immediately perceive the propriety of the queftion; but after having waited a while for information, I was told that the lady's grandmother had a great great grandmother that was an attendant on Anna Bullen, and supposed to have been too much a favourite of the king.

If once there happens a quarrel between the principal perfons of two families, the malignity is continued without end, and it is common for old maids to fall out about fome election, in which their grandfathers were competitors; the heart-burnings of the civil war are not yet extinguished; there are two families in the neighbourhood who have deftroyed each other's game from the time of Philip and Mary; and when an account came of an inundation, which had injured the plantations of a worthy gentleman, one of the hearers remarked, with exultation, that he might now have some notion of the ravages committed by his ancestors in their retreat from Bofworth.

Thus malice and hatred defcend here with an inheritance, and it is neceffary to be well verfed in history, that the various factions of this county may be understood, You cannot expect to be on good terms with families who are refolved to love nothing in common; and, in selecting your intimates, you are perhaps to confider which party you most favour in the barons wars. I have often loft the good opinion of my aunt's vifitants by confounding the interests of York and Lancaster, and was once cenfured for fitting filent when William Rufus was called a tyrant, I have, however, now thrown

afide all pretences to circumspection, for I find it impoffible in less than seven years to learn all the requifite cautions. At London, if you know your company, and their parents, you are fafe; but you are here fufpected of alluding to the flips of greatgrandmothers, and of reviving contests which were decided in armour by the redoubted knights of ancient times. I hope therefore that you will not condemn my impatience, if I am weary of attending where nothing can be learned, and of quarrelling where there is nothing to conteft, and that you will contribute to divert me while I ftay here by fome facetious performance.

I am, SIR,

EUPHELIA,

DL

NUMB. 47. TUESDAY, August 28, 1750.

Quanquam his folatiis acquiefcam, debilitor & frangor eadem illa humanitate quæ me, ut hoc ipfum permitterem, induxit, non ideo tamen velim durior fieri: nec ignoro alios hujufmodi cafus nihil amplius vocare quam damnum; eoque fibi magnos homines & fapientes videri. Qui an magni fapientefque fint, nefcio: homines non funt. Hominis eft enim affici dolore, fentire: refiftere tamen, folatia admittere; non folatiis non egere.

PLIN.

These proceedings have afforded me fome comfort in my distress; notwithstanding which, I am ftill dispirited, and unhinged by the fame motives of humanity that induced me to grant fuch indulgences. However, I by no means wish to become less fufceptible of tenderness. I know these kind of misfortunes would be estimated by other persons only as common losses, and from fuch fenfations they would conceive themselves great and wife men. I fhall not determine either their greatnefs or their wisdom; but I am certain they have no humanity. It is the part of a man to be affected with grief; to feel forrow, at the fame time that he is to refift it, and to admit of comfort.

Earl of ORRERY.

the paffions with which the mind of man is

agitated, it may be observed, that they naturally haften towards their own extinction, by inciting and quickening the attainment of their objects. Thus fear urges our flight, and defire animates our progrefs; and if there are some which perhaps may be indulged till they outgrow the good appropriated to their satisfaction, as it is frequently obferved of avarice and ambition, yet their immediate tendency is to fome means of happiness really exifting, and generally within the profpect. The miser always imagines

imagines that there is a certain fum that will fill his heart to the brim; and every ambitious man, like king Pyrrhus, has an acquifition in his thoughts that is to terminate his labours, after which he shall pass the reft of his life in ease or gaiety, in repose or devotion.

Sorrow is perhaps the only affection of the breast that can be excepted from this general remark, and it therefore deserves the particular attention of those who have affumed the arduous province of preferving the balance of the mental conftitution. The other paffions are diseases indeed, but they neceffarily direct us to their proper cure. A man at once feels the pain, and knows the medicine, to which he is carried with greater hafte as the evil which requires it is more excruciating, and cures himself by unerring instinct, as the wounded stags of Crete are related by Ælian to have recourfe to vulnerary herbs. But for forrow there is no remedy provided by nature; it is often occafioned by accidents irreparable, and dwells upon objects that have lost or changed their existence; it requires what it cannot hope, that the laws of the univerfe fhould be repealed; that the dead fhould return, or the paft fhould be recalled.

Sorrow is not that regret for negligence or error which may animate us to future care or activity, or that repentance of crimes for which, however irrevocable, our Creator has promifed to accept it as an atonement; the pain which arifes from thefe caufes has very falutary effects, and is every hour extenuating itself by the reparation of those miscarriages that produce it. Sorrow is properly that state of the

mind in which our defires are fixed upon the past, without looking forward to the future, an inceffant wish that something were otherwise than it has been a tormenting and haraffing want of fome enjoyment or poffeffion which we have loft, and which no endeavours can poffibly regain. Into fuch anguifh many have funk upon fome fudden diminution of their fortune, an unexpected blast of their reputation, or the lofs of children or of friends. They have suffered all fenfibility of pleasure to be destroyed by a single blow, have given up for ever the hopes of fubftituting any other object in the room of that which they lament, refigned their lives to gloom and defpondency, and worn themselves out in unavailing mifery.

Yet fo much is this paffion the natural confequence of tenderness and endearment, that, however painful and however useless, it is justly reproachful not to feel it on fome occafions; and fo widely and constantly has it always prevailed, that the laws of fome nations, and the customs of others, have limited a time for the external appearances of grief caused by the diffolution of close alliances, and the breach of domestick union.

It seems determined by the general fuffrage of mankind, that forrow is to a certain point laudable, as the offspring of love, or at least pardonable, as the effect of weakness; but that it ought not to be fuffered to increase by indulgence, but must give way, after a ftated time, to focial duties, and the common avocations of life. It is at first unavoidable, and therefore must be allowed, whether with or without our choice; it may afterwards be admitted as a

decent