with the highest grace on each side. To make the acknowledgment of a fault in the highest manner graceful, it is lucky when the circumstances of the offender place him above any ill consequences from the resentment of the person offended. A dauphin of France, upon a review of the army, and a command of the king to alter the posture of it by a march of one of the wings, gave an improper order to an officer at the head of a brigade, who told his highness, he presumed he had not received the last orders, which were to move a contrary way. The prince, instead of taking the admonition, which was delivered in a manner that accounted for his error with safety to his understanding, shook a cane at the officer, and, with the return of opprobrious language, persisted in his own orders. The whole matter came necessarily before the king, who commanded his son, on foot, to lay his right hand on the gentleman's stirrup as he sat on horseback in sight of the whole army, and ask his pardon. When the prince touched his stirrup, and was going to speak, the officer, with an incredible agility, threw himself on the earth, and kissed his feet. The body is very little concerned in the pleasure of sufferings of souls truly great; and the reparation, when an honour was designed this soldier, appeared as much too great to be borne by his gratitude, as the injury was intolerable to his resentment. When we turn our thoughts from these extraordinary occurrences into common life, we see an ingenuous kind of behaviour not only make up for faults committed, but in a manner expiate them in the very commission. Thus many things wherein a man has pressed too far, he implicitly excuses, by owning," This is a trespass: you'll pardon my confidence: I am sensible I have no pretensions to this favour;" and the like. But commend me to those gay fellows about town who are directly impudent, and make up for it no otherwise than by calling themselves such, and exulting in it. But this sort of carriage which prompts a man against rules to urge what he has a mind to, is pardonable only when you sue for another. When you are confident in preference of yourself to others of equal merit, every man that loves virtue and modesty ought, in defence of those qualities, to oppose you. But, without considering the morality of the thing, let us at this time behold only the natural consequence of candour when we speak of ourselves. The Spectator writes often in an elegant, often in an argumentative, and often in a sublime style, with equal success: but how would it hurt the reputed author of that paper to own, that of the most beautiful pieces under his title, he is barely the publisher? There is nothing but what a man really performs can be an honour to him; what he takes more than he ought in the eye of the world, he loses in the conviction of his own heart; and a man must lose his consciousness, that is, his very self, before he can rejoice in any falsehood without inward mortification. Who has not seen a very criminal at the bar, when his counsel and friends have done all that they could for him in vain, prevail on the whole assembly to pity him, and his judge to recommend his case to the mercy of the throne, without offering any thing new in his defence, but that he, whom before we wished convicted, became so out of his own mouth, and took upon himself all the shame and sorrow we were just before preparing for him? The great opposition to this kind of candour arises from the unjust idea people ordinarily have of what we call a high spirit. It is far from greatness of spirit to per sist in the wrong in any thing; nor is it a diminution of greatness of spirit to have been in the wrong. Perfection is not the attribute of man, therefore he is not degraded by the acknowledgment of an imperfection; but it is the work of little minds to imitate the fortitude of great spirits on worthy occasions, by obstinacy in the wrong. This obstinacy prevails so far upon them, that they make it extend to the defence of faults in their very servants. It would swell this paper to too great a length should I insert all the quarrels and debates which are now on foot in this town; where one party, and in some cases both, is sensible of being on the faulty side, and have not spirit enough to acknowledge it. Among the ladies the case is very common; for there are very few of them who know that it is to maintain a true and high spirit, to throw away from it all which itself disapproves, and to scorn so pitiful a shame, as that which disables the heart from acquiring a liberality of affections and sentiments. The candid mind, by acknowledging and discarding its faults, has reason and truth for the foundation of all its passions and desires, and consequently is happy and simple: the disingenuous spirit, by indulgence of one unacknowledged error, is entangled with an after-life of guilt, sorrow, and perplexity.-T. No. 383.] TUESDAY, MAY 20, 1712. Criminibus debent hortos.- Juv. Sat. i. 75. A beauteous garden, but by vice maintain`d. As I was sitting in my chamber, and thinking on a subject for my next Spectator, I heard two or three irregular bounces at my landlady's door, and upon the opening of it, a loud cheerful voice inquiring whether the philosopher was at home. The child who went to the door answered very innocently, that he did not lodge there. I immediately voice; and that I had promised to go with him on recollected that it was my good friend Sir Roger's the water to Spring-garden, in case it proved a good evening. The knight put me in mind of my promise from the bottom of the staircase, but told me, that if I was speculating, he would stay below until I had done. Upon my coming down, I found all the children of the family got about my old friend; and my landlady herself who is a notable prating gossip, engaged in a conference with him; being mightily pleased with his stroking her little boy on the head, and bidding him to be a good child and mind his book. but we were surrounded with a crowd of watermen, We were no sooner come to the Temple-stairs, offering us their respective services. Sir Roger, after having looked about him very attentively, spied orders to get his boat ready. As we were walking one with a wooden leg, and immediately gave him towards it," You must know," says Sir Roger, "I never make use of any body to row me, that bate him a few strokes of his oar than not employ has not lost either a leg or an arm. I would rather service. If I was a lord or a bishop, and kept a an honest man that has been wounded in the queen's barge, I would not put a felllow in my livery that had not a wooden leg." trimmed the boat with his coachman, who, being a My old friend, after having seated himself, and occasions, we made the best of our way for Vauxvery sober man, always serves for ballast on these Now known by the name of Vauxhall hall. Sir Roger obliged the waterman to give us the history of his right leg; and hearing that he had left it at La Hogue, with many particulars which passed in that glorious action, the knight, in the triumph of his heart, made several reflections on the greatness of the British nation; as, that one Englishman could beat three Frenchmen; that we could never be in danger of popery so long as we took care of our fleet; that the Thames was the noblest river in Europe; that London-bridge was a greater piece of work than any of the seven wonders of the world; with many other honest prejudices which naturally cleave to the heart of a true Englishman. After, some short pause, the old knight, turning about his head twice or thrice to take a survey of this great metropolis, bid me observe how thick the city was set with churches, and that there was scarce a single steeple on this side Temple-bar. "A most heathenish sight!" says Sir Roger: "there is no religion at this end of the town. The fifty new churches will very much mend the prospect; but church-work is slow, church-work is slow." I do not remember I have any where mentioned in Sir Roger's character, his custom of saluting every body that passes by him with a good-morrow or a good-night. This the old man does out of the overflowings of his humanity; though at the same time, it renders him so popular among all his country neighbours, that it is thought to have gone a good way in making him once or twice knight of the shire. He cannot forbear this exercise of benevolence even in town, when he meets with any one in his morning or evening walk. It broke from him to several boats that passed by us upon the water; but, to the knight's great surprise, as he gave the good-night to two or three young fellows a little before our landing, one of them, instead of returning the civility, asked us what queer old put we had in the boat, and whether he was not ashamed to go a-wenching at his years? with a great deal of the like Thames-ribaldry. Sir Roger seemed a little shocked at first, but at length assuming a face of magistracy, told us, that if he were a Middlesex justice, he would make such vagrants know that her majesty's subjects were no more to be abused by water than by land. We concluded our walk with a glass of Burton ale, and a slice of hung beef. When we had done eating ourselves, the knight called a waiter to him, and bid him carry the remainder to the waterman that had but one leg. I perceived the fellow stared upon him at the oddness of the message, and was going to be saucy; upon which I ratified the knight's commands with a peremptory look. As we were going out of the garden, my old friend thinking himself obliged, as a member of the quorum, to animadvert upon the morals of the place, told the mistress of the house, who sat at the bar, that he should be a better customer to her garden if there were more nightingales, and fewer strumpets.-I. No. 384.] WEDNESDAY, MAY 21, 1712. Hague, May 24, N. S. The same republican hands, who have so often since the Chevalier de St. George's recovery killed him in our public prints, have now reduced the young Dauphin of France to that desperate condition of weakness, and death itself, that it is hard to conjecture what method they will take to bring him to life again. Meantime we are assured by a very good hand from Paris, that on the 20th instant this young prince was as well as ever he was known to be since the day of his birth. As for the other, they are now sending his ghost, we suppose (for they never had the modesty to contradict the assertions of his death), to Commerci in Lorrain, attended only by four gentlemen, and a few domestics of little consideration. The Baron de Bothmar having delivered in his credentials to qualify him as an ambassador to this state (an office to which his greatest enemies will acknowledge him to be equal), is gone to Utrecht, whence he will proceed to Hanover, but not stay long at that court, for fear the peace should be made during his lamentable absence."-POST-Box, May 20. I SHOULD be thought not able to read, should I overlook some excellent pieces lately come out. My lord bishop of St. Asapht has just now published some sermons, the preface to which seems to me to determine a great point. He has, like a good man, and a good Christian, in opposition to all the flattery and base submission of false friends to princes, asserted, that Christianity left us where it found us as to our civil rights. The present entertainment shall consist only of a sentence out of the Post-Boy, and the said preface of the lord of St. Asaph. I should think it a little odd if the author of the Post-Boy should with impunity call men republicans for a gladness on the report of the death of the pretender; and treat Baron Bothmar, the minister of Hanover, in such a manner as you see in my motto. I must own, I think every man in England concerned to support the succession of that family. 66 We were now arrived at Spring-garden, which is excellently pleasant at this time of the year, When I considered the fragrancy of the walks and bowers, with the choirs of birds that sung upon the trees, and the loose tribe of people that walked under their shades, I could not but look upon the place The publishing a few sermons, whilst I live, the as a kind of Mahometan paradise. Sir Roger told latest of which was preached about eight years since, me it put him in mind of a little coppice by his and the first above seventeen, will make it very house in the country, which his chaplain used to natural for people to inquire into the occasion of call an aviary of nightingales. "You must under-doing so; and to such I do very willingly assign stand," says the knight," there is nothing in the these following reasons: world that pleases a man in love so much as your nightingale. Ah, Mr. Spectator, the many moon light nights that I have walked by myself, and thought on the widow by the music of the nightingale!" He here fetched a deep sigh, and was falling into a fit of musing, when a mask, who came behind him, gave him a gentle tap upon the shoulder, and asked him if he would drink a bottle of mead with her? But the knight being startled at so unexpected a familiarity, and displeased to be interrupted in his thoughts of the widow, told her "she was a wanton baggage ;" and bid her go about her business. In the original publication in folio, it is printed Fox-hall. First, from the observations I have been able to make for these many years last past upon our public affairs, and from the natural tendency of several principles and practices, that have of late been studiously revived, and from what has followed thereupon, I could not help both fearing and preaging, that these nations should some time or other, if ever we should have an enterprising prince upon the throne, of more ambition than virtue, justice, and true honour, fall into the way of all other na tions, and lose their liberty. Ambassador from Hanover, and afterward agent here for the Hanoverian family. † Dr. William Fleetwood. "Nor could I help foreseeing to whose charge a great deal of this dreadful mischief, whenever it should happen, would be laid; whether justly or unjustly, was not my business to determine: but I resolved, for my own particular part, to deliver myself, as well as I could, from the reproaches and the curses of posterity, by publicly declaring to all the world, that although, in the constant course of my ministry, I have never failed, on proper occasions, to recommend, urge, and insist upon the loving, honouring, and reverencing the prince's person, and holding it, according to the laws, inviolable and sacred; and paying all obedience and submission to the laws, though never so hard and inconvenient to private people yet did I never think myself at liberty, or authorized to tell the people that either Christ, St. Peter, or St. Paul, or any other holy writer, had, by any doctrine delivered by them, subverted the laws and constitutions of the country in which they lived, or put them in a worse condition with respect to their civil liberties than they would have been had they not been Christians. I ever thought it a most impious blasphemy against that holy religion, to father any thing upon it that might encourage tyranny, oppression, or injustice, in a prince, or that easily tended to make a free and happy people slaves and miserable. No. People may make themselves as wretched as they will, but let not God be called into that wicked party. When force and violence, and hard necessity, have brought the yoke of servitude upon a people's neck, religion will supply them with a patient and submissive spirit under it till they can innocently shake it off: but certainly religion never puts it on. This always was, and this at present is, my judgment of these matters: and I would be transmitted to posterity (for the little share of time such names as mine can live), under the character of one who loved his country, and would be thought a good Englishman, as well as a good clergyman. "This character I thought would be transmitted by the following sermons, which were made for and preached in a private audience, when I could think of nothing else but doing my duty on the occasions that were then offered by God's providence, without any manner of design of making them public: and for that reason I give them now as they were then delivered; by which I hope to satisfy those people who have objected a change of principles to me, as if I were not now the same man I formerly was. I never had but one opinion of these matters; and that I think is so reasonable and well-grounded, that I believe I can never have any other. Who could expect such a requital of such merit? I have, I own it, an ambition of exempting myself from the number of unthankful people: and as I loved and honoured those great princes living, and lamented over them when dead, so I would gladly raise them up a monument of praise as lasting as any thing of mine can be: and I choose to do it at this time, when it is so unfashionable a thing to speak honourably of them. "The sermon that was preached upon the Duke of Gloucester's death was printed quickly after, and is now, because the subject was so suitable, joined to the others. The loss of that most promising and hopeful prince was at that time, I saw, unspeakably great; and many accidents since have convinced us that it could not have been overvalued. That precious life, had it pleased God to have prolonged it the usual space, had saved us many fears and jealousies, and dark distrusts, and prevented many alarms that have long kept us, and will keep us still, waking and uneasy. Nothing remained to comfort and support us under this heavy stroke, but the necessity it brought the king and nation under of settling the succession in the house of Hanover, and giving it a hereditary right by act of parliament as long as it continues Protestant. So much good did God, in his merciful providence, produce from a misfortune, which we could never otherwise have sufficiently deplored! "The fourth sermon was preached upon the queen's accession to the throne, and the first year in which that day was solemnly observed (for by some accident or other it had been overlooked the year before); and every one will see, without the date of it, that it was preached very early in this reign, since I was able only to promise and presage its future glories and successes, from the good appearances of things, and the happy turn our affairs began to take; and could not then count up the victories and triumphs that, for seven years after, made it, in the prophet's language, a name and a praise among all the people of the earth. Never did seven such years together pass over the head of any English monarch, nor cover it with so much honour. The crown and sceptre seemed to be the queen's least ornaments; those, other princes wore in com mon with her, and her great personal virtues were the same before and since; but such was the fame of her administration of affairs at home, such was the reputation of her wisdom and felicity in choosing ministers, and such was then esteemed their faithfulness and zeal, their diligence and great abi lities, in executing her commands; to such a height "Another reason of my publishing these sermons of military glory did her great general and her at this time is, that I have a mind to do myself some armies carry the British name abroad; such was honour by doing what honour I could to the memory the harmony and concord betwixt her and her allies; of two most excellent princes, and who have very and such was the blessing of God upon all her highly deserved at the hands of all the people of counsels and undertakings, that I am as sure as histhese dominions, who have any true value for the tory can make me, no prince of ours ever was so Protestant religion, and the constitution of the prosperous and successful, so beloved, esteemed, and English government, of which they were the great honoured by their subjects and their friends, nor deliverers and defenders. I have lived to see their near so formidable to their enemies. We were, as illustrious names very rudely handled, and the great all the world imagined then, just entering on the benefits they did this nation treated slightly and ways that promised to such a peace as would have contemptuously. I have lived to see our deliverance answered all the prayers of our religious queen, the from arbitrary power and popery traduced and vili- care and vigilance of a most able ministry, the pay fied by some who formerly thought it was their ment of a willing and most obedient people, as well greatest merit, and made it part of their boast and as all the glorious toils and hazards of the soldiery; glory, to have had a little hand and share in bring-when God, for our sins, permitted the spirit of dis ing it about; and others who, without it, must have cord to go forth, and by troubling sore the camp, lived in exile, poverty, and misery, meanly disclaim- the city and the country, (and ob that it had alto ing it, and using ill the glorious instruments thereof. gether spared the places sacred to his worship') No. 385. THURSDAY, MAY 22, 1712. I INTEND the paper for this day as a loose essay upon friendship, in which I shall throw my observations together without any set form, that I may avoid repeating what has been often said on this subject. Friendship is a strong and habitual inclination in two persons to promote the good and happiness of one another. Though the pleasures and advantages of friendship have been largely celebrated by the best moral writers, and are considered by all as great ingredients of human happiness, we very rarely meet with the practice of this virtue in the world. civil wars of his country, when he saw the designs of all parties equally tended to the subversion of liberty, by constantly preserving the esteem and affection of both the competitors, found means to serve his friends on either side: and, while he sent money to young Marius, whose father was declared an enemy to the commonwealth, he was himself one of Sylla's chief favourites, and always near that general. During the war between Cæsar and Pompey, he stil maintained the same conduct. After the death of Cæsar, he sent money to Brutus in his troubles, and did a thousand good offices to Antony's wife and friends when that party seemed ruined. Lastly, even in that bloody war between Antony and Augustus, Atticus still kept his place in both their friendships: insomuch that the first, says Cornelius Nepos, whenever he was absent from Rome in any part of the empire, writ punctually to him what he was doing, what he read, and whither he intended to go; and the latter gave him constantly an exact account of all his affairs. A likeness of inclinations in every particular is so far from being requisite to form a benevolence in two minds towards each other, as it is generally imagined, that I believe we shall find some of the firmest friendships to have been contracted between persons of different humours; the mind being often Every man is ready to give in a long catalogue pleased with those perfections which are new to it, of those virtues and good qualities he expects to and which it does not find among its own accomplishfind in the person of a friend, but very few of us ments. Besides that a man in some measure sup are careful to cultivate them in ourselves. plies his own defects, and fancies himself at secondLove and esteem are the first principles of friend-hand possessed of those good qualities and endow. ship, which always is imperfect where either of these two is wanting. As, on the one hand, we are soon ashamed of loving a man whom we cannot esteem; so, on the other, though we are truly sensible of a man's abilities, we can never raise ourselves to the warmths of friendship, without an affectionate good-will towards his person, Friendship immediately banishes envy under all its disguises. A man who can once doubt whether he should rejoice in his friend's being happier than himself, may depend upon it that he is an utter stranger to this virtue. There is something in friendship so very great and noble, that in those fictitious stories which are invented to the honour of any particular person, the authors have thought it as necessary to make their hero a friend as a lover. Achilles has his Patroclus, and Æneas his Achates. In the first of these instances we may observe, for the reputation of the subject I am treating of, that Greece was almost ruined by the hero's love, but was preserved by his friendship. ments which are in the possession of him who in the eye of the world is looked on as his other self. The most difficult province in friendship is the letting a man see his faults and errors, which should, if possible, be so contrived, that he may perceive our advice is given him not so much to please ourselves as for his own advantage. The reproaches therefore of a friend should always be strictly just, and not too frequent. The violent desire of pleasing in the person reproved, may otherwise change into a despair of doing it, while he finds himself censured for faults he is not conscious of. A mind that is softened and hu manized by friendship cannot bear frequent reproaches; either it must quite sink under the oppression, or abate considerably of the value and esteem it had for him who bestows them. The proper business of friendship is to inspire life and courage; and a soul thus supported outdoes it self; whereas, if it be unexpectedly deprived of these succours, it droops and languishes. We are in some measure more inexcusable if we violate our duties to a friend than to a relation; since the former arises from a voluntary choice, the latter from a necessity to which we could not give our own consent. 1 The character of Achates suggests to us an observation we may often make on the intimacies of great men, who frequently choose their companions rather for the qualities of the heart than those As it has been said on one side, that a man ought of the head, and prefer fidelity in an easy, inoffen- not to break with a faulty friend, that he may not sive, complying temper, to those endowments which expose the weakness of his choice; it will doubtless make a much greater figure among mankind. I hold much stronger with respect to a worthy one, do not remember that Achates, who is represented that he may never be upbraided for having lost so as the first favourite, either gives his advice, or valuable a treasure which was once in his possesstrikes a blow, through the whole Æneid. A friendship which makes the least noise is very often most useful; for which reason I should prefer a prudent friend to a zealous one. Atticus, one of the best men of ancient Rome, was a very remarkable instance of what I am here speaking. This extraordinary person, amidst the sion.-X. No. 386.] FRIDAY, MAY 23, 1712. Cum tristibus severe, cum remissis jucunde, cum senibus graviter, cum juventute comiter vivere.-TULL THE piece of Latin on the head of this paper is 7 part of a character extremely vicious, but I have set down no more than may fall in with the rules of justice and honour. Cicero spoke it of Catiline, who, he said, "lived with the sad severely, with the cheerful agreeably, with the old gravely, with the young pleasantly;" he added, "with the wicked boldly, with the wanton lasciviously." The two last instances of his complaisance I forbear to consider, having it in my thoughts at present only to speak of obsequious behaviour as it sits upon a companion in pleasure, not a man of design and intrigue. To vary with every humour in this manner cannot be agreeable, except it comes from a man's own temper and natural complexion; to do it out of an ambition to excel that way, is the most fruitless and unbecoming prostitution imaginable. To put on an artful part to obtain no other end but an unjust praise from the undiscerning, is of all endeavours the most despicable. A man must be sincerely pleased to become pleasure, or not to interrupt that of others; for this reason it is a most calamitous circumstance, that many people who want to be alone, or should be so, will come into conversation. It is certain that all men, who are the least given to reflection, are seized with an inclination that way when, perhaps, they had rather be inclined to company; but indeed they had better go home and be tired with themselves, than force themselves upon others to recover their good humour. In all this, the case of communicating to a friend a sad thought or difficulty, in order to relieve a heavy heart, stands excepted; but what is here meant is, that a man should always go with inclination to the turn of the company he is going into, or not pretend to be of the party. It is certainly a very happy temper to be able to live with all kinds of dispositions, because it argues a mind that lies open to receive what is pleasing to others, and not obstinately bent on any particularity of his own. with respect even in a man no otherwise venerable, The forwardness of youth, when it proceeds from alacrity and not insolence, has also its allowances, The companion who is formed for such by nature, gives to every character of life its due regards, and is ready to account for their imperfections, and receive their accomplishments as if they were bis own. It must appear that you receive law from, and not give it, to your company, to make you agreeable. I remember Tully, speaking, I think, of Antony, says, that, In eo facetiæ erant, quæ nulla arte tradi possunt: "He had a witty mirth, which could be acquired by no art." This quality must be of the kind of which I am now speaking; for all sorts of behaviour which depend upon observation and knowledge of life are to be acquired; but that which no one can describe, and is apparently the act of nature, must be every where prevalent, because every thing it meets is a fit occasion to exert it; for he who follows nature can never be improper or unseasonable. · How unaccountable then must their behaviour be, who, without any manner of consideration of what the company they have just now entered are upon, give themselves the air of a messenger, and make as distinct relations of the occurrences they last met with, as if they had been dispatched from those they talk to, to be punctually exact in a report of those circumstances! It is unpardonable to those who are met to enjoy one another that a fresh man shall pop in, and give us only the last part of his own life, and put a stop to ours during the history. If such a man comes from 'Change, whether you will or not, you must hear how the stocks go: and, though you are never so intently employed on a graver subject, a young fellow of the other end of the town will take his place and tell you, Mrs. Such a-one is charmingly handsome, because he just now saw her. But I think I need not dwell on this subsject, since I have acknowledged there can be no rules made for excelling this way; and precepts of this kind fare like rules for writing poetry, which, it is said, may have prevented ill poets, but never made good ones. T. No. 387.] SATURDAY, MAY 24, 1712. This is it which makes me pleased with the character of my good acquaintance Acasto. You meet him at the tables and conversations of the wise, the impertinent, the grave, the frolic, and the witty; and yet his own character has nothing in it that can make him particularly agreeable to any one sect of men; but Acasto has natural good sense, good nature, and discretion, so that every man enjoys himself in his company; and though Acasto contributes nothing to the entertainment, he never was at a place where he was not welcome a second time. In my last Saturday's paper I spoke of cheerfulWithout the subordinate good qualities of Acasto, a ness as it is a moral habit of the mind, and accordman of wit and learning would be painful to the ge-ingly mentioned such moral motives as are apt to nerality of mankind, instead of being pleasing. cherish and keep alive this happy temper in the soul Witty men are apt to imagine they are agreeable as of man: I shall now consider cheerfulness in its such, and by that means grow the worst companions natural state, and reflect on those motives to it, imaginable; they deride the absent or rally the pre- which are indifferent either as to virtue or vice. sent in a wrong manner, not knowing that if you pinch or tickle a man till he is uneasy in his seat, or ungracefully distinguished from the rest of the company, you equally hurt him. I was going to say, the true art of being agreeable in company (but there can be no such thing as art in it) is to appear well pleased with those you are engaged with, and rather to seem well entertained, than to bring entertainment to others. A man thus disposed is not indeed what we ordinarily call a good companion, but essentially is such, and in all the parts of his conversation has something friendly in his behaviour, which conciliates men's minds more than the highest sallics of wit or starts of humour can possibly do. The feebleness of age in a man of this turn has something which should be treated Cheerfulness is, in the first place, the best promoter of health. Repinings, and secret murmurs of heart, give imperceptible strokes to those delicate fibres of which the vital parts are composed, and wear out the machine insensibly; not to mention those violent ferments which they stir up in the blood, and those irregular disturbed motions which they raise in the animal spirits. I scarce remember, in my own observation, to have met with many old men, or with such, who (to use our English phrase) wear well, that had not at least a certain indolence in their humour, if not a more than ordinary gaiety and cheerfulness of heart. The truth of it is, health and cheerfulness mutually beget each other; with this difference, that we seldom meet with a great degree of health which is not attended with a certain |