excess of STUDY; referring the universal PASSION of LOVE to a separate and diftinct confider-` ation. AMBITION, that high and glorious paffion which makes fuch havoc among the fons of men, arifes from a proud defire of honour and diftinction; and when the splendid trappings in which it is ufually caparisoned are removed, will be found to confift of the mean materials of envy, pride, and covetoufness. It is described by different authors, as a gallant madness, a pleasant poison, a hidden plague, a fecret poison, a cauftic of the foul, the moth of holiness, the mother of hypocrify, and, by crucifying and difquieting all it takes hold of, the cause of melancholy and madness. Seneca, indeed, calls it rem folicitam, timidam, vanam, et ventofam; a folicitous, fearful, vain, and windy thing; because those who, like Syfiphus, roll the restless stone of ambition, are, in general, doubtful, apprchenfive, fufpicious, in perpetual agony, cogging, colleaguing, embracing, capping, cringing, applauding, flattering, fleering, vifiting, and waiting at men's doors with affumed affability, counterfeit honefty, and mean humility: and, in truth, every honourable and exalted fentiment, every principle of real virtue, and all the honeft claims of independence, are facrificed to obtain the objects F 6 which no means, however bafe, will be left untried to attain them. It is aftonishing to observe the abject flavery and vicious proftitution to which this description of characters fubject themselves'; what pains they take, how they run, ride, caft, plot, counterplot, proteft, fwear, vow, and promife; what labours they undergo; how obfequious and affable they are; how popular and courteous; how they grin and fleer upon every man they meet; with what feafting and inviting they pass their days; and how they fatigue themselves, and fpend their fortunes, to obtain. poffeffion of that which they would be much happier and honefter without with what waking nights, painful hours, anxious minds, and bitterness of thought, they confume their time and end their days. The mind, in fhort, of an ambitious man is never fatisfied; his foul is harraffed with unceafing anxieties, and his heart harrowed up by increafing difquietude. Such difpofitions are infatiable; nihil aliud nifi imperium fpirant; their thoughts, actions, and endeavours, are all for fovereignty! Like dogs in a wheel, birds in a cage, or fquirrels in a chain, they ftill climb and climb, with great labour, and inceffant anxiety, but never reach the top. Their gratifications, indeed, like thofe, of L. Sforza, Sforza, tend invariably to their own undoing, and the ruin of thofe who embark in their cause. A knight would be firft a baronet, then a lord, then a viscount, then an earl, then a duke, and then a king; as Pyrrhus is faid to have firft defired Greece, then Afia, then Africa, and then the whole world. But, like the frog in the fable, they fwell with defires until they burft, and fall down with Sejanus, ad Gemonias fcalas, breaking their own necks, and involving all around them in ruin and defolation. This intense and eager paffion is not unlike the ardour of that which Evangelus, the piper, in Lucian, poffeffed, who blew his pipe so long, that he fell down dead. The ambition of Cæfar and Alexander were two fires or torrents to ravage the world by several ways. As flames among the lofty woods are thrown And down the rocks precipitate their course; Not with less rage ambitious heroes take Their different ways; nor less deftruction make. Neither of them could enjoy the empire of the world For, oh! the curse of wishing to be great, COVETOUSNESS is a great fource of melancholy. It is that greediness in getting, that tenacity in keeping, and that fordidity in fpending, which characterize this mean and abject perturbation, that render men unjust to their God, unkind to their fellow-creatures, and unhappy in themselves. "The defire of money," fays St. Timothy, "is the root of all evil; and those who luft after it, pierce themfelves through with many forrows." Hippocrates, in his epiftle to Craterva, an herbalift, advises him to cut up, among other herbs, the weed of covetoufnefs by the roots, without leaving, if it be poffible, even a spray behind; for that, by effecting this, he fhould not only be enabled the more easily and effectually to cure the diseases of his patients' bodies, but to eradicate entirely the most pernicious diforders of their minds. Covetoufness, indeed, is the very pattern, image, and epitome of all melancholy; the great fountain of human miferies, miferies; and the muddied ftream of care and woe. To either India see the merchant fly, There are, indeed, certain worldly-minded men, of the terræ filii breed, who conceive that covetous characters muft neceffarily be happy, because there is more pleasure in acquiring wealth than in spending it, and because, according to the problem of Bias, the getting of money is a pursuit in which men are never fatigued. What is it, they afk, that makes the poor man endure a long and laborious life, carry almost intolerable burdens, fubmit to the hardest fare, undergo the most grievous offices with the greatest patience, rife early, and lie down late, if there be not an extraordinary delight in the purfuit and acquifition of riches? What makes the merchant, who has no need, fatis fuperque domi, to range around the world, braving the hardships of every climate, but that his pleasures are fuperior to his pains. Such obfervations may at first view appear plaufible, popular, and strong; but let those who entertain this conceit, reflect but |