tunities which every day affords of relieving the most wretched of human beings are overlooked and neglected, with equal difregard of policy and goodness. There are places, indeed, fet apart, to which thefe unhappy creatures may refort, when the difeafes of incontinence feize upon them; but if they obtain a cure, to what are they reduced? Either to return with the fmail remains of beauty to their former guilt, or perifh in the freets with nakednefs and hunger? How frequently have the gay and thoughtless, in their evening frolicks, feen a band of thefe miferable females, covered with rags, fhivering with cold, and pining with hunger; and, without either pitying their calamities, or reflecting upon the cruelty of those who perhaps firft feduced them by careffes of fondnefs, or magnificence of promifes, go on to reduce others to the fame wretchedness by the fame means? To stop the increafe of this deplorable multitude, is undoubtedly the firft and moft preffing confideration. To prevent evil is the great end of government, the end for which vigilance and feverity are properly employed. But furely those whom paffion or intereft have already depraved, have fome claim to compaffion, from beings equally frail and fallible with themfelves. Nor will they long groan in their prefent afflictions, if none were to refuse them relief, but thofe that owe their exemption from the fame diftre's only to their wifdom and their virtue. I am, &c. AMICUS. NUMB. 108. SATURDAY, March 30, 1751, Sapere aude, Incipe. Vivendi rectè qui prorogat horam, Begin, be bold, and venture to be wife; HOR Till the whole stream, which stop'd him, fhould be gone, AN COWLEY N ancient poet, unreasonably difcontented at the present state of things, which his fyftem of opinions obliged him to represent in its worst form, has obferved of the earth, "that its greater part is "covered by the uninhabitable ocean; that of the "reft fome is encumbered with naked mountains, " and fome loft under barren fands; fome fcorched "with unintermitted heat, and fome petrified with "perpetual froft; fo that only a few regions remain "for the production of fruits, the pafture of cattle, " and the accommodation of man." The fame obfervation may be transferred to the time allotted us in our present state. When we have deducted all that is absorbed in sleep, all that is inevitably appropriated to the demands of nature, or irresistibly engroffed by the tyranny of cuftom; all that paffes in regulating the fuperficial decorations of life, or is given up in the reciprocations of civi lity to the difpofal of others; all that is torn from us by the violence of difeafe, or stolen imperceptibly away by laffitude and languor; we fhall find that part of our duration very fmall of which we can truly call ourselves mafters, or which we can fpend wholly at our own choice. Many of our hours are loft in a rotation of petty cares, in a conftant recurrence of the fame employments; many of our provifions for cafe or happinefs are always exhaufted by the present day; and a great part of our existence ferves no other purpofe, than that of enabling us to enjoy the rest. Of the few moments which are left in our dif pofal, it may reasonably be expected, that we fhould be fo frugal, as to let none of them flip from us without fome equivalent; and perhaps it might be found, that as the earth, however ftraitened by rocks and waters, is capable of producing more than all its inhabitants are able to confume, our lives, though much contracted by incidental diftraction, would yet afford us a large space vacant to the exercife of reafon and virtue; that we want not time, but diligence, for great performances; and that we fquander much of our allowance, even while we think it fparing and infufficient. This natural and neceffary comminution of our lives, perhaps, often makes us infenfiole of the negligence with which we fuffer them to flide away. We never confider ourfelves as poffeffed at once of time fufficient for any great defign, and therefore indulge ourselves in fortuitous amufements. We think it unneceffary to take an account of a few fupernumerary moments, which, however employed, could could have produced little advantage, and which were expofed to a thousand chances of disturbance and interruption. It is obfervable, that either by nature or by habit, our faculties are fitted to images of a certain extent, to which we adjust great things by divifion, and little things by accumulation. Of extensive surfaces we can only take a survey, as the parts fucceed one ano. ther; and atoms we cannot perceive, till they are united unto maffes. Thus we break the vast periods of time into centuries and years; and thus, if we would know the amount of moments, we must agglomerate them into days and weeks. The proverbial oracles of our parfimonious ancestors have informed us, that the fatal wafte of fortune is by small expences, by the profufion of fums too little fingly to alarm our caution, and which we never fuffer ourselves to confider together. Of the same kind is the prodigality of life; he that hopes to look back hereafter with fatisfaction upon past years, must learn to know the prefent value of fingle minutes, and endeavour to let no particle of time fall useless to the ground. It is ufual for those who are advised to the attainment of any new qualification, to look upon themfelves as required to change the general courfe of their conduct, to difmifs bufinefs, and exclude pleafure, and to devote their days and nights to a particular attention. But all common degrees of excellence are attainable at a lower price; he that should steadily and refolutely affign to any fcience or language those interftitial vacancies which intervene in the moft crowded variety of diverfion or employ ment, ment, would find every day new irradiations of knowledge, and difcover how much more is to be hoped from frequency and perfeverance, than from violent efforts and fudden defires; efforts which are foon remitted when they encounter difficulty, and defires which, if they are indulged too often, will fhake off the authority of reafon, and range capriciously from one object to another. The difpofition to defer every important defign to a time of leifure, and a state of fettled uniformity, proceeds generally from a falfe eftimate of the human powers. If we except thofe gigantick and ftupendous intelligences who are faid to grafp a fyftem by intuition, and bound forward from one feries of conclufions to another, without regular fteps through intermediate propofitions, the moft fuccefsful ftudents make their advances in knowledge by fhort flights, between each of which the mind may lie at reft. For every fingle act of progreflion a fhort time is fufficient; and it is only neceffary, that whenever that time is afforded, it be well employed. Few minds will be long confined to fevere and laborious meditation; and when a fuccefsful attack on knowledge has been made, the student recreates himfelf with the contemplation of his conqueft, and forbears another incurfion, till the new-acquired truth has become familiar, and his curiofity calls upon him for fresh gratifications. Whether the time of intermiffion is fpent in company, or in folitude, in neceffary bufinefs, or in voluntary levities, the understanding is equally abstracted from the object of enquiry; but, perhaps, if it be detained by occupations lefs pleafing, it returns again to study with greater alacrity, than |