In our present condition, which is a middle state, our minds are, as it were, checkered with truth and falsehood: and as our faculties are narrow, and our views imperfect, it is impossible but our curiosity must meet with many repulses. The business of mankind in this life being rather to act than to know, their portion of knowledge is dealt to them accordingly.

From hence it is, that the reason of the inquisitive has so long been exercised with difficulties, in accounting for the promiscuous distribution of good and evil to the virtuous and the wicked in this world. From hence come all those pathetic complaints of so many tragical events, which happen to the wise and the good; and of such surprising prosperity, which is often the reward of the guilty and the foolish; that reason is sometimes puzzled, and at a loss what to pronounce upon so mysterious a dispensation.

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Plato expresses his abhorrence of some fables of the poets, which seem to reflect on the gods as the authors of injustice; and lays it down as a principle, That whatever is permitted to befall a just man, whether poverty, sickness, or any of those things which seem to be evils, shall either in life or death conduce to his good.' My reader will observe how agreeable this maxim is to what we find delivered by a greater authority. Seneca has written a discourse purposely on this subject, in which he takes pains, after the doctrine of the Stoics, to show that adversity is not in itself an evil; and mentions a noble saying of Demetrius, That nothing would be more unhappy than a man who had never known affliction. He compares prosperity to the indulgence

of a fond mother to a child which often proves his ruin; but the affection of the Divine Being to that of a wise father, who would have his sons exercise with labour, disappointment, and pain, that they may gather strength and improve their fortitude. On this occasion, the philosopher rises into that celebrated sentiment, that there is not on earth a spectacle more worthy the regard of a Creator intent on his works, than a brave man superior to his sufferings; to which he adds, that it must be a pleasure to Jupiter himself to look down from heaven and see Cato amidst the ruins of his country preserving his integrity.

This thought will appear yet more reasonable, if we consider human life as a state of probation, and adversity as the post of honour in it, assigned often to the best and most select spirits.

But what I would chiefly insist on here is, that we are not at present in a proper situation to judge of the counsels by which Providence acts, since but little arrives at our knowledge, and even that little we discern imperfectly; or, according to the elegant figure in holy writ, We see but in part, and as in a glass darkly. It is to be considered, that Providence in its economy regards the whole system of time and things together, so that we can not discover the beautiful connexion between incidents which lie widely separate in time; and by losing so many links of the chain, our reasonings become broken and imperfect. Thus those parts of the moral world which have not an absolute, may yet have a relative beauty, in respect of some other parts concealed from us, but open to his eye, before whom past, present, and to come, are set together in one point of view.

VOL. V.-8

and those events, the permission of which seems now to accuse his goodness, may, in the consummation of things, both magnify his goodness, and exalt his wisdom. And this is enough to check our presumption, since it is in vain to apply our measures of regularity to matters of which we know neither the antecedents nor the consequents, the beginning nor the end.

I shall relieve my readers from this abstracted thought, by relating here a Jewish tradition concerning Moses, which seems to be a kind of parable, illustrating what I have last mentioned. That great prophet, it is said, was called up by a voice from heaven to the top of a mountain; where, in a conference with the Supreme Being, he was permitted to propose to him some questions concerning his administration of the universe. In the midst of this divine colloquy he was commanded to look down on the plain below. At the foot of the mountain there issued out a clear spring of water, at which a soldier alighted from his horse to drink. He was no sooner gone than a little boy came to the same place, and finding a purse of gold which the soldier had dropped, took it up and went away with it. Immediately after this came an infirm old man, weary with age and travelling, and having quenched his thirst, sat down to rest himself by the side of the spring. The soldier, missing his purse, returns to search for it, and demands it of the old man, who affirms he had not seen it, and appeals to Heaven in witness of his innocence. The soldier, not believing his protestations, kills him. Moses fell on his face with horror and amazement, when the divine voice thus prevent

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ed his expostulation: Be not surprised, Moses, nor ask why the Judge of the whole earth has suffered this thing to come to pass: the child is the occasion that the blood of the old man is spilt; but, know, that the old man whom thou sawest, was the murderer of that child's father.

HUGHES.

ሂ.

No. 238. MONDAY, DECEMBER 3.

Nequicquam populo bibulas donaveris aures;
Respue quod non es-

PERSIUS.

Please not thyself the flattering crowd to hear,
'Tis fulsome stuff to please thy itching ear,
Survey thy soul, not what thou dost appear,
But what thou art.

DRYDEN.

AMONG all the diseases of the mind, there is not one more epidemical, or more pernicious, than the love of flattery. For, as where the juices of the body are prepared to receive a malignant influence, there the disease rages with most violence; so in this distemper of the mind, where there is ever a propensity and inclination to suck in the poison, it can not be but that the whole order of reasonable action must be overturned; for, like music, it

-So softens and disarms the mind,
'That not one arrow can resistance find.'

First we flatter ourselves, and then the flattery of others is sure of success. It awakens our self

love within, a party which is ever ready to revolt from our better judgment, and join the enemy without. Hence it is, that the profusion of favours we so often see poured upon the parasite, are represented to us, by our self-love, as justice done to the man who so agreeably reconciles us to ourselves. When we are overcome by such soft insinuations and ensnaring compliances, we gladly recompense the artifices that are made use of to blind our reason, and which triumph over the weakness of our temper and inclinations.

But were every man persuaded from how mean and low a principle this passion is derived, there can be no doubt but the person who should attempt to gratify it, would then be as contemptible as he is now successful. It is the desire of some quality we are not possessed of, or inclination to be something we are not, which are the causes of our giving ourselves up to that man, who bestows upon us the characters and qualities of others; which, perhaps, suit us as ill, and were as little designed for our wearing, as their clothes. Instead of going out of our own complexional nature into that of others, it were a better and more laudable industry to improve our own, and, instead of a miserable copy, become a good original; for, there is no temper, no disposition so rude and untractable, but may, in its own peculiar cast and turn, be brought to some agreeable use in conversation, or in the affairs of life. A person of a rougher deportment, and less tied up to the usual ceremonies of behaviour, will, like Manly in the play, please by the grace which nature gives to every action wherein she is complied with; the brisk and lively will not want