pulfion. The huntsman rifes early, purfues his game through all the dangers and obftructions of the chace, fwims rivers, and fcales precipices, till he returns home no lefs haraffed than the foldier, and has perhaps fometimes incurred as great hazard of wounds or death: yet he has no motive to incite his ardour; he is neither fubject to the commands of a general, nor dreads any penalties for neglect and difobedience; he has neither profit or honour to expect from his perils and his conquefts, but toils without the hope of mural or civick garlands, and must content himself with the praife of his tenants and companions. But fuch is the conftitution of man, that labour may be styled its own reward; nor will any external incitements be requifite, if it be confidered how much happiness is gained, and how much mifery escaped, by frequent and violent agitation of the body. Eafe is the most that can be hoped from a fedentary and unactive habit; ease, a neutral ftate between pain and pleasure. The dance of fpirits, the bound of vigour, readinefs of enterprize, and defiance of fatigue, are reserved for him that braces his nerves, and hardens his fibres, that keeps his limbs pliant. with motion, and by frequent expofure fortifies his frame against the common accidents of cold and heat. With eafe, however, if it could be fecured, many would be content; but nothing terreftrial can be kept at a stand. Eafe, if it is not rifing into pleafure, will be falling towards pain; and whatever hope the dreams of fpeculation may suggest of obferving the proportion between nutriment and labour, and keeping the body in a healthy ftate by fupplies exactly equal to its wafte, we know that, in ef. fect, the vital powers unexcited by motion, grow gradually languid; that as their vigour fails, ob. ftructions are generated; and that from obstructions proceed most of those pains which wear us away flowly with periodical tortures, and which, though they fometimes fuffer life to be long, condemn it to be useless, chain us down to the couch of mifery, and mock us with the hopes of death. Exercise cannot fecure us from that diffolution to which we are decreed; but while the foul and body continue united, it can make the affociation pleafing, and give probable hopes that they fhall be disjoined by an easy separation. It was a principle among the ancients, that acute difeafes are from heaven, and chronical from ourfelves; the dart of death indeed falls from heaven, but we poifon it by our own mifconduct to die is the fate of man, but to die with lingering anguish is generally his folly. It is neceffary to that perfection of which our prefent state is capable, that the mind and body fhould both be kept in action; that neither the faculties of the one nor of the other be suffered to grow lax or torpid for want of use; that neither health be purchafed by voluntary fubmiffion to ignorance, nor knowledge cultivated at the expence of that health, which muft enable it either to give pleasure to its poffeffor, or affiftance to others. It is too frequently the pride of students to defpife thofe amusements and recreations, which give to the rest of mankind ftrength of limbs and cheerfulness of heart. Solitude and contemplation are indeed seldom confiftent with fuch skill in common exercifes or fports as is neceffary to make them practifed with delight, and no man is willing to do that of which the neceffity is not preffing and immediate, when he knows that his awkwardness must make him ridiculous. Ludere qui nefcit, campeftribus abftinet armis, He that's unfkilful will not tofs a ball, HOR. CREECH. Thus the man of learning is often refigned, almost by his own confent, to languor and pain; and while in the prosecution of his ftudies he suffers the weariness of labour, is subject by his course of life to the maladies of idleness. It was, perhaps, from the observation of this mifchievous omiffion in those who are employed about intellectual objects, that Locke has, in his Syftem of Education, urged the neceffity of a trade to men of all ranks and profeffions, that when the mind is weary with its proper task, it may be relaxed by a flighter attention to fome mechanical operation; and that while the vital functions are refufcitated and awakened by vigorous motion, the understanding may be restrained from that vagrance and diffipation by which it relieves itself after a long intenseness of thought, unless fome allurement be prefented that may engage application without anxiety. There is fo little reafon for expecting frequent conformity to Locke's precept, that it is not neceffary to enquire whether the practice of mechanical arts might not give occafion to petty emulation, and dege. G4 degenerate ambition; and whether, if our divines and phyficians were taught the lathe and the chizzel, they would not think more of their tools than their books; as Nero neglected the care of his empire for his chariot and his fiddle. It is certainly dangerous to be too much pleased with little things; but what is there which may not be perverted? Let us remem. ber how much worfe employment might have been found for those hours, which a manual occupation appears to engrofs; let us compute the profit with the lofs, and when we reflect how often a genius is allured from his ftudies, confider likewife that perhaps by the fame attractions he is fometimes withheld from debauchery, or recalled from malice, from ambition, from envy, and from luft. I have always admired the wisdom of those by whom our female education was instituted, for having contrived, that every woman of whatever condition fhould be taught fome arts of manufacture, by which the vacuities of reclufe and domeftick leisure may be filled up. These arts are more neceffary as the weaknefs of their fex and the general fyftem of life debar ladies from many employments which, by diverfifying the circumstances of men, preferve them from being cankered by the ruft of their own thoughts. I know not how much of the virtue and happiness of the world may be the confequence of this judicious regulation. Perhaps, the most powerful fancy might be unable to figure the confufion and flaughter that would be produced by fo many piercing eyes and vivid understandings, turned loose at once upon mankind, with no other business than to fparkle and intrigue, to perplex and to destroy, For For my part, whenever chance brings within my observation a knot of miffes bufy at their needles, I confider myself as in the school of virtue; and though I have no extraordinary skill in plain work or embroidery, look upon their operations with as much fatisfaction as their governefs, because I regard them. as providing a fecurity against the moft dangerous enfnarers of the foul, by enabling themselves to exclude idlenes from their folitary moments, and with idleness her attendant train of paffions, fancies, and chimeras, fears, forrows, and defires. Ovid and Cervantes will inform them that love has no power but over those whom he catches unemployed; and Hector, in the Iliad, when he fees Andromache overwhelmed with terrors, fends her for confolation to the loom and the distaff. It is certain that any wild wifh or vain imagination never takes fuch firm poffeffion of the mind, as when it is found empty and unoccupied. The old peripatetick principle, that Nature abhors a vacuum, may be properly applied to the intellect, which will embrace any thing, however abfurd or criminal, rather than be wholly without an object, Perhaps every man may date the predominance of those defires that disturb his life and contaminate his confcience, from fome unhappy hour when too much leifure exposed him to their incurfions; for he has lived with little obfervation either on himself or others, who does not know that to be idle is to be vicious, |