It is undoubted, that however the rhetoric of Seneca may have dressed adversity with extrinsic ornaments, he has justly represented it, as affording some opportunities of observation, which cannot be found in continued success; he has truly asserted, that to escape misfortune is to want instruction, and that to live at ease, is to live in ignorance. Distress, therefore, on some occasions, may be necessary to knowledge; and is not such the delight of mental superiority, that none on whom nature, or study, have conferred it, would purchase the gifts of fortune by its loss? The experience of counteraction, then, is necessary to a just sense of better fortune; for the good of our present state is merely comparative; and the evil which every man feels, will be sufficient to disturb and harrass him, if he do not know how much he escapes. That fortitude. which has encountered no danger, that prudence which has surmounted no difficulties, that integrity which has been attacked by no temptations, can at best be considered but as gold not yet brought to the test, of which, therefore, the true value cannot be assigned.*

He who traverses the lists, consequently, says the philosopher, without an adversary, may receive

• Johnson.

ceive the reward of a victory, but he has no pretensions to the honour. If, then, it be the highest happiness of man to contemplate himself with satisfaction, and to receive the gratulations of his own conscience, he whose courage has withstood the turbulence of opposition, and whose vigour has broken through the snares of distress, has many advantages over those who have slept in the shades of indolence, and whose retrospect of time can entertain them with nothing but day rising upon day, and year gliding after year.

When we consider the condition of the great, indeed, in those delusive colours in which the imagination is apt to wander, theirs may seem to rise almost to the abstract idea of a perfect and happy state. It is the very state, which, in all our waking dreams, and idle reveries, we have sketched to ourselves, as the final object of our desires. But apart from the gaping multitude, there is a moment, when the most gorgeous man shrinks to his natural dimensions, and throws aside all ornaments and disguises, as in privacy they unflatteringly become useless incumbrances. Smiles and embroidery are alike occasional; and the mind is often dressed for show in painted honour, and fictitious felicity,

But to approach still nearer.

Disease, it may equality, which

be said, generally begins that death completes. The distinctions which set one man so much above another, are very little perceived, in the gloom of a sick chamber, where it will be vain to expect entertainment from the gay, or instruction from the wise; and where all human glory is obliterated. The wit is clouded, the reasoner perplexed, and the hero subdued; where the highest and brightest of mortal beings finds nothing left him, but the consciousness of innocence. * Descend into the vaults of death explore those dismal and melancholy chambers; regard the pompous trappings, which adorn the resting places of the mighty; by the pale light of their sepulchral lamp, admire the monuments of their grandeur; or rather, in the serene tranquility of a philosophic mind, and in the profundity of silence, reflect on their annihilated glory, and on their majesty reduced to dust. "I have been," said the emperor Severus, "all that man could be; but now, of what use to me all the foppery of honours ?" Then grasping the urn, which was to contain his ashes; "Little urn," said he, "thou art now speedily to enclose, what all the world has been scarcely able to contain."

In one great question, mankind, I will allow, are all deeply concerned; and that is, whether we should exclusively endeavour to secure to ourselves the pleasures and gratifications of a life, which is uncertain and precarious, and at its utmost length of very inconsiderable duration; or whether we ought to secure to ourselves the pleasures of a life, which we are taught to believe is fixed and settled, and never to have an end? Every man, upon the first hearing of this question, knows well what his decision ought to be. But however right we may be in theory, it is plain we adhere in practice to the wrong side of the question. We make provision for this life, as though it were never to have an end; and for the life to come, as though it were never to have a beginning.*

There certainly is no greater happiness (and in this all will agree) than to be able to look back on a life usefully and virtuously employed; and to trace our own progress in existence, by such tokens as excite neither shame nor sorrow. Ought it not, therefore, to be the care of those who wish, were it even for nothing more than to pass their last hours in comfort, to lay up such a treasure of pleasing reflections, as should sup

* Addison.

port

port the expences of that time, which is to depend wholly upon the fund already acquired? "Honourable age," says a man of no mean abilities,*" is not that which standeth in length of time, or is measured by number of years. But wisdom is the grey hair to men, and an unspotted life is old age."

We conclude falsely, when we say, successful vice is happy. For who can calculate what guilt costs the dissolute man? When alone, and forced to reflect, is he not miserable in his impurities? Does he not tremble at the admonitions of solitude? From the externals of brilliancy and glare, it may, indeed, be conjectured, that contentment and satisfaction are invariably at his command. But nothing so true, as that the pleasure of guilt passes away, while the memory of it remains. Peccare transit, peccasse manet. Disjoined by heaven, tranquility and guilt still stretch in vain their longing arms towards each other, nor dare to pass the insuperable bound. The pertinacious adhesion of unwelcome images, is the earthly hell of the aban doned.

"Dubius

Solomon. St. Augustin. ‡ Johnson.