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menting that they had suffered the years which Heaven allowed them, to pass without improvement, and deferred the principal purpose of their lives to the time when life itself was to forsake them.

It is not only uncertain whether, through all the casualties and dangers which beset the life of man, we shall be able to reach the time appointed for happiness or wisdom; but it is likely, that whatever now hinders us from doing that which our reason and conscience declared necessary to be done, will equally obstruct us in times to come. It is easy for the imagination, operating upon things not yet existing, to please itself with scenes of unmingled felicity, or plan out courses of uniform virtue: but good and evil are in real life inseparably united; habits grow stronger by indulgence, and reason loses her dignity, in proportion as she has oftener yielded to temptation: he that cannot live well to-day,' says Martial, 'will be less qualified to live well to-morrow.'

Of the uncertainty of every human good, every human being seems to be convinced: yet this uncertainty is voluntarily increased by unnecessary delay, whether we respect external causes, or consider the nature of our own minds. He that now feels a desire to do right, and wishes to regulate his life according to his reason, is not sure that, at any future time assignable, he shall be able to rekindle the same ardour; he that has now an opportunity offered him of breaking loose from vice and folly, cannot know but that he shall hereafter be more entangled, and struggle for freedom without obtaining it.

We are so unwilling to believe any thing to our own disadvantage, that we will always imagine the perspicacity of our judgment and the strength of our resolution more likely to increase than to grow less by time; and therefore conclude, that the will

to pursue laudable purposes will be always seconded by the power.

But howevever we may be deceived in calculating the strength of our faculties, we cannot doubt the uncertainty of that life in which they must be employed: we see every day the unexpected death of our friends and our enemies, we see new graves hourly opened for men older and younger rhan ourselves, for the cautious and the careless, the dissolute and the temperate, for men who like us were providing to enjoy or improve hours now irreversibly cut off; we see all this, and yet, instead of living, let year glide after year in preparations to live.

Men are so frequently cut off in the midst of their projections, that sudden death causes little emotion in them that behold it, unless it be impressed upon the attention by uncommon circumstances. I, like every other man, have outlived multitudes, have seen ambition sink in its triumphs, and beauty perish in its bloom; but have been seldom so much affected as by the fate of Euryalus, whom I lately lost as I began to love him.

Euryalus had for some time flourished in a lucrative profession; but having suffered his imagination to be fired by an unextinguishable curiosity, he grew weary of the same dull round of life, resolved to harass himself no longer with the drudgery of getting money, but to quit his business and his profit, and enjoy for a few years the pleasures of travel. His friends heard him proclaim his resolution without suspecting that he intended to pursue it; but he was constant to his purpose, and with great expedition closed his accounts and sold his moveables, passed a few days in bidding farewell to his companions, and with all the eagerness of romantic chivalry, crossed the sea in search of happiness. Whatever place was renowned in ancient or modern his

tory, whatever region art or nature had distinguished, he determined to visit: full of design and hope, he landed on the continent; his friends expected aceounts from him of the new scenes that opened in his progress, but were informed in a few days that Euryalus was dead.

Such was the end of Euryalus. He is entered that state whence none ever shall return; and can now only benefit his friends by remaining in their memories a permanent and efficacious instance of the blindness of desire, and the uncertainty of all terrestrial good. But perhaps every man has, like me, lost an Euryalus, has known a friend die with happiness in his grasp; and yet every man continues to think himself secure of life, and defers to some future time of leisure what he knows it will be fatal to have finally omitted.

It is, indeed, with this as with other frailties inherent in our nature; the desire of deferring to another time what cannot be done without endurance of some pain, or forbearance of some pleasure, will, perhaps, never be totally overcome or suppressed; there will always be something that we shall wish to have finished, and be nevertheless unwilling to begin but against this unwillingness it is our duty to struggle, and every conquest over our passions will make way for an easier conquest; custom is equally forcible to bad and good; nature will always be at variance with reason, but will rebel more feebly as she is oftener subdued.

The common neglect of the present hour is more shameful and criminal, as no man is betrayed to it by error, but admits it by negligence. Of the instability of life, the weakest understanding never thinks wrong, though the strongest often omits to think justly reason and experience are always ready to inform us of our real state; but we refuse to listen

to their suggestions, because we feel our hearts unwilling to obey them: but, surely, nothing is more unworthy of a reasonable being, than to shut his eyes, when he sees the road which he is commanded to travel, that he may deviate with fewer reproaches from himself; nor could any motive to tenderness, except the consciousness that we have all been guilty of the same fault, dispose us to pity those who thus consign themselves to voluntary ruin.—T.

N° 109. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 1753.

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Insanire putas solemnia me, neque rides.-HOR.
You think me but as mad as all mankind.

SIR,

TO THE ADVENTURER.

'MONTESQUIEU wittily observes, that bybuilding professed mad-houses, men tacitly insinuate, that all who are out of their senses are to be found only in those places. This remark having made some impression on my mind, produced last night the following vision.

'I imagined that Bedlam had been ordered to be rebuilt upon a more extensive plan by act of parliament; and that Dean Swift, calling at my lodgings, offered to accompany me to see the new-erected edifice, which, he observed, was not half capacious enough before to contain the various species of madness that are to be found in this kingdom. As we walked through the galleries, he gave me the following account of the several inhabitants.

The lady in the first apartment had prevailed

upon her husband, a man of study and economy, to indulge her with a rout twice a week at her own house. This soon multiplied her obligations to the company she kept, and in a fortnight she insisted upon two more. His lordship venturing to oppose her demand with steady resolution, but with equal tenderness, the lady complained, that the rights of quality and fortune were invaded, that her credit was lost with the fashionable world, and that ignorance and brutality had robbed her of the pleasures of a reasonable being, and rendered her the most unhappy wife in Great Britain. The cause of her complaints, however, still subsisted, and by perpetually brooding over it she at length turned her brain.

'Next to her is a dramatic writer, whose comedy having been justly damned, he began to vent his spleen against the public, by weekly abuses of the present age; but as neither the play nor his defences of it were read, his indignation continually increased, till at length it terminated in madness.

'He on the right hand is a philosopher, who has lost his reason in a fruitless attempt to discover the cause of electricity.

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He on the left is a celebrated jockey of noble birth, whose favourite mare, that had enjoyed three triumphs in former seasons, was distanced a few days ago at Newmarket.

'Yonder meagre man has bewildered his understanding by closely studying the doctrine of chances, in order to qualify himself for a professorship which will be shortly established and amply endowed at an eminent chocolate-house, where lectures on this important subject are constantly to be read.

'An unforeseen accident turned the head of the next unfortunate prisoner. She had for a long time passed for fifteen years younger than she was, and her lively behaviour and airy dress concurred to help for

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