must be owned that Nic. was a fair dealer, and in that way acquired immense riches. Hocus was an old cunning attorney; and though this was the first considerable suit that ever he was engaged in, he shewed himself superior in address to most of his profession; he kept always good clerks; he loved money, was smooth-tongued, gave good words, and seldom lost his temper; he was not worse than an infidel, for he provided plentifully for his family; but he loved himself better than them all the neighbours reported that he was henpecked, which was impossible by such a mild-spirited woman as his wife was.* the nation discontented with the French war. of John in many particulars; covetous, frugal; minded The allegory in this piece is well sustained, domestic affairs; would pinch his belly to save his and the satirical allusions poignant and happy, pocket; never lost a farthing by careless servants or though the political disputes of that time have bad debtors. He did not care much for any sort of lost their interest. Of the same ironical descrip- diversions, except tricks of high German artists, and tion is Arbuthnot's Treatise concerning the legerdemain; no man exceeded Nic. in these; yet it Altercation or Scolding of the Ancients, and his Art of Political Lying. His wit is always pointed, and rich in classical allusion, without being acrimonious or personally offensive. Of the serious performances of Arbuthnot, the most valuable is a series of dissertations on ancient coins, weights, and measures. He published also some medical works. After the death of Queen Anne, all the attendants of the court were changed, and Arbuthnot removed from St James's to Dover Street. Swift said he knew his art, but not his trade; and on another occasion the dean said of him: He has more wit than we all have, and more humanity than wit.' Arbuthnot, however, though displaced, applied himself closely to his profession, and continued his unaffected cheerfulness and good-nature. In his latter years he suffered much from ill-health: he died in 1735 The most severe and dignified of the occasional productions of Dr Arbuthnot, is his epitaph on Colonel Chartres, a notorious gambler and money-lender of the day, tried and condemned for an assault on his female servant : Here continueth to rot the body of FRANCIS CHARTRES, who, with an inflexible constancy, and inimitable uniformity of life, persisted, in spite of age and infirmities, in the practice of every human vice, excepting prodigality and hypocrisy; his insatiable avarice exempted him from the first, his matchless impudence from the second. Nor was he more singular in the undeviating pravity of his manners than successful in accumulating wealth; for, without trade or profession, without trust of public money, and without bribeworthy service, he acquired, or more properly created, a ministerial estate. He was the only person of his time who could cheat with the mask of honesty, retain his primeval meanness when possessed of ten thousand a year, and having daily deserved the gibbet for what he did, was at last condemned to it for what he could not do. Oh, indignant reader! think not his life useless to mankind. Providence connived at his execrable designs, to give to after ages a conspicuous proof and example of how small estimation is exorbitant wealth in the sight of God, by his bestowing it on the most unworthy of all mortals. Characters of John Bull (the English), Nic. Frog (the Dutch), and Hocus (the Duke of Marlborough). Bull, in the main, was an honest plain-dealing fellow, choleric, bold, and of a very unconstant temper; he dreaded not old Lewis either at backsword, single falchion, or cudgel-play; but then he was very apt to quarrel with his best friends, especially if they pretended to govern him; if you flattered him, you might lead him like a child. John's temper depended very much upon the air; his spirits rose and fell with the weather-glass. John was quick, and understood his business very well; but no man alive was more careless in looking into his accompts, or more cheated by partners, apprentices, and servants. This was occasioned by his being a booncompanion, loving his bottle and his diversion; for to say truth, no man kept a better house than John, nor spent his money more generously. By plain and fair dealing, John had acquired some plums, and might have kept them, had it not been for his unhappy lawsuit. Nic. Frog was a cunning sly rogue, quite the reverse 586 Character of John Bull's Mother (the Church of John had a mother whom he loved and honoured cleanly old gentlewoman as ever lived; she was none extremely; a discreet, grave, sober, good-conditioned, of your cross-grained termagant, scolding jades, that one had as good be hanged as live in the house with, such as are always censuring the conduct, and telling scandalous stories of their neighbours, extolling their own good qualities, and undervaluing those of others. On the contrary, she was of a meek spirit, and, as she was strictly virtuous herself, so she always put the best construction upon the words and actions of her neighbours, except where they were irreconcilable to the rules of honesty and decency. She was neither one of your precise prudes, nor one of your fantastical old belles, that dress themselves like girls of fifteen; as she neither wore a ruff, forehead cloth, nor high-crowned hat, so she had laid aside feathers, flowers, and crimpt ribbons in her head-dress, fur-below scarfs, and hooped petticoats. She scorned to patch and paint, yet she loved to keep her hands and her face clean. Though she wore no flaunting laced ruffles, she would not keep herself in a constant sweat with greasy flannel; though her hair was not stuck with jewels, she was not ashamed of a diamond cross: she was not, like some ladies, hung about with toys and trinkets, tweezer-cases, pocket-glasses, and essence-bottles; she used only a gold watch and an almanac, to mark the hours and the holidays. Her furniture was neat and genteel, well fancied, with a bon goût. As she affected not the grandeur of a state with a canopy, she thought there was no offence in an elbow-chair; she had laid aside your carving, gilding, and japan work, as being too apt to gather dirt; but she never could be prevailed upon to part with plain wainscot and clean hangings. There are some ladies that affect to smell a stink in everything; they are incense in their rooms; she was above such affectation, always highly perfumed, and continually burning frankscrubbing-brushes, and scrupled not to lay her linen in yet she never would lay aside the use of brooms and fresh lavender. without affectation, in the due mean between one of She was no less genteel in her behaviour, well-bred, your affected courtesying pieces of formality, and your romps that have no regard to the common rules of civility. There are some ladies that affect a mighty regard for their relations: we must not eat to-day for my uncle Tom, or my cousin Betty, died this *The Duchess of Marlborough was in reality a termagant. All the Tory wits of that day charged the great duke with peculation as commander-in-chief, and with having prolonged the war on that account. There was not a fragment of evidence to support the allegation. The Duke of Wellington, it is said, ridiculed the loved money, he must have loved his military reputation more. notion, and said that, however much Marlborough might have time ten years; let's have a ball to-night, it is my neighbour such-a-one's birthday. She looked upon all this as grimace, yet she constantly observed her husband's birthday, her wedding-day, and some few more. Though she was a truly good woman, and had a sincere motherly love for her son John, yet there wanted not those who endeavoured to create a misunderstanding between them, and they had so far prevailed with him once, that he turned her out of doors, to his great sorrow, as he found afterwards, for his affairs went on at sixes and sevens. She was no less judicious in the turn of her conversation and choice of her studies, in which she far exceeded all her sex; your rakes that hate the company of all sober grave gentlewomen would bear hers; and she would, by her handsome manner of proceeding, sooner reclaim them than some that were more sour and reserved. She was a zealous preacher up of chastity and conjugal fidelity in wives, and by no means a friend to the newfangled doctrine of the indispensable duty of cuckoldom; though she advanced her opinions with a becoming assurance, yet she never ushered them in, as some positive creatures will do, with dogmatical assertions-this is infallible, I cannot be mistaken, none but a rogue can deny it. It has been observed that such people are oftener in the wrong than anybody. Though she had a thousand good qualities, she was not without her faults, amongst which one might perhaps reckon too great lenity to her servants, to whom she always gave good counsel, but often too gentle correction. that was agreeable. It was barbarous in parents not to take notice of these early quarrels, and make them live better together, such domestic feuds proving afterwards the occasion of misfortunes to them both. Peg had, indeed, some odd humours and comical antipathy, for which John would jeer her. 'What think you of my sister Peg,' says he, 'that faints at the sound of an organ, and yet will dance and frisk at the noise of a bagpipe?' 'What's that to you, Gundy-guts?' quoth Peg; everybody's to choose their own music.' Then Peg had taken a fancy not to say her paternoster, which made people imagine strange things of her. Of the three brothers that have made such a clutter in the world, Lord Peter, Martin, and Jack, Jack* had of late been her inclination: Lord Peter she detested; nor did Martin stand much better in her good graces; but Jack had found the way to her heart. The Celerity and Duration of Lies, and How to As to the celerity of their motion, the author says it is almost incredible. He gives several instances of lies that have gone faster than a man can ride post. Your terrifying lie travels at a prodigious rate, above ten miles an hour. Your whispers move in a narrow vortex, but very swiftly. The author says it is impossible to explain several phenomena in relation to the celerity of lies, without the supposition of synchronism and combination. As to the duration of lies, he says they are of all sorts, from hours and days to ages; that there are some which, like insects, die and revive again in a different form; that good artists, like people who build upon a short lease, will calculate the duration of a lie surely to answer their purpose; to last just as long, and no Character of John Bull's Sister Peg (the Scottish Nation longer than the turn is served. and Church). The properest contradiction to a lie is another lie. John had a sister, a poor girl that had been starved at tender was in London, one would not contradict it For example, if it should be reported that the Prenurse; anybody would have guessed miss to have been bred up under the influence of a cruel stepdame, and by saying he never was in England; but you must John to be the fondling of a tender mother. John prove by eye-witnesses that he came no further than looked ruddy and plump, with a pair of cheeks like be spread about that a great person were dying of some Greenwich, and then went back again. Thus, if it a trumpeter; miss looked pale and wan, as if she disease, you must not say the truth, that they are in had the green-sickness; and no wonder, for John was health and never had such a disease, but that they are the darling; he had all the good bits, was crammed slowly recovering of it. So there was not long ago with good pullet, chicken, pig, goose, and capon, while miss had only a little oatmeal and water, or for bringing popery and slavery into England, was a gentleman who affirmed that the treaty with France, a dry crust without butter. John had his golden signed the 15th of September; to which another pippins, peaches, and nectarines; poor miss a crab-answered very judiciously, not, by opposing truth to his apple, sloe, or a blackberry. Master lay in the best lie, that there was no such treaty; but that, to his certain apartment, with his bed-chamber towards the south sun; miss lodged in a garret, exposed to the north wind, knowledge, there were many things in that treaty which shrivelled her countenance. However, this usage not yet adjusted. though it stunted the girl in her growth, gave her a hardy constitution; she had life and spirit in abundance, and knew when she was ill-used: now and then she would seize upon John's commons, snatch a leg of a pullet, or a bit of good beef, for which they were sure to go to fisticuffs. Master was indeed too strong for her; but miss would not yield in the least point, but even when master had got her down, she would scratch and bite like a tiger; when he gave her a cuff on the ear, she would prick him with her knitting-needle. John brought a great chain one day to tie her to the bed-post, for which affront miss aimed a penknife at his heart.+ In short, these quarrels grew up to rooted aversions; they gave one another nicknames; she called him Gundy-guts, and he called her Lousy Peg, though the girl was a tight clever wench as any was; and through her pale looks you might discern spirit and vivacity, which made her not, indeed, a perfect beauty, but something * In the contest between Charles I. and the Parliament. Henry VIII. to unite the two kingdoms under one sovereign, offered his daughter Mary to James V. of Scotland; this offer was rejected, and followed by a war: to this event probably the author alludes. The following extract will serve as a specimen of Dr Arbuthnot's serious composition. It is taken from an essay on the Usefulness of Mathematical Learning. The advantages which accrue to the mind by mathematical studies consist chiefly in these things: 1st, In accustoming it to attention. 2d, In giving it a habit of close and demonstrative reasoning. 3d, In freeing it from prejudice, credulity, and superstition. First, the mathematics make the mind attentive to the objects which it considers. This they do by entertaining it with a great variety of truths, which are delightful and evident, but not obvious. Truth is the same thing to the understanding as music to the ear and beauty to the eye. The pursuit of it does really as much gratify a natural faculty implanted in us by our wise Creator, as the pleasing of our senses; only in the former case, as the object and faculty are more spiritual, the delight is the more pure, free from the The Pope, Luther, and Calvin. regret, turpitude, lassitude, and intemperance that commonly attend sensual pleasures. The most part of other sciences consisting only of probable reasonings, the mind has not where to fix, and wanting sufficient principles to pursue its searches upon, gives them over as impossible. Again, as in mathematical investigations, truth may be found, so it is not always obvious. This spurs the mind, and makes it diligent and attentive. The second advantage which the mind reaps from mathematical knowledge is a habit of clear, demonstrative, and methodical reasoning. We are contrived by nature to learn by imitation more than by precept; and I believe in that respect reasoning is much like other inferior arts—as dancing, singing, &c.-acquired by practice. By accustoming ourselves to reason closely about quantity, we acquire a habit of doing so in other things. Logical precepts are more useful, nay, they are absolutely necessary, for a rule of formal arguing in public disputations, and confounding an obstinate and perverse adversary, and exposing him to the audience or readers. But, in the search of truth, an imitation of the method of the geometers will carry a man further than all the dialectical rules. Their analysis is the proper model we ought to form our selves upon, and imitate in the regular disposition and progress of our inquiries; and even he who is ignorant of the nature of mathematical analysis, uses a method somewhat analogous to it. him, but he was excluded from the House of Lords. He commenced an active opposition to Walpole, and wrote a number of political tracts against the Whig ministry. In 1735, he retired again to France, and resided there seven years, during which time he produced his Letters on the Study of History, and a Letter on the True Use of Retirement. The last ten years of his life were spent at Battersea. In 1749, appeared his Letters on the Spirit of Patriotism, and Idea of a Patriot King, with a preface believed to be by Mallet, but in reality written by Bolingbroke, in a strain of coarse invective, and which led to a bitter and acrimonious war of pamphlets. Bolingbroke's treatise had been put into the hands of Pope, that he might have a few copies printed for private circulation. After the death of Pope, it was found that an impression of 1500 had been printed, and this Bolingbroke affected to consider a heinous breach of trust. The transaction was the most venial of all is more justly considered to have been only a prethe poet's stratagems. The anger of Bolingbroke text, the real ground of offence being the poet's preference of Warburton, to whom he left the valuable property in his printed works. Bolingbroke died in 1751, and Mallet-to whom he left all his manuscripts-published a complete edition of his Thirdly, mathematical knowledge adds vigour to the works in five volumes. A series of essays on relimind, frees it from prejudice, credulity, and super-gion and philosophy, first published in this collecstition. This it does in two ways: Ist, By accustoming tion, disclosed the noble author as an opponent of us to examine, and not to take things upon trust. 2d, Christianity. Of lofty irregular views and characBy giving us a clear and extensive knowledge of the system of the world, which, as it creates in us the most ter, vain, ambitious, and vindictive, yet eloquent profound reverence of the Almighty and wise Creator, and imaginative, we may admire, but cannot love so it frees us from the mean and narrow thoughts which Bolingbroke. The friendship of Pope was the ignorance and superstition are apt to beget. . . . The brightest gem in his coronet; yet by one ungratemathematics are friends to religion, inasmuch as they ful and unfeeling act he sullied its lustre, and, charm the passions, restrain the impetuosity of imagination, and purge the mind from error and prejudice. Vice is error, confusion, and false reasoning; and all truth is more or less opposite to it. Besides, mathemathical studies may serve for a pleasant entertainment for those hours which young men are apt to throw away upon their vices; the delightfulness of them being such as to make solitude not only easy, but desirable. LORD BOLINGBROKE. HENRY ST JOHN VISCOUNT BOLINGBROKE was in his own day the most conspicuous and illustrious of that friendly band of Tory wits and poets who adorned the reigns of Anne and George I. He is now the least popular of the whole. St John was descended from an ancient family, and was born at Battersea, in Surrey, in 1678. He was educated at Eton and Oxford. After some years of dissipation, he entered parliament, and was successively secretary at war and secretary of state. He was elevated to the peerage in 1712. On the death of Queen Anne, the seals of office were taken from him, and he was threatened with impeachment for the share he had taken in negotiating the Treaty of Utrecht. Bolingbroke retired to France, and entered into the Pretender's service as secretary. Here, also, he became unpopular, and was accused of neglect and incapacity. Dismissed from his second secretary ship, he had recourse to literature, and produced his Reflections on Exile, and a letter to Sir William Wyndham, containing a defence of his conduct. In 1723, he obtained a full pardon, and returned to England; his family inheritance was restored to Like the base Judean, threw a pearl away The writings of Bolingbroke are animated by The Decline of Life. Let us fence We are both in the decline of life, my dear dean, and have been some years going down the hill; let us against physical evil by care, and the use of those make the passage as smooth as we can. means which experience must have pointed out to us; let us fence against moral evil by philosophy. We may, nay-if we will follow nature and do not work up imagination against her plainest dictates-we shall, of course, grow every year more indifferent to life, and to the affairs and interests of a system out of which we are soon to go. This is much better than stupidity. The decay of passion strengthens philosophy, for passion may decay, and stupidity not succeed. Passionssays Pope, our divine, as you will see one time or other are the gales of life; let us not complain that in subduing what we toil to subdue all our lives? It is they do not blow a storm. What hurt does age do us now six in the morning; I recall the time-and am glad it is over-when about this hour I used to be going to bed surfeited with pleasure, or jaded with business; my head often full of schemes, and my heart as often full of anxiety. Is it a misfortune, think you, that I rise at this hour refreshed, serene, and calm; that the past and even the present affairs of life stand like objects at a distance from me, where I can keep off the disagreeable, so as not to be strongly affected by them, and from whence I can draw the others nearer to me? Passions, in their force, would bring all these, nay, even future contingencies, about my ears at once, and reason would ill defend me in the scuffle. A loftier spirit of philosophy pervades the following eloquent sentence on the independence of the mind with respect to external circumstances and situation. The Order of Providence. Believe me, the providence of God has established such an order in the world, that of all which belongs to us, the least valuable parts can alone fall under the will of others. Whatever is best is safest, lies most out of the reach of human power, can neither be given nor taken away. Such is this great and beautiful work of nature-the world. Such is the mind of man, which contemplates and admires the world, where it makes the noblest part. These are inseparably ours; and as long as we remain in one, we shall enjoy the other. Let us march, therefore, intrepidly, wherever we are led by the course of human accidents. Wherever they lead us, on what coast soever we are thrown by them, we shall not find ourselves absolutely strangers. We shall meet with men and women, creatures of the same figure, endowed with the same faculties, and born under the same laws of nature. We shall see the same virtues and vices flowing from the same general principles, but varied in a thousand different and contrary modes, according to that infinite variety of laws and customs which is established for the same universal end-the preservation of society. We shall feel the same revolutions of seasons; and the same sun and moon will guide the course of our year. The same azure vault, bespangled with stars, will be everywhere spread over our heads. There is no part of the world from whence we may not admire those planets, which roll, like ours, in different orbits round the same central sun; from whence we may not discover an object still more stupendous, that army of fixed stars hung up in the immense space of the universe, innumerable suns, whose beams enlighten and cherish the unknown worlds which roll around them; and whilst I am ravished by such contemplations as these, whilst my soul is thus raised up to heaven, it imports me little what ground I tread upon. National Partiality and Prejudice. There is scarce any folly or vice more epidemical among the sons of men than that ridiculous and hurtful vanity by which the people of each country are apt to prefer themselves to those of every other; and to make their own customs, and manners, and opinions, the standards of right and wrong, of true and false. The Chinese mandarins were strangely surprised, and almost incredulous, when the Jesuits shewed them how small a figure their empire made in the general map of the world. Now, nothing can contribute more to prevent us from being tainted with this vanity, than accustom ourselves early to contemplate the different nations of the earth, in that vast map which history spreads before us, in their rise and their fall, in their barbarous and civilised states, in the likeness and unlikeness of them all to one another, and of each to itself. By frequently renewing this prospect to the mind, the Mexican with his cap and coat of feathers, sacrificing a human victim to his god, will not appear more savage to our eyes than the Spaniard with a hat on his head, and a gonilla round his neck, sacrificing whole nations to his ambition, his avarice, and even the to wantonness of his cruelty. I might shew, by a multitude of other examples, how history prepares us for experience, and guides us in it; and many of these would be both curious and important. I might likewise bring several other instances, wherein history serves to purge the mind of those national partialities and prejudices that we are apt to contract in our education, and that experience for the most part rather confirms than removes; because it is for the most part confined, like our education. But I apprehend growing too prolix, and shall therefore conclude this head by observing, that though an early and proper application to the study of history will contribute extremely to keep our minds free from a ridiculous partiality in favour of our own country, and a vicious prejudice against others, yet the same study will create in us a preference of affection to our own country. There is a story told of Abgarus. He brought several beasts taken in different places to Rome, they say, and let them loose before Augustus; every beast ran immediately to that part of the circus where a parcel of earth taken from his native soil had been laid." Judaus Apella. This tale might pass on Josephus; for in him, I believe, I read it; but surely the love of our country is a lesson of reason, not an institution of Education and habit, obligation and interest attach us to it, not instinct. It is, however, so necessary to be cultivated, and the prosperity of all societies, as well as the grandeur of some, depends upon it so much, that orators by their eloquence, and poets by their enthusiasm, have endeavoured to work up this precept of morality into a principle of passion. But the examples which we find in history, improved by the lively descriptions and the just applauses or censures of historians, will have a much better and more permanent effect than declamation, or song, or the dry ethics of mere philosophy. nature. Credat Unreasonableness of Complaints of the Shortness of I think very differently from most men of the time we have to pass, and the business we have to do, in this world. I think we have more of one, and less of the other, than is commonly supposed. Our want of time, and the shortness of human life, are some of the principal common-place complaints which we prefer against the established order of things; they are the grumblings of the vulgar, and the pathetic lamentations of the philosopher; but they are impertiThe man of business nent and impious in both. despises the man of pleasure for squandering his time away; the man of pleasure pities or laughs at the man of business for the same thing; and yet both concur superciliously and absurdly to find fault with the Supreme Being for having given them so little time. The philosopher, who misspends it very often as much as the others, joins in the same cry, and authorises this impiety. Theophrastus thought it extremely hard to die at ninety, and to go out of the world when he had just learned how to live in it. His master Aristotle found fault with nature for treating man in this respect worse than several other animals; both very unphilosophically! and I love Seneca the better for his quarrel with the Stagirite on this head. We see, in so many instances, a just proportion of things, according to their several relations to one another, that philosophy should lead us to conclude this proportion preserved, even where we cannot discern it; instead of leading us to conclude that it is not preserved where we do not discern it, or where we think that we see the contrary. To conclude otherwise is shocking presumption. It is to presume that the system of the universe would have been more wisely contrived, if creatures of our low rank among intellectual natures had been called to the councils of the Most High; or that the Creator ought to mend his work by the advice FROM 1689 CYCLOPÆDIA OF of the creature. That life which seems to our self-love so short, when we compare it with the ideas we frame of eternity, or even with the duration of some other beings, will appear sufficient, upon a less partial view, to all the ends of the creation, and of a just proportion in the successive course of generations. The term itself is long; we render it short; and the want we complain of flows from our profusion, not from our poverty. evident to all, nay, to yourself on the least cool reflec- In this manner one might expostulate very reason- Pleasures of a Patriot. Let us leave the men of pleasure and of business, who are often candid enough to own that they throw away their time, and thereby to confess that they complain of the Supreme Being for no other reason than this, that he has not proportioned his bounty to their Neither Montaigne in writing his essays, nor Descartes extravagance. Let us consider the scholar and philosopher, who, far from owning that he throws any time in building new worlds, nor Burnet in framing an away, reproves others for doing it; that solemn mortal antediluvian earth, no, nor Newton in discovering and who abstains from the pleasures, and declines the establishing the true laws of nature on experiment and business of the world, that he may dedicate his whole a sublimer geometry, felt more intellectual joys, than he time to the search of truth and the improvement of feels who is a real patriot, who bends all the force of knowledge. When such a one complains of the short- his understanding, and directs all his thoughts and ness of human life in general, or of his remaining share actions, to the good of his country. When such a man in particular, might not a man more reasonable, though forms a political scheme, and adjusts various and seemless solemn, expostulate thus with him: Your com-ingly independent parts in it to one great and good plaint is indeed consistent with your practice; but you design, he is transported by imagination, or absorbed in would not possibly renew your complaint if you reviewed meditation, as much and as agreeably as they; and the your practice. Though reading makes a scholar, yet satisfaction that arises from the different importance of every scholar is not a philosopher, nor every philosopher these objects, in every step of the work, is vastly in his a wise man. It costs you twenty years to devour all the favour. It is here that the speculative philosopher's volumes on one side of your library; you came out a labour and pleasure end. But he who speculates in great critic in Latin and Greek, in the oriental tongues, order to act, goes on and carries his scheme into execuin history and chronology; but you were not satisfied. tion. His labour continues, it varies, it increases; but so does his pleasure too. The execution, indeed, is often You confessed that these were the litera nihil sanantes, and you wanted more time to acquire other knowledge. traversed, by unforeseen and untoward circumstances, You have had this time; you have passed twenty years by the perverseness or treachery of friends, and by the more on the other side of your liberty, among philos- power or malice of enemies; but the first and the last ophers, rabbis, commentators, schoolmen, and whole of these animate, and the docility and fidelity of some men make amends for the perverseness and treachery of legions of modern doctors. You are extremely well versed in all that has been written concerning the others. Whilst a great event is in suspense, the action nature of God, and of the soul of man, about matter warms, and the very suspense, made up of hope and and form, body and spirit, and space and eternal fear, maintain no unpleasing agitation in the mind. If essences, and incorporeal substances, and the rest of the event is decided successfully, such a man enjoys those profound speculations. You are a master of the pleasure proportionable to the good he has done a controversies that have arisen about nature and grace, pleasure like to that which is attributed to the Supreme about predestination and freewill, and all the other Being on a survey of his works. If the event is decided abstruse questions that have made so much noise in the otherwise, and usurping courts or overbearing parties schools, and done so much hurt in the world. You are prevail, such a man has still the testimony of his congoing on, as fast as the infirmities you have contracted science, and a sense of the honour he has acquired, to will permit, in the same course of study; but you begin soothe his mind and support his courage. For although to foresee that you shall want time, and you make the course of state affairs be to those who meddle in grievous complaints of the shortness of human life. them like a lottery, yet it is a lottery wherein no good Give me leave now to ask you how many thousand years man can be a loser; he may be reviled, it is true, instead God must prolong your life in order to reconcile you to of being applauded, and may suffer violence of many his wisdom and goodness? It is plain, at least highly kinds. I will not say, like Seneca, that the noblest probable, that a life as long as that of the most aged spectacle which God can behold is a virtuous man of the patriarchs would be too short to answer your suffering, and struggling with afflictions; but this I will say, that the second Cato, driven out of the forum, and purposes; since the researches and disputes in which you are engaged have been already for a much longer dragged to prison, enjoyed more inward pleasure, and time the objects of learned inquiries, and remain still as maintained more outward dignity, than they who insulted him, and who triumphed in the ruin of their imperfect and undetermined as they were at first. country. let me ask you again, and deceive neither yourself nor me, have you, in the course of these forty years, once examined the first principles and the fundamental facts on which all those questions depend, with an absolute indifference of judgment, and with a scrupulous exactness? with the same care that you have employed in examining the various consequences drawn from them, and the heterodox opinions about them? Have you not taken them for granted in the whole course of your studies? Or, if you have looked now and then on the state of the proofs brought to maintain them, have you not done it as a mathematician looks over a demonstration formerly made-to refresh his memory, not to satisfy any doubt? If you have thus examined, it may appear marvellous to some that you have spent so much time in many parts of those studies which have reduced you to this hectic condition of so much heat and weakBut if you have not thus examined, it must be ness. But Wise, Distinguished from Cunning Ministers. We may observe much the same difference between wisdom and cunning, both as to the objects they propose One sees distinctly and to the means they employ, as we observe between the visual powers of different men. the objects that are near to him, their immediate relations, and their direct tendencies: and a sight like this serves well enough the purpose of those who concern themselves no further. The cunning minister is one of those he neither sees, nor is concerned to see, any further than his personal interests and the support of his administration require. If such a man overcomes any actual difficulty, avoids any immediate distress, or, without doing either of these effectually, gains a little |