executing, his powers fume away in projects and in hope, and the day of action never arrives. He lies down delighted with the thoughts of to-morrow, pleases his ambition with the fame he shall acquire, or his benevolence with the good he fhall confer. But in the night the skies are overcaft, the temper of the air is changed, he wakes in languor, impatience, and diftraction, and has no longer any with but for ease, nor any attention but to mifery. It may be faid that disease generally begins that equality which death completes; the distinctions which fet one man fo much above another are very little perceived in the gloom of a fick chamber, where it will be vain to expect entertainment from the gay, or inftruction from the wife; where all human glory is obliterated, the wit is clouded, the reafoner perplexed, and the hero fubdued; where the higheft and brightest of mortal beings finds nothing left him but the confcioufness of innocence. There is among the fragments of the Greek poets a fhort hymn to Health, in which her power of exalting the happiness of life, of heightening the gifts of fortune, and adding enjoyment to poffeffion, is inculcated with fo much force and beauty, that no one, who has ever languifhed under the difcomforts and infirmities of a lingering disease, can read it without feeling the images dance in his heart, and adding from his own experience new vigour to the wifh, and from his own imagination new colours to the picture. The particular occafion of this little compofition is not known, but it is probable that the author had been fick, and in the first raptures of returning vigour addreffed Health in the following manner: Υγίεια πρεσβίσα Μακάρων, ΣΕ Σὺ δέ μοι πρόφρων (υναικα εἴης. Ει γάς τις ἡ πλέτε χάρις ἤ τεκέων Βασιληίδα ἀρχαῖς, ἢ πύθων, Οὺς κρυφίοις Αφροδίτης ἄρκυσιν θηρεύομεν, Health, moft venerable of the powers of heaven! with thee may the remaining part of my life be passed, nor de thou refufe to bless me with thy refidence. For whatever there is of beauty or of pleasure in wealth, in defcendants, or in fovereign command the highest fummit of human enjoyment, or in thofe objects of defire which we endeavour to chafe into the toils of love; whatever delight, or whatever folace is granted by the celestials to foften our fatigues, in thy prefence, thou parent of happiness, all thofe joys fpread out and flourish; in thy prefence blooms the fpring of pleasure, and without thee no man is happy. Such is the power of health, that without its cooperation, every other comfort is torpid and lifeless, as the powers of vegetation without the fun. And yet this blifs is commonly thrown away in thoughtlefs negligence, or in foolish experiments on our own ftrength; we let it perifh without remembring its value, or wafte it to fhew how much we have to fpare; it is fometimes given up to the management of levity and chance, and fometimes fold for the applaufe of jollity and debauchery. Health is equally neglected, and with equal_impropriety, by the votaries of bufinefs and the followers of pleafure. Some men ruin the fabrick of their lies by inceffant revels, and others by intempeftudies; fome batter it by excefs, and others it by inactivity. To the noify rout of baccha nalian rioters, it will be to little purpose that advice is offered, though it requires no great abilities to prove, that he lofes pleasure who lofes health; their clamours are too loud for the whispers of caution, and they run the course of life with too much precipitance to stop at the call of wisdom. Nor perhaps will they that are bufied in adding thousands to thousands, pay much regard to him that shall direct them to haften more flowly to their wishes. Yet fince lovers of money are generally cool, deliberate and thoughtful, they might furely confider, that the greater good ought not be facrificed to the lefs. Health is certainly more valuable than money, because it is by health that money is procured; but thousands and millions are of fmall avail to alleviate the protracted tortures of the gout, to repair the broken organs of fenfe, or refufcitate the powers of digeftion. Poverty is, indeed, an evil from which we naturally fly; but let us not run from one enemy to another, nor take shelter in the arms of fickness. -Projecere animam! quàm vellent æthere in alto For healthful indigence in vain they pray, In queft of wealth who throw their lives away. Those who lofe their health in an irregular and impetuous pursuit of literary accomplishments are yet lefs to be excufed; for they ought to know that the body is not forced beyond its ftrength, but with the lofs of more vigour than is proportionate to the effect produced. Whoever takes up life beforehand, by depriving himself of reft and refreshment, must not only pay back the hours, but pay them back with ufury; and for the gain of a few months but half enjoyed, muft give up years to the liftiefnefs of languor, and the implacability of pain. They whofe en endeavour is mental excellence, will learn perhaps too late, how much it is endangered by diseases of the body, and find that knowledge may easily be loft in the starts of melancholy, the flights of impatience, and the peevishness of decrepitude. NUMB. 49. TUESDAY, September 4, 1750. Non omnis moriar, multaque pars mei Vitabit Libitinam, ufque ego posterá Crefcam laude recens. Whole Horace fhall not die; his fongs fhall fave TH HOR. CREECH. HE firft motives of human actions are those appetites which providence has given to man,, in common with the rest of the inhabitants of the earth. Immediately after our birth, thirst and hunger incline us to the breast, which we draw by inftinct, like other young creatures, and, when we are fatisfied, we exprefs our uncafinefs by importunate and inceffant cries, till we have obtained a place or pofture proper for repose. The next call that roufes us from a ftate of inactivity, is that of our paffions; we quickly begin to be fenfible of hope and fear, love and hatred, defire and averfion; thefe arifing from the power of comparison and reflection, extend their range wider, as our reafon strengthens, and our knowledge enlarges. At first we have no thought of pain, but when we actually feel it; we afterwards begin to fear it, yet not before it approaches us very nearly; but by degrees we difcover it at a greater distance, and find it lurking in remote confequences. Our terror in time improves into caution, and we learn to look round with vigilance and folicitude, to ftop all the avenues at which mifery can enter, and to perform or endure many things in themselves toilfome and unpleafing, because we know by reafon, or by experience, that our labour will be overbalanced by the reward, that it will either procure fome pofitive. good, or avert some evil greater than itself. But as the foul advances to a fuller exercise of its powers, the animal appetites, and the paffions immediately arifing from them, are not fufficient to find it employment; the wants of nature are foon fupplied, the fear of their return is easily precluded, and fomething more is neceffary to relieve the long intervals of inactivity, and to give thofe faculties, which cannot lie wholly quiefcent, fome particular direction. For this reafon, new defires, and artificial paffions are by degrees produced; and, from having wishes only in confequence of our wants, we begin to feel wants in confequence of our wifhes; we perfuade ourselves to fet a value upon things which are of no ufe, but because we have agreed to value them; things which can neither fatisfy hunger, nor mitigate pain, nor fecure us from any real calamity, and which, therefore, we find of no esteem among those nations whofe artless and barbarous manners keep them always anxious for the neceffaries of life. This is the original of avarice, vanity, ambition, and generally of all those defires which arife from the comparison of our condition with that of others. He that thinks himself poor, becaufe his neighbour is richer; he that, like Cæfar, would rather be the firft man of a village, than the fecond in the capital of the world, has apparently kindled in himself defires which he never received from nature, and acts upon principles established only by the authority of cuftom. Of thofe adfcititious paffions, fome, as avarice and envy, are univerfally condemned; fome, as VOL. I. friend. N |