muft be.

The subject therefore comes to this. Which is the most perfect fort of diffipation: pleasure, bufinefs, or philofophy; which beft ferves to exclude thofe uneafy fenfations, which memory or anticipation produce.

The enthusiasm of pleasure charms only by intervals. The highest rapture lafts only for a mo

ment,

ment, and all the fenfes feem fo combined, as to be foon tired into languor by the gratification of any one of them. It is only among the poets we hear of men changing to one delight, when fatiated with another. In Nature it is very different : the glutton, when fated with the full meal, is unqualified to feel the real pleasure of drinking: the drunkard in turn finds few of thofe tranfports which lovers boast in enjoyment; and the lover, when cloyed, finds a diminution of every other appetite. Thus, after a full indulgence of any one fenfe, the man of pleasure finds a languor in all, is placed in a chafm between past and expected enjoyment, perceives an interval which must be filled up. The prefent can give no fatisfaction, because he has already robbed it of every charm: a mind thus left without immediate gratification. Inftead of a life of diffipation, none has more frequent conversations with difagreeable felf than he: his enthusiasms are but few and tranfient; his appetites, like angry creditors, continually making fruitlefs demands for what he is unable to pay, and the greater his former pleasure, the more impatient his expectations; a life of pleasure is therefore the most unpleafing life in the world.

Habit has rendered the man of bufinefs more cool in his defires, he finds lefs regret for past pleasures, and lefs folicitude for those to come. The life he now leads, though tainted in fome measure with hope, is yet not afflicted fo ftrongly with regret, and is lefs divided between fhort-lived rapture and lafting anguish. The pleasures he has enjoyed are not fo vivid, and thofe he has to expect, cannot confequently create fo much anxiety.

The philofopher, who extends his regard to all mankind, muft have ftill a fmaller concern for what has already affected, or may hereafter affect himfelf; the concerns of others make his whole ftudy,

and

and that study is his pleasure; and this pleasure is continuing in its nature, because it can be changed at will, leaving but few of these anxious intervals which are employed in remembrance or anticipation. The philofopher by this means leads a life of almost continued diffipation; and reflection, which makes the uneafinefs and mifery of others, ferves as a companion and inftructor to him.

In a word, pofitive happiness is conftitutional, and incapable of increase; mifery is artificial, and generally proceeds from our folly. Philofophy can add to our happiness in no other manner, but by diminishing our mifery: it fhould not pretend to increase our present stock, but make us ceconomists of what we are poffeffed of. The great fource of calamity lies in regret or anticipation: he, therefore, is moft wife who thinks of the prefent alone, regardless of the paft or the future. This is impoffible to the man of pleasure; it is difficult to the man of bufinefs; and is in fome measure attainable by the philofopher. Happy were we all born philofophers, all born with a talent of thus diffipating our own cares, by fpreading them upon all mankind! Adieu.

LETTER XLIV. ·

From Lien Chi Altangi, to Fum Hoam, first Prefident of the Ceremonial Academy at Pekin, in China.

THOUGH the frequent invitations I receive from men of diftinction here might excite the vanity of fome, I am quite mortified, however, when I confi

der

der the motives that infpire their civility. I am fent for not to be treated as a friend, but to fatisfy curiofity; not to be entertained fo much as wondered at; the fame earneftnefs which excites them to fee a Chinese, would have made them equally proud of a vifit from the rhinoceros.

From the higheft to the lowest, this people feem fond of fights and monfters. I am told of a perfon here who gets a very comfortable livelihood by making wonders, and then felling or fhewing them to the people for money; no matter how infignificant they were in the beginning, by locking them up close, and fhewing for money, they foon became prodigies! His firft effay in this way was to exhibit himself as a wax-work figure behind a glafs door at a puppet show. Thus keeping the fpectators at a proper diftance, and having his head adorned with a copper crown, he looked extremely natural, and very like the life itself. He continued this exhibition with fuccefs, till an involuntary fit of fneezing brought him to life before all the fpectators, and confequently rendered him for that time as entirely ufelefs, as the peaceable inhabitant of a catacomb.

Determined to act the ftatue no more, he next levied contributions under the figure of an Indian king; and by painting his face, and counterfeiting the favage howl, he frighted feveral ladies and children with amazing fuccefs: in this manner, therefore, he might have lived very comfortably, had he not been arrested for a debt that was contracted when he was the figure in wax-work: thus his face underwent an involuntary ablution, and he found himself reduced to his primitive complexion and indigence.

After fome time, being freed from gaol, he was now grown wifer, and inftead of making himself a wonder, was refolved only to make wonders. He learned the art of pafting up mummies; was never

at