Avarice, for instance, will act as a counterpoise to Just and intemperance, whilst vanity on the other hand will check avarice; fear will keep a bad man honest, and pride will sometimes make a coward brave.

Observe the manners of Falpatius in company with his patron; assiduous, humble, obliging; for ever smiling, and so supple and obsequious, you would think he had no will of his own, and was born for the uses and occasions of others: Follow Palpatius to his house, see him with his wife and children, hear him dictate to his servants and the needy dependants, who make suit through him to his principal, you will find all things reversed; the sycophant turns out a tyrant, and he is only indebted to his hypocrisy for keeping his insolence out of sight.

Procax is one of the most dissolute men living; he is handsome, impudent, and insinuating, qualifications that ensure his success with the ladies: He professed the most vehement passion for Fulvia; but Fulvia was on the point of marrying Vetulus, a rich old man, who wanted an heir, and till that event took place she held out against Procax upon motives of convenience only: Fulvia soon became the wife of Vetulus; she had no longer any repugnance to be the mistress of Procax; but the same man, who had pleaded the irresistible violence of his desires before marriage, now pretended conscience, and drew back from her advances; nay he did more, he put Vetulus upon his guard, and Fulvia's virtue was too closely watched to be in any future danger: What sudden change was this in Procax? Vetulus had no heirs, and Procax had a contingent interest in the entail of his estate.

Splendida, in one of her morning airings, was solicited for charity by a poor woman with an infant in her arms. It is not for myself, madam,' said the

wretched creature, it is for my husband, who lies under that hedge tormented with a fever, and dying for want of relief.'-Splendida directed her eyes towards the spot, and saw a sickly object stretched upon the ground, clad in the tattered regimental of a foot soldier: Her heart was touched, and she drew out her purse, which was full of guineas: The blood rushed into the beggar's meagre visage at the sight; Splendida turned over the gold; her hand delayed for a moment, and the impulse was lost; unhappily for the suppliant, Splendida was alone and without a witness: She put her hand once more into her pocket, and taking out a solitary shilling, dropped it into the shrivelled palm that was stretched out to receive it, and drove on. Splendida returned home, drest herself, and went to a certain great lady's assembly; a subscription was put about for the benefit of a celebrated actress; the lady condescended to receive subscriptions in person, and delivered a ticket to each contributor: Splendida drew forth the same purse, and wrapping twenty -guineas in a paper, put them into the hand of the noble beggar: The room rang with applauses of her charity-I give it,' says she, to her virtues, rather than to her talents; I bestow it on the wife and mother, not upon the actress.' Splendida on sher return home took out her accompt-book, and set down twenty-one pounds one shilling to the article of charity; the shilling indeed Heaven audited on the score of alms, the pounds were posted to the account of vanity.

NUMBER XLVIII.

An toti morimur?

SENECA IN TROAD.

I BELIEVE there are few people, who have not at some time or other felt a propensity to humour themselves in that kind of melancholy, which arises, in the mind upon revisiting the scene of former happiness, and contemplating the change that time has wrought in its appearance by the mournful comparison of present with past impressions.

I

In this train of thought I was the other day carried almost imperceptibly to the country seat of a deceased friend, whose loss I must ever lament. had not been there since his death, and there was a dreariness in the scene as I approached, that might have almost tempted me to believe even things inanimate partook of my sensations. The traces of my friend, whose solicitude for order and seemliness reached to every thing about him, were no longer to be seen: The cottages and little gardens of his poor neighbours, which used to be so trim and neat, whilst his eye was over them, seemed to be falling into neglect; the lawn before his house was now become a solitude; no labourers at their work ; no domestics at their sports and exercises: I looked around for my old acquaintance, that used to be grazing up and down upon their pensions of pasturage; they had probably been food for hounds long ago; Nature had lost her smile of hospitality and benevolence methought I never saw any thing more disconsolate.

As I entered the house, an aged woman, whom I had long remembered as one of the family, met me in the passage, and, looking me in the face, cried out,Is it you, Sir?'-and burst into tears: She followed me into the common sitting-room, and as she was opening the shutters, observed to meThat it did not look as it used to do, when my lord was living.' It was true: I had already made the remark in silence:- How the face of a friend,' said I within myself, enlivens all things about him! What hours of placid delight have I passed · within these walls! Have I ever heard a word here fall from his lips, that I have wished him to recall? Has the reputation of the absent ever bled by a stab of his giving? Has the sensibility of any person present suffered for an expression of his ? Once, and only once, in this very spot, I drew from him the circumstantial detail of an unfortunate period in his life: It was a recital so manly and ingenuous, so void of colouring, so disdainful of complaint and so untainted by asperity, that it carried conviction to my mind, and I can scarce conceive a degree of prejudice that could have held out against it; but I could perceive that the greatest event in a man's history may turn by springs so subtle and concealed, that they can never be laid open for public exculpation, and that in the process of all human trials there may be things too small for the fingers of the law to feel; motives, which produce the good or ill fortunes of men and govern their actions, but which cannot guide the judgments, or even come under the contemplation of those who are appointed to decide upon them.'

I soon quitted this apartment, and entered one which I contemplated with more satisfaction, and even with a degree of veneration; for it was the chamber, in which I had seen my friend yield up the

last breath of life. Few men had endured greater persecution in the world; none could leave it in greater peace and charity: if forgiveness of injuries constitutes a merit, our enemies surely are those to whom we are most beholden. How awful is the last scene of a man's life, who has filled a dubious and important part on the stage of the world !— Of a truth,' thought I, thou art happily removed out of an unfriendly world; if thou hadst deceived my good opinion, it had been an injury to my nature: But though the living man can wear a mask and carry on deceit, the dying Christian cannot counterfeit: Sudden death may smite the hys pocrite, the sensualist, the impostor, and they may die in their shame; but slow and gradual dissolution, a lingering death of agony and decay, will strip the human heart before it seizes it; it will lay it naked, before it stops it. There is no trifling with some solemnities; no prevaricating with God, when we are on the very threshold of his presence: Many worldly friendships dissolve away with his breath to whom they were pledged; but thy last moments, my friend, were so employed as to seal my affection to thy memory closer than it was ever attached to thy person; and I have it now to say, there was a man, whom I have loved and served, and whơ has not deceived or betrayed me.'

And what must I now think of popularity, when I reflect upon those who had it, and upon this man, who had it not? Fallacious test!-Contemptible pursuit! How often, since the exile of Aristides, has integrity been thy victim and villany thine idol? Worship it then, thou filthy idolater, and take the proper wages of thy servility; be the dupe of cunning, and the stalking-horse of hypocrisy.

What a contrast to the death I have now been reviewing, occurs to my mind, when I reflect upon