thofe who cannot accommodate themselves to our fentiments if they are deceived, we have no right to attribute their mistake to obftinacy or negligence, because we likewife have been mistaken; we may, perhaps, again change our own opinion; and what excufe fhall we be able to find for averfion and malignity conceived against him, whom we fhall then find to have committed no fault, and who offended us only by refufing to follow us into error?

It may likewife contribute to foften that refentment which pride naturally raises against oppofition, if we confider, that he who differs from us, does not always contradict us; he has one view of an object, and we have another; each defcribes what he fees with equal fidelity, and each regulates his fteps by his own eyes: one man, with Pofidippus, looks on celibacy as a state of gloomy folitude, without a partner in joy or a comforter in forrow; the other confiders it, with Metrodorus, as a ftate free from incumbrances, in which a man is at liberty to choose his own gratifications, to remove from place to place in queft of pleafure, and to think of nothing but merriment and diverfion: full of thefe notions one haftens to choofe a wife, and the other laughs at his rafhnefs, or pities his ignorance; yet it is poffible that each is right, but that each is right only for himfelf.

ture.

Life is not the object of fcience: we fee a little, very little; and what is beyond we only can conjecIf we enquire of thofe who have gone before us, we receive fmall fatisfaction; fome have travelled life without obfervation, and fome willingly mislead us. The only thought, therefore, on which we can

5

repofe

repofe with comfort, is that which presents to us the care of Providence, whofe eye takes in the whole of things, and under whofe direction all involuntary errors will terminate in happiness.

NUMB. 108. SATURDAY, November 17, 1753.

Nebis, cum fimul occidit brevis lux,
Nox eft perpetuo una dormienda.

When once the fhort-liv'd mortal dies,

A night eternal feals his eyes.

CATULLUS,

ADDISON.

may have been obferved by every reader, that there are certain topicks which never are exhaufted, Of fome images and fentiments the mind of man may be faid to be enamoured; it meets them, however often they occur, with the fame ardour which a lover feels at the fight of his mistress, and parts from them with the fame regret when they can no longer be enjoyed,

Of this kind are many defcriptions which the poets have tranfcribed from each other, and their fucceffors will probably copy to the end of time; which will continue to engage, or, as the French term it, to flatter the imagination, as long as human nature fhall remain the fame.

When a poet mentions the spring, we know that the zephyrs are about to whifper, that the groves are to recover their verdure, the linnets to warble forth their notes of love, and the flocks and herds

to frisk over vales painted with flowers: yet, who is there fo infenfible of the beauties of nature, fo little delighted with the renovation of the world, as not to feel his heart bound at the mention of the Spring?

When night overfhadows a romantick scene, all is fillness, filence, and quiet; the poets of the grove cease their melody, the moon towers over the world in gentle majefty, men forget their labours and their cares, and every paffion and purfuit is for a while fufpended. All this we know already, yet we hear it repeated without wearinefs; becaufe fuch is generally the life of man, that he is pleafed to think on the time when he shall pause from a fense of his condition.

When a poetical grove invites us to its covert, we know that we fhall find what we have already feen, a limpid brook murmuring over pebbles, a bank diverfified with flowers, a green arch that excludes the fun, and a natural grot fhaded with myrtles; yet who can forbear to enter the pleafing gloom, to enjoy coolness and privacy, and gratify himself once more by fcenes with which nature has formed him to be delighted?

Many moral fentiments likewife are fo adapted to our ftate, that we find approbation whenever they folicit it, and are feldom read without exciting a gentle emotion in the mind: fuch is the comparison of the life of man with the duration of a flower, a thought which, perhaps, every nation has heard warbled in its own language, from the infpired poets of the Hebrews to our own times: yet this comparifon must always pleafe, becaufe every heart feels

its juftnefs, and every hour confirms it by example.

Such, likewife, is the precept that directs us to ufe the present hour, and refer nothing to a distant time, which we are uncertain whether we fhall reach: this every moralift may venture to inculcate, because it will always be approved, and because it is always forgotten.

This rule is, indeed, every day enforced, by arguments more powerful than the differtations of moralifts: we fee men pleafing themfelves with future happiness, fixing a certain hour for the completion of their wishes, and perishing some at a greater and fome at a lefs distance from the happy time; all complaining of their disappointments, and lamenting that they had fuffered the years which Heaven allowed them, to pafs without improvement, and deferred the principal purpofe of their lives to the time when life itfelf was to forfake them.

It is not only uncertain, whether, through all the cafualties and dangers which befet the life of man, we shall be able to reach the time appointed for happinefs or wifdom; but it is likely, that whatever now hinders us from doing that which our reafon and confcience declare neceffary to be done, will equally obstruct us in times to come. It is easy for the imagination, operating on things not yet exifting, to please itself with fcenes of unmingled felicity, or plan out courfes of uniform virtue: but good and evil are in real life infeparably united habits grow ftronger by indulgence; and reafon lofes her dignity, in proportion as she has oftener yielded to temptation: " he that cannot live well

"to-day,"

to-day," fays Martial," will be lefs qualified to "live well to-morrow."

Of the uncertainty of every human good, every human being seems to be convinced; yet this uncertainty is voluntarily increafed by unneceffary delay, whether we respect external caufes, or confider the nature of our own minds. He that now feels a defire to do right, and wishes to regulate his life ac cording to his reafon, is not fure that, at any future time affignable, he fhall be able to rekindle the fame ardour; he that has now an opportunity offered him of breaking loofe from vice and folly, cannot know, but that he fhall hereafter be more entangled, and truggle for freedom without obtaining it.

We are fo unwilling to believe any thing to our own difadvantage, that we will always imagine the perfpicacity of our judgment and the strength of our refolution more likely to increase than to grow lefs by time; and, therefore, conclude, that the will tó purfue laudable purposes, will be always feconded by the power.

But however we may be deceived in calculating the strength of our faculties, we cannot doubt the uncertainty of that life in which they must be employed: we fee every day the unexpected death of our friends and our enemies, we fee new graves hourly opened for men older and younger than ourfelves, for the cautious and the carelefs, the diffolute and the temperate, for men who like us were providing to enjoy or improve hours now irreverfibly cut off; we fee all this, and yet, inftead of living, let year glide after year in preparations to live.

Men