that I am not yet without my charms; others have whispered at my entrance, This is the celebrated beauty. One told me of a wash that would smooth the fkin; and another offered me her chair that I might not front the light. Some foothed me with the obfervation that none can tell how foon my cafe may be her own; and fome thought it proper to receive me with mournful tendernefs, formal condolance, and confolatory blandifhments. Thus was I every day haraffed with all the ftratagems of well-bred malignity; yet infolence was more tolerable than folitude, and I therefore perfifted to keep my time at the doors of my acquaintance, without gratifying them with any appearance of refentment or depreffion. I expected that their exultation would in time vapour away; that the joy of their fuperiority would end with its novelty; and that I fhould be fuffered to glide along in my prefent form among the nameless multitude, whom nature never intended to excite envy or admiration, nor enabled to delight the eye or inflame the heart. This was naturally to be expected, and this I began to experience. But when I was no longer agitated by the perpetual ardour of resistance and effort of perfeverance, I found more fenfibly the want of thofe entertainments which had formerly delighted me; the day rofe upon me without an engagement; and the evening clofed in its natural gloom, without fummoning me to a concert or a ball. None had any care to find amufements for me, and I had no power of amusing myfelf. Idlenefs expofed me to melancholy, and life began to languish in motionless indifference. Mifery and fhame are nearly allied. It was not without many ftruggles that I prevailed on my felf to confefs my uneafinefs to Euphemia, the only friend who had never pained me with comfort or with pity. I at laft laid my calamities before her, rather to ease my heart than receive affiftance. "We must dif tinguish, said the, my Victoria, thofe evils which " are imposed by providence, from thofe to which "we ourselves give the power of hurting us. Of your calamity, a fmall part is the infliction of "Heaven, the rest is little more than the corrosion "of idle difcontent. You have loft that which may "indeed fometimes contribute to happiness, but to "which happiness is by no means infeparably an"nexed. You have loft what the greater number of "the human race never have poffeffed; what those "on whom it is bestowed for the most part poffefs "in vain, and what you, while it was yours, knew "not how to ufe: you have only loft early what "the laws of nature forbid you to keep long, and have loft it while your mind is yet flexible, and "while you have time to fubftitute more valuable " and more durable excellencies. Confider yourself, my Victoria, as a being born to know, to reason, "and to act; rife at once from your dream of me lancholy to wisdom and to piety; you will find "that there are other charms than those of beauty, "and other joys than the praise of fools." I am, SIR, &c. VICTORIA. I NUMB. 134. SATURDAY, June 29, 1751. Quis fcit, an adjiciant hodiernæ craftina fumme Tempora Di fuperi! Who knows if Heav'n, with ever-bounteous pow'r, HORI FRANCIS SAT yesterday morning employed in deliberating on which, among the various fubjects that occurred to my imagination, I fhould bestow the paper of to-day. After a fhort effort of meditation by which nothing was determined, I grew every moment more irrefolute, my ideas wandered from the first intention, and I rather wifhed to think, than thought, upon any fettled fubject; till at last I was awakened from this dream of study by a fummons from the prefs: the time was come for which I had been thus negligently purpofing to provide, and, however dubious or fluggish, I was now neceffitated to write. Though to a writer whofe defign is fo comprehenfive and mifcellaneous, that he may accommodate himself with a topick from every fcene of life, or view of nature, it is no great aggravation of his task to be obliged to a fudden compofition; yet I could not forbear to reproach myself for having fo long neglected what was unavoidably to be done, and of which every moment's idlenefs increased the difficulty. There was however fome pleasure in reflecting that I, who had only trifled till diligence was neceffary, fary, might still congratulate myself upon my fuperiority to multitudes, who have trifled till diligence is vain; who can by no degree of activity or refolution recover the opportunities which have flipped away; and who are condemned by their own carelefnefs to hopeless calamity and barren forrow. The folly of allowing ourselves to delay what we know cannot be finally escaped, is one of the general weakneffes, which, in fpite of the inftruction of moralists, and the remonstrances of reason, prevail to a greater or less degree in every mind: even they who most steadily withstand it, find it, if not the most violent, the most pertinacious of their paffions, always renewing its attacks, and though often vanquished, never destroyed. It is indeed natural to have particular regard to the time prefent, and to be moft folicitous for that which is by its nearness enabled to make the strongest impreffions. When therefore any sharp pain is to be fuffered, or any formidable danger to be incurred, we can scarcely exempt ourselves wholly from the feducements of imagination; we readily believe that another day will bring fome fupport or advantage which we now want; and are easily perfuaded, that the moment of neceffity which we defire never to arrive, is at a great distance from us. Thus life is languished away in the gloom of anxiety, and confumed in collecting refolution which the next morning diffipates; in forming purposes which we scarcely hope to keep, and reconciling ourfelves to our own cowardice by excufes, which, while we admit them, we know to be abfurd. Our VOL. VI. Da firmness firmness is by the continual contemplation of mifery hourly impaired; every fubmiffion to our fear enlarges its dominion; we not only wafte that time in which the evil we dread might have been fuffered and furmounted, but even where procraftination produces no abfolute increase of our difficulties, make them less fuperable to ourselves by habitual terrors. When evils cannot be avoided, it is wife to contract the interval of expectation; to meet the mifchiefs which will overtake us if we fly; and fuffer only their real malignity without the conflicts of doubt and anguish of anticipation. To act is far easier than to fuffer; yet we every day fee the progrefs of life retarded by the vis inertie, the mere repugnance to motion, and find multitudes repining at the want of that which nothing but idleness hinders them from enjoying. The cafe of Tantalus, in the region of poetick punishment, was fomewhat to be pitied, becaufe the fruits that hung about him retired from his hand; but what tenderness can be claimed by thofe who, though perhaps they fuffer the pains of Tantalus, will never lift their hands for their own relief? There is nothing more common among this torpid generation than murmurs and complaints; murmurs at uneafinefs which only vacancy and fufpicion expofe them to feel, and complaints of diftreffes which it is in their own power to remove. Lazinefs is commonly affociated with timidity. Either fear originally prohibits endeavours by infufing defpair of fuccefs; or the frequent failure of irrefolute ftruggles, and the conftant defire of avoiding labour, imprefs |