pursued, we shall often regret the lot that we have chosen. As a bachelor I can be no judge of a known saying, "If "you marry, or if you do not marry, you will repent." But this will serve as a specimen of the general language. Herein, however, we must avoid the opposite and prevailing evil practice of asking advice for the sake only of stealing a sanction, or a help to our own predeterminations. I was sincerely pleased by the frankness of a young lady, who, being urged to consult me respecting an offer of marriage, replied, "Why should I wait? My "mind is made up, and I will not use an old friend so "ill as to trouble him for advice which I shall not be

It would not be easy to mention any habit more pernicious than that of listening or reading with a secret resolve to reject, or to elude every opinion that does not suit our own inclinations. Immediate obedience should follow the decisions of the understanding and the stimulus of benevolent emotions. One of the most serious objections to pathetic works of fiction is that they tend to create a habit of feeling pity or indignation, without actually relieving distress or resisting oppression.

Oh! it is very easy to cherish, like Sterne, the sensi

bilities that lead to no sacrifices and to no inconvenience. Most of those that are so vain of their fine feelings are persons loving themselves very dearly, and having a violent regard for their fellow creatures in general, though caring little or nothing for the individuals about them. Of sighs and tears they are profuse, but niggardly of their money and their time. Montaigne speaks of a man as extraordinary " Qui ait des opinions supercelestes, 66 sans avoir des mœurs souterreines." In Butler's profound discourses, and in a sermon of Priestley "on "the duty of not living to ourselves," these counterfeits of sterling benevolence are well detected and exposed.

Nearly akin to this habit of taking advice without following it, and of dissevering action from sympathy, is the practice of the irresolute in deliberating without deciding-"What I cannot resolve upon in half an hour, said the Duc de Guise, "I cannot resolve upon at all." In the memoirs of the Cardinal du Retz, you will find many amusing and instructive instances of the conspirators shrinking from the painful necessity of decision.

It is unwholesome as well as unpleasant to stand shivering on the brink of a cold-bath-I am glad that you have plunged. Don't you feel a glow of self

satisfaction when you put on your gown and wig? Somebody says, "Sweet is the sleep that follows suspense.' Now that you have actually been called, I need not say "Good night."

TO SIR JAMES MACKINTOSH.

Fredley, 10th September, 1812.

I Do not wonder that you should be embarrassed and delayed by the extreme difficulty of giving a narrative form to the materials collected, and to the reflections that must have occurred to a man of your philosophical

turn.

As we walked up Kirkston some weeks ago, you will perhaps recollect that I quoted imperfectly (what I shall now copy) a passage from Hobbes's remarkable preface to his translation of Thucydides.

"The principal and proper work of history being "to instruct, and enable men by the knowledge of "actions past to bear themselves prudently in the "present, and providently towards the future, there is "not extant any other (merely human) that doth more

fully and naturally perform it than this of my author. “It is true, that there be many excellent and profitable "histories written since; and in some of them, there be "inserted very wise discourses both of manners and

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policy but being discourses inserted, and not of the "contexture of the narration, they.indeed commend the

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knowledge of the writer, but not the history itself; the "nature whereof is merely narrative. In others, there "be subtile conjectures at the secret aims and inward

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cogitations of such as fall under their pen; which "is also none of the least virtues in a history, where the

conjecture is thoroughly grounded, not forced to serve "the purpose of the writer in adorning his style, or "manifesting his subtilty in conjecturing. But these

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conjectures cannot often be certain, unless withal so "evident that the narration itself may be sufficient to 66 suggest the same also to the reader. But THUCYDIDES "is one, who, though he never digress to read a lecture, "moral or political, upon his own text, nor enter into "men's hearts, further than the actions themselves

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evidently guide him, is yet accounted the most "politic historiographer that ever writ. The reason "whereof I take to be this: he filleth his narrations "with that choice of matter, and ordereth them with

"that judgment, and with such perspicuity and efficacy "expresseth himself, that (as Plutarch saith) he maketh "his auditor a spectator. For he setteth his reader in "the assemblies of the people, and in the senates, at "their debating; in the streets, at their seditions; and in "the field, at their battles! So that look how much a man of understanding might have added to his

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experience, if he had then lived a beholder of their

proceedings, and familiar with the men and business "of the time; so much almost may he profit now, by "attentive reading of the same here written. He may "from the narrations draw out lessons to himself, and "of himself be able to trace the drifts and counsels of "the actors to their seat."

You observed, and I admitted, that the truth is here somewhat exaggerated. It would require infinite dexterity, as well as a continual sacrifice of vanity, to write in this manner; but, so far as it is attainable, how instructive and delightful!

Even Hume, who tells his story so well, is often ostentatious of his opinions, and becomes rather a philosophical commentator than a skilful historian. So does a greater writer still, Burke, both in his "Account of the European Settlements," and in his