happy, that, perhaps, the world might have been travelled over, without discovery of a place which would not have been defective in fome particular.

Thus I went on ftill talking of retirement, and ftill refusing to retire; my friends began to laugh at my delays, and I grew ashamed to trifle longer with my own inclinations; an aftate was at length purchafed, I transferred my ftock to a prudent young man who had married my daughter, went down into the country, and commenced lord of a fpacious

manor.

Here for fome time I found happiness equal to my expectation. I reformed the old houfe according to the advice of the beft architects, I threw down the walls of the garden, and inclofed it with palifades, planted long avenues of trees, filled a green-house. with exotick plants, dug a new canal, and threw the earth into the old moat.

The fame of thefe expenfive improvements brought in all the country to fee the fhew. I entertained my vifitors with great liberality, led them round my gardens, fhewed them my apartments, laid before them plans for new decorations, and was gratified by the wonder of fome and the envy of others.

I was envied; but how little can one man judge of the condition of another? The time was now coming, in which affluence and fplendour could no longer make me pleafed with myfelf. I had built till the imagination of the architect was exhaufted; I had added one convenience to another, till I knew not what more to wifh or to defign; I had laid out. my gardens, planted my park, and completed my water-works;

water-works; and what now remained to be done? what, but to look up to turrets, of which when they were once raised I had no farther ufe, to range over apartments where time was tarnishing the furniture, to ftand by the cafcade of which I fcarcely now perceived the found, and to watch the growth of woods that must give their shade to a distant 'ration.

gene

In this gloomy inactivity, is every day begun and ended: the happinefs that I have been fo long procuring is now at an end, because it has been procured; I wander from room to room till I am weary of my felf; I ride out to a neighbouring hill in the centre of my estate, from whence all my lands lie in profpect round me; I fee nothing that I have not feen before, and return home difappointed, though I knew that Į had nothing to expect.

In my happy days of bufinefs I had been accuftomed to rife early in the morning; and remember the time when I grieved that the night came fo foon upon me, and obliged me for a few hours to fhut out affluence and profperity. I now feldom fee the rifing fun, but to tell him," with the fallen angel," how I hate his beams." I awake from fleep as to languor or imprisonment, and have no employment for the first hour but to confider by what art I fhall rid myself of the fecond. I protract the breakfast as long as I can, because when it is ended I have no call for my attention, till I can with fome degree of decency grow impatient for my dinner. If I could dine all my life, I fhould be happy; I eat not because I am hungry, but because I am idle: but, alas! the time quickly comes when I can eat no longer;

Q 3

and

so that when the firft civilities are over, they ufually talk to one another, and I am left alone in the midst of the company. Though I cannot drink myself, I am obliged to encourage the circulation of the glafs; their mirth grows more turbulent and obftreperous; and before their merriment is at end, I am fick with difguft, and, perhaps, reproached with my sobriety, or by fome fly infinuations infulted as a cit.

Such, Mr. Adventurer, is the life to which I am condemned by a foolish endeavour to be happy by imitation; fuch is the happiness to which I pleased myfelf with approaching, and which I confidered as the chief end of my cares and my labours., I toiled year after year with cheerfulness, in expectation of the happy hour in which I might be idle; the privilege of idleness is attained, but has not brought with it the bleffing of tranquillity.

I am,

Yours, &c.

MERCATOR.

NUMB. 107. TUESDAY, November 13, 1753.

IT

Sub judice lis eft.

And of their vain difputings find no end.

HOR.

FRANCIS.

T has been fometimes afked by thofe, who find the appearance of wisdom more easily attained by questions than folutions, how it comes to pass, that the world is divided by fuch difference of opinion; and why men, equally reasonable, and equally lovers of truth, do not always think in the fame manner?

With regard to fimple propofitions, where the terms are understood, and the whole fubject is comprehended at once, there is fuch an uniformity of fentiment among all human beings, that, for many ages, a very numerous set of notions were fuppofed to be innate, or necaffarily co-exiftent with the faculty of reafon: it being imagined, that univerfal agreement could proceed only from the invariable dictates of the univerfal parent.

In queftions diffuse and compounded, this fimilarity of determination is no longer to be expected. At our first fally into the intellectual world, we all march together along one ftraight and open road; but as we proceed further, and wider profpect open to our view, every eye fixes upon a different scene; we divide into various paths, and, as we move forward, are ftill at a greater diftance. from each other.

As

As a queftion becomes more complicated and involved, and extends to a greater number of relations, difagreement of opinion will always be multiplied; not because we are irrational, but because we are finite beings, furnished with different kinds of knowledge, exerting different degrees of attention, one difcovering confequences which efcape another, none taking in the whole concatenation of caufes and effects, and moft comprehending but a very fmall part, each comparing what he observes with a different criterion, and each referring it to a different purpose.

Where, then, is the wonder, that they who fee only a small part fhould judge erroneoufly of the whole? or that they, who fee different and diffimilar parts, fhould judge differently from each

other?

Whatever has various refpects, must have various appearances of good and evil, beauty or deformity; thus, the gardener tears up as a weed, the plant which the phyfician gathers as a medicine; and "a gene"ral," fays Sir Kenelm Digby," will look with plea"fure over a plain, as a fit place on which the fate of empires might be decided in battle, which the farmer "will defpife as bleak and barren, neither fruitful of "pafturage, nor fit for tillage."

Two men examining the fame question proceed commonly like the physician and gardener in selecting herbs, or the farmer and hero looking on the plain; they bring minds impretfed with different notions, and direct their inquiries to different ends; they form, therefore, contrary conclufions, and each wonders at the others abfurdity.

We