Change of place avails not in disquietude.

plague about us, for it is not the place we are weary of, but ourselves. Nay, our weakness extends to every thing, for we are impatient equally of toil and of pleasure. This trotting of the ring, and only treading the same steps over and over again, has made many a man lay violent hands upon himself. It must be the change of the mind, not of the climate, that will remove the heaviness of the heart; our vices go along with us, and we carry in ourselves the causes of our disquiets. There is a great weight lies upon us, and the bare shocking of it makes it the more uneasy; changing of countries, in this case, is not travelling, but wandering. We must keep on our course, if we would gain our journey's end. He that cannot live happily any where, will live happily no where. What is a man the better for travelling? as if his cares could not find him out wherever he goes. Is there any retiring from the fear of death, or of torments? or from those difficulties which beset a man wherever he is? It is only philosophy that makes the mind invincible, and places us out of the reach of fortune, so that all her arrows fall short of us. This it is that reclaims the rage of our lusts, and sweetens the anxiety of our fears; frqeuent changing of places, or counsels, shews an instability of mind: and we must fix the body, before we can fix the soul. We can hardly stir abroad, or look about us, without encountering something or other that revives our appetites. As he that would cast off an unhappy love, avoids whatsoever may put him in mind of the person, so he that would wholly deliver himself from his beloved lusts must shun all objects that may put them in his head again, and remind him of them. We travel, as children

Anecdote of a traveller.

to tell stories of

run up and down after strange sights, for novelty not profit; we return neither the better nor the sounder, nay, and the very agitation hurts us. We learn to call towns and places by their names, and mountains, and of rivers: but had not our time been better spent in the study of wisdom, and of virtue? in the learning of what is already discovered, and in the quest of things not yet found out. If a man break his leg, or strain his ancle, he sends presently for a surgeon to set all right again, and does not take horse upon it, or put himself on shipboard: no more does the change of place work upon our dis ordered minds than upon our bodies. It is not the place, I hope, that makes either an orator, or a physician. Will any man ask upon the road-"Pray which is the way to prudence, to justice, to temperance, to fortitude?" No matter whither any man goes that carries his affections along with him. He that would make his travels delightful, must make himself a temperate companion. A great traveller was complaining, that he was never the better for his travels. "That is very true," said Socrates, "because you travelled with yourself." Now had he not better have made himself another man, than to transport him- / self to another place? It is no matter what manners we find where, so long as we carry our own. But we any have all of us a natural curiosity of seeing fine sights, and of making new discoveries, turning over antiquities, learning the customs of nations, &c. We are never quiet, to-day we seek an office, to-morrow we are sick of it: we divide our lives betwixt a dislike of the present, and a desire of the future; but he that lives as he

We often dread what we seem to desire.

should, orders himself so as neither to fear, nor to wish for to-morrow; if it come, it is welcome, but if not, there is nothing lost; for that which is come is but the same over again with what is past. As levity is a pernicious enemy to quiet; so pertinacity is a great one too. The one changes nothing, the other sticks to nothing; and which of the two is the worse may be a question. It is many times seen, that we beg earnestly for those things, which, if they were offered us, we would refuse: and it is but just to punish this easiness of asking with an equal facility of granting. There are some things we would be thought to desire, which we are so far from desiring, that we dread them. "I shall tire you," says one in the middle of a tedious story. Nay, pray be pleased to go on," we cry, though we wished his tongue out at half way. Nay, we do not deal candidly even with God himself. We should say to ourselves, in these cases-"This I have drawn upon myself. I could never be quiet until I had gotten this woman, this place, this estate, this honour; and now see what is become of it."

66

One sovereign remedy against all misfortunes is constancy of mind; the changing of parties and countenances, looks as if a man were driven with the wind. Nothing can be above him that is above fortune. It is not violence, reproach, contempt, or whatever else from without, that can make a wise man quit his ground, but he is proof against calamities, both great and small: only our error is, that what we cannot do ourselves, we think nobody else can; so that we judge of the wise by the measures of the weak. Place me among princes, or among beggars: the one shall not make me proud,

Constancy of mind secures us from misfortunes.

nor the other ashamed. I can take as sound a sleep in a barn, as in a palace, and a bottle of hay makes me as good a lodging as a bed of down. Should every day

succeed to my wish, it should not transport me, nor would I think myself miserable, if I should not have one quiet hour in my whole life. I will not transport myself with either pain or pleasure; but yet for all that I could wish that I had an easier game to play, and that I were put rather to moderate my joys than my sorrows. If I were an imperial prince, I had rather take than be taken; and yet I would bear the same mind under the chariot of my conqueror, that I had in my own. It is no great matter to trample upon those things that are most coveted or feared by the common people. There are those that will laugh upon the wheel, and cast themselves upon a certain death, only upon a transport of love, perhaps anger, avarice, or revenge, how much more then upon an instinct of virtue, which is invincible and steady? If a short obstinacy of mind can do this, how much more shall a composed and a deliberate virtue, whose force is equal and perpetual?

To secure ourselves in this world, first, we must aim at nothing that men count worth the wrangling for. Secondly, we must not value the possession of any thing, which even a common thief would think worth the stealing. A man's body is no booty. Let the way be ever so dangerous for robberies, the poor and the naked pass quietly. A plain-dealing sincerity of manners makes a man's life happy, even in despite of scorn and contempt, which is every clear man's fate. But we had better yet be contemned for simplicity, than lie perpetually upon the torture of a counterfeit, provided that

No man happy that depends upon fortune.

care be taken not to confound simplicity with negligence: and it is, moreover, an uneasy life, that of a disguise, for a man to seem to be what he is not; to keep a perpetual guard upon himself, and to live in fear of a discovery. He takes every man that looks upon him for a spy, over and above the trouble of being put to play another man's part. It is a good remedy, in some cases, for a man to apply himself to civil affairs and public business; and yet, in this state of life too, what betwixt ambition and calumny, it is hardly safe to be honest. There are, indeed, some cases, wherein a wise man will give way: but let him not yield over-easily neither; if he marches off, let him have a care of his honour, and make his retreat with his sword in his hand, and his face to the enemy. Of all others, a studious life is the least tiresome; it makes us easy to ourselves and to others, and gains us both friends and reputation.

HE THAT SETS UP HIS REST UPON CONTINGENCIES, SHALL NEVER BE QUIET.

NEVER pronounce any man happy that depends upon fortune for his happiness, for nothing can be more preposterous than to place the good of a reasonable creature in unreasonable things. If I have lost any thing it was adventitious, and the less money the less trouble; the less favour, the less envy nay, even in those cases that put us out of our wits, it is not the loss itself, but the opinion of the loss that troubles us. It is a common mistake to account those things necessary that are superfluous, and to depend upon fortune for the felicity of life, which arises only from virtue. There is no trust