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If the heart beguiles itself in its choice, and imagination will give excellencies which are not the portion of flesh and blood, when the dream is over, and we awake in the morning, it matters little whether 'tis Rachel or Leah ;-be the object what it will, as it must be on the earthly side, at least, of perfection, it will fall short of the work of fancy, whose existence is in the clouds.

In such cases of deception, let no man exclaim as Jacob does in his," What is it thou hast done unto " me?"-for 'tis his own doings; and he is nothing to lay his fault on but the heat and poetick indiscretion of his own passions.

I know not whether 'tis of any use to take notice of this singularity in the patriarch's life, in regard to the wrong he received from Laban, which was the very wrong he had done before to his father Isaac, when the infirmities of old age had disabled him from distinguishing one child from another :-" Art "thou my very son Esau ? And he said, I am." 'Tis doubtful whether Leah's veracity was put to the same test; but both suffered from a similitude of stratagem; and 'tis hard to say, whether the anguish, from cross'd love, in the breast of one brother, might not be as sore a punishment as the disquietudes of cross'd ambition and revenge in the breast of the other.

I do not see which way the honour of Providence is concerned in repaying us exactly in our own coin ;-or, why a man should fall into that very pit (and no other) which he has "graven and digged for another man." Time and chance may bring such incidents about; and there wants nothing, but that Jacob should have been a bad man to have made this a common-place text for such a doctrine.

It is enough for us, that the best way to escape evil is, in general, not to commit it ourselves ;and that whenever the passions of mankind will order it otherwise, to rob those, at least, " who love judgment," of the triumph of finding it out, That our travail has returned upon our heads, and our violent dealings upon our own pates.'

I cannot conclude this discourse, without returning first to the part with which it set out ;-the patriarch's account to the king of Egypt of the shortness and misery of his days. Give me leave to bring this home to us, by a single reflection upon each.

There is something strange in it, that life should appear so short in the gross, and yet so long in the detail. Misery may make it so, you'll say, but we will exclude it ;-and still you'll find, though we all complain of the shortness of life, what numbers there are who seem quite overstocked with the days and hours of it, and are continually sending out into the highways and streets of the city, to compel guests to come in, and take it off their hands: to do this with ingenuity and forecast, is not one of the least arts and businesses of life itself; and they who cannot succeed in it, carry as many marks of distress about them as bankruptcy herself could wear. Be as careless as we may, we shall not always have the power;-nor shall we always be in a temper to let the account run thus. When the blood is cool'd, and the spirits, which have hurried us on through half our days, before we have numbered one of them, are beginning to retire, then wisdom will press a moment to be heard ;-afflictions, or a bed of sickness will find their hours of persuasion ;-and, should

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they fail, there is something yet behind :-Old age
will overtake us at the last, and with its trembling
hand hold up the glass to us as it did to the patriarch.
-Dear inconsiderate christians, wait not, I be-
seech you, till then ;-take a view of your life now:
-look back,-behold this fair space capable of such
heavenly improvements, all scrawl'd over and de-
faced with I want words to say with what,-for
I think only of the reflections with which you are to
support yourselves in the decline of a life so miser-
ably cast away, should it happen, as it often does,
that ye have stood idle unto the eleventh hour, and
have all the work of the day to perform when night
comes on, and no one can work.

2diy. As to the evil of the days of the years of
our pilgrimage, speculation and fact appear at va-
riance again. We agree with the patriarch, that
the life of man is miserable; and yet the world
looks happy enough, and every thing tolerably at
its ease. It must be noted indeed, that the patri-
arch, in this account, speaks merely his present feel-
ings; and seems rather to be giving a history of his
sufferings than a system of them, in contradiction
to that of the God of Love. Look upon the world he
has given us!-observe the riches and plenty which
flows in every channel, not only to satisfy the de-
sires of the temperate, but of the fanciful and wan-
ton!-every place is almost a paradise, planted
when nature was in her gayest humour!

-Every thing has two views. Jacob, and Job, and Sotomon, gave one section of the globe ;-and this representation another.-Truth lieth betwixt,or rather, good and evil are mixed up together; which of the two preponderates, is beyond our en

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quiry; but, I trust, it is the good. First, as it renders the Creator of the world more dear and venerable to us ;-and, secondly, Because I will not suppose that a work intended to exalt his glory, should stand in want of apologies.

Whatever is the proportion of misery in this world, it is certain, that it can be no duty of religion to increase the complaint or to affect the praise which the Jesuits' college of Granada gave their Sanchez:-That though he lived where there was a very sweet garden, yet was never seen to touch a flower; and that he would rather die than eat salt or pepper, or aught that might give a relish to his

meat.

I pity the men, whose natural pleasures are burdens, and who fly from joy (as these splentick and morose souls do) as if it was really an evil in itself.

If there is an evil in this world, 'tis sorrow and heaviness of heart.-The loss of goods, of health, -of coronets and mitres, are only evil as they occasion sorrow;-take that out, -the rest is fancy, and dwelleth only in the head of man.

Poor unfortunate creature that he is! as if the causes of anguish in the heart were not enow, but he must fill up the measure with those of caprice; and not only walk in a vain shadow, but disquiet himself in vain too !

We are a restless set of beings; and as we are likely to continue so to the end of the world, the best we can do in it is, to make the same use of this part of our character which wise men do of other bad propensities;-when they find they cannot conquer them, they endeavour, at least, to divert them into good channels.

If, therefore, we must be a solicitous race of selftormenters, let us drop the common objects which make us so, and, for God's sake, be solicitous only to live well!

END OF VOL. IV.

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