out from the multitude; as, in reading an account of a battle, we feldom reflect on the vulgar heaps of flaughter, but follow the hero, with our whole attention, through all the varieties of his fortune, without a thought of the thousands that are falling round him.

WITH the fame kind of anxious veneration I have for many years been making obfervations on the life of Polyfilus, a man whom all his acquaintances have, from his first appearance in the world, feared for the quicknefs of his difcernment, and admired for the multiplicity of his attainments, but whose progress in life, and usefulness to mankind has, perhaps, been hindered by the fuperfluity of his knowledge, and the celerity of his mind.

POLYPHILUS was remarkable, at the school, for furpaffing all his companions, without any vifible application, and at the university was diftinguifhed equally for his fuccessful progrefs as well through the rough and thorny mazes of science, as the smooth and flowery path of politer literature, without any strict confinement to hours of study, or any remarkable forbearance of the common amufements of young

WHEN Polyphilus was at the age, in which men ufually chufe their profeffion, and prepare to enter into a public character, every academical eye was fixed upon him; all were curious to inquire, what this univerfal genius would fix upon for the employment of his life; and no doubt was made but that he would leave all his contemporaries behind him, and mount to the highest honours of that class, in which he fhould inlift himfelf, without thofe delays and pauses which must be always endured by meaner abilities.

POLYPHILUS, though by no means infolent or affuming, had been fufficiently encouraged, by uninterrupted fuccefs, to place great confidence in his own parts; and was not below his companions in the indulgence of his hopes, and expectation of the aftonishment with which the world would be ftruck, when first his luftre fhould break out upon it; nor could he forbear (for whom does not conftant Aattery intoxicate?) to join fometimes in the · mirth of his friends, at the fudden disappearance of thofe, who, having fhone awhile, and drawn the eyes of the public upon their feeble radiance, were now doomed to fade away before him.

Ir

It is natural for a man to catch advantage. ous notions of the condition which those, with whom he converfes, are ftriving to attain, Polyphilus, in a ramble to London, fell accidentally among the phyficians, and was fo much pleased with the profpect of turning philofophy to profit, and fo highly delighted with a new theory of fevers which darted into his imagination, and which, after having confidered it a few hours, he found himself able to maintain against all the advocates for the ancient system, that he refolved to apply himself to anatomy, botany, and chemistry, and to leave no part unconquered either of the animal, mineral, or vegetable kingdoms.

He therefore read authors, constructed systems, and tried experiments; but unhap pily, as he was going to see a new plant in flower at Chelfea, he met, in croffing Weftminfter to take water, the chancellor's coach; he had the curiofity to follow him into the hall, where a remarkable caufe happened to be tryed, and found himself able to produce fo many arguments, which the lawyers had omitted on. both fides, that he determined to quit phyfic

for

for a profeffion, in which he found it would be fo eafy to excel, and which promised higher honours, and larger profits, without melancholy attendance upon mifery, mean fubmiffion to peevishness, and continual interruption of reft and pleasure.

He immediately took chambers in the Temple, bought a common-place-book, and confined himself for fome months to the perufal of the ftatutes, year-books, pleadings, and reports; he was a conftant hearer of the proceedings in the courts, and began to put cafes with reasonable accuracy. But he foon difcovered, by confidering the fortune of lawyers, that preferment was not to be got by acuteness, learning, and eloquence. He was perplexed by the abfurdities of attorneys, and misreprefentations made by his clients of their own caufes, by the useless anxiety of one, and the inceffant importunity of another; he began to repent of having devoted himself to a study, which was fo narrow in its comprehenfion that it could never carry his name to any "other country, and thought it unworthy of a man of parts to fell his life only for money. The barrennefs of his fellow-ftudents forced him generally into other company at his hours

of

of entertainment, and among the varieties of converfation, through which his curiofity was daily wandering, he, by chance, mingled at a tavern with fome intelligent officers of the army. A man of letters was easily dazzled with the gaiety of their appearance, and foftened into kindnefs by the politenefs of their addrefs; he, therefore, cultivated this new acquaintance, and when he faw how readily they found in every place admiffion and regard, and how familiarly they mingled with every rank and order of men, he began to feel his heart beat for military honours, and wondered how the prejudices of the university should make him fo long infenfible of that ambition, which has fired fo many hearts in every age, and negligent of that calling, which is, above all others, univerfally and invariably illustrious, and which gives, even to the exterior appearance of its profeffors, a dignity and freedom unknown to the rest of mankind,

THESE favourable impreffions were made ftill deeper by his converfation with ladies, whose regard for foldiers he could not observe, * without wishing himfelf one of that happy fraternity, to which the female world feemed to have devoted their charms and their kindnefs.