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in a short time, to intrude besore the summons, to rush upon him with resistless violence, and without any previous notice of its approach. He will rind himself liable to be inflamed at the first touch of provocation, and unable to retain his resentment, till he has a sull conviction of the osfence, to proportion his anger to the cause, or to regulate it by prudence or by duty. When a man has once sufsered his mind to be thus vitiated, he becomes one of the most hatesul and unhappy beings. He can give no security to himself that he shall not, at the next interview, alienate by some sudden transport his dearest friend; or break out, upon some slight contradiction, into such terms of rudeness as can never be persectly forgotten. Whoever converses with him, lives with the suspicion and solicitude of a man that plays with a tame tiger, always under a necessity of watching the moment in which the capricious favage shall begin to growl.

It is told by Prior, in a panegyrick on the Duke of Dorset, that his servants used to put themselves in his way when he was angry, because he was sure to recompense them for any indignities which he made them suffer. This is the round of a passionate man's lise; he contracts debts when he is furious, which his virtue, is he has virtue, obliges him to discharge at the return of reason. He spends his time in outrage and acknowledgement, injury and reparation. Or, is there be any who hardens himself in oppression, and justifies the wrong, because he has done it, his insensibility can make small part of his praise, or his happiness; he only adds deliberate to hasty folly, aggravates petu

F 4 lance lance by contumacy, and destroys the only ple^ that he can osfer for the tenderness and patience of mankind.

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Yet, even this degree of depravity we may be content to pity, because it seldom wants a punishment equal to its guilt. Nothing is more despicable or more miserable than the old age of a passionate man. When the vigour ot youth sails him, and his amusements pal! with frequent repetition, his occasional rage finks by decay of strength into peevishness; that peevishness, for want of novelty and variety, becomes habitual; the world salls off from around him, and he is left, as Homer expresses ir, tpQuuOsv $l\ov to devour his own heart in soli-: r.ude and contempt,.

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Numb. 12. Saturday, April 28, 1750.

. Miserum parvaflipefocilat, ut pudihuvdos

Extrcertsales inter convivia pojjit. ,

Tu mitis, W acri

J/peritate cams, pofitoque per omnia fajlti,
Inter ut aquales unus numeraris amices,
Obfequiumquc doc es, Iz amor em quter is amando.

X.ucanus ad Pisonem.

Unlike the ribald whofe licentious jest

Pollutes his banquet, and insults his guest;

From wealth and grandeur easy to descend,

Thou joy'st to lofe the master in the friend:

We round thy board the cheersul menials sec,

Gay with the smile of bland equality;

No social care the gracious lord disdains;

Love prompts to love, and rev'rence rev'rence gains.

so the RAMBLER.

S I R,

AS you seem to have devoted your labours to virtue, I cannot forbear to insorm you of one species of cruelty with which the lise of a man of letters perhaps does not often make him acquainted} and which, as it seems to produce no other advantage to thofe that practise it than a short gratification of thoughtless vanity, may become less common when it has been once expofed in its various forms, and its sull magnitude.

I am the daughter of a country gentleman, whofe family is numerous, and whofe estate, not at first

sufficient

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