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

BUT tho' good-fenfe is not in the number, nor always, it must be owned, in the company of the fciences; yet is it (as the moft fenfible of poets has justly observed) fairly worth the feven.

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 focial intercourse.

UPON whatever occafion this enlightening faculty is exerted, it is always fure to act with distinguished eminence; but its chief and peculiar province feems to lie in the commerce of the world. Accordingly we may obferve, that those who have converfed more with men than with books; whose wisdom is derived rather from experience than contemplation; generally poffefs this happy talent with fuperior perfection. For good-fenfe, 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-fense is not a more uncommon quality even than true wit; as there is nothing, perhaps, more extraordinary than to meet with a perfon; whofe entire conduct and notions are under the direction of this fupreme guide. The fingle instanee at least, which I could produce of its acting fteddily and invariably throughout the whole of a character, is that which Euphronius, I am fure, would not allow me to mention at the fame time; perhaps, I am rendering my own preten fions of this kind extremely questionable, when I thus venture to throw before you my fentiments upon a subject, of which you are univerfally acknowledged fo perfect a mafter. I am, &c.

I ESTEEM

your

May 29, 1743.

letters in the number of

my most valuable poffeffions, and preserve them as so many prophetical leaves upon which the fate of our diftracted nation

is infcribed. But in exchange for the maxims of a patriot, I can only send you the reveries of a reclufe, and give you the ftones 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 conscience to continue a traffic, where the whole benefit accrues fingly to myfelf; 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 philofopher with the reflections of the ftatefman, and can turn with equal relish from the politics of Tacitus, to the morals of Seneca.

I was in my garden this morning somewhat earlier than ufual, when the fun, as Milton defcribes him,

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

There is fomething in the opening of the dawn at this feafon of the year, that en

livens the mind with a fort of chearful ferioufnefs, and fills it with a certain calm. rapture in the consciousness 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 ftatue of Memnon: 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 freshness and tranquillity of this early feason, and confidering the many reasons I had to join in offering up that morning incense, which the poet I just now mentioned reprefents as particularly arifing at this hour from the earth's great altar; I could not but esteem it as a principal bleffing, that I was entering upon a new day with health and spirits. To awake with recruited vigor for the transactions of life, is a mercy fo generally difpenfed, that it paffes, like other the ordinary bounties of Providence, without making its due impreffion. Yet were one never to rife under thefe happy circumftances, without reflecting what numbers there are, who (to use the language of the most

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thetic of authors) when they faid, My bed fball comfort me, my couch shall eafe my complaint, were, like him, full of toffings to and fro, unto the dawning of the day, or feared with dreams, and terrified thro' vifions -were one to confider, I fay, how many pass their nights in all the horrors of a difturbed imagination, or all the wakefulness of real pains, one could not find one's felf exempt from fuch uneafy flumbers or fuch terrible vigils, without double fatisfaction and gratitude. There is nothing, indeed, contributes more to render a man contented with that draught of life which is poured out to himself, than thus to reflect on thofe more bitter ingredients which are fometimes mingled in the cup of others.

IN pursuing the fame vein of thought I could not but congratulate myself, that I had no part in that turbulent drama which was going to be re-acted upon the great ftage of the world; and rejoiced that it was my fortune to ftand a diftant and unengaged fpectator of those feveral charaçters that would fhortly fill the fcene. This fuggested to my remembrance a paffage in the Roman tragic poet, where he describes

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