an end. The soul cannot long be held in prison, but .will fly away, and leave a liseless body to human malice. Ridetqut sui lud'tbr'ia trunci. And soaring mocks the broken frame bc'owr. The utmost that we can threaten to one another is that death, which, indeed, we may precipitate, but cannot retard, and from which, theresore, it cannot become a wise man to buy a reprieve at the expence of virtue, since he knows not how small a portion of time he can purchase, but knows, that, whether short or long, it will be made less valuable by the remembrance of the price at which it has been obtained. He is sure that he destroys his happiness, but is not sure that he lengthens his lise. The known shortness of lise, as it ought to moderate our passions, may likewise, with equal propriety, contract our designs. There is not time for the most forcible genius, and most active industry, to extend its effects beyond a certain sphere. To project the conquest of the world, is the madness of mighty princes; to hope for excellence in every science, has been the folly of literary heroes; and both have found at last, that they have panted for a height of eminence denied to humanity, and have lost many opportunities of making themselves usesul and happy, by a vain ambition of obtaining a species of honour, which the eternal laws of providence have ^placed beyond the reach of man. The miscarriages of the great designs of princes arc recorded in the histories of the world, but arc of little little use to the bulk of mankind, who seem very little interested in admonitions against errors which they cannot commit. But the fate of learned ambition is a proper subject for every scholar to consider; for who has not had occasion to regret the dissipation of great abilities in a boundless multiplicity of pursuits, to lament the sudden desertion of excellent designs, upon the osfer of some oth«r subject made invitingby its novelty, and to observe the inaccuracy and deficiencies of works lest unfinished by too great an extension of the plan? It is always pleasing to observe, how much more our minds can conceive, than our bodies can perform; yet it is our duty, while we continue in this complicated state, to regulate one part of our compofition by some regard to the other. We are not to indulge our corporeal appetites with pleasures that impair our intellectual vigour, nor gratify our minds with schemes which we know our lives must fail in attempting to execute. The uncertainty of our duration ought at once to set bounds to our designs, and add incitements to our industry; and when we find ourselves inclined either to immensity in our schemes, or sluggishness in our endeavours, we may either check, or animate, ourselves, by recollecting, with the father of phyfick, that art is long, and lise is Jbort. Numb. 18. Saturday, May 19, 1750. Illic ma/re carentibus, Dos ejl magna parentum Certo firdere cajlitas. HoRACf-. Not there the guiltless step-dame knows No wise high-portion'd rules her spouse, The lovers there for dow'ry claim Which dares not break the nuptial tic. 'Francis. THERE is no observation more frequently made by such as employ themselves in surveying the conduct of mankind, than that marriage, though the dictate of nature, and the institution of providence, is yet very often the cause of misery; and that those who enter into that state can seldom forbear to express their repentance, and their envy of those whom either chance or caution hath withheld from it. This general unhappiness has given occasion to many sage maxims among the serious, and smart remarks among the gay; the moralist and the writer of epigrams have equally shown their abilities upon it; some have lamented, and some have ridiculed it; it; but as the faculty of writing has been chiefly a masculine endowment, the reproach of making the world miserable has been always, thrown upon the women, and the graye and the merry have equally thought themselves ar. liberty to conclude either with declamatory complaints, or fatirical censures, of semale folly or ficklenessj ambition or cruelty, extravagance or lust. Led by such number of examples, and incited by my share in the common interest, I sometimes venture to consider this univerfal grievance, having endeavoured to divest my heart of all partiality, and place myself as a kind of neutral being between the sexes, whose clamours, being equally vented on both fides with all the vehemence of distress, all the apparent confidence of justice, and all the indignation of injured virtue, seem intitled to equal regard. The men have, indeed, by their superiority of writing, been able to collect the evidence of many ages, and raise prejudices in their favour by the venerable testimonies of philosophers, historians, and poets; but the pleas of the ladies appeal to passions of more forcible operation than the reverence of antiquity. If they have not so great names on their side, they have stronger arguments; it is to little purpofe, that Socrates, or Euripides, are produced against the sighs of softness, and the tears of beauty. The most frigid and inexorable judge would, at least, stand suspended between equal powers, as Lucan was perplexed in the determination of the cause, where the deities were on one side^ and, Cato on the other. I 3 But But I, who have long studied the severest and most abstracted philofophy, have now, in the cool maturity of lise, arrived at such command over my passions, that I can hear the vociserations of either sex without catching any of the fire from thofe that utter them. For I have found, by long experience, that a man will sometimes rage at his wise, when in reality his mistress has offended him; and a lady complain of the cruelty of her hulband, when she has no other enemy than bad cards. I do not suffer myself to be any longer impofed upon by oaths on one fide, or fits on the other; nor when the husband hastens to the tavern, and the lady retires to her clofet, am I always confident that they are driven by their miseries; since I have sometimes reason to believe, that they purpofe not so much to sooth their sorrows, as to animate their sury. But how little credit soever may be given to particular accusations, the general accumulation of the charge shews, with too much evidence, that married persons are not very often advanced in selicity;, and, therefore, it may be proper to examine at what avenues so many evils have made their way into the world. With this purpofe, I have reviewed the lives of my friends, who have been least successsul in connubial contracts, and attentively considered by what motives they were incited to marry, and by what principles they regulated their choice. One of the first of my acquaintances that re-> solved to quit the unsettled thoughtless condition of a batchelor, was Prudentius, a man of flow parts, but not without knowledge or judgment in things |