levium, verùm etiam artium cogitationumque graviorum laudes reportabit.

and finds excellence: cunctasque fœminarum dotes illi ante omnes contigisse reperiet, quæ suum amorem opibus et potentiæ præponendum statuerit.

to engage in business: in negotiis versari.

to climb excellence et cùm per merita sua se famâ et honoribus ornaverit, adjutores suos omnes, juvenilisque virtutis altores præmiis debitis afficiendos esse censet. contract his views: vota circumscribere.

observe history: pulchritudinem filiarum in annos efflorescentem, filiorum ardorem rebus a patre gestis accensum videbit.

SUPPLEMENTARY EXERCISES.

PART III.

I.

I REMEMBER Pericles, in his famous oration at the funeral of those Athenian young men who perished in the Samian expedition, has a thought very much celebrated by several ancient critics, namely, that the loss which the commonwealth suffered by the destruction of its youth, was like the loss which the year would suffer by the destruction of the spring. The prejudice which the public sustains from a wrong education of children, is an evil of the same nature, as it in a manner starves posterity, and defrauds our country of those persons, who, with due care, might make an eminent figure in their respective posts of life.

II.

Homer has excelled all the heroic poets that ever wrote in the multitude and variety of his characters. Every god that is admitted into his poem, acts a part which would have been suitable to no other deity. His princes are as much distinguished by their manners, as by their dominions; and even those among them, whose characters seem wholly made up of courage, differ from one another as to the particular kinds of courage in which they excel. In short, there is scarce a speech or action in the Iliad, which the reader may not ascribe to the person who speaks or acts, without seeing his name at the head of it.

III.

One meets now and then with persons who are extremely learned and knotty in expounding clear cases. Tully tells us of an author that spent some pages to prove that generals could not perform the great enterprises which have made them so illustrious, if they had not had men. He asserted also, it seems, that a minister at home, no more than a commander abroad, could do any thing without other men were his instruments and assistants. On this occasion he produces the example of Themistocles, Pericles, Cyrus, and Alexander himself, whom he denies to have been capable of effecting what they did, except they had been followed by others. It is pleasant enough to see such persons contend without opponents, and triumph without victory.

IV.

There was a promontory in Acarnania called Leucate, on the top of which was a little temple dedicated to Apollo. In this temple it was usual for despairing lovers to make their vows in secret, and afterward to fling themselves from the top of the precipice into the sea, where they were sometimes taken up alive. This place was therefore called the Lover's Leap; and whether or no the fright they had been in, or the resolution that could push them to so dreadful a remedy, or the bruises which they often received in their fall, banished all the tender sentiments of love, and gave their spirits another turn; those who had taken this leap were observed never to relapse into that passion. Sappho tried the cure, but perished in the experiment.

V.

Since therefore the passions are the principles of human actions, we must endeavour to manage them so as to retain their vigour, yet keep them under strict command; we must

govern them rather like free subjects than slaves, lest, while we intend to make them obedient, they become abject, and unfit for those great purposes to which they were designed. For my part I must confess I could never have any regard to that sect of philosophers who so much insisted upon an absolute indifference and vacancy from all passion for it seems to me a thing very inconsistent, for a man to divest himself of humanity in order to acquire tranquillity of mind; and to eradicate the very principles of action, because it is possible they may produce ill effects.

VI.

There are but few men who are not ambitious of distinguishing themselves in the nation or country where they live, and of growing considerable among those with whom they converse. There is a kind of grandeur and respect, which the meanest and most insignificant part of mankind endeavour to procure in the little circle of their friends and acquaintance. The poorest mechanic, nay, the man who lives upon common alms, gets him his set of admirers, and delights in that superiority which he enjoys over those who are in some respects beneath him. This ambition, which is natural to the soul of man, might, methinks, receive a very happy turn; and, if it were rightly directed, contribute as much to a person's advantage, as it generally does to his uneasiness and disquiet.

VII.

It is very reasonable to believe, that part of the pleasure which happy minds shall enjoy in a future state, will arise from an enlarged contemplation of the Divine Wisdom in the government of the world, and a discovering of the secret and amazing steps of Providence, from the beginning to the end of time. Nothing seems to be an entertainment more adapted to the nature of man, if we consider that curiosity is one of