the litter, in which his corpse was carried, under pretence of receiving orders from him as usual. Before the battle begun, he was carried through all the ranks of his army in an open litter, as they stood drawn up in array, encouraging them to fight valiantly in defence of their religion and country. Finding afterwards the battle to go against him, though he was very near his last agonies, he threw himself out of his litter, rallied his army, and led them on to the charge; which afterwards ended in a complete victory on the side of the Moors. He had no sooner To brought his men to the engagement, but, finding himself utterly spent, he was again replaced in his litter; where, laying his finger on his mouth, to enjoin secrecy to his officers who stood about him, he died a few moments after in that posture.

No. 381. The Praise of Cheerfulness; its different aspects; atheism and vice tend to destroy it; its permanent sources.

I have always preferred chearfulness to mirth. The latter I consider as an act, the former as a habit of the mind. Mirth is short and transient, chearfulness fixed and permanent. Those are often raised into the greatest transports of mirth who are subject to the greatest depressions of melancholy: on the contrary, chearfulness, though it does not give the mind such an exquisite 20 gladness, prevents us from falling into any depths of sorrow. Mirth is like a flash of lightning, that breaks through a gloom of clouds, and glitters for a moment; chearfulness keeps up a kind of day-light in the mind, and fills it with a steady and perpetual serenity.

Men of austere principles look upon mirth as too wanton and dissolute for a state of probation, and as filled with a certain triumph and insolence of heart, that is inconsistent with a life which is every moment obnoxious to the greatest dangers. Writers of this complexion have observed, that the sacred 30 person who was the great pattern of perfection was never seen to laugh.

Chearfulness of mind is not liable to any of these exceptions: it is of a serious and composed nature; it does not throw the mind into a condition improper for the present state of humanity, and is very conspicuous in the characters of those who are looked upon as the greatest philosophers among the heathens, as well as among those who have been deservedly esteemed as saints and holy men among Christians.

If we consider chearfulness in three lights, with regard to ourselves, to those we converse with, and to the great Author of our 10 being, it will not a little recommend itself on each of these ac

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counts. The man who is possessed of this excellent frame of mind, is not only easy in his thoughts, but a perfect master of all the powers and faculties of his soul: his imagination is always clear, and his judgment undisturbed: his temper is even and unruffled, whether in action or in solitude. He comes with a relish to all those goods which nature has provided for him, tastes all the pleasures of the creation which are poured about him, and does not feel the full weight of those accidental evils which may befal him.

If we consider him in relation to the persons whom he converses with, it naturally produces love and good-will towards him. A chearful mind is not only disposed to be affable and obliging, but raises the same good humour in those who come within its influence. A man finds himself pleased, he does not know why, with the chearfulness of his companion: it is like a sudden sun-shine that awakens a secret delight in the mind, without her attending to it the heart rejoices of its own accord, and naturally flows out into friendship and benevolence towards the person who has so kindly an effect upon it.

When I consider this chearful state of mind in its third relation, I cannot but look upon it as a constant habitual gratitude to the great Author of nature. An inward chearfulness is an implicit praise and thanksgiving to Providence under all its dispensations: it is a kind of acquiescence in the state wherein we are placed, and a secret approbation of the divine will in his conduct towards

men.

There are but two things, which, in my opinion, can reasonably deprive us of this chearfulness of heart. The first of these is the sense of guilt. A man who lives in a state of vice and impeni40 tence can have no title to that evenness and tranquillity of mind

which is the health of the soul, and the natural effect of virtue and innocence. Chearfulness in an ill man deserves a harder name than language can furnish us with, and is many degrees beyond what we commonly call folly or madness.

Atheism, by which I mean a disbelief of a Supreme Being, and consequently of a future state, under whatsoever titles it shelters itself, may likewise very reasonably deprive a man of this chearfulness of temper. There is something so particularly gloomy and offensive to human nature in the prospect of non-existence, Io that I cannot but wonder, with many excellent writers, how it is possible for a man to outlive the expectation of it. For my own part, I think the being of a God is so little to be doubted, that it is almost the only truth we are sure of, and such a truth as we meet with in every object, in every occurrence, and in every thought. If we look into the characters of this tribe of infidels, we generally find they are made up of pride, spleen, and cavil: it is indead no wonder that men who are uneasy to themselves should be so to the rest of the world: and how is it possible for a man to be otherwise than uneasy in himself, who is in danger 20 every moment of losing his entire existence, and dropping into nothing?

The vicious man and atheist have therefore no pretence to chearfulness, and would act very unreasonably should they endeavour after it. It is impossible for any one to live in goodhumour, and enjoy his present existence, who is apprehensive either of torment or of annihilation: of being miserable, or of not being at all.

After having mentioned these two great principles, which are destructive of chearfulness in their own nature, as well as in 30 right reason, I cannot think of any other that ought to banish this happy temper from a virtuous mind. Pain and sickness, shame and reproach, poverty and old age, nay, death itself, considering the shortness of their duration, and the advantage we may reap from them, do not deserve the name of evils: a good mind may bear up under them with fortitude, with indolence, and with chearfulness of heart. The tossing of a tempest does not discompose him, which he is sure will bring him to a joyful harbour.

A man who uses his best endeavours to live according to the dictates of virtue and right reason, has two perpetual sources

LOOKING FORWARD.

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of chearfulness, in the consideration of his own nature, and of that Being on whom he has a dependence. If he looks into himself, he cannot but rejoice in that existence which is so lately bestowed upon him, and which, after millions of ages, will be still new, and still in its beginning. How many self-congratulations naturally arise in the mind, when it reflects on this its entrance into eternity, when it takes a view of those improveable faculties, which in a few years, and even at his first setting out, have made so considerable a progress, and which will be 10 still receiving an increase of perfection, and consequently an increase of happiness? The consciousness of such a being spreads a perpetual diffusion of joy through the soul of a virtuous man, and makes him look upon himself every moment as more happy than he knows how to conceive.

The second source of chearfulness to a good mind, is its consideration of that Being on whom we have our dependence, and in whom, though we behold him as yet but in the first faint discoveries of his perfections, we see every thing that we can imagine as great, glorious, or amiable. We find ourselves 20 every where upheld by his goodness, and surrounded with an immensity of love and mercy. In short, we depend upon a Being, whose power qualifies him to make us happy by an infinity of means, whose goodness and truth engage him to make those happy who desire it of him, and whose unchangeableness will secure us in this happiness to all eternity.

Such considerations, which every one should perpetually cherish in his thoughts, will banish from us all that secret heaviness of heart which unthinking men are subject to when they lie under no real affliction, all that anguish which we may feel from any 30 evil that actually oppresses us, to which I may likewise add those little cracklings of mirth and folly, that are apter to betray virtue than support it; and establish in us such an even and chearful temper, as makes us pleasing to ourselves, to those with whom we converse, and to him whom we were made to please.-I.

No. 458. On True and False Shame; the latter makes the English repress any outward show of religion; cause of this explained. Αἰδὼς οὐκ ἀγαθή. —HES.

Pudor malus.-HOR.

I could not but smile at the account that was yesterday given me of a modest young gentleman, who, being invited to an entertainment, though he was not used to drink, had not the confidence to refuse his glass in his turn, when on a sudden he grew so flustered that he took all the talk of the table into his own hands, abused every one of the company, and flung a bottle at the gentleman who treated him. This has given me occasion to reflect upon the ill effects of a vicious modesty, and to remember the saying of Brutus, as it is quoted by Plutarch, 10 that the person has had but an ill education who has not been taught to deny any thing. This false kind of modesty has, perhaps, betrayed both sexes into as many vices as the most abandoned impudence, and is the more inexcusable to reason, because it acts to gratify others rather than itself, and is punished with a kind of remorse, not only, like other vicious habits, when the crime is over, but even at the very time that it is committed.

Nothing is more amiable than true modesty, and nothing is more contemptible than the false. The one guards virtue, the 20 other betrays it. True modesty is ashamed to do any thing that is repugnant to the rules of right reason; false modesty is ashamed to do any thing that is opposite to the humour of the company. True modesty avoids every thing that is criminal, false modesty every thing that is unfashionable. The latter is only a general undetermined instinct; the former is that instinct, limited and circumscribed by the rules of prudence and religion.

We may conclude that modesty to be false and vicious, which engages a man to do any thing that is ill or indiscreet, or 30 which restrains him from doing any thing that is of a contrary nature. How many men, in the common concerns of life, lend sums of money which they are not able to spare, are bound for persons whom they have but little friendship for, give recommendatory characters of men whom they are not acquainted with, bestow places on those whom they do not esteem, live