Pour forth thy fervours for a healthful mind, And makes the happiness she does not find. JOHNSON. HOW TO MAKE THE MOST OF LIFE. IF you would live, I do not merely say as long, but as much, as possible, cultivate the sensibilities, enter upon the exercises, of generous and energetic virtue. Virtue adds to man a new sense; it is necessary to complete the proper number of inlets of pleasure, of organs of enjoyment, that belong to his nature. To be destitute of it is to possess a maimed and defective life. You pity the blind; they cannot enjoy the beauties of nature: you pity the deaf; they cannot admit entertainment from the sound of society, from the voice of music: pity, for the same reason, the selfish; they cannot "rejoice with them that rejoice:" most sad and mournful defect!— happiness," at one entrance," and that the widest of all, "quite shut out!" You commiserate the sick and the lame, whose days are passed in the chamber or in the chair; they cannot walk whither they would; they do but breathe, you say, they do not live; they are buried in confinement; they differ from the dead but in beholding the grave in which they are detained. Compassionate also them, whose affections are shut up in their own little affairs, and are incapable of roving, with delightful enlargement, over the many scenes of happiness, which the creation, in the present stage of it's progress, exhibits; and of expatiating in the grand, the unspeakably spacious contemplation of that general welfare, which religion teaches us to expect, that the providence of God will ultimately produce. "Let us eat and drink," says the libertine," for to morrow we die." I urge the same consideration in favour of a virtuous life. Let us make the most of our little life, by leading it as it ought to be led. Let us press down into so small a measure as much happiness as it can contain, by compressing into it as much goodness as it will hold. Let us give to the joys, that have so short a time to flow, as brisk and sprightly a current as we can, by cultivating that virtue, which constitutes the vigour of nature, and the vivacity of life. Of those, who lead an eminently virtuous life, when their breath departs, the idea long remains behind them, in the remembrance of the good. "The memory of the just is blessed, but the name of the wicked shall rot." Putrefaction preys at once upon their bodies, and upon their names. As their relics dissolve into dust, in the chamber of the grave, their remembrance is reduced to ashes, in the bosom of mankind. Those, who were not loved while living, are neither lamented, nor missed, when dead. The amiable and excellent, on the contrary, when they cease to be, continue to exist in the memory of those, among whom their little life was passed. I have represented the fleeting nature of mortal man; his speedy departure out of the world, and his complete expunction from it, when he has left it. The Scriptures describe him as fleeing away as a shadow; an unsubstantial image, a nothing, that soon leaves it's place, and leaves no proof behind it of it's having been there. This is a ances. strictly faithful, a literally honest and unpoetical picture of the majority of mankind. While they are, their being is insignificant to society; and, when they are no more, it is not remembered that they ever were. They leave no impression of their figure upon the station which they quit. There is no stamp of their ever having stood there. No mark, no monument of their departed image remains. While they occupy their place, they are merely appearThe sphere to which they belong is unfilled; the post where they stand is vacancy and emptiness. There is nothing there there is the apparition of a member of society; but the substance is not there. It is only a shadow that stands before mankind; a phantom, that appears to the eye, without imparting any influence; a ghost, that glides unfelt through the Earth, and then vanishes away. Of the majority of mankind, such is the description. Their biographer has only to say of them, that on a day they were born, and on a day they died. All that remains to be recorded, in the interim, is, that they received, and returned the air of Heaven; they closed, and they opened their eyes upon the light of day; they felt, and they satisfied the wants of nature or of art; so many suns arose, and went down upon them; so many summers bloomed, and faded before their eyes; so many winters scattered the hoar frost upon their path, and then their senses were sealed for ever. No wonder, when such men depart, that, along with them, their idea dies, and that their extinction is entire. From this total mortality, which the majority undergo, the instant their bodies are deposited out of the sight of survivors, those, who diligently discharge the duties of life, are favoured with a longer respite. Their generous activity, when their power of acting is over, whether the period of it be long or short, gives a longevity to their image, in the mind of them before whom, or to wards whom, their virtue was displayed, proportioned to the degree of that virtue, and to the durability of the benefits it has communicated. Such are not the shadows, that others are; there is substance and body in their being; they are felt, as well as seen, by their fellow creatures; they make an impression upon the place in society which they occupy; they are not airy images, and unreal mockeries of the eye that looks for men; there is solidity, as well as outline in them; they not only look like men, but are what they seem; they not. only "go for men in the catalogue" of the naturalist, they are men upon the list of Reason, and of Heaven. When such men quit the world, their memory makes a little longer stay in it; their names do not tread upon the heel of their breath: they are long before they follow it. When such men fall, contiguous society shakes around them; the hearts of others sink along with the final failure of theirs; and, when the grave covers them from the gaze of gratitude, it cannot close over their loved idea. To this, long life and length of days are added, in affectionate Memory's mental land of fair and cherished shades. FAUCETT. QUALITIES REQUISITE IN A WIFE. TASTES, manners, and opinions, being things not original but acquired, cannot be of so much consequence as the fundamental properties of good sense and good temper. Possessed of these, a wife, who loves her husband, will fashion herself in the others according to what she perceives to be his inclination; and if, after all, a considerable diversity remain between them in such points, this is not incompatible with domestic comfort. But sense and temper can never be dispensed with in the companion for life: they form the basis on which the whole edifice of happiness is to be raised. As both are absolutely essential, it is needless to inquire which is so in the highest degree. Fortunately, they are oftenermet with together, than separate; for the just and reasonable estimation of things, which true good sense inspires, almost necessarily produces that equanimity and moderation of spirit, in which good temper properly consists. There is, indeed, a kind of thoughtless good nature, which is not unfrequently coupled with weakness of understanding; but, having no power of self-direction, it's operations are capricious, and no reliance can be placed on it in promoting solid felicity. When, however, this easy humour appears with the attractions of youth and beauty, there is some danger lest even men of sense should overlook the defects of a shallow capacity, especially if they have entertained the too common notion, that women are no better than playthings, de-: signed rather for the amusement of their lords and masters, than for the more serious purposes of life. But no man ever married a fool without severely repenting it; for though the pretty trifler may have served well enough for the hour of dalliance and gaiety, yet when folly assumes the reins of domestic, and especially of parental control, she will give a perpetual heartach to a considerate partner. On the other hand, there are to be met with instances of considerable powers of the understanding, combined' with waywardness of temper, sufficient to destroy all the comfort of life. Malignity is sometimes joined with wit, haughtiness and caprice with talents, sournessand suspicion with sagacity, and cold reserve with judgment. But all these being in themselves unamiable qualities, it is less necessary to guard against the possessors of them. They generally render even beauty unattractive; and no charm but that of fortune is able |