the mind has well arrived at a capacity of instruction, it is preoccupied with the ideas of animal gratification and infantine amusement, which, by constantly soliciting the attention, often render it an office of much labour and patience to imprint the first rudiments of learning.

As imagination gathers force, the influence of sensible objects is further augmented. This magic faculty will lend a charm to the merest trifles; and to a child of six years old, convert a hobbyhorse or a puppetshow into objects as delightful, as the pride of equipage or the enchantment of a masquerade are to children more advanced. Thus the love of pleasure, and the passions in general, are wonderfully promoted by this illusory power, which, by a silent and rapid progress, often gains a dangerous ascendancy before reason has acquired strength to resist its course.

When the season of youth arrives, in which nature inflames the imagination, and is inflamed by it to the highest degree, the love of pleasure commonly works with im

terminate at this period; it continues frequently through middle life, and sometimes pursues unhappy mortals to that season when the powers of gratification are enfeebled and broken. To estimate its strength, let us for a moment consider the several mounds and barriers which, in its passage, it forces or surmounts.

It overbears all regard to temporal interest. How often will a young man, with the brightest prospect of success before him, be drawn aside by the lure of sensual indulgence from the road of sober industry, to wander in forbidden paths, in spite of every remonstrance of his friends, or the secret bodings of his own mind, that his rovings will end in poverty or a jail! Nor is it only in preventing the acquisition of wealth that the seduction of pleasure operates; it also consumes many a fair inheritance; families that have shone with lustre for ages are thus sometimes suddenly eclipsed; and those who were born to splendid expectations, compelled to hire out themselves for bread.

the mind has well arrived at a capacity of instruction, it is preoccupied with the ideas of animal gratification and infantine amusement, which, by constantly soliciting the attention, often render it an office of much labour and patience to imprint the first rudiments of learning.

As imagination gathers force, the influence of sensible objects is further augmented. This magic faculty will lend a charm to the merest trifles; and to a child of six years old, convert a hobbyhorse or' a puppetshow into objects as delightful, as the pride of equipage or the enchantment of a masquerade are to children more advanced. Thus the love of pleasure, and the passions in general, are wonderfully promoted by this illusory power, which, by a silent and rapid progress, often gains a dangerous ascendancy before reason has acquired strength to resist its course.

When the season of youth arrives, in which nature inflames the imagination, and is inflamed by it to the highest degree, the love of pleasure commonly works with im

terminate at this period; it continues frequently through middle life, and sometimes pursues unhappy mortals to that season when the powers of gratification are enfeebled and broken. To estimate its strength, let us for a moment consider the several mounds and barriers Avhich, in its passage, it forces or surmounts.

It overbears all regard to temporal interest. How often will a young man, with the brightest prospect of success before him, be drawn aside by the lure of sensual indulgence from the road of sober industry, to wander in forbidden paths, in spite of every remonstrance of his friends, or the secret bodings of his own mind, that his rovings will end in poverty or a jail! Nor is it only in preventing the acquisition of wealth that the seduction of pleasure operates; it also consumes many a fair inheritance; families that have shone with lustre for ages are thus sometimes suddenly eclipsed; and those wdio were born to splendid expectations, compelled to hire out themselves for bread.

This is the more observable, because a man may run to great excesses, may violate all the laws of sobriety and decency that are not adopted into the code of fashion, without forfeiting his character in the world. And yet such often is the madness of appetite, that it will brook no restraint whatever, divine or human; will both provoke the displeasure of heaven, and the disgrace and contempt of men.

It will also surmount all regard to health, and to life itself. What numbers are thus made to pine away in disease, and brought untimely to their graves, must strike the most careless observation. And if we inquire into our public executions, many of the wretched sufferers will be found among the victims of pleasure.

In the last place, it is commonly an overmatch for reason in its highest improvement. It might have been expected that, after the first fervours of imagination were abated, the intellectual power would gradually have assumed its just dominion over the propensities of animal nature. Instead of this,