deed, if it were so, we should need no other. "Fret not thyself against the ungodly, &c. FOR "they shall soon be cut down like the grass," &c. Who could envy a flower, though ever so gay and beautiful in its colours, when he saw that the next stroke of the mower would sweep it away for ever?

GREATNESS.

A MAN wishes for it, and cannot be

easy without it: no sooner has he attained his wish, but you hear him lamenting his hard lot, complaining of cares, and troubles, and visits: he has no peace, not an hour to himself; his expenditure is greater than his income, &c. &c. All this is wrong; he only exposes his own weakness. He wanted honour and exaltation: he has got them, and must take their necessary appendages with them. If he thinks proper to receive the pay, he should not find fault with the duty. The troubles of a station are designed as an antidote to the poison of its temptations. They humble the possessor, and shew him to himself. They should be borne with meekness and patience, and made this use of. See what Fenelon has said on the Cross of Pros

perity, i. 143. 155. Also a sermon in Massillon's Petit Carême, where he shews a court to be the best school for learning mortification and self. denial.

GRIEF.

GRIEF is fruitless and unavailable in every case but one, viz. sin. We take to it kindly in every instance but that.

HAPPINESS,

ON FIFTY-SIX POUNDS PER ANNUM.

66

A CLERGYMAN applied to the Dean of Christchurch for the little vicarage of Blenddington, then vacant, value, de claro, about 401. per ann. Sir," said he, "I maintain a wife and six children on "561. per ann.-Not that I should regard the "matter, were the income certain: but when a

man considers it may be taken from him any

day of the week, he cannot be quite so easy."— "I will get the living for you, if I can," answered the Dean; "but I would not have you raise your

expectations too high; because, if any member

"of the college will take it, by our rules he must

"have it."-" O Sir," replied the divine," it "would make me the happiest man in the world! "—but if I miss it, I shall not be unhappy.-I 66 never knew what it was to be unhappy for one "hour in my whole life."

HIGH CHURCH.

A NAME invented, according to Mr. Leslie, under which the Church of England might be abused with greater security. Such are declared by Steele, in his Crisis, to be worse than Papists, and the very opposite to Protestants. Leslie, in his Letter from Bar-le-duc, speaks of rods and tests prepared for the Church of England by the Whigs, &c. had they succeeded in Sacheverel's trial; the intention of which was to make her swallow her own dung, as they said, and abjure her doctrines.

HISTORY.

1. HISTORY, in general, is an account of what men have done to make each other unhappy. In the history of the present age, it is a striking circumstance, that the historian, amidst a series of murders and calamities, is glad to relieve himself

and his reader, by dwelling on so minute an incident, of a different kind, as that of the seeds sown by Anson on the desert isle of Fernandes, which the Spaniards afterwards found to be grown up; and the goats, with their ears cut, which served to verify the adventures of Selkirk, who, being left upon the island, had lived there several years.~~ See Age of Louis XIV. ii. 109.

2. Lord Chesterfield gives a good direction in reading history, viz. to read some short general history of a country; to mark the curious and interesting periods, such as revolutions in the government, religion, laws, &c.; then to consult the larger histories for full information as to them.

3. It is well observed by Hume, that, in reading history, trivial incidents, which shew the manners of the age, are often more instructive as well as entertaining, than the great transactions of wars and negociations, which are nearly similar in all periods, and in all countries of the world. Vol. 5. 56.

4. History, while it instructs us, flatters our pride by the manner in which that instruction is conveyed. For what we learn by precept, we are indebted to the wisdom and authority of another. The learning obtained from example is obtained by deductions and applications of our own.

HOBBES.

LET us do justice," says Bishop Warburton, "to that great man's memory, at a time his writ"ings seem entirely neglected; whom with all his 66 errors, and those of the most dangerous nature, 66 we must allow to be one of the first men of his "age, for a bright wit, a deep penetration, and a "cultivated understanding: several of whose un"common speculations, while they remained with "him, lay unregarded; but, when taken up by "others, of whom we deservedly have a better.

opinion, received their due applause and appro"bation.Mr. Locke borrowed and improved

many-e. g. that liberty belongs not to the will "the finest and most intricate dissertation in "his Essay, as he confesses to Limborch." Warburton's Miscell. Translations in Prose and Verse, p. 124, printed 1724, for Barker, with a Latin dedication to Sir Robert Sutton.-[Hobbes was a great favourite with Voltaire : "Virtuous citizen! "enterprising spirit-the forerunner of Spinosa "and of Locke!"-It is said in thy law of nature, "that every man having a right to all things,

every one has a right over the life of his fellow

"creatures." Is not power here confounded