refined behaviour and conversation of the generality of mankind: and it must be a very chosen society indeed, that he prefers to his beloved solitude. This disposition gives him a reservedness, that in another character, might pass for pride, as it makes him mix less freely in those companies, that he is unavoidably engaged in. However it has certainly this ill consequence, that it makes his virtues of less extensive influence, than they would be, if they were more generally known. He is naturally, extremely grave, and perhaps with the assistance of reason and experience, which prove the insufficiency of any pleasures or attainments, in this life, to make us happy; this seriousness is heightened so as to give himself many a gloomy moment, though other people never feel the effect of it, by any ill humour, or severity towards them. A turn of mind so superior to any of the common occurrences, or amusements of life can seldom be much affected or enlivened by them: but as so excellent an understanding must have the truest taste for real wit, so no one has a more lively sense of all, that is peculiarly just and delicate. These pleasures, however, are little compensations for the much more frequent disgusts, to which the same turn of mind G renders him liable*. Happy, thrice happy are those humble people, whose sensations are fitted to the world they live in. Those pleasures, which the imagination greatly heightens, it will certainly make us pay dear enough for: since the pain of parting with them, will be greatly increased, in full proportion, not to their value, but to our enjoyment. The world was intended to be just what it is; and there is no likelihood of our succeeding in the romantic scheme of raising it above what it is. To distract ourselves with a continual succession of eager hopes, and anxious fears, is a folly destructive to our nature, and to the very end of our being. We are formed for moderate sensations either of pain or pleasure; to feel such degrees of uneasiness only as we are very able to support: and to enjoy such a measure of happiness, as we may easily resign, nay thankfully too, when religion has opened the prospect to a brighter scene: to meet with many rubs and difficul ties, which we must get over, or stumble over, as well as we can: to converse with creatures *This character of extreme delicacy and high-wrought feelings, so unfit for the common purposes of life, may perhaps remind the reader of that of Fleetwood in the Mirror. imperfect, like ourselves, and to bear with all their imperfections. It seems then, that the only way of passing through life, as we ought, is to place our minds in a state of as great tranquillity, as is consistent with our not becoming stupid. ESSAY V. On the Employment of Wealth. THE advantages of frugality do not deserve. to be less considered than those of generosity: for where, alas! shall bounty find its necessary fund, if thoughtless prodigality has squandered it away. When I hear of thousands, and ten thousands, spent by people, who in the midst of immense riches reduce themselves to all the shifts and pinches of a narrow fortune, I know not how to recover my astonishment at the infatuation, that leads them to annihilate such treasures: for it may really be called annihilating them, when they are spent to no one good purpose, and leave no one honourable memorial behind them. A fortune thus lavished away becomes the prey of the worthless and is like a quantity of gold dust dispersed uselessly in the air that might have been melted down, and formed into regal crowns, and monuments of glory. I think one now scarcely ever hears an im mense fortune named, but somebody adds, with a shake of the head-It is vastly run out-He is in very narrow circumstances— They are in great straits.-Ask the occasion, and will find few instances of real geneyou rosity, or public spirit, or even of a welljudged magnificence: but all has gone amongst voters, fiddlers, table companions, profuse servants, dishonest stewards, and a strange rabble of people, that are every one of them the worse for it. This is pitiable: and for this, and nothing else, a man of quality is reduced to all the meannesses imaginable. He must be dependent: he must court the smiles of power: he must often be rapacious and dishonest. I remember a friend of mine had once an excellent conceit of a cave, at the upper end of which were two enchanted glasses, with curtains drawn before them, that were to be consulted every evening in order for the forming a judgment of the actions of the day. The first glass showed what they might have been, and what effects such and such opportunities ought to have produced. When the curtain was undrawn before the other, it showed, tout au naturel, what they had been, Were one to contemplate, in these glasses, on the spending one of those great estates, which reduce our fine people to such difficulties, |