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Atalanta, and her delightful cave: and in another part, the Goddess and Ulysses's son appeared at the entrance of that grot, which under the appearance of a rural plainness had every thing that could charm the eye: the roof was ornamented with shell-work; the tapestry was a tender vine; and limpid fountains sweetly purled round,

But what above all the finely fancied works in Miss NOEL's grotto pleased me, was, a figure of the philosopher Epictetus, in the centre of the grot. He sat at the door of a cave, by the side of a falling water, and held a book of his philosophy in his hand, that was written in the manner of the antients, that is, on parchment rolled up close together. He appeared in deep meditation, and as part of the book had been unfolded and gradually extended, from his knee on the ground, one could read very plain, in large Greek characters, about fifty lines. The English of the lesson was this

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"All things have their nature, their make and form, by which they act, and by which they suffer. The vegetable proceeds with perfect insensibility. The brute possesses a sense of what is pleasurable and painful, but stops at mere sensation. The rational, like the brute, has all the powers of mere

sensation, but enjoys a farther transcendent faculty. To him is imparted the master-science of what he is, where he is, and the end to which he is destined. He is directed by the canon of reason to reverence the dignity of his own superior character, and never wretchedly degrade himself into a nature to him subordinate. The master-science, he is told, consists in having just ideas of pleasures and pains, true notions of the moments and consequences of different actions and pursuits, whereby he may be able to measure, direct or controul his desires or aversions, and never merge into miseries. Remember this Arrianus. Then only you are qualified for life, when you are able to oppose your appetites, and bravely dare to call your opinions to account; when you have established judgment or reason as the ruler in your mind, and by a patience of think. ing, and a power of resisting, before you choose, can bring your fancy to the test of truth. By this means, furnished with the knowledge of the effects and consequences of actions, you will know how you ought to behave in every case. You will steer wisely through the various rocks and shelves of life. In short, Arrianus, the deliberate habit is the proper business of man; and his duty, to exert upon the first proper call, the virtues natural to his mind; that piety, that love, that justice, that veracity, that

gratitude, and that benevolence, which are the glory of human kind. Whatever is fated in that order of incontroulable events, by which the divine power preserves and adorns the whole, meet the incidents with magnanimity, and cooperate with chearfulness in whatever the supreme mind ordains. Let a fortitude be always exerted in enduring; a justice in distribution; a prudence in moral offices; and a temperance in your natural appetites and pursuits. This is the most perfect humanity. This do, and you will be a fit actor in the general drama; and the only end of your existence is the due performance of the part allotted you."

Such was Miss NOEL's grotto, and with her, if it had been in my power to choose, I had rather have passed in it, the day in talking of the various fine subjects it contained, than go in to dinner; which a servant informed us was serving up, just as I had done reading the above recited philosophical 'lesson. Back then we returned to the parlour, and there found the old gentleman. We sat down immediately to two very good dishes, and when that was over, Mr. NOEL and I drank a bottle of old Alicant. Though this gentleman was upwards of eighty, yet years had not deprived him of reason and spirits. He was lively and sensible, and still a most agree

able companion. He talked of Greece and Rome, as if he had lived there before the æra of Christianity. The Court of Augustus he was so far from being a stranger to, that he described the principal persons in it; their actions, their pleasures, and their caprices, as if he had been their contemporary. We talked of these great characters. We went into the gallery of Verres. We looked over the antient theatres. Several of the most beautiful passages in the Roman poets this excellent old man repeated, and made very pleasant, but moral remarks upon them.

"said he," still is as it was in the

"The cry, days of Horace :

"O cives, cives, quaerenda pecunia primum,
Virtus post nummos.-

Unde habeas nemo quaerit, sed oportet habere.
Quorum animis, a prima lanugine, non insedit illud?"

And what Catullus told his Lesbia, is it not approved to this day by the largest part of the great female world?

Vivamus, mea Lesbia, atque amemus,
Rumoresque Senium Severiorum,

Omnes unius aestimemus assis.

Soles occidere et redire possunt,

Nobis, cum semel occi dit brevis lux,

Nox est perpetua una dormiendo.

Hæc discunt omnes ante Alpha et Beta puellæ.

The girls all learn this lesson before their A. B. C.; and as to the opinion of the poet, it shews how sadly the Augustan age, with all its learning, and polite advantages, was corrupted: and as Virgil makes a jest of his own fine description of a paradise or the Elysian fields; as is evident from his dismissing his hero out of the ivory gate; which shews he was of the school of Epicurus; it is from these things manifest, that we can never be thankful enough for the principles and dictates of revealed religion: we can never sufficiently adore the goodness of the most glorious Eternal for the gospel of Jesus Christ; which opens the unbounded regions of eternal day to the virtuous and charitable, and promises them a rest from labour, and ever blooming joys; while it condemns the wicked to the regions of horror and solid darkness; that dreadful region, from whence the cries of misery for ever ascend, but can never reach the throne of mercy. O heavenly religion! designed to make men good, and for ever happy; that preserves the dignity of human nature, guards and increases vir

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