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Age, that lessens the enjoyment of life, increases our desire of living. Those dangers which, in the vigour of youth, we had learned to despise, assume new terrors as we grow old. Our caution increasing as our years increase, fear becomes at last the prevailing passion of the mind; and the small remainder of life is taken up in useless efforts to keep off our end, or provide for a continued existence.

Strange contradiction in our nature, and to which even the wise are liable! If I should judge of that part of life which lies before me by that which I have already seen, the prospect is hideous. Experience tells me, that my past enjoyments have brought no real felicity; and sensation assures me, that those I have felt are stronger than those which are yet to come. Yet experience and sensation in vain persuade; hope, more powerful than either, dresses out the distant prospect in fancied beauty; some happiness in long perspective still beckons me to pursue, and like a losing gamester, every new disappointment increases my ardour to continue the game.

Whence, my friend, this increased love of life, which grows upon us with our years? Whence comes it, that we thus make greater efforts to preserve our existence at a period when it becomes scarcely worth the keeping? Is it that nature, attentive to the preservation of mankind increases our wishes to live, while she lessens our enjoyments; and, as she robs the senses of every pleasure, equips imagination in the spoil? Life would be insupportable to an old man, who, loaded with infirmities, feared death no more than in the vigour of manhood the numberless calamities of decaying nature, and the consciousness of surviving every pleasure, would at once induce him with his own hand to terminate the scene of misery. But, happily, the contempt of death forsakes him at a time when only it could be prejudicial; and life acquires an imaginary value in proportion as its real value is no more.

Our attachment to every object around us increases, in general, from the length of our acquaintance with it. "I would not choose," says a French philosopher, "to see an old post pulled up, with which I had been long acquainted." A 'mind long habituated to a certain set of objects insensibly becomes fond of seeing them, visits them

from habit and parts from them with reluctance. From hence proceeds the avarice of the old in every kind of possession. They love the world and all that it produces; they love life and all its advantages; not because it gives them pleasure, but because they have known it long.

115. From 'THE DESERTED VILLAGE.'

THE VILLAGE INN.

Near yonder thorn, that lifts its head on high,
Where once the sign-post caught the passing eye,
Low lies that house where nut-brown draughts inspir'd,
Where grey-beard mirth and smiling toil retir'd,
Where village statesmen talk'd with looks profound,
And news much older than their ale went round;
Imagination fondly stoops to trace

The parlour splendours of that festive place;
The white-wash'd wall, the nicely sanded floor,
The varnish'd1 clock 2 that clicked behind the door;
The chest contriv'd a double debt to pay,

A bed by night, a chest of drawers by day;

The pictures plac'd for ornament and use,
The twelve good rules, the royal game of goose;
The hearth, except when winter chill'd the day,
With aspen boughs, and flowers, and fennel, gay;
While broken tea-cups, wisely kept for show,
Rang'd o'er the chimney, glisten'd in a row.

Vain transitory splendours! could not all
Reprieve the tott'ring mansion from its fall?
Obscure it sinks, nor shall it more impart
An hour's importance to the poor man's heart;

1. Varnished: Sir Charles Eastlake traces E. varnish, It. vernice, to Gk. Βερενίκη, the suggesting idea being either the golden hair of the Egyptian princess or the amber-coloured nitre of the city Berenice.

2. Clock seems originally to have meant

bell, all the cognate forms of the word in kindred languages having that senseGer. glocke; W. cloch; O. E. clucge, &c. Diez makes it another form of clack, and a representation of the sound made by a blow.

Thither no more the peasant 3 shall repair 4
To sweet oblivion of his daily care;

No more the farmer's news, the barber's tale,
No more the woodman's ballad shall prevail;
No more the smith5 his dusky brow shall clear,
Relax his pond'rous strength, and lean to hear;
The host himself no longer shall be found,
Careful to see the mantling bliss go round;
Nor the coy maid, half willing to be prest,
Shall kiss the cup to pass it to the rest.

3. Peasant, Fr. paysan, is merely another form of pagan, Fr. pays being Lat. pagus.

4. Repair repair, to renovate, and repair, to betake one's-self to, are entirely different words; the first comes from Lat. reparare, and the second, through O. Fr. repairer, from L. L. re

patriare, to get back to one's native land.

5. Smith: Abp. Trench takes this word to mean "the man who smites," but there is reason to believe that the relationship between smith and smite is not an immediate one. It seems rather to belong to the same root as smooth.

146. From 'RETALIATION.'

Character of Burke.

Here lies our good Edmund, whose genius was such,
We scarcely can praise it or blame it too much;
Who, born for the Universe, narrowed his mind,
And to party gave up what was meant for mankind;
Though fraught with all learning, yet straining his throat
To persuade Tommy Townshend to lend him a vote;
Who, too deep for his hearers, still went on refining,
And thought of convincing, while they thought of dining ;
Though equal to all things, for all things unfit;
Too nice for a statesman, too proud for a wit,
For a patriot too cool, for a drudge disobedient,
And too fond of the right to pursue the expedient.
In short, 'twas his fate, unemployed, or in place, sir,
To eat mutton cold, and cut blocks with a razor.

1. Narrow seems to be a mere diminutive of near, as shallow of shoal.

2. Fraught comes from the same root as freight. In the Tempest, Act i, Sc. 2.,

Shakespeare speaks of the "fraughting souls within" the ship, by which he means the "human beings who formed her freight."

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CHAPTER XIII.

HISTORICAL, MORAL, POLITICAL, AND THEOLOGICAL WRITERS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.

147. David Hume. 1711-1776. (History, p. 188.)

THE MIDDLE STATION OF LIFE.

The moral of the following fable will easily discover itself without my explaining it. One rivulet meeting another, with whom he had been long united in strictest amity, with noisy haughtiness and disdain thus bespoke him:-" What, brother! still in the same state! Still low and creeping! Are you not ashamed when you behold me, who, though lately in a like condition with you, am now become a great river, and shall shortly be able to rival the Danube or the Rhine, provided those friendly rains continue which have favoured my banks, but neglected yours?" "Very true," replies the humble rivulet," you are now, indeed, swollen to a great size; but methinks you are become withal somewhat turbulent and muddy. I am contented with my low condition and my purity."

Instead of commenting upon this fable, I shall take occasion from it to compare the different stations of life, and to persuade such of my readers as are placed in the middle station to be satisfied with it, as the most eligible of all others. These form the most numerous rank of men that can be supposed susceptible of philosophy, and therefore all discourses of morality ought principally to be addressed to them. The great are too much immersed in pleasure, and the poor too much occupied in providing for the necessities of life, to hearken to the calm voice of reason. The middle station, as it is most happy in many respects, so particularly in this, that a man placed in it can, with the greatest leisure, consider his own happiness, and reap a new enjoyment, from comparing his situation with that of persons above or below him.

Agur's prayer is sufficiently noted-" Two things have I required

of thee; deny me them not before I die: Remove far from me vanity and lies; give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with food convenient for me, lest I be full and deny thee, and say, who is the Lord? or lest I be poor, and steal, and take the name of my God in vain." The middle station is here justly recommended, as affording the fullest security for virtue; and I may also add, that it gives opportunity for the most ample exercise of it, and furnishes employment for every good quality which we can possibly be possessed of. Those who are placed among the lower ranks of men have little opportunity of exerting any other virtue besides those of patience, resignation, industry, and integrity. Those who are advanced into the higher stations, have full employment for their generosity, humanity, affability, and charity. When a man lies betwixt these two extremes, he can exert the former virtues towards his superiors, and the latter towards his inferiors. Every moral quality which the human soul is susceptible of may have its turn, and be called up to action; and a man may, after this manner, be much more certain of his progress in virtue, than where his good qualities lie dormant and without employment.

But there is another virtue that seems principally to lie among equals; and is, for that reason, chiefly calculated for the middle station of life. This virtue is friendship. I believe most men of generous tempers are apt to envy the great, when they consider the large opportunities such persons have of doing good to their fellowcreatures, and of acquiring the friendship and esteem of men of merit. They make no advances in vain, and are not obliged to associate with those whom they have little kindness for, like people of inferior stations, who are subject to have their proffers of friendship rejected even where they would be most fond of placing their affections. But though the great have more facility in acquiring friendships, they cannot be so certain of the sincerity of them as men of a lower rank, since the favours they bestow may acquire them flattery, instead of good-will and kindness. It has been very judiciously remarked, that we attach ourselves more by the services we perform than by those we receive, and that a man is in danger of losing his friends by obliging them too far. I should therefore choose to lie in the middle way, and to have my commerce with my friend varied both by obligations given and received. I have too much pride to be willing that all the obligations should lie on

SPECS. ENG. LIT.

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