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measure for the care and pains of their education, and gives us a momentary transient delight, though our prospects should never be completed, or even should they be entirely destroyed. It aids and supports us too in the great work of instruction and gives us ideas as to the views or principles by which their Education ought to be directed for he who has never formed in his mind the idea of something superior to what he is used to meet, will never arrive at any great degree of excellence. The future condition of a Child affords to a Parent a boundless scope for imagination and pleasing conjecture, yet it ought not to be indulged in to the prejudice of useful exertion. We should not be content with imagining what our chil dren may be, but endeavour to make them such as we desire; for imagination may mislead, if not tempered with judgment, and re. strained by prudence.---Burdon.

JULIUS CESAR

VISITED Britain in the earliest period of its history; his principles and conduct must be worthy of examination; indeed he was one of the most renowned characters of Antiquity.

"CÆSAR was endowed with every great and noble quality that could exalt human nature, and give a man the ascendant in society: formed to excel in peace, as well as war; provident in counsel; fearless in action; and executing what he had resolved with an amazing celerity; generous beyond measure to his friends; placable to his enemies; and for parts, learning, eloquence, scarce inferior to any man. His orations were admired for two qualities, which are sel

dom found together, strength and elegance. Cicero ranks him among the greatest orators that Rome ever bred: and Quintilian says, that he spoke with the same force with which he fought; and, if he had devoted himself to the bar, would have been the only man capable of rivalling Cicero. Nor was he master only of the politer arts, but conversant also with the most abstruse and critical parts of learning; and among other works which he published, addressed two books to Cicero, on the analogy of language, or the art of speaking and writing correctly. He was a most liberal patron of wit and learning, wheresoever they were found; and, out of his love of those talents, would readily pardon those who had employed them against himself; rightly judging that by making such men his friends, he should draw praises from the same fountain from which he had been aspersed. His capital passions were ambition and love of pleasure, which he indulged in their turns to the greatest excess; yet the first was always predominant, to which he could easily sacri fice all the charms of the second, and draw pleasure even from toils and dangers, when they ministered to his glory. For he thought tyranny, as Cicero says, the greatest of goddesses; and had frequently in his mouth a verse of Euripides, which expressed the image of his soul, that if right and justice were ever to be violated, they were to be violated for the sake of reigning. This was the chief end and purpose of his life; the scheme that he had formed from his early youth: so that, as Cato truly declared of him, he came with sobriety and meditation to the subversion of the republic. He used to say, that there were two things necessary to acquire and to support

power; soldiers and money; which yet depended mutually on each other with money therefore he provided soldiers; and with soldiers extorted money; and was of all men the most rapacious in plundering both friends and foes; sparing neither prince nor state, nor temple, nor even private persons, who were known to possess any share of treasure. His great abilities would necessarily have made him one of the first citizens of Rome; but disdaining the condition of a subject, he could never rest till he had made himself a monarch. In acting this last part, his usual prudence seemed to fail him; as if the height to which he was mounted had turned his head, and made him giddy for, by a vain ostentation of his power, he destroyed the stability of it; and as men shorten life by living too fast, so by an intemperance of reigning, he brought his reign to a violent end.Middleton.

THE VIRTUOUS MAN

Is so truly excellent in himself, and so truly serviceable to society, that the reader will be gratified by a full length portrait of him.

"HE who in his youth improves his intellec tual powers in the search of truth and useful knowledge, and refines and strengthens his moral and active powers by the love of virtue, for the service of his friend, his country, and mankind; who is animated by true glory, exalted by sacred friendship for social, and softened by virtuous love for domestic life; who lays his heart open to every other mild and generous affection: and who, to all these, adds a sober, masculine piety, equally remote

from superstition and enthusiasm, that man enjoys the most agreeable youth, and lays in the richest fund for the honourable action and happy enjoyment of the succeeding periods of life.

"He who in manhood keeps the offensive and private passions under the wisest restraint; who forms the most select and virtuous friendships; who seeks after fame, wealth, and pow. er, in the road of truth and virtue, and, if he cannot find them in that road, generously despises them; who, in his private character and connections, gives fullest scope to the tender and manly passions, and in his public character and connections, serves his country and mankind in the most upright and disinterested manner; who, in fine, enjoys the goods of life with the greatest moderation, bears its ills with the greatest fortitude, and in those various circumstances of duty and trial, maintains and expresses an habitual and supreme reverence and love of God, that man is the worthiest character in this stage of life; passes through it with the highest satisfaction and dignity; and paves the way to the most easy and honourable old age.

"Finally, he who, in the decline of life, preserves himself most exempt from the chagrins incident to that period, cherishes the most equal and kind affections; uses his experience, wisdom, and authority, in the most fatherly and venerable manner; acts under a sense of the inspection, and with a view to the approbation of his Maker; is daily aspiring after im mortality, and ripening apace for it; and, having sustained his part with integrity and consistency to the last, quits the stage with a

modest and graceful triumph, this is the happiest old man.

"Therefore that whole life of youth, manhood, and old age, which is spent after this manner, is the best and the happiest life. Dr. Fordyce.

CATO

WAS not only a celebrated character among the Romans, but has been made the subject of an interesting tragedy by Addison.

"IF we consider the character of Cato with. out prejudice, he was certainly a great and worthy man; a friend to truth, virtue, liberty: yet, falsely measuring all duty by the absurd rigour of the stoical rule, he was generally disappointed of the end which he sought by it, the happiness both of his private and public life. In his private conduct he was severe, morose, inexorable, banishing all the softer affections, as natural enemies to justice, and as suggesting false motives of acting, from favour, clemency, and compassion: in public affairs he was the same; had but one rule of policy, to adhere to what was right without regard to times or circumstances, or even to a force that could controul him; for instead of managing the power of the great, so as to mitigate the ill, or extract any good from it, he was urging it always to acts of violence by a perpetual defiance; so that, with the best intentions in the world, he often did great harm to the republic. This was his general behaviour; yet from some particular facts, it appears that his strength of mind was not always impregnable but had its weak places of pride, ambition, and

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