appointed for these? do they not sleep in consecrated ground? or is it but a pious fiction, a generous oversight, in the survivors, which thus tricks out men's epitaphs when dead, who, in their life-time, discharged the offices of life, perhaps, but lamely? Their failings, with their reproaches, now sleep with them in the grave. Man wars not with the dead. It is a trait of human nature, for which I love it.3-(CHARLES LAMB, Rosamund Gray.)

ON FORMING A TASTE FOR SIMPLE
PLEASURES.

THE simple and innocent satisfactions of nature are usually within reach; and, as they excite no violent perturbation in the pursuit, so are they enjoyed without tumult, and relinquished without long or painful regret. It will, then, render essential service, both to happiness and morality, if we can persuade men in general to taste and to contract an habitual relish for the genuine satisfactions of uncorrupted nature.

The young mind is always delighted with rural scenery. The earliest poetry was pastoral, and every juvenile poet of the present day delights to indulge in the luxuriance of a rural description. A taste for these pleasures will render the morning walk at least as delightful as the evening assembly. The various forms which nature assumes 5 in the vicissitudes of the seasons constitute a source of complacency which can never be exhausted. How grateful to the senses is the freshness of the herbage, the fragrancy of the flowers, and all those simple delights of the field, which the poets have, from the earliest ages, no less justly than exuberantly described! "It is all mere fiction," exclaims

the man of the world, "the painting of a visionary enthusiast." He feels not, he cannot feel, their truth.1 He sees no charms in herbs and blossoms; the melody of the grove is no music to his ear;2 and this happens because, he has lost by his own fault those tender sensibilities which nature had bestowed. They are still daily perceived in all their perfection by the ingenuous and innocent, and they have been most truly described by feeling poets, as contributing to pure, real, and exalted delight.

Yet the possessor of extensive lands, if he is a man of fashion and spirit, forsakes the sweet scenes of rural nature, and shuts himself up in a crowded metropolis, and leaves that liberal air, which breathes over his lawns and agitates his forests, to be inhaled by his menial rustics.3 He perverts the designs of nature and despises the hereditary blessings of Providence; he receives the adequate punishment in a restless life, perpetually seeking, and never finding, satisfaction. But the employments of agriculture, independently of their profit, are most congenial and pleasing to human nature. An uncorrupted mind sees, in the progress of vegetation, and in the manner and excellences of those animals which are destined to our immediate service, such charms and beauties as art can seldom produce. Husbandry may be superintended by an elegant mind; nor is it by any means necessary that they who engage in it should contract a coarseness of manners or a vulgarity of sentiment. It is most favourable to

health, to plenty, to repose, and to innocence; and great, indeed, must be the objects which justify a reasonable creature in relinquishing these. Are plays, are balls, are nocturnal assemblies of whatever denomination, which tend to rob us of sleep, to lessen our patrimony, to injure our health, to render us selfish, vicious, thoughtless, and useless, equivalent to these? Reason replies in the negative; yet the almost universal departure from innocence

1 'the truth of these reflections.' 2 he is deaf-2. e., dead, insenBible (sourd) to the melody. &c.'

Turn, and leaves to be in

haled (d, and the infinitive active) by (d) his menial rustics that,' &c.

4 par une négation; or, négativement; or, pur la négative.

and simplicity will leave the affirmative established by a corrupt majority.

It is not without a sigh that a thinking man can pass by a lordly mansion, some sweet retreat, deserted by its falsely refined possessor, who is stupidly carousing in a polluted city. When he sees the chimney without smoke in the venerable house where all the country was once welcomed to partake of1 princely hospitality, he cannot help 2 lamenting that progress of refinement which, in rendering the descendants of the great fine gentlemen, has left them something less than men through the defect of manly virtues.

The superintendence of a garden might of itself occupy a life elegantly and pleasurably; nothing is better able to gratify the inherent love of novelty, for nature is always renewing her variegated appearance. She is infinite in productions, and the life of man may come to its close before he has seen half the pictures which she is able to display. The taste for gardening in England is at present pure. Nature is restored to her throne, and reigns majestically beautiful in rude magnificence. The country abounds with cultivated tracts truly paradisiacal. But as the contemplative observer roams over the lawn and enjoys the shade of the weeping willow, he is often led to inquire, "Where is now the owner of this wilderness of sweets 25 Happy man!" he exclaims, "to possess such a spot as this, and to be able at all times to taste the pleasure which I feel springing in my bosom." But, alas! the owner is engaged in other scenes. He is rattling over the streets of London, and pursuing all the sophisticated joys which succeed to supply the place where nature is relinquished. If he condescends to pay an annual visit to

1 prendre part à; or, participer à. Observe that participer fullowed by de means to participate,' in the sense of 'to be of the same nature;' whereas, when followed by à, it means 'to partake of,' 'to participate, in the sense of 'to Buare (in).'

2 s'empêcher de, -with the in

finitive, in this sense.

3 en quelque sorte.

4

qui en font un véritable purudis.

5 profusion d'agréments.

6 Les roues de sa voiture réson nent sur le p vé (or, par les rues). 7 where he pursues.'

the retreat, he brings with him all his acquired inclinations; and while he sits at the card-table, or at the banquet, and thinks of little else than promoting his interest at the next election, he leaves the shrub to blossom and the rose to diffuse its sweets in unobserved solitude.-(KNOX, Essays.)

1

ON THE FOLLY OF INCONSISTENT

EXPECTATIONS.

Would

THIS world may be considered as a great mart of commerce where fortune exposes to our view various commodities, riches, ease, tranquillity, fame, integrity, knowledge. Every thing is marked at a settled price. Our time, our labour, our ingenuity, is 2 so much ready money which we are to lay out to the best 3 advantage. Examine, compare, choose, reject; but stand to your own judgment, and do not, like children, when you have purchased one thing, repine that you do not possess another which you did not purchase. Such is the force of well-regulated industry, that a steady and vigorous exertion of our faculties, directed to one end, will generally insure success. you, for instance, be rich? Do you think that single point worth the sacrificing every thing else to? 4 You may then be rich. Thousands have become so, from the lowest beginnings, by toil and patient diligence, and attention to the minutest articles of expense and profit. But you must give up the pleasures of leisure, of a vacant mind, of a free unsuspicious temper. If you preserve your integrity, it must be a coarse-spun 5 and vulgar honesty. Those high and lofty notions of morals, which you brought with you from the schools, must be considerably lowered, and mixed with the baser alloy of a jealous

and worldly-minded prudence. You must learn to do hard, if not unjust, things; and, as for the nice embarrassments of a delicate and ingenuous spirit, it is necessary for you to get rid of them as fast as possible. You must shut your heart against1 the Muses, and be content to feed your understanding with plain household truths. In short, you must not attempt to enlarge your ideas, or polish your taste, or refine your sentiments; but must keep on in 2 one beaten track, without turning aside either to the right hand or to the left. "But I cannot submit to drudgery like this; I feel a spirit 3 above it." "Tis well; be above it then; only do not repine that you are not rich.

Is knowledge the pearl of price? That too may be purchased by steady application, and long solitary hours of study and reflection. Bestow these, and you shall be wise. "But," says the man of letters, "what a hardship is it that many an illiterate fellow, who cannot construe the motto of the arms on 5 his coach, shall raise a fortune and make a figure, while I have little more than the common conveniences of life?" Was it in order to raise a fortune that you consumed the sprightly hours of youth in study and retirement? Was it to be rich that you grew pale over the midnight lamp, and distilled the sweetness from the Greek and Roman spring? You have then mistaken yours path and ill-employed your industry. "What reward have I then for all my labours?" What reward! A large comprehensive soul, well purged from vulgar fears, and perturbations, and prejudices; able to comprehend and interpret the works of man, of God. rich, flourishing, cultivated mind, pregnant with inexhaustible stores 10 of entertainment and reflection; a per

9

A

8 Use se tromper de, here. préjugés, in this sense-pre judice corresponds to the English word 'prejudice,' only in the sense wrong,' 'damage,' 'detri

6

of
ment.'

10 pregnant with stores,' possédant un fonds (or, des trésors).

T