NUMB. 78. SATURDAY, December 15, 1750. -Mors fola fatetur Quantula fint hominum corpufcula. Death only this mysterious truth unfolds, Juv. DRYDEN. CORPORAL fenfation is known to depend fo much upon novelty, that cuftom takes away from many things their power of giving pleasure or pain. Thus a new drefs becomes eafy by wearing it, and the palate is reconciled by degrees to dishes which at first disgufted it. That by long habit of carrying a burden, we lofe, in great part, our fenfibility of its weight, any man may be convinced by putting on for an hour the armour of our ancestors; for he will fcarcely believe that men would have had much inclination to marches and battles, encumbered and oppreffed, as he will find himself, with the ancient panoply. Yet the heroes that overrun regions and ftormed towns in iron accoutrements, he knows not to have been bigger, and has no reafon to imagine them ftronger than the prefent race of men; he therefore must conclude, that their peculiar powers were conferred only by peculiar habits, and that their familiarity with the drefs of war enabled them to move in it with ease, vigour, and agility. Yet it feems to be the condition of our prefent ftate, that pain fhould be more fixed and permanent than pleasure. Uneafinefs gives way by flow degrees, and is long before it quits its poffeffion of the fenfory; but all our gratifications are volatile, vagrant, and eafily diffipated. The fragrance of the jeffamine bower is loft after the enjoyment of a few his a few moments, and the Indian wanders among native fpices without any fenfe of their exhalations. It is, indeed, not neceffary to fhew by many inftances what all mankind confefs, by an inceffant call for variety, and reftlefs purfuit of enjoyments, which they value only because unpoffeffed. Something fimilar, or analogous, may be observed in effects produced inmediately upon the mind; nothing can strongly strike or affect us, but what is rare or fudden. The most important events, when they become familiar, are no longer confidered with wonder or folicitude, and that which at firft filled up our whole attention, and left no place for any other thought, is foon thrust aside into fome remote repofitory of the mind, and lies among other lumber of the memory, overlooked and neglected. Thus far the mind resembles the body, but here the fimilitude is at an end. The manner in which external force acts upon the body is very little fubject to the regulation of the will; no man can at pleasure obtund or invigorate his fenfes, prolong the agency of any impulfe, or continue the prefence of any image traced upon the eye, or any found infused into the ear. But our ideas are more fubjected to choice; we can call them before us, and command their stay, we can facilitate and promote their recurrence, we can either reprefs their intrufion or haften their retreat. It is therefore the bufinefs of wisdom and virtue, to select among numberless objects ftriving for our notice, fuch as mayenable us to exalt our reafon, extend our views, and fecure our happiness. But this choice is to be made with very little regard to rareness or frequency; for nothing is valuable merely because it is either rare or common, but because it is adapted to to fome useful purpose, and enables us to fupply fome deficiency of our nature. Milton has judiciously represented the father of mankind, as feized with horror and astonishment at the fight of death, exhibited to him on the mount of vifion. For furely, nothing can fo much disturb the paffions, or perplex the intellects of man, as the difruption of his union with visible nature; a separation from all that has hitherto delighted or engaged him; a change not only of the place, but the manner of his being; an entrance into a state not simply which he knows not, but which perhaps he has not faculties to know; an immediate and perceptible communication with the fupreme Being, and, what is above all distressful aud alarming, the final fentence, and unalterable allotment. Yet we to whom the shortness of life has given frequent occafions of contemplating mortality, can, without emotion, fee generations of men pafs away, and are at leifure to establish modes of forrow, and adjust the ceremonial of death. We can look funeral pomp as a common spectacle in which we have no concern, and turn away from it to trifles and amufements, without dejection of look or inquietude of heart. upon It is, indeed, apparent from the constitution of the world, that there must be a time for other thoughts; and a perpetual meditation upon the laft hour, however it may become the folitude of a monaftery, is inconfiftent with m Juties of common life. But furely the remembrance of death ought to predomi nate in our minds, as an habitual and fettled principle, always operating, though not always perceived; and our attention fhould feldom wander fo far from our own condition, as not to be recalled and fixed by by fight of an event, which must foon, we know not how foon, happen likewife to ourselves, and of which, though we cannot appoint the time, we may fecure the confequence. Every inftance of death may juftly awaken our fears and quicken our vigilance, but its frequency fo much weakens its effect, that we are seldom alarmed unless fome close connexion is broken, fome scheme fruftrated, or some hope defeated. Many therefore seem to pafs on from youth to decrepitude without any reflection on the end of life, because they are wholly involved within themselves, and look on others only as inhabitants of the common earth, without any expectation of receiving good, or intention of bestowing it. It is Events, of which we confefs the importance, excite little fenfibility, unless they affect us more nearly than as fharers in the common intereft of mankind; that defire which every man feels of being remembered and lamented, is often mortified when we remark how little concern is caused by the eternal departure even of those who have paffed their lives with publick honours, and been diftinguished by extraordinary performances. not poffible to be regarded with tenderness except by a few. That merit which gives greatness and renown, diffuses its influence to a wide compafs, but acts weakly on every single breast; it is placed at a distance from common fpectators, and fhines like one of the remote ftars, of which the light reaches us, but not the heat. The wit, the hero, the philofopher, whom their tempers or their fortunes have hindered from intimate relations, die, without any other effect than that of adding a new topick to the conversation of the day. They imprefs imprefs none with any fresh conviction of the fragility of our nature, because none had any particular intereft in their lives, or was united to them by a reciprocation of benefits and endearments. Thus it often happens, that those who in their lives were applauded and admired, are laid at last in the ground without the common honour of a stone; because by thofe excellencies with which many were delighted, none had been obliged, and though they had many to celebrate they had none to love them. Custom fo far regulates the fentiments, at least of common minds, that I believe men may be generally obferved to grow lefs tender as they advance in age. He who, when life was new, melted at the lofs of every companion, can look in time, without concern, upon the grave into which his laft friend was thrown, and into which himself is ready to fall; not that he is more willing to die than formerly, but that he is more familiar to the death of others, and therefore is not alarmed so far as to confider how much nearer he approaches to his end. But this is to fubmit tamely to the tyranny of accident, and to fuffer our reafon to lie useless. Every funeral may juftly be confidered as a fummons to prepare for that state, into which it fhews us that we must sometime enter; and the fummons is more loud and piercing, as the event of which it warns us is at less distance. To neglect at any time preparation for death, is to fleep on our poft at a fiege; but to omit it in old age, is to fleep at an attack. It has always appeared to me one of the most ftriking paffages in the vifions of Quevedo, which ftigmatifes thofe as fools who complain that they |