Surely, among these favourites of nature, thus unacquainted with toil and danger, felicity must have fixed her refidence; they must know only the changes of more vivid or more gentle joys; their life must always move either to the flow or fprightly melody of the lyre of gladness; they can never affemble but to pleasure, or retire but to peace.

Such would be the thoughts of every man who should hover at a distance round the world, and know it only by conjecture and fpeculation. But experience will foon difcover how eafily those are difgufted who have been made nice by plenty, and tender by indulgence. He will foon fee to how many dangers power is expofed which has no other guard than youth and beauty, and how cafily that tranquillity is molefted which can only be foothed with the fongs of flattery. It is impoffible to supply wants as faft as an idle imagination may be able to form them, or to remove all inconveniencies by which elegance refined into impatience may be offended. None are so hard to please, as those whom fatiety of pleasure makes weary of themselves; nor any fo readily provoked as those who have been always courted with an emulation of civility.

There are indeed fome ftrokes which the envy of fate aims immediately at the fair. The mistress of Catullus wept for her sparrow many centuries ago, and lapdogs will be fometimes fick in the prefent age. The most fashionable brocade is fubject to ftains; a pinner, the pride of Brussels, may be torn by a careless washer; a picture may drop from a watch;

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watch; or the triumph of a new fuit may be interrupted on the first day of its enjoyment, and all diftinctions of dress unexpectedly obliterated by a general mourning.

Such is the state of every age, every fex, and every condition: all have their cares, either from nature or from folly: and whoever therefore finds himself inclined to envy another, fhould remember that he knows not the real condition which he defires to obtain, but is certain that by indulging a vicious paffion, he must lessen that happinefs which he thinks already too fparingly bestowed.

NUMB. 129. TUESDAY, June 11, 1751.

Nunc, o nunc, Dedale, dixit,

Materiam, qua fis ingeniofus, habes.
Poffidet in terras, et poffidet æquora Minos:

Nec tellus noftræ, nec patet unda fuga.
Reftat iter cælo: calo tentabimus ire.
Da veniam cæpto, Jupiter alte, meo.

Now Dadalus, behold, by fate affign'd,
A tafk proportion'd to thy mighty mind!
Unconquer'd bars on earth and fea withstand;
Thine, Minos, is the main, and thine the land.
The fkies are open-let us try the skies:
Forgive, great Jove, the daring enterprize.

OVID

ORALISTS, like other writers, instead of

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cafting their eyes abroad in the living world, and endeavouring to form maxims of practice and new hints of theory, content their curiofity with that fecondary knowledge which books afford, and think themselves entitled to reverence by a new arrangement of an ancient system, or new illuftration of established principles. The fage precepts of the firft inftructors of the world are tranfmitted from age to age with little variation, and echoed from one author to another, not perhaps without fome lofs of their original force at every repercuffion.

I know not whether any other reason than this idleness of imitation can be affigned for that uniform and constant partiality, by which fome vices have hitherto escaped cenfure, and fome virtues

wanted recommendation; nor can I difcover why elfe we have been warned only against part of our enemies, while the reft have been fuffered to steal upon us without notice; why the heart has on one fide been doubly fortified, and laid open on the other to the incurfions of error, and the ravages of vice.

Among the favourite topicks of moral declamation, may be numbered the miscarriages of imprudent boldness, and the folly of attempts beyond our power. Every page of every philofopher is crowded with examples of temerity that funk under burthens which the laid upon herfelf, and called out enemies to battle by whom she was deftroyed.

Their remarks are too just to be difputed, and too falutary to be rejected; but there is likewife fome danger left timorous prudence fhould be inculcated, till courage and enterprize are wholly repreffed, and the mind congealed in perpetual inactivity by the fatal influence of frigorifick wisdom.

Every man should, indeed, carefully compare his force with his undertaking; for though we ought not to live only for our own fakes, and though therefore danger or difficulty fhould not be avoided merely because we may expofe ourselves to mifery or difgrace; yet it may be juftly required of us, not to throw away our lives upon inadequate and hopeless designs, fince we might, by a juft estimate of our abilities, become more useful to mankind.

There is an irrational contempt of danger, which approaches nearly to the folly, if not the guilt, of fuicide; there is a ridiculous perfeverance in impracticable schemes, which is justly punished with

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But in the wide

with ignominy and reproach. regions of probability, which are the proper province of prudence and election, there is always room to deviate on either fide of rectitude without rufhing against apparent abfurdity; and according to the inclinations of nature, or the impreffions of precept, the daring and the cautious may move in different directions without touching upon rafhness or cowardice.

That there is a middle path which it is every man's duty to find, and to keep, is unanimoufly confeffed but it is likewife acknowledged that this middle path is fo narrow, that it cannot easily be discovered, and fo little beaten, that there are no certain marks by which it can be followed; the care therefore of all thofe who conduct others has been, that whenever they decline into obliquities, they should tend towards the fide of fafety.

It can, indeed, raife no wonder that temerity has been generally cenfured; for it is one of the vices with which few can be charged, and which therefore great numbers are ready to condemn. It is the vice of noble and generous minds, the exuberance of magnanimity, and the ebullition of genius; and is therefore not regarded with much tenderness, because it never flatters us by that appearance of foftnefs and imbecility which is commonly neceffary to conciliate compaflion. But if the fame attention had been applied to the fearch of arguments against the folly of prefuppofing impoffibilities, and anticipating fruftration, I know not whether many would not have been roused to usefulness, who, having been taught to confound prudence with timidity, never

ventured