lie, for hours together, on the banks of some wild and melancholy stream, singing to her lute. She taught men to weep, for she took a strange delight in tears; and often, when the virgins of the hamlet were assembled at their evening spots, she would steal in amongst them, and captivate their hearts, by her tales, full of a charming sadness. She wore on her head, a garland, composed of her father's myrtles, twisted with her mother's cypress. One day, as she sat musing by the waters of Helicon, her tears by chance fell into the fountain; and ever fince, the Muse's spring has retained a strong taste of the infufion. Pity was commanded by Jupiter to follow the steps of her mother through the world, dropping balm into the wounds she made, and binding up the hearts she had broken. She follows, with her hair loose, her bosom bare and throbbing, her garments torn by the briars, and her feet bleeding with the roughness of the path. The nymph is mortal, for her mother is fo; and when she has fulfilled her destined course upon the earth, they shall both expire together, and LOVE be again united to Joy, his immortal and long betrothed bride. XVI. STUDY OF ASTRONOMY RECOMMENDED. N fair weather, when my heart is cheered, and I feel that exaltation of spirits which results from light and warmth, joined with a beautiful prospect of nature, I regard myself as one placed by the hand of God, in the midst of an ample theatre, in which the fun, moon, and stars, the fruits also, and vegetables of the earth, perpetually changing their pofitions, or their aspects, exhibit an elegant entertainment to the understanding as well as to the eye. THUNDER and lightening, rain and hail, the painted bow, and the glaring comets, are decorations of this mighty theatre. And the fable hemisphere studded with spangles, the blue vault at noon, the glorious gildings and rich colours in the horizon, I look on as fo many successive scenes. WHEN I confider things in this light, methinks it is a fort of impiety, to have no attention to the course of nature, and the revolutions of the heavenly bodies. To be regardless of those phænomena, that are placed within our view, and display the wisdom and power of their Creator, is an affront to Providence, of the same kind (I hope it is not impious to make such a fimile) as it would be to a good poet, to fit out his play, without minding the plot or beauties of it. AND, yet, how many fox-hunters, and rural squires, are to be found in Great Britain, who are ignorant, that they have all this while lived on a planet; that the fun is several thousand times bigger than the earth; and that there are other worlds within our view, greater and more glorious than our own. "Ay, but (fays some illiterate fellow) " I enjoy the " world, and leave others to contemplate it." Yes, you eat and drink, and run about upon it; that is, you enjoy it as a brute: but to enjoy it as a rational being, is to know it; to be sensible of its greatness and beauty; to be delighted with its harmony; and, by these reflections, to obtain just sentiments of the Almighty mind that framed it. T XVII. TEMPERANCE. HE great preservative of health, is temperance; which has these particular advantages, above all other means, to attain it that it may be practised by all ranks and conditions, at any feason, or in any place. It is a kind of regimen, into which every man may put himself, without interruption to business, expense of money, or loss of time. If exercife throws off all superfuities; temperance prevents them: if exercise clears the vessels; temperance neither fatiates, nor overstrains them: if exercise raises proper ferments in the humours, and promotes the circulation of the blood; temperance gives nature her full play, and enables her to exert herself in all her force and vigour: if exercise diffipates a growing distemper; temperance starves it. It is observed by two or three ancient authors, that Socrates, notwithstanding he lived in Athens during the great plague, which has made so much noise throughout all ages, and has been celebrated at different times by such eminent hands; notwithstanding he lived in the time of this devouring pestilence, he never caught the leaft infection; which these writers unanimously ascribe, to that uninterrupted temperance he always observed. XVIII. XVIII. METHODS OF EMPLOYING TIME. time, faith Seneca; and yet have much more than we know what to do with. Our lives, says he, are spent, either in doing nothing at all, or in doing nothing to the purpose, or in doing nothing that we ought to do: we are always complaining our days are few; and acting, as tho' there would be no end of them. That noble philosopher has described our inconfistency with ourselves in this particular, by all those various turns of expreffion and thought, which are peculiar to his writings. I often consider mankind as wholly inconsistent with themselves, in a point that bears some affinity to the former. Though we seem grieved at the theness of life in general, we are wishing every period of it at an end. The minor longs to be of age; then to be a man of business; then to make up an estate; then to arrive at honours; then to retire. Thus, although the whole of life is allowed by every one to be short, the several divisions of it appear long and tedious. We are for lengthening our span in general, but would fain contract the parts of which it is composed. The usurer would be very well fatisfied, to have all the time annihilated, that lays between the present moment and the next quarter-day. The politician would be contented to lose three years in his life, could he place things in the posture which he fancies they will stand in after such a revolution of time. The lover would be glad to strike out of his existence, all the moments that are to pass away before the happy meeting. Thus, as fast as our time runs, we should be very glad, in most parts of our lives, that it ran much faster than it does. Several hours of the day hang upon our hands; nay, we wish away whole years; and travel through time, as through a country filled with many wild and empty = wastes, which we would fain hurry over, that we may arrive at those several little settlements, or imaginary points of rest, which are dispersed up and down in it. IF we divide the life of most men into twenty parts, we shall find, that at least nineteen of them are mere gaps and chasms, which are neither filled up with pleasure nor business. I do not, however, include in this calculation, the life of those men who are in a perpetual hurry of affairs, but of those only who are not always engaged in scenes of action; and I hope I shall not do an unacceptable piece of service to these persons, if I point out to them certain methods for the filling up their empty spaces of life. The methods I shall propose to them, are as follow. THE first is the exercise of virtue, in the most general acceptation of the word. That particular scheme which comprehends the social virtues, may give employment to the most industrious temper, and find a man in business more than the most active station of life. To advise the ignorant, relieve the needy, comfort the afflicted, are duties that fall in our way, almost every day of our lives. A man has frequent opportunities, of mitigating the fierceness of a party; of doing justice to the character of a deserving man; of softening the envious, quieting the angry, and rectifying the prejudiced; which are, all of |