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deceived. There are a thousand familiar disputes which reason never can decide; questions that elude investigation, and make logic ridiculous cases; where something must be done, and where little can be said. Consider the state of mankind, and inquire how few can be supposed to act upon any occasion, whether small or great, with all the reasons of action present to their minds. Wretched would be the pair above all names of wretchedness, who should be doomed to adjust by reason, every morning, all the minute details of a domestic day.

"Those who marry at an advanced age will prob ably escape the encroachments of their children; but, in diminution of this advantage, they will be likely to leave them, ignorant and helpless, to a guardian's mercy; or, if that should not happen, they must at least go out of the world before they see those whom they love best either wise or great.

"From their children, if they have less to fear, they have less also to hope, and they lose, without equivalent, the joys of early love, and the convenience of uniting with manners pliant, and minds susceptible of new impressions, which might wear away their dissimilitudes by long cohabitation, as soft bodies, by continual attrition, can form their surfaces to each other.

"I believe it will be found that those who marry late are best pleased with their children, and those who marry early with their partners."

"The union of these two affections," said Rasselas, "would produce all that could be wished. Perhaps there is a time when marriage might unite them, a time neither too early for the father, nor too late for . the husband."

"Every hour," answered the Princess, "confirms my prejudice in favor of the position so often uttered by the mouth of Imlac. That nature sets her gifts on the right hand and on the left.' Those conditions which flatter hope and attract desire, are so con. stituted that, as we approach one, we recede from another. There are goods so opposed that we cannot seize both, but, by too much prudence, may pass between them at too great a distance to reach either. This is often the fate of long consideration; he does nothing who endeavors to do more than is allowed to humanity. Flatter not yourself with contrarieties of pleasure. Of the blessings set before you make your choice and be content. No man can taste the fruits of autumn while he is delighting his scent with the flowers of spring; no man can, at the same time, fill his cup from the source and from the mouth of the Nile."

THE PHILOSOPHER'S STONE.

RICHARD STEELE.

Charity is a virtue of the heart, and not of the hands, says an old writer. Gifts and alms are the expressions, not the essence, of this virtue. A man may bestow great sums on the poor and indigent without being charitable, and may be charitable when

he is not able to bestow anvining. Charity therefore is a habit of good-will. cr benevolence, in the soul, which disposes us to the love, assistance, and relief of mankind, especially of those who stand in need of it. The poor man who has this excellent frame of mind is no less entitled to the reward of this virtue than the man who founds a college. For my own part, I am charitable to an extravagance this way. I never saw an indigent person in my life without reaching out to him some of this imaginary relief. I cannot but sympathize with every one I meet that is in affliction; and if my abilities were equal to my wishes, there should be neither pain nor poverty in the world.

To give my reader a right notion of myself in this particular, I shall present him with the secret history of one of the most remarkable parts of my life.

I was once engaged in search of the philosopher's stone. It is frequently observed of men who have been busied in this pursuit, that though they have failed in their principal design, they have how. ever made such discoveries in their way to it as have sufficiently recompensed their inquiries. In the same manner, though I cannot boast of my success in that affair, I do not repent of my engaging in it, because it produced in my mind such an habitual exercise of charity as made it much better than perhaps it would have been had I never been lost in so pleasing a delusion.

As I did not question but I should soon have a new Indies in my possession, I was perpetually taken up in considering how to turn it to the benefit of mankind. In order to it I employed a whole day in walking about this great city to find out proper places for the erection of hospitals. I had likewise enter tained that project, which has since succeeded in another place, of building churches at the court. end of the town, with this only difference, that instead of fifty, I intended to have built a hundred, and to have seen them all finished in less than one year. I had with great pains and application got together a list of all the French Protestants; and, by the best accounts I could come at, had calculated the value of all those estates and effects which every one of them had left in his own country for the sake of his relig ion, being fully determined to make it up to him, and return some of them double of what they had lost.

As I was one day in my laboratory, my operator, who was to fill my coffers for me, and used to foot it from the other end of the town every morning, complained of a sprain in his leg that he had met with over-against St. Clement's Church. This so affected me, that as a standing mark of my gratitude to him, and out of compassion to the rest of my fellow-citizens, I resolved to new pave every street within the liberties, and entered a memorandum in my pocket book accordingly. About the same time I entertained some thoughts of meading all the highways on this side the 'I weed, and of making all the rivers in England navigable.

But the project I had most at heart was the settling upon every man in Great Britain three pounds a year (in which sum may be comprised, according to Sir William Pettit's observations, all the necessities of life), leaving to them whatever else they could get by their own industry to lay out on superfluities.

I was about a week debating in myself what I should do in the matter of impropriations, but at length came to a resolution to buy them all up, and restore them to the church.

As I was one day walking near St. Paul's, I took some time to survey that structure, and not being entirely satisfied with it, though I could not tell why, I had some little thoughts of pulling it down, and building it up anew at my own expense.

For my own part, as I have no pride in me, I intended to take up with a coach and six, half a dozen footmen, and live like a private gentleman.

It happened about this time that public matters looked very gloomy, taxes came hard, the war went on heavily, people complained of the great burdens that were laid upon them. This made me resolve to set aside one morning to consider seriously the state of the nation. I was the more ready to enter on it because I was obliged, whether I would or no, to sit at home in my morning-gown, having, after a most incredible expense, pawned a new suit of clothes, and a full bottomed wig, for a sum of money, which my operator assured me was the last he should want to bring all our matters to bear. After having considered many projects, I at length resolved to beat the common enemy at his own weapons, and laid a scheme which would have blown him up in a quarter of a year had things succeeded to my wishes. As I was in this golden dream somebody knocked at my door. I opened it, and found it was a messenger that brought me a letter from the laboratory. The fellow looked so miserably poor that I was resolved to make his fortune before he delivered his message. But seeing he brought a letter from my operator, I concluded I was bound to it in honor, as much as a prince is, to give a reward to one that brings him the first news of a victory. I knew this was the long expected hour of projection, and which I had waited for with great impatience above half a year before. In short, I broke open my letter in a transport of joy, and found it as follows :

SIR:-After having got out of you everything you can conveniently spare, I scorn to trespass upon your generous nature, and therefore must ingenuously confess to you that I know no more of the philosopher's stone than you do. I shall only tell you for your comfort, that I could never yet bubble a blockhead out of his money. They must be men of wit and parts who are for my purpose. This made me apply myself to a person of your wealth and ingenuity. How I have succeeded you yourself can best tell. Your humble Servant to command,

"THOMAS WHITE."

"I have locked up the laboratory, and laid the key under the door."

I was very much shocked at the unworthy treatment of this man, and not a little mortified at my disappointment, though not so much for what I my. self as what the public suffered by it. I think, however, I ought to let the world know what I designed for them, and hope that such of my readers who find they had a share in my good intentions will accept the will for the deed.

WINTER IN LONDON.

DOUGLAS JERROLD.

The streets were empty. Pitiless cold had driven all who had the shelter of their own roof to their homes; and the northeast blast seemed to howl in triumph above the untrodden snow. Winter was at the heart of all things. The wretched, dumb with excessive misery, suffered, in stupid resignation, the tyranny of the season. Human blood stagnated in the breast of want; and death in that despairing hour, losing its terrors, looked in the eyes of many a wretch a sweet deliverer. It was a time when the very poor, barred from the commonest things of earth, take strange counsel with themselves, and in the deep humility of destitution believe they are the burden and the offal of the world.

It was a time when the easy, comfortable man, touched with finest sense of human suffering, gives from his abundance; and, whilst bestowing, fecs almost ashamed that, with such widespread misery circled around him, he has all things fitting, all things grateful. The smitten spirit asks wherefore he is not of the multitude of wretchedness; demands to know for what especial excellence he is promoted above the thousand thousand starving creatures; in his very tenderness for misery, tests his privilege of exemption from a woe that withers manhood in man, bowing him downward to the brute. And so questioned, this man gives in modesty of spirit-in very thank. fulness of soul. His alms are not cold, formal charities; but reverent sacrifices to his suffering brother.

It was a time when selfishness hugs itself in its own warmth, with no other thoughts than of its pleasant possessions, all made pleasanter, sweeter, by the desolation around; when the mere worldling rejoices the more in his warm chamber, because it is so bitter cold without; when he eats and drinks with whetted appetite, because he hears of destitution prowling like a wolf around his well-barred house, when, in fine, he bears his every comfort about him with the pride of a conqueror. A time when such a man sees in the misery of his fellow-beings nothing save his own victory of fortune-his own successes in a suffering world. To such a man, the poor are but the tattered slaves that grace his triumph.

It was a time, too, when human nature often shews its true divinity, and with misery like a gar.

ment clinging to it, forgets its wretchedness in sympathy with suffering. A time when, in the cellars and garrets of the poor, are acted scenes which make the noblest heroism of life; which prove the immortal texture of the human heart not wholly seared by the branding-iron of the torturing hours. A time when in want, in anguish, in throes of mortal agony, some seed is sown that bears a flower in heaven.

LIFE'S APOGEE.

HONORE DE BALZAC.

Every life has its apogee-a period during which the causes which operate are in exact proportion with the results they produce. This high noon of existence, in which every moving force is in equilibrium and is manifested in its highest state, is common, not only to organize beings, but to cities, nations, ideas, institutions, trades, enterprises; all of which like noble families and dynasties, spring up, come to perfection, and fall. Whence comes the severe impartiality with which this theme of increase and decay is applied to all earthly organizations ? For death itself, in times of plague or epidemic, now advances, now slackens its course now revives and now sleeps. Our globe itself is perhaps a mere rocket, a little more durable than the rest. History, is perpetually repeating the causes of the greatness and decline of everything that has been seen on earth, ought, one would think, to warn mankind of the proper time to arrest the play of their faculties; but neither conquerors nor actors, neither women nor authors, ever listen to its salutary voice.

Cesar Birotteau, who should have regarded himself as having arrived at the apogee of his fortunes, chose to consider this halting-time as a new point of departure. He did not know-and neither nations nor kings have sought to write them in ineffaceable characters-the causes of the downfalls with which history is rife, and of which both mercantile and sovereign houses have furnished such terrible examples. Why should not new pyramids be erected, to keep continually before the world this principle, applicable not only to the politics of nations but to the economy of private individuals, that whenever the effect produced has ceased to be in direct connection and in equal proportions with its cause, disorganization has begun? Such movements, however, are everywhere to be seen, in the traditions and stories which speak to us of the past, which embody the caprices of ungovernable destiny, whose hand effaces our dreams and shows us that the greatest events are summed up in an idea. Troy and Napoleon are nought but poems. May this history be the poem of the obscure domestic vicissitudes in behalf of which no voice has been raised, ail destitute, as they appear, of greatness; while on the contrary, and for the same reason, they are immense. We are not now treating of individual woes, but of the sufferings of a people.

GOOD BREEDING.

LORD CHESTERFIELD.

A friend of yours and mine has very justly defined good breeding to be "the result of much good sense, some good nature, and a little self-denial for the sake of others, and with a view to obtain the same indulgence from them." Taking this for granted—as I think it can not be disputed—it is astonishing to me that anybody, who has good sense and good nature, can essentially fail in good breeding. As to the modes of it, indeed, they vary according to persons, places, and circumstances, and are only to be acquired by observation and experience; but the substance of it is everywhere and eternally the same. Good manners are to particular societies what good morals are to society in general-their cement and their security. And as laws are enacted to enforce good morals, or at least to prevent the ill effects of bad ones, so there are certain rules of civility, universally implied and received, to enforce good manners and punish bad ones. And indeed there seems to me to be less difference, both between the crimes and punishments, than at first one would imagine. The immoral man, who invades another's property, is justly hanged for it; and the ill-bred man, who by his ill manners invades and disturbs the quiet and comforts of private life, is by common consent justly banished society. Mutual complaisances, attentions, and sacrifices of little conveniences, are as natural an implied compact between civilized people as protection and obedience are between kings and subjects; whoever, in either case, violates that compact, justly forfeits all advantages arising from it. For my own part, I really think that, next to the consciousness of doing a good action, that of doing a civil one is the most pleasing; and the epithet which I should covet the most, next to that of Aristides, would be that of well bred.

EVIL SPEAKING.

JOHN SELDEN-"TABLE TALK."

1. He that speaks ill of another, commonly before he is aware, makes himself such a one that he speaks against; for if he had civility or breeding, he would forbear such kind of language.

2. A gallant man is above ill words. An example we have in the old lord of Salisbury, who was a great wise man. Stone had called some lord about court, fool; the lord complained, and has Stone whipped; Stone cries: "I might have called my lord of Salisbury fool often enough before he would have had me whipped."

3. Speak not ill of a great enemy, but rather give him good words, that he may use you the better if you chance to fall into his hands. The Spaniard did this when he was dying; his confessor told him, to work him to repentance, how the devil tormented the wicked that went to hell; the Spaniard replying,

called the devil, my lord: "I hope my lord the devil is not so cruel." His confessor reproved him. “Excuse me," said the Don, "for calling him so; I know not into what hands I may fall; and if I happen into his, I hope he will use me the better for giving him good words."

THANKFULNESS.

ISAAC WALTON-"THE COMPLETE ANGLER."

"Well, scholar, having now taught you to paint your rod, and we having still a mile to Tottenham High Cross, I will, as we walk towards it in the cool shade of this sweet honeysuckle hedge, mention to you some of the thoughts and joys that have possesed my soul since we met together. And these thoughts shall be told you, that you also may join with me in thankfulness to the Giver of every good and perfect gift for our happiness. And that our present happiness may appear to be the greater, and we the more thankful for it, I will beg you to consider with me how many do, even at this very time, lie under the torment of the stone, the gout, and toothache; and this we are free from. And every misery that I miss is a new mercy; and therefore let us be thankful. There have been, since we met, others that have met disasters of broken limbs; some have been blasted, others thunder-strucken; and we have been freed from these and all those many other miseries that threaten human nature; let us therefore rejoice and be thankful. Nay, which is a far greater mercy, we are free from the insupportable burden of accusing, tormenting conscience—a misery that none can bear; and therefore let us praise Him for His preventing grace, and say, Every misery that I miss is a new mercy. Nay let me tell you, there be many that have forty times our estates, that would give the greatest part of it to be healthful and cheerful like us, who, with the expense of a little money, have ate and drank, and laughed, and angled, and sung, and slept securely; and rose next day, and cast away care, and sung, and laughed, and angled again, which are blessings rich men cannot purchase with all their money. Let me tell you, scholar, I have a rich neighbour that is always so busy that he has no leisure to laugh; the whole business of his life is to get money, and more money; he is still drudging on, and says that Solomon says, "The hand of the diligent maketh rich;" and it is true indeed; but he considers not that it is not in the power of riches to make a man happy: for it was wisely said by a man of great observation, “That there be as many miseries beyond riches as on this side of them." And yet God deliver us from pinching poverty, and grant that, having a competency, we may be content and thankful! Let us not repine, or so much as think the gifts of God unequally dealt, if we see another abound with riches, when as God knows the cares that are the keys that keep those riches hang often so heavily

at the rich man's girdle, that they clog him with weary days and restless nights, even when others sleep quietly. We see but the outside of the rich man's happiness; few consider him to be like the silkworm, that, when she seems to play, is at the very same time spinning her own bowels, and consuming herself; and this many rich men do, loading themselves with corroding cares, to keep what they have probably unconscionably got. Let us therefore be thankful for health and competence, and, above all, for a quiet conscience. Let not the blessings we receive daily from God make us not to value, or not praise Him, because they be common; let us not forget to praise Him for the innocent mirth and pleasure we have met with since we met together. What would a blind man give to see the pleasant rivers, and meadows, and flowers, and fountains that we have met with since we met together? I have been told, that if a man that was born blind could obtain to have his sight for but only one hour during his whole life, and should, at the first opening of his eyes, fix his sight upon the sun when it was in his full glory, either at the rising or setting of it, he would be so transported and amazed, and so admire the glory of it, that he would not willingly turn his eyes from the first ravishing object to behold all the other various beauties this world could present to him. And this, and many other like blessings, we enjoy daily. And for most of them because they be so common, most men forget to pay their praises; but let not us, because it is a sacrifice so pleasing to Him that made that sun and us, and still protects us and gives us flowers and showers, and stomachs, and meat, and content, and leisure to go a fishing.

SLEEP.

THOMAS DEKKER.

For do but consider what an excellent thing sleep is it is so inestimable a jewel that, if a tyrant would give his crown for an hour's slumber, it cannot be bought: of so beautiful a shape is it that, though a man live with an empress, his heart cannot be at quiet till he leaves her embracements to be at rest with the other; yea, so greatly are we indebted to this kinsman of death, that we owe the better tributary half of our life to him; and there is good cause why we should do so; for sleep is that golden chain that ties health and our bodies together. Who complains of want, of wounds, of cares, of great men's oppressions, of captivity, whilst he sleepeth? Beggars in their beds take as much pleasure as kings. Can we therefore surfeit on this delicate ambrosia? Can we drink too much of that, whereof to taste too little tumbles us into a churchyard; and to use it but indifferently throws us into Bedlam? No, no. Look upon Endymion, the moon's minion, who slept threescore and fifteen years; and was not a hair the worse for it!

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