arrangement, or ornamental appearances, when detached from more interesting or lucrative occupations. Yet perhaps it is as wise to spend time in the cultivation of flowers or scenery, as in the pursuits of wealth or ambition.

Love nurtured amidst grief, is often of the deepest character; because affliction tends to soften the feelings, and to produce a spirit of sensibility, the element in which love breathes and flourishes.

Men often cease to admire or to hate, not because reason or justice interposes with its authority, but because they grow weary of having their thoughts running without variation in the same channel.

There is a certain graceful and dignified mode of accepting a favour, which has almost the effect of making the obliging party feel as if receiving, rather than conferring, an obligation.

Opposition is perhaps more frequently continued from an apprehension of having given irreconcilable offence, than from a desire to perpetuate animosity.

It is pleasant to read about rural pursuits, but very different to be engaged in them, unless the

mind be neither sophisticated by artificial life on the one hand, nor debased by grovelling or avaricious views on the other. Virgil, in his description of the benefits of a country life, intimates that they may be possessed, without being appreciated or enjoyed. The ordinary class of husbandmen, indeed, are too little refined in their sentiments, to relish properly the advantages of their situation :

'O fortunatos nimium, sua si bona nôrint,

Agricolas! quibus ipsa, procul discordibus armis,
Fundit humo facilem victum justissima tellus.'

The contrast which he proceeds to draw between a splendid life in the city, and the simple enjoyments which rural life affords, is almost enough to make one feel in love with the country. What pleasing images are presented to the mind in the following passage:

'At secura quies, et nescia fallere vita,
Dives opum variarum; at latis otia fundis,
Speluncæ, vivique lacus; at frigida Tempe,
Mugitusque boûm, mollesque sub arbore somni,
Non absunt.'-

One of the most delightful treatises that antiquity has transmitted to us, is the Economics of Xenophon, in which the pursuits and pleasures of husbandry are described in that unostentatious and beautiful manner which best befits the subject.

None but those who spend considerable time in the open air, and possess the habit of contemplating nature with attention, can form proper ideas of the ever-varying hues and appearances produced by the vicissitudes of our climate in the scenery of the earth and sky. It is worth while occasionally to endure the darkness and buffettings of the storm, to behold afterwards the sweet breakings out of the sun, and the rollings of the clouds. The gipsy mode of life, were it combined with sensibility or taste, would be most favourable to observations of this nature.

PART IV.

ON HAPPINESS

THERE are three principal sources of happiness; the imagination, the affections, and the understanding or judgment. The first is casual and fugitive; the second liable to counteraction or failure; the last is the most certain and durable. A combination of all, in connexion with religion, would form the summit of human felicity.

The mind must already be somewhat happy, before it is open to general sources of happiness. Persons, accordingly, with diseased bodies, or of unfortunate circumstances, fix attention chiefly on things the contemplation of which is calculated to increase unhappiness; as, their own distresses, or the vices and miseries of others. The satirist is generally created by illness, melancholy, or disappointment. On the other hand, one pleasure frequently begets a thousand, by putting the mind into a state which leads it to extract enjoyment from a multiplicity of sources.

A ruling passion excludes from many pleasures, although the want of them is not felt. Unless certain pursuits or scenes which, to a person exempt from the influence of a ruling passion, are so many springs of delight, have a bearing not very remote on the principal object, they are slighted and neglected. If, therefore, a ruling passion be not gratified, a man is less happy under its control than without it; and perhaps so even when gratified, unless the object be very noble and commanding.

When we are unfit for action, we are generally unfit for enjoyment.

Man seems incapable, with his present faculties, of much happiness at once. His sources of happiness may be changed, but the more enjoyment he receives from some, the less he derives from others.

It would be no slight mitigation of sorrow, to allow painful incidents to affect the mind only in proportion to their influence on our general welfare, or our eternal destiny. Yet it is in the nature of grief to bind down the faculties to present circumstances and sensations, and to forget that they will shortly have passed away, leaving no more trace behind than the track of a ship in the ocean.