I must endure. Behold a few more years, and that grand coloffus is no more to be feen, than the creatures he overshadows.. If I have repose, and a retreat which I can call my own, why feek for more in this life?

Remember the uncertainty of life, and reftrain thy hand from evil. He that was yesterday a king, behold him dead, and the beggar is better than he.

Life is fhort and uncertain; we have not 130 a moment to lofe: Is it prudent to throw away any of our time in tormenting ourselves or others, when we have fo little for honest pleasures? Forgetting our weakness, we ftir up mighty enmities, and fly to wound as if we were invulnerable. Wherefore all this bustle and noise? Fate hangs over us, and charges to our account, even those days we fpend in pain. The hour you destine for another's death, is perhaps destined for your own. The best use of a short life is, to make it agreeable to ourselves and to others. Have you cause of quarrel with your fervant, your mafter, your king, your neighbour? forbear a moment, death is at hand, which makes all equal. What has man to do with wars, tumults,

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tumults, ambushes? You would destroy your enemy: you lofe your trouble, death will do your business while you are at reft. And, after all, when you have got your revenge, how fhort will be your joy, or his pain? While we are among men, let us cultivate humanity; let us not be the cause of fear, nor of pain, to one another. Let us despise injury, malice, and detraction; and bear with an equal mind fuch tranfitory evils. While we fpeak, while we think, death comes up, and closes the fcene.

Honesty makes a capital figure in a prince, because few princes practise it.

CHAP.

СНА Р.

VI.

REFLECTIONS and INFERENCES.

From an Effect to trace its Caufe.

N feveral parts of Scotland, coals in heaps

IN

are seen at the door of every peasant. May we not fafely infer from this fact, that, in thefe parts, there is great plenty of coal? Coals are locked up where they are scarce. In Herefordshire, apples grow in every hedge, open to all. Does not this evince plenty of apple-trees in that country?

If you see many reapers together in a field, you may conclude the farms to be large, and the country not well peopled. Where there are many reapers, difperfed in small knots through different fields, conclude that the farms are small, and the country populous.

In a parish where the people make a great bustle about a new minifter, we may fafely conclude, that there is little industry in this parish..

In a great city, benevolence degenerates into humanity, and friendship into a flight affection. The reafon is, that a great city affords a wide circle of agreeable acquaintance; and that a man, engaged in fuch a circle, has no time to fpare for the stricter ties of friendship.

The furniture of a houfe is an image of the owner: If gay, fplendid, and expenfive, we may prefume that fuch is the character of the proprietor. But, if you fee order without formality, peace without flavery, and abundance without profufion, fay with confidence, that the owner is a man of taste and judgment.

When a man fays in converfation, that it is fine weather, does he mean to inform you of the fact? Surely not; for every one knows it as well as he does. He means to communicate his agreeable feelings.

From

From a Caufe to trace its Effects.

College-oaths, reduced by cuftom to be a matter of form merely, are an early initiation into loose manners.

If you find a man who takes it ill to be thought ignorant of any thing, take it for granted that he is ignorant of every thing. For what can more effectually keep a man ignorant, than to refuse instruction ?

The mode of reclining upon a bed at meals, derived from Afla to Greece and Rome, is not friendly to conversation. We are animated by looks and geftures as much as by words.

Gallantry, among the French, fmothers love, as politenefs does friendship.

The most obvious Inference is not always the true Inference.

In the weft of Scotland, corn-ftacks are covered with more care and neatness than in the caft. Would not a ftranger naturally infer, that the inhabitants are more induf