man must undoubtedly wish for happiness, it follows, that he will pursue the means which he thinks the most likely to attain it. The philosopher and the active man, in their different pursuits, must each feel a pleasure, which the other is incapable of tasting. The contented soul of the one shrinks from the dangers and the tempests to which ambition is exposed; and the turbulent spirit of the other sickens at the thought of a calm, wherein all his powers are rendered useless and inert.

The question is now reduced to this point-" Of the different means by which we pursue happiness, which is the most likely to gain its end?" I must here observe that, as things are generally in extremes, both the active and inactive have pushed their opinions too far; if the one has too much phlegm, the other has too much fire; and as all extremes destroy themselves by too eager a pursuit of a favourite object, we often miss our aim. The man who, in chase of pleasure, plunges into the excesses of debauchery, or he who, in the rigour of his morality, obstinately rejects all pleasures, and morosely secludes himself from society, lest he should be contaminated, have, in the eye of wisdom, equally been misled. Him who considers fame as not worth possessing, or him who rests his whole happiness on the gaze of the multitude, such, as having entirely mistaken their ends, I exclude from the question, as wishing to confine it to those who pursue their inclinations with moderation, and found them on rational principles. On the first view, the retired man seems to proceed on the surer grounds. His happiness depends upon himself alone; his resources are contained within himself, and consequently are not exposed to the

vicissitudes which a man of the world must inevitably experience. The latter is liable to have his schemes thwarted and projects defeated by those whose interests clash with his. His ill fortune, the treachery of a friend, or the ingratitude of his country may deprive him of the reward of his labours, and leave him destitute in the evening of his days, when his powers are exhausted, and he is no longer able to cope with the difficulties which surround him.

This is all specious-perhaps true—but let us take the reverse of the scene. The calm contented hap piness which is to roll for years" in the noiseless tenor of its way," is, I believe, to be found only in the raptures of poetry, what is called philosophy, and enthusiasm. For the first, fiction is its peculiar province; for the second, it is an Utopian scheme, which has never been realised; and who regards the mad reveries of an enthusiastic visionary? This calm, halfanimated existence pleases from novelty in speculation. The man who has been tost in a tempest, is delighted for a time with the tranquillity of a calm: but who wishes to stagnate in a calm for ever? The same revolution of the same objects in eternal succession, without change or variety, must fatigue at last; our stock of ideas in such a situation are soon exhausted; the mind ceases to dwell with delight on objects, though beautiful in themselves, which she has so often contemplated, and with whose perfections she is minutely acquainted. She is convinced of the truth of the inference she has drawn from those objects; and, as she has viewed them in every light they are capable of being viewed in, can we wonder that she wishes for a change? Have we never examined a beautiful prospect, till our sight is satiated

and our curiosity exhausted? The mind in retirement loses much of its elasticity, by wanting that stimulus which the hopes and fears of a busy life continually supply. It is variety, so entirely lost in retirement, which gives us fresh spirits to proceed, and which serves as a spur to awaken us from satiety and languor.

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Never less alone than when alone," is the splendid sentiment of a Roman hero, and has been the universal motto of the advocates of retirement. It is a noble sentiment, and worthy of the great man from whom it fell. But it should be remembered that this truly illustrious hero was not the mere recluse. Scipio was eminent amongst the most eminent, universally acknowledged a statesman, general, scholar, and philosopher; by a felicity rarely attained, he blended the opposite qualities of an active life and a philosophic ease. Perhaps, after all this altercation, the dispute, like most others of the same kind, must be settled by a composition; and the man who, like Scipio, can unite such opposite virtues, is the character we ought to imitate.

If the world was entirely filled with the bustling and ambitious, such would be the tumult that anarchy and confusion must inevitably prevail; if with philosophers only, life would stagnate, and its scenes be rendered insipid. At present they are as a mutual check on each other, by which the proper balance is kept between them; the reproof of the one restrains the licentiousness into which the other, unless so curbed, might be apt to fall; and the supercilious pride, which philosophy is apt to indulge against those who are not of her sect, is checked by the contempt that pride is sure to meet with from the

opposite and far more numerous party. Cowley, who had tried the promised felicity of retirement, regretted the loss of that society which he had voluntarily abandoned.

To regulate but not suppress the efforts of ambition is a task worthy of true philosophy; but surely to obstruct the growth of knowledge, by inculcating "that all knowledge is vanity," is not so laudable an undertaking. This at once strikes at the root of all desire to exert that mental superiority, which is the attribute of men alone. If we are prepossessed with this notion, who will sacrifice his health and wear out his abilities in pursuit of that whose end is vanity? For who is willing to labour in vain, or to sow where he has no prospect of reaping? I cannot be persuaded that the desire of knowledge, which is so universally prevalent in man, could be implanted in us only to torment us; only to convince us that, after years of fruitless toil, that toil might have been spared, as no advantage could be derived from it. Those who attend only to the minutiae of science may with reason be reproved, as directing their attention to trifles, whilst they leave the more important parts unexamined; but surely the discoveries of Newton or the essays of Locke are not to be considered as the effusions of ignorance under the disguise of knowledge? Has man been declared the lord of this lower world, has be been endowed with all his various faculties, and has nature implanted in him his various passions, that he may be the laughing-stock of superior beings? Is it not his duty, rather, as being placed here in a state of probation, to exert, not to bury, his talents? To me, at least, it is plain that such would be the wish of every rational being.

It is no easy task to trace these pretended philo sophers through the different links which connect their system. Even Socrates himself, wise and good as he was, is not entirely free from the fault which infected his brethren. The confession" that the summit of his knowledge was, that he knew nothing," was the effect of vanity, concealed under the mask of pretended humility. "I don't know how it is," said Phryne, "these men may talk of their wisdom and their temperance, but they knock at my door as often as other men." The exemption from the passions other men are subject to, which they claim as the privilege of their sect, was surely only an empty boast. What Tacitus said of Augustus refusing the empire, may be equally applied to their outward neglect of fame-" Imperium specie recusantis flagrantissimè cupiverat." Under the mask of a refusal, he concealed the most eager desire of obtaining the Imperial dignity." "Of all the cants in this canting world, the cant of hypocrisy" and false philosophy, which are nearly allied, is not only the worst, but the most tormenting.

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No. 38. MONDAY, JULY 23, 1787.

Mos pro lege.

A.

MONTAIGNE.

Custom is a second nature. NOTWITHSTANDING I feel the disadvantages under which I labour, in treating of a subject so happily and so much more ably handled by most of my predecessors in this way of writing, yet, by throwing some new light on the old materials, I shall hope to engage the attention of my readers. Those females who honour my lucubrations with their perusal, will excuse me, if perchance some lettered beau shall