Dr. Johnson says, "It has been observed in all ages, that the advantages of nature or of fortune have contributed very little to the promotion of happiness; and that those whom the splendour of their rank, or the extent of their capacity, have placed upon the summits of human life, have not often given any just occasion to envy in those who look up to them from a lower station." The eminent Balzac was favoured with a handsome income; he possessed the comforts and many of the elegancies of life and yet, instead of being satisfied, he considered himself neglected by fortune; he desired more than he possessed, he was discontented with what he had, and thus he was unhappy. "O that I were a private man!" exclaimed one of the Alphonsos of Aragon, "for then I would live at my ease; but kings cannot do so." Empedocles, when he was offered a crown by the Agrigentines, refused it. Those who have filled the highest offices of the state, and have received the plaudits of thousands, are well aware that this alone will not produce contentment. Indeed, it has been generally found, that he who increases his power and his territories increases also his sorrow.

But depression and the loss of earthly good may be attended with resignation, if the mind be properly disposed. Some men are firm and cheerful under almost any circumstances. This arises sometimes from a healthy body and cheerful spirits; but at other times from education, from a hardy training. Lord Granville was a good-humoured man: it is said that he laughed when he entered into office, and when he went out. The Prince of

Condé was a man of great firmness. When he was arrested by Cardinal Mazarin, and sent to the castle of Vincennes, where there was no fire, no bed, and scarcely any thing necessary for the support of life, he ate an egg, and laid himself on a bundle of reeds, where he slept comfortably for twelve hours. Henry, Duke of Guise, was remarkable for a similar disposition: he says of himself,-"Neither in my exile at Rome, nor when I was taken prisoner, nor during all the time that I remained in Naples, could any person observe any change or alteration in my countenance. The different events of bad or good fortune never gave me any disquietude; having always acted with the same sang froid in every thing as if I had no interest in it." This may sometimes degenerate into an unfeeling or callous disposition, which would make a man indifferent to actual good and evil; but when it cheers a person in misfortune, and regulates him in prosperity, guides him in the middle of his life, and supports him in his declining days, it cannot be injurious. That is a happy art which will allow a person to derive pleasure and amusement from the circumstances in which he may be placed. Many a captive has amused himself with his chains, and derived pleasing thoughts from the circumstances which, at another time, would have made him gloomy; and many a person in a cold and dark dungeon has elevated his mind to the regions of intellectual light, and made himself happy in captivity: and thus the martyr at the stake, enveloped by flames, has been strengthened

mortality. The accumulating clouds and darkness of old age need not occasion unhappiness. The winter of the polar regions drives the inhabitants into their snowy caves; and the hoary head of threescore years and ten may warn a man to retire within himself, to observe his own decay, and prepare himself for a happy exit. Professor Stewart observes: "One old man I have, myself, had the good fortune to know, who, after a long, an active, and an honourable life, having begun to feel some of the usual effects of advanced years, has been able to find resources, in his own sagacity, against most of the inconveniences with which they are commonly attended; and who, by watching his gradual decline with the cool eye of an indifferent observer, and employing his ingenuity to retard its progress, has converted even the infirmities of age into a source of philosophical amusement."

When the mind is animated by a powerful principle, when it is set upon the attainment of an important object, it will sacrifice ease and many other comforts for the purpose of obtaining success. In this case it becomes, of course, a question of gain or loss. A lesser advantage is sacrificed for a greater. The lover of learning will devote his time, his property, and even his health for the acquirement of knowledge; every effort, every kind of self-denial, will be accompanied with feelings of contentment. The lover of wealth will exert his bodily and mental powers for the attainment of the golden prize which his imagination holds out to view, and, if success attend his labours, he will not regret his toil. The lover of virtue and piety will,

by the same rule, sacrifice his earthly good for a dwelling in the skies. Contentment is consequently the balm for every wound, the rest for labour, the compensation for self-denial, the support in weariness, hunger, thirst, and danger. Bishop Taylor says: "God hath appointed one remedy for all the evils in the world, and that is a contented spirit; for this alone makes a man pass through fire and not be scorched, through seas and not be drowned, through hunger and nakedness and want nothing.”

Sometimes there is an affected tranquillity, a hope and a satisfaction forcibly wrested from despair. Satan exclaims in "Paradise Lost," "Evil, be thou my good!" And Richard II., when Bolingbroke was about to take the sceptre, said

"What must the king do now? Must he submit?
The king shall do it. Must he be deposed?
The king shall be contented. Must he lose
The name of king? O' God's name, let it go:
I'll give my jewels for a set of beads;

My gorgeous palace for a hermitage;

My gay apparel for an alms-man's gown;
My figured goblets for a dish of wood;
My sceptre for a palmer's walking staff;
My subjects for a pair of carved saints;

And my large kingdom for a little grave."

But this is very different from true contentment; it is a fancied triumph over an enemy by submission. The galling pressure of the yoke soon occasions lamentation and regret.

Contentment is the genuine source of cheerfulness: if the mind be uneasy, the thoughts and dis

pleasing to those with whom we associate. There is a perpetual sunshine in the breast where true contentment dwells; the possessor of it, as Sir Thomas Browne beautifully observes, “sits quietly in the soft showers of Providence." Pope alludes to an equable disposition when he says, —

"Oh! blest with temper, whose unclouded ray
Can make to-morrow cheerful as to-day."

Many influences are calculated to produce a feeling of contentment, limited desires, and the attainment of moderate possessions; the practice of virtue, and the cultivation of liberality; the remembrance of past disadvantages and the experience of present blessings; the belief in a presiding Deity, and a future state of existence: these tend to exhilarate and satisfy the mind. Men who have been engaged in arduous undertakings which terminated successfully, if they were afterwards allowed to enjoy safety and tranquillity, have experienced a feeling of contentment. The veteran may feel something of this sort when he talks of

"Most disastrous chances,

Of moving accidents by flood and field,
Of hair-breadth 'scapes ;"

and when the spirit of heroism rises within him, and the remembrance of former deeds warms and animates his aged limbs, he may, as Goldsmith

"Shoulder his crutch, and show how fields were won."

The seaman may remember and relate his adven