wrapped in linen with an address on a card. The monk took the basket, and the woman retired with precipitation. The monk carried the depofit in triumph to the convent; and fays to his brothers on entering, here is my work. At the fame time they heard the cries of an infant. It was indeed a new born child wrapped up in a basket, which the good woman had confided to the monk, as a packet which charged her confcience.

IT

THE FREQUENT

CONTEMPLATION OF DEATH

NECESSARY

To moderate the Passions.

T is recorded of some eastern monarch, that he kept an officer in his house, whose employment it was to remind him of his mortality, by calling out every morning, at a stated hour, Remember, prince, that thou shalt die. And the contemplation of the frailnefs and uncertainty of our prefent state appeared of fo much importance to Solon of Athens, that he left this precept to future ages; Keep thine eye fixed upon the end of life.

A frequent

A frequent and attentive prospect of that momert, which must put a period to all our schemes, and deprive us of all our acquifitions, is indeed of the utmost efficacy to the just and rational regulation of our lives; nor would ever any thing wicked, or often any thing abfurd, be undertaken or profecuted by him who fhould begin every day. with a ferious reflection that he is born to die. The difturbers of our happinefs, in this world, are our defires, our griefs, and our fears; and to all thefe, the confideration of mortality is a certain and adequate remedy. Think, fays Epictetus, frequently on poverty, banishment, and death, and thou wilt then never indulge violent defires, or give up thy heart to mean fentiments.

That the maxim of Epictetus is founded on juft obfervation will eafily be granted, when we reflect, how that vehemence of eagerness after the common objects of purfuit is kindled in our minds.We represent to ourfelves the pleasures of fome future poffeffion, and fuffer our thoughts to dwell attentively upon it, till it has wholly engroffed the imagination, and permits us not to conceive any happiness but its attainment, or any misery but its lofs; every other fatisfaction which the bounty of providence has scattered over life, is neglected as inconfiderable, in comparison of the great obje&t

ject which we have placed before us, and is thrown from us as incumbering our activity, or trampled under foot as standing in our way.

Every man has experienced how much of this ardour has been remitted, when a sharp or tedious fickness has fet death before his eyes. The extenfive influence of greatnefs, the glitter of wealth, the praises of admirers, and the attendant of fupplicants, have appeared vain and empty things, when the last hour feemed to be approaching; and the fame appearance they would always have, if the fame thought was always predominant. We fhould then find the abfurdity of ftretching out our arms inceffantly to grasp that which we cannot keep, and wearing out our lives in endeavours to add new turrets to the fabric of ambition, when the foundation itself is fhaking, and the ground on which it ftands is mouldering away.

All envy is proportionate to defire; we are uneafy at the attainments of another, according as we think our own happinefs would be advanced by the addition of that which he witholds from us; and therefore whatever depreffes immoderate riches, will, at the fame time, fet the heart free from the corrofion of envy, and exempt us from that vice which is, above most others, tormenting

to

to ourselves, hateful to the world, and productive of mean artifices and fordid projects. He that confiders how foon he must close his life, will find nothing of fo much importance as to close it well; and will, therefore, look with indifference upon whatever is useless to that purpose. Whoever reflects frequently upon the uncertainty of his own duration, will find out that the state of others is not more permanent, and that what can confer nothing on himself very defirable, cannot fo much improve the condition of a rival, as to make him much fuperior to thofe from whom he has carried the prize, a prize too mean to deferve a very obftinate oppofition.

Even grief, that paffion to which the virtuous and tender mind is particularly fubject, will be obviated or alleviated by the fame thoughts. It will be obviated, if all the bleffings of our condition are enjoyed with a constant sense of this uncertain tenure. If we remember, that whatever we poffefs is to be in our hands but a very little time, and that the little, which our most lively hopes can promise us, may be made less by ten thousand accidents; we fhall not much repine at a lofs of which we cannot eftimate the value, but of which, though we are not able to tell the leaft amount, we know, with fufficient certainty, the greateft,

greateft, and are convinced that the greatest is not much to be regretted.

But if any paffion has fo much ufurped our understanding, as not to fuffer us to enjoy advantages with the moderation prescribed by reason, it is not too late to apply this remedy, when we find ourfelves finking under forrow, and inclined to pine for that which is irrecoverably vanished.We may then usefully revolve the uncertainty of our own condition, and the folly of lamenting that from which, if it had stayed a little longer, we should ourselves have been taken away.

With regard to the fharpeft and most melting forrow, that which arifes from the lofs of those whom we have loved with tenderness; it may be obferved, that friendship between mortals can be contracted on no other terms, than that one must fometime mourn for the other's death: And this grief will always yield to the furvivor one confolation proportionate to his affliction; for the pain, whatever it be, that he himself feels his friend has escaped.

Nor is fear, the most overbearing and refiftlefs of all our paffion, lefs to be temperated by this univerfal medicine of the mind. The frequent contemplation of death, as it fhews the vanity of Oo

all