throbbings of anguish, to hear that others are more miferable; others, perhaps, unknown or wholly indifferent, whofe profperity raises no envy, and whofe fall can gratify no refentment. Some topicks of comfort arifing, like that which gave hope and fpirit to the captive of Sefoftris, from the perpetual viciffitudes of life, and mutability of human affairs, may as properly raife the dejected as deprefs the proud, and have an immediate tendency to exhilarate and revive. But how can it avail the man who languishes in the gloom of forrow, without prospec of emerging into the funfhine of cheerfulness, to hear that others are funk yet deeper in the dungeon of mifery, fhackled with heavier chains, and furrounded with darker desperation?

The folace arifing from this confideration feems indeed the weakest of all others, and is perhaps never properly applied, but in cafes where there is no place for reflections of more speedy and pleasing efficacy. But even from fuch calamities life is by no means free; a thousand ills incurable, a thousand loffes irreparable, a thousand difficulties infurmountable, are known, or will be known, by all the fons of men. Native deformity cannot be rectified, a dead friend cannot return, and the hours of youth trifled away in folly, or loft in sickness, cannot be restored.

Under the oppreffion of fuch melancholy, it has been found useful to take a furvey of the world, to contemplate the various fcenes of diftrefs in which mankind are ftruggling round us, and acquaint ourselves with the terribilis vifu forma, the various fhapes of mifery, which make havock of terrestrial

happiness, range all corners almost without.reftraint, trainple down our hopes at the hour of harvest, and, when we have built our fchemes to the top, ruin their foundations.

The first effect of this meditation is, that it furnishes a new employment for the mind, and engages the paffions on remoter objects; as kings have fometimes freed themselves from a fubject too haughty to be governed and too powerful to be crushed, by posting him in a diftant province, till his popularity has fubfided, or his pride been repreffed. The attention is diffipated by variety, and acts more weakly upon any single part, as that torrent may be drawn off to different channels, which, pouring down in one collected body, cannot be refifted. This fpecies of comfort is, therefore, unavailing in severe paroxyfms of corporal pain, when the mind is every inftant called back to mifery, and in the first fhock of any fudden evil; but will certainly be of ufe against encroaching melancholy, and a fettled habit of gloomy thoughts.

It is further advantageous, as it fupplies us with opportunities of making comparisons in our own favour. We know that very little of the pain, or pleasure, which does not begin and end in our fenfes, is otherwife than relative; we are rich or poor, great or little, in proportion to the number that excel us, or fall beneath us, in any of these refpects; and therefore, a man, whofe uneafinefs arifes from reflexion on any misfortune that throws him below those with whom he was once equal, is comforted by finding that he is not yet loweft.

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There

There is another kind of comparison, lefs tending towards the vice of envy, very well illustrated by an old poet, whofe fyftem will not afford many reasonable motives to content. It is,' fays he, • pleafing to look from fhore upon the tumults of a ftorm, and to see a ship struggling with the billows; it is pleafing, not because the pain of another can give us delight, but because we have < a stronger impreffion of the happiness of safety.' Thus, when we look abroad, and behold the multitudes that are groaning under evils heavier than those which we have experienced, we fhrink back to our own state, and instead of repining that fo much must be felt, learn to rejoice that we have not more to feel.

By this obfervation of the miseries of others, fortitude is ftrengthened, and the mind brought to a more extensive knowledge of her own powers. As the heroes of action catch the flame from one arother, fo they to whom providence has allotted the harder task of fuffering with calmness and dignity, may animate themselves by the remembrance of those evils which have been laid on others, perhaps naturally as weak as themselves, and bear up with vigour and refolution against their own oppreffions, when they see it poffible that more fevere afflictions may be borne.

There is ftill another reason why, to many minds, the relation of other men's infelicity may give à lafting and continual relief. Some, not well inftructed in the measures by which providence diftributes happiness, are perhaps mifled by divines,

who,

who, as Bellarmine makes temporal profperity one of the characters of the true church, have reprefented wealth and eafe as the certain concomitants of virtue, and the unfailing refult of the divine approbation. Such fufferers are dejected in their miffortunes, not so much for what they feel, as for what they dread; not because they cannot fupport the forrows, or endure the wants, of their prefent condition, but because they confider them as only the beginnings of more fharp and more lafting pains. To these mourners it is an act of the higheft charity to represent the calamities which not only virtue has fuffered, but virtue has incurred; to inform them that one evidence of a future ftate is the uncertainty of any prefent reward for goodnefs; and to remind them, from the highest authority, of the diftreffes and penury of men of whom the world was not worthy.

NUMB. 53. TUESDAY, Sept. 18, 1750.

T

Φείδιο των κλεανών,

Hufband thy poffeffions.

Epigram. Vet.

HERE is fcarcely among the evils of human life any fo generally dreaded as poverty. Every other fpecies of mifery, thofe, who are not much accustomed to disturb the prefent moment with reflection, can easily forget, because it is not always forced upon their regard: but it is impoffible to pass a day or an hour in the confluxes of men, without feeing how much indigence is expofed to contumely, neglect, and infult; and, in its lowest state, to hunger and nakedness; to injuries against which every paffion is in arms, and to wants which nature cannot sustain.

Against other evils the heart is often hardened by true or by falfe notions of dignity and reputation: thus we see dangers of every kind faced with willingnefs, because bravery in a good or bad caufe is never without its encomiasts and admirers. But in the prospect of poverty, there is nothing but gloom and melancholy; the mind and body fuffer together; its miseries bring no alleviations; it is a state in which every virtue is obfcured, and in which no conduct can avoid reproach: a ftate in which cheerfulness is infenfibility, and dejection fullennefs, of which the hardships are without honour, and the labours without reward.

Of