Time present. past, and future.

we are young, we may learn; our minds are tractable, and our bodies fit for labour and study, but when age comes on, we are seized with languor and sloth, afflicted with diseases, and at last we leave the world as ignorant as we come into it: only we die worse than we were born, which is none of nature's fault, but our's; for our fears, suspicions, perfidy, &c. are from ourselves. I wish, with all my soul, that I had thought of my end sooner, but I must make the more haste now, and spur on, like those that set out late upon a journey it will be better to learn late than not at all, though it be only to instruct me, how I may leave the stage with honour.

In the division of life, there is time present, past, and to come. What we do is short, what we shall do is doubtful, but what we have done is certain, and out of the power of fortune. The passage of time is wonderfully quick, and a man must look backward to see it: and in that retrospect he has all past ages at a view. But the present gives us the slip unperceived. It is but a moment that we live, and yet we are dividing it into childhood, youth, man's estate, and old age, all which degrees we bring into that narrow compass. If we do not watch, we lose our opportunities; if we do not make haste, we are left behind; our best hours escape us, the worst are to come. The purest part of our life runs first, and

We can call nothing, but time, our own.

leaves only the dregs at the bottom; and that time which is good for nothing else, we dedicate to virtue, and only propound to begin to live, at an age that very few people arrive at. What greater folly can there be in the world, than this loss of time, the future being so uncertain, and the damages so irreparable? If death be necessary, why should any man fear it: and if the time of it be uncertain, why should not we always expect it? We should therefore first prepare ourselves by a virtuous life, against the dread of an inevitable death; and it is not for us to put off being good, until such, or such a business is over; for one business draws on another, and we do as good as sow it, one grain produces more. It is not enough to philosophize when we have nothing else to do, but we must attend wisdom, even to the neglect of all things else; for we are so far from having time to spare, that the age of the world would be yet too narrow for our business; nor is it sufficient not to omit it, but we must not so much as intermit it.

There is nothing that we can properly call our own, but our time, and yet every body fools us out of it, that has a mind to it. If a man borrows a paltry sum of money, there must be bonds and securities, and every common civility is presently charged upon account; but he that has. my time, thinks he owes me nothing for it, though>

Company, &c. great devourers of time.

But our

it be a debt that gratitude itself can never repay. I cannot call any man poor that has enough still left, be it ever so little: it is good advice yet to those that have the world before them, to play the good husbands betimes, for it is too late to spare at the bottom, when all is drawn out to the lees. He that takes away a day from me, takes away what he can never restore me. time is either forced away from us, or stolen from us, or lost: of which, the last is the foulest miscarriage. It is in life as in a journey; a book, or a companion, brings us to our lodging before we thought we were half way. Upon the whole matter, we consume ourselves, one upon another, without any regard at all to our own particular. I do not speak of such as live in notorious scandal, but even those men themselves, whom the world pronounces happy, are smothered in their felicities; servants to their professions and clients, and drowned in their lusts. We are apt to complain of the haughtiness of great men, when yet there is hardly any of them all so proud, but that at some time or other a man may yet have access to him, and perhaps a good word, or look, into the bargain. Why do we not rather complain of ourselves, for being, of all other, even to ourselves, the most deaf and inaccessible?

Company and business are great devo time, and our vices destroy our lives,

f

Man consumes his life idly.

our fortunes. The present is but a moment, and perpetually in flux; the time past we call to mind when we please, and it will abide the examination and inspection. But the busy man has not leisure to look back, or, if he has, it is an unpleasant thing to reflect upon a life to be repented of: whereas the conscience of a good life puts a man into a secure and perpetual possession of a felicity never to be disturbed, or taken away: but he that has led a wicked life is afraid of his own memory, and in the review of himself he finds only appetite, avarice, or ambition, instead of virtue. But still he that is not at leisure many times to live, must, when his fate comes, whether he will or no, be at leisure to die. Alas! what is time to eternity? the age of a man to the age of the world? and how much of this little do we spend in fears, anxieties, tears, childhood? nay, we sleep away the one half. How great a part of it runs away in luxury and excess, the ranging of our guests, our servants, and our dishes, as if we were to eat and drink not for satiety, but ambition? The nights may well seem short that are so dear bought, and bestowed upon wine and women: the day is lost in expectation of the night, and the night in the apprehension of the morning. There is a terror in our very pleasures, and this vexatious thought in the very height of them-that they will not last always:

The blessings of privacy.

which is a canker in the delights even of the greatest and the most fortunate of men.

HAPPY IS THE MAN THAT MAY CHUSE HIS

OWN BUSINESS.

OH! the blessings of privacy and leisure! the wish of the powerful and eminent, but the privilege only of inferiors, who are the only people that live to themselves: nay, the very thought and hope of it is a consolation, even in the middle of all the tumults and hazards that attend greatness. It was Augustus's prayer that he might live to retire, and deliver himself from public business; his discourses were still pointing that way, and the highest felicity which this mighty prince had in prospect, was the divesting himself of that illustrious state, which, how glorious soever in show, had at the bottom of it only anxiety and care. But it is one thing to retire for pleasure and another for virtue, which must be active, even in that retreat, and give proof of what it has learned; for a good and a wise man does in privacy consult the well-being of posterity. Zeno and Chrysippus did greater things in their studies, than if they had led armies, born offices, or given laws; which in truth they did, not to one city alone, but to all mankind: their quiet contributed more to the common benefit than the sweat and labour of other people.

The