IT

POWER OF SLIGHT INCIDENTS.

is curious to obferve the triumph of flight incidents over the mind;-What incredible weight they have in forming and governing our opinions, both of men and things-that trifles light as air, fhall waft a belief into the foul, and plant it fo immoveable within it,-that Euclid's demonftrations, could they be brought to batter it in breach, fhould not all have power to overthrow it.

T. SHANDY, VOL. 2. CHAP. 62.

CROSSES IN LIFE..

MANY, many are the ups and downs of life, and

fortune must be uncommonly gracious to that mortal who does not experience a great variety of them :-though perhaps to these may be owing as much of our pleafures as our pains: there are scenes of delight in the vale as well as the mountain; and the inequalities of na

ture

ture may not be lefs neceffary to please the eye-than the varieties of life to improve the heart. At best we are but a fhort-fighted race of beings, with just light enough to discern our way to do that is our duty, and should be our care; when a man has done this, he is safe, the reft is of little confequence

Cover his head with a turf or a stone,

It is all one, it is all one!

LETTER IV. TO HIS FRIENDS.

THE CONTRAST.

"HINGS are carried on in this world, fome

THINGS

times fo contrary to all our reasonings, and the feeming probabilities of fuccefs, that even the race is not to the fwift, nor the battle to the ftrong;-nay, what is ftranger ftill-nor yet bread to the wife, who fhould last stand in want of it,-nor yet riches to the men of understanding, who you would think beft qualified to acquire them,-nor yet favour to men of skill, whofe merit and pretences bid the fairest for it,— but that there are fome fecret and unfeen workings

in human affairs, which baffle all our endeavours, and turn afide the courie of things in fuch a manner,—that the moft likely caufes difappoint and fail of producing for us the effect which we wified, and naturally expected from them.

You will fee a man, of whom was you to form a conjecture from the appearances of things in his favour,-you would fay was fetting out in the world, with the fairest prospect of making his fortune in it;-with all the advantages of birth to recommend him,-of perfonal merit to speak for him,—and of friends to push him forwards: you will behold him, notwithstanding this, difappointed in every effect you might naturally have looked for, from them; every step he takes towards his advancement, fomething invisible shall pull him back, fome unforeseen obftacle shall rife up perpetually in his way, and keep there.-In every application he makes-fome untoward circumftance fhall blast it.—He shall rife early,— late take reft,-and eat the bread of carefulness, --yet fome happier man shall still rise up, and ever step in before him, and leave him ftruggling to the end of his life, in the very fame place in which he first began it.

The

The history of a second, fhall in all respects be the contraft to this. He fhall come into the world with the most unpromifing appearance,fhall fet forwards without fortune, without friends, without talents to procure him either the one or the other. Nevertheless, you will fee this clouded profpect brighten up infenfibly, unaccountably before him; every thing prefented in his way shall turn out beyond his expectations, in fpite of that chain of unfurmountable difficulties which first threatened him,-time and chance fhall open him a way,-a feries of fuccefsful occurrences fhall lead him by the hand to the fummit of honour and fortune, and, in a word, without giving him the pains of thinking, or the credit of projecting, it fhall place him in a fafe poffeffion of all that ambition could with for.

SERMON VIII. PAGE 152.

SELFISHNESS

SELFISHNESS AND MEANNESS.

THAT there is selfishness and meanness enough in the fouls of one part of the world,

to hurt the credit of the other part of it, is what I fhall not dispute againft; but to judge of the whole from this bad fample, and because one man is plotting and artful in his nature ;or, a fecond openly makes his pleasure or his profit the whole center of all his designs ;—or because a third ftrait-hearted wretch fits confined within himself,-feels no misfortunes, but those which touch himself; to involve the whole race without mercy under fuch detefted characters, is a conclusion as false as it is pernicious; and was it in general to gain credit, could ferve no end, but the rooting out of our nature all that is generous, and planting in the ftead of it fuch an averfion to each other, as must untie the bands of fociety, and rob us of one of the greatest pleasures of it, the mutual communications of kind offices; and by poisoning the fountain, rendering every thing fufpected that flows tl rough it. SERMON VII. PAGE 137.