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ferent figures. Would not a man laugh to hear any one of his species complaining that life is short.

15. The stage might be made a perpetual source of the most noble and useful entertainments, were it under proper regulations. But the mind never unbends itself so agreeably as in the conversation of a well chosen friend. There is indeed no blessing of life that is any way comparable to the enjoyment of a discreet and virtuous friend. It eases and unloads the mind, clears and improves the understanding, engenders thoughts and knowledge, animates virtue and good resolution, sooths and allays the passions, and finds employment for most of the vacant hours of life.

16. Next to such an intimacy with a particular person one would endeavour after a more general conversation with such as are able to entertain and improve those with whom they converse, which are qualifications that seldom go asunder.

There are many other useful amusements of life, which one would endeavour to multiply, that one might on all occasions have recourse to something rather than suffer the mind to lie idle, or run adrift with any passion that chances to rise in it.

17. A man who has a taste in music, painting or architecture, is like one who has another sense compared with such as have no relish for those arts. The florist, the painter, the gardner, the husbandman, when they are only as accomplishments to the man of fortune, are great relishes to a country life, and many ways useful to those who are possessed of them.

18.

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SPECTATOR, No. 93. WAS yesterday busy in comparing together the industry of man with that of other creatures; in which I could not but observe, that notwithstanding we are obliged by duty to keep ourselves in constant employ, after the same manner as inferior animals are prompted to it by instinct, we fall very short of them in this particular.

19. We are here the more inexcusable, because there is a greater variety of business to which we may apply ourselves. Reason opens to us a large field of affairs, which other creatures are not capable of. Beasts of prey, and I believe all other kinds, in their natural state of being divide their time between action and rest. They are always at work or asleep. In short, their awaking hours are wholly taken up in seeking after their food, or in consuming it.

20. The human species only, to the great reproach of our natures, are filled with complaints, that the day hangs heavy on them, that they do not know what to do with themselves, that they are at a loss how to pass away their time, with many of the like shameful murmurs, which we often find in the mouth of those who are styled reasonable beings.

21. How monstrous are such expressions among creatures, who have the labours of the mind, as well as those of the body, to furnish them with proper employments; who, besides the business of their proper callings and professions can apply themselves to the duties of religion, to meditation, to the reading of useful books, and to discourse; in a word, who may exercise themselves in the unbounded pursuits of knowledge and virtue, and every hour of their lives make themselves wiser and better than they were before.

22. After having been taken up for some time in this course of thought, I diverted myself with a book, according to my usual custom, in order to unbend my mind before I went to sleep. The book I made use of on this occasion was Lucian, where I amused my thoughts for about an hour among the dialogues of the dead, which in all probability produced the following dream.

23. I was conveyed, methought, into the entrance of the infernal regions, where I saw Rhadamanthus, one of the judges of the dead, seated on his tribunal. On his left stood the keeper of Erebus, on his right the keeper of Elysium. I was told he sat upon women that day, there being several of the sex lately arrived, who had not yet their mansions assigned them.

24. I was surprised to hear him ask every one of them the same question, namely. What they had been doing? Upon this being proposed to the whole assembly, they stared upon one another, as not knowing what to answer. He then interrogated each of them separately. Madam, says he to the first of them, you have been upon the earth about fifty years; what have you been doing there all this while? Doing, says she, really I do not know what I have been doing: I desire I may have time given me to recollect.

25. After about half an hour's pause she told him that she had been playing at crimp; upon which Rhadamanthus beckoned to the keeper on his left hand, to take her into custody. And you, madam, says the judge, who look with such a soft and languishing air; I think you set out for this place in your nine and twentieth year; what have you been doing all this while? I had a great deal of business on my hands, says she, being taken up the first twelve years of my life in dressing a jointed baby, and all the remaining part of it in reading plays and romances.

26. Very well, says he, you have employed your time to good purpose. Away with her. The next was a plain country woman: Well, mistress, says Rhadamanthus, and what have you been doing? An't please your worship, says she, I did not live quite forty years; and in that time brought my husband seven daughters, made him nine thousand cheeses, and left my eldest girl with him to look after his house in my absence, and who, I may venture to say, is as pretty a housewife as any in the country.

27. Rhadamanthus smiled at the simplicity of the good woman and ordered the keeper of Elysium to take her into his care. And you, fair lady, said he, what have you been doing these five and thirty years? I have been doing no hurt, I assure you sir, said she. That is well, says he, but what good have you been doing? The lady was in great cofusion at this question, and not knowing what to answer the two keepers leaped out to seize her at the same time; the one took her by the hand to convey her to Elysium : the other caught hold of her to carry her away to Erebus.

28. But Rhadamanthus observing an ingenious modesty in hercountenance and behaviour, bid them both let her loose and set her aside for a re-examination when he was more at leisure. An old woman, of a proud and sour look, presented herself next at the bar, and being asked what she had been doing? Truly, says she, I lived three-score and ten years in a very wicked world, and was so angry at the behaviour of a parcel of young flirts, that I past most of my last years in condemning the follies of the times. 29. I was every day blaming the silly conduct of people about me, in order to deter those I conversed with from falling into the like errors and miscarriages. Very well, says Rhadamanthus,. but did you keep the same watchful eye over your own actions ? Why truly, says she, I was so taken up with publishing the faults. of others, that I had no time to consider my own.

30. Madam, says Rhadamanthus, be pleased to file off to the left, and make room for the venerable matron who stands behind you. Old gentlewoman, says he, I think you are four-score? You have heard the question, what have you been doing so long in the world? Ah! sir, says she, I have been doing what I should not have done, but I had made a firm resolution to have changed my life, if I had not been snatched off by an untimely, end.

31. Madam, says he, you will please to follow your leader, and spying another of the same age, interrogated her in the same form. To which the matron replied, I have been the wife of a husband, who was as dear to me in his old age as in his youth. I have been a mother and very happy in my children, whom I endeavoured to bring up in every thing that is good.

32. My eldest son is blest by the poor, and beloved by every one who knows him. I lived within my own family and left it much more wealthy than I found it. Rhadamanthus, who knew the value of the old lady, smiled upon her in such a manner, that the keeper of Elysium, who knew his office, reached out his hand to her. He no sooner touched her but her wrinkles vanished, her eyes sparkled, her cheeks glowed with blushes, and she appeared in full bloom and beauty.

33. A young woman observing that this officer, who conducted the happy to Elysium, was so great a beautifyer, longed to be in

his hands, so that pressing through the crowd, she was the next who appeared at the bar, and being asked what she had been doing the five-and-twenty years that she had passed in the world? I have endeavoured, says she, ever since I came to the years of discretion, to make myself lovely, and gain admirers.

34. In order to do it I past my time in bottling up May-dew, inventing white-washes, mixing colours, cutting out patches, consulting my glass, suiting my complexion, tearing off my tucker, sinking my stays-Rhadamanthus, without hearing her out, gave the sign to take her off. Upon the approach of the keeper Erebus her colour faded, her face was puckered up with wrinkles, and her whole person lost in deformity.

35. I was then surprised with a distant sound of a whole troop of females who came forward laughing, singing and dancing. I was very desirous to know the reception they would meet with, and withal was very apprehensive that Rhadamanthus would spoil their mirth; but at their nearer approach, the noise grew so very great that it awakened me.

36. Employment of time is a subject, that from its importance, deserves your best attention. Most young gentlemen have a great deal of time before them, and one hour well employed, in the early part of life, is more valuable, and will be of greater use to you, than perhaps four-and-twenty, some years to come.

37. Whatever time you can steal from company and from the study of the world (I say company, for a knowledge of life is best learned in various companies) employ it in serious reading. Take up some valuable book, and continue the reading of that book till you have got through it; never burden your mind with more than one thing at a time; and in reading this book do not run it over, superficially, but read every passage twice over, at least do not pass on to a second till you thoroughly understand the first, nor quit the book till you are master of the subject; for unless you do this, you may read it through, and not remember the contents of it for a week.

38. The books I would particularly recommend, are Cardinal Retz's maxims, Rochefoucauld's moral reflections, Bruyere's characters, Fontenelle's plurality of worlds, Sir Josiah Child on trade, Bollinbroke's works; for style his Remarks on the history of England, under the name of Sir John Oldcastle; Puffendorf's Jus Gentium, and Grotius de Jure Belli et Pacis: the last two are well translated by Barbeyrac. For occasional half hours or less, read the best works of invention, wit and humour; but never waste your minutes on trifling authors, either ancient or modern.

39. Any business you may have to transact, should be done the first opportunity, and finished, if possible, without interruption;

for by deferring it we may probably finish it too late, or execute it indifferently. Now business of any kind should never be done by halves, but every part of it should be well attended to; for he who does business ill, had better not do it at all. And in any point which discretion bids you pursue, and which has a manifest utility to recommend it, let not difficulties deter you; rather let them animate your industry. If one method fails, try a second and a third. Be active, persevere, and you will certainly conquer. 40. Never indulge a lazy disposition; there are few things but are attended with some difficulties, and if you are frightened at those difficulties, you will not complete any thing. Indolent minds prefer ignorance to trouble; they look upon most things as impossible, because perhaps they are difficult. Even an hour's attention is too laborious for them, and they would rather content themselves with the first view of things, than take the trouble to look any further into them. Thus, when they come to talk upon subjects to those who have studied them, they betray an unpardonable ignorance, and lay themselves open to answers that confuse them. Be careful then, that you do not get the appellation of indolent, and, if possible, avoid the character of frivolous, For,

41. The frivolous mind is busied always upon nothing. It mistakes trifling objects for important ones, and spends that time upon little matters, that should only be bestowed upon great ones. Knick-knacks, .butterflies, shells, and such like, engross the at-tention of the frivolous man, and fill up all his time. He studies the dress and not the characters of men, and his subjects of conversation are no other than the weather, his own domestic affairs, his servants, his method of managing his family, the little anecdotes of the neighbourhood, and the fiddle-faddle stories of the day; void of information, void of improvement. These he relates with emphasis, as interesting matters, in short he is a male gossip. I appeal to your own feelings now whether such things do not lessen a man in the opinion of his acquaintance, and instead of attracting esteem, create disgust.

M

Modesty.

ODESTY is the citadel of beauty and virtue.
all virtues is innocence; the second is modesty.

The first of

1. Modesty is both in its source, and in its consequence, a very great happiness to the fair posessor of it; it arises from a fear of dishonour, and a good conscience, and is followed immediately, upon its first appearance, with the reward of honour and esteem, paid by all those who discover it in any body living.

2. It is indeed a virtue in a woman (that might otherwise be very disagreeable to one) so exquisitely delicate, that it excites in any beholder, of a generous and manly disposition, almost all

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