refiftance before their approach is perceived or fufpected.

This captivity, however, it is neceffary for every man to break, who has any defire to be wife or useful, to pafs his life with the efteem of others, or to look back with fatisfaction from his old age upon his earlier years. In order to regain liberty, he must find the means of flying from himfelf; he muft, in oppofition to the Stoick precept, teach his defires to fix upon external things; he must adopt the joys and the pains of others, and excite in his mind the want of focial pleasures and amicable communication.

It is, perhaps, not impoffible to promote the cure of this mental malady, by clofe application to fome new ftudy, which may pour in fresh ideas, and keep curiofity in perpetual motion. But ftudy requires folitude, and folitude is a ftate dangerous to those who are too much accustomed to fink into themselves. Active employment or publick pleafure is generally a neceffary part of this intellectual regimen, without which, though fome remiffion may be obtained, a complete cure will fcarcely be effected.

This is a formidable and obftinate difeafe of the intellect, of which, when it has once become radicated by time, the remedy is one of the hardest tasks of reafon and of virtue. Its flightest attacks, therefore, fhould be watchfully oppofed; and he that finds the frigid and narcotick infection beginning to feize him, fhould turn his whole attention against it, and check it at the firft difcovery by proper counterac

tion.

The great refolution to be formed, when happinefs and virtue are thus formidably invaded, is, that

no

be spent in a state of neutrality or inut that fome pleasure be found for every is not devoted to labour; and that, neceffary business of life grows irksome an immediate tranfition be made to diaiety. exercises which the health of the body which have themselves a natural tenate and invigorate the mind, the most ement of a rational being feems to be ge of thoughts which is practifed in free verfation; where fufpicion is banished ce, and emulation by benevolence; man fpeaks with no other restraint than to offend, and hears with no other difdefire to be pleased.

be a time in which every man trifles; choice that nature offers us, is, to trifle or alone. To join profit with pleasure, old precept among men who have had

conceptions of profit. All have agreed fements fhould not terminate wholly in moment, but contribute more or less to tage. He that amuses himself among ompanions, can scarcely fail to receive,

careless and obftreperous merriment can allow, fome useful hints; nor can he most familiar topicks, without fome ation. The loofe fparkles of thoughtgive new light to the mind, and the gay parodoxical pofitions rectify the opi

This is the time in which those friendships that give happiness or confolation, relief or fecurity, are generally formed. A wife and good man is never fo amiable as in his unbended and familiar intervals. Heroick generofity, or philofophical difcoveries, may compel veneration and refpect, but love always implies some kind of natural or voluntary equality, and is only to be excited by that levity and cheerfulness which difencumbers all minds from awe and folicitude, invites the modeft to freedom, and exalts the timorous to confidence. This eafy gaiety is certain to please, whatever be the character of him that exerts it; if our fuperiors defcend from their elevation, we love them for leffening the distance at which we are placed below them; and inferiors, from whom we can receive no lafting advantage, will always keep our affections while their sprightliness and mirth con tribute to our pleasure.

Every man finds himself differently affected by the fight of fortreffes of war, and palaces of pleafure; we look on the height and ftrength of the bulwarks with a kind of gloomy fatisfaction, for we cannot think of defence without admitting images of danger; but we range delighted and jocund through the gay apartments of the palace, because nothing is impreffed by them on the mind but joy and feftivity. Such is the difference between great and amiable -characters; with protectors we are fafe, with companions we are happy.

NUMB. 90. SATURDAY, January 26, 1751.

In tenui labor.

What toil in flender things!

VIRG.

T is very difficult to write on the minuter parts of literature without failing either to pleafe or inftruct. Too much nicety of detail difgufts the greateft part of readers, and to throw a multitude of particulars under general heads, and lay down rules of extenfive comprehenfion, is to common understandings of little ufe. They who undertake thefe fubjects are therefore always in danger, as one or other inconvenience arifes to their imagination, of frighting us with rugged fcience, or amufing us with empty found.

In criticifing the work of Milton, there is, indeed, opportunity to interfperfe paffages that can hardly fail to relieve the languors of attention; and fince, in examining the variety and choice of the paufes with which he has diverfified his numbers, it will be neceffary to exhibit the lines in which they are to be found, perhaps the remarks may be well compenfated by the examples, and the irksomeness of grammati cal difquifitions fomewhat alleviated.

Milton formed his fcheme of verfification by the poets of Greece and Rome, whom, he propofed to himfelf for his models, fo far as the difference of his lan guage from theirs would permit the imitation. There are indeed many inconveniencies infeparable from

our heroick meafure compared with that of Homer and Virgil; inconveniencies, which it is no reproach to Milton not to have overcome, because they are in their own nature infuperable; but against which he has ftrnggled with fo much art and diligence, that he may at least be faid to have deferved fuccefs.

The hexameter of the ancients may be confidered as confifting of fifteen fyllables, fo melodiously dif pofed, that, as every one knows who has examined the poetical authors, very pleafing and fonorous lyrick measures are formed from the fragments of the heroick. It is, indeed, fcarce poffible to break them in fuch a manner but that invenias etiam disjeƐti membra poëta, fome harmony will still remain, and the due proportions of found will always be difcovered. This meafure therefore allowed great variety of paufes, and great liberties of connecting one verse with another, becaufe wherever the line was interrupted, either part fingly was mufical. But the ancients feem to have confined this privilege to hexameters; for in their other measures, though longer than the Eng heroick, thofe who wrote after the refinements of verfification, venture fo feldom to change their paufes, that every variation may be fuppofed rather a compliance with necellity than the choice of judgment.

Milton was conftrained within the narrow limits of a measure not very harmonious in the utmoft perfection; the fingle parts, therefore, into which it was to be fometimes broken by paufes, were in danger of Jofing the very form of verfe. This has, perhaps, notwithstanding all his care, fometimes happened.

As