even in the most commercial nation, is one of the few things which cannot be bought; it is the free gift of mankind, which must be deserved before it will be granted, and is at last unwillingly bestowed.

The main of life is composed of small incidents and petty occurrences, of wishes for objects not remote, and grief for disappointments of no fatal consequence; of insect vexations which sting us and fly away; and impertinences which buzz awhile about us, and are heard no more. Thus a few pains and a few pleasures are all the materials of human life; and of these the proportions are partly allotted by Providence, and partly left to the arrangement of reason and choice.

He that waits for an opportunity to do much at once, may breathe out his life in idle wishes, and regret in the last hour, his useless intentions and barren zeal.

In general those parents have most reverence who most deserve it; for he that lives well, cannot be despised.

Nature makes us poor only when we want necessaries; but custom gives the name of poverty to the want of superfluities.

Pride is seldom delicate-it will please itself with

very mean advantages; and envy feels not its own happiness, but when it may be compared with the misery of others.

Peevishness, though sometimes it arises from old age, or the consequence of some misery, is frequently one of the attendants on the prosperous, and is employed by insolence in exacting homage, or by tyranny in harassing subjection. It is the offspring of idleness or pride—of idleness, anxious for trifles; or pride, unwilling to endure the least obstruction of her wishes. Such is the consequence of peevishness; it can be borne only when it is despised.

Combinations of wickedness would overwhelm the world by the advantage which licentious principles afford, did not those who have long practised perfidy grow faithless to each other.

HOW TO LIVE.

UCCESS and miscarriage have the same effect

in all conditions. The prosperous are feared, hated, and flattered; and the unfortunate avoided, pitied, and despised.

To dread no eye, and to suspect no tongue, is the great prerogative of innocence-an exemption granted only to invariable virtue. But guilt has always its horrors and solicitudes; and to make it yet more. shameful and detestable, it is doomed often to stand in awe of those to whom nothing could give influence or weight, but their power of betraying.

To know the world is necessary, since we were born for the help of one another; and to know it early is convenient, if it be only that we may learn early to despise it.

Youth is of no long duration; and in maturer age, when the enchantments of fancy shall cease, and the phantoms of delight dance no more about us, we shall have no comforts but the esteem of wise men, and the means of doing good. Let us therefore stop whilst to stop is in our power. Let us live as men who are sometime to grow old, and to whom it will be the most dreadful of all evils to count their past years by follies, and to be reminded of their former luxuriance of health only by the maladies which riot has produced.

To do the best, can seldom be the lot of man; it is sufficient if, when opportunities are presented, he is ready to do good. How little virtue could be practised if beneficence were to wait always for the most proper objects and the noblest occasions-occasions that may never happen, and objects that may never be found.

The great disturbers of our happiness in this world are our desires, our griefs, and our fears; and to all these the consideration of mortality is a certain and adequate remedy. "Think," says Epictetus, "frequently on poverty, banishment and death, and thou wilt never indulge violent desires, or give up thy heart to mean sentiments.”

Perhaps every man may date the predominance of those desires that disturb his life, and contaminate his conscience, from some unhappy hour when too much leisure exposed him to their incursions; for he has lived with little observation either to himself or others who does not know that to be idle is to be vicious.

There are said to be pleasures in madness known only to madmen: there are certainly miseries in idleness which the idler only can conceive.

No man is so open to conviction as the idler; but there is none on whom it operates so little.

To bear complaints with patience, even when complaints are vain, is one of the duties of friendship : and though it must be allowed that he suffers most like a hero who hides his grief in silence, yet it cannot be denied that he who complains acts like a man, like a social being, who looks for help from his fellowcreatures.

No one ought to remind another of misfortunes of which the sufferer does complain, and which there are no means proposed of alleviating. We have no right to excite thoughts which necessarily give pain whenever they return, and which, perhaps, might not have recurred but by absurd and unseasonable compassion.