being placed at a distance, and lying con cealed under numberless covers, require much pains and application to unfold.

But tho good-sense is not in the number, nor always, it must be owned, in the company of the sciences; yet is it (as the most sensible of poets has justly observed) fairly worth the seven. Rectitude of understanding is indeed the most useful, as well as the most noble of human endowments, as it is the fovereign guide and director in every branch of civil and social intercourse.

UPON whatever occafion this enlightening faculty is exerted, it is always sure to act with diftinguished eminence; but its chief and peculiar province seems to lie in the commerce of the world. Accordingly we may observe, that those who have conversed more with men than with books; whose wisdom is derived rather from experience than contemplation; generally pofsess this happy talent with superior perfection. For good-sense, tho it cannot be acquired, may be improved; and the world, I believe, will ever be found to afford the most kindly foil for its cultivation.

I Know not whether true good-sense is not a more uncommon quality even than true wit; as there is nothing, perhaps, more extraordinary than to meet with a person, whose entire conduct and notions are under the direction of this supreme guide. The single instance at least, which I could produce of its acting steddily and invariably throughout the whole of a character, is that which Euphronius, I am fsure, would not allow me to mention: at the same time, perhaps, I am rendering my own pretensions of this kind extremely questionable, when I thus venture to throw before you my sentiments upon a subject, of which you are universally acknowledged so perfect a master. I am, &c.

I

LETTER LI.

TO PALEMΟΝ.

May 29, 1743.

ESTEEM your letters in the number of my most valuable possessions, and preserve them as so many prophetical leaves upon which the fate of our distracted nation

:

R 2

iş

1

is inscribed. But in exchange for the maxims of a patriot, I can only fend you the reveries of a recluse, and give you the stones of the brook for the gold of Ophir. Never, indeed, Palemon, was there a commerce more unequal, than that wherein you are contented to engage with me: and I could scarce answer it to my confcience to continue a traffic, where the whole benefit accrues fingly to myself; did I not know, that to confer without the poffibility of an advantage, is the most pleasing exercise of generofity. I will venture then to make ufe of a privilege which I have long enjoyed; as I well know you love to mix the meditations of the philosopher with the reflections of the statefman, and can turn with equal relish from the politics of Tacitus, to the morals of Seneca.

I was in my garden this morning fomewhat earlier than usual, when the fun, as Milton describes him,

With wheels yet hov'ring d'er the ocean brim Shot parallel to th' earth his dewy ray.

::

There is fomething in the opening of the

dawn at this season of the year, that en

livens the mind with a fort of chearful feriousness, and fills it with a certain calm rapture in the confciousness of its existence. For my own part at least, the rifing of the fun has the fame effect on me, as it is faid to have had on the celebrated statue of Me-.. mnon: and I never observe that glorious luminary breaking forth, that I do not find myself harmonized for the whole day..

WHILST I was enjoying the fresiness and tranquility of this early season, and confidering the many reasons I had to join in offering up that morning incenfe, which the poet I just now mentioned, represents as particularly arifing at this hour from the earth's great altar; I could not but esteem it as a principal blessing, that I was entering upon a new day with health and spirits. To awake with recruited vigor for the tranfactions of life, is a mercy so generally difpensed, that it passes, like other the ordinary bounties of Providence, without making its due impreffion. Yet were one never to rise under these happy circumstances, without reflecting what numbers there are,

who (to use the language of the most paR3 thetic

1

:

a

out in others. There cannot, indeed, be a more odious, nor at the fame time a more contemptible character, than that of a vi tious fatirist:

Quis cælum terris non mifceat & mare cælo, Si fur difpliceat Verri, homicida Miloni?

The most favorable light in which a cenfor of this species could poffibly be viewed, would be that of a public executioner, who inflicts the punishment on others, which he has already merited himself. But the truth of it is, he is not qualified even for fo wretched an office; and there is nothing to be dreaded from a fatirift of known dishonesty, but his applause. Adieu.

LETTER XLIX.

TO PALAMEDES.

EREMONY is never more unwelcome, C than at that season in which you will probably have the greatest share of it; and as I should be extremely unwilling to add to the number of those, who, in pure good