'must acquire a thorough knowledge of the whole Mahometan fyftem; and will have as good a right to complain of want of time, and the fhortnefs of human life, as any Pagan or Christian divineor philofopher: but without all time or learning, he might have discovered that Mahomet was an impoftor, and that the Koran is an heap of abfurdities.

In fhort, my Lord, he who retires from the world, with a refolution of employing his leifure, in the first place, to re-examine and settle his opinions, is inexcufable if he does not begin with those that are most important to him, and if he does not deal honestly by himself. To deal honestly by himself, he muft obferve the rule I have infifted upon, and not fuffer the delufions of the world to follow him into his retreat. Every man's reason is every man's oracle: this oracle is best confulted in the filence of retirement; and when we have fo confulted, whatever the decifion be, whether in favour of our prejudices or against them, we must rest satisfied: fince nothing can be more certain than this, that he who follows that guide in the search of truth, as that was given him to lead him to it, will have a much better plea to make, whenever or wherever he may be called to account, than he who has refigned himself, either deliberately or inadvertently, to any authority upon

earth.

When we have done this, concerning GOD, ourselves, and other men; concerning the relations in which we ftand in to him, and to

them;

1

them; the duties that refult from these relations; and the pofitive will of the Supreme Being, whether revealed to us in a fupernatural, or difcovered by the right use of our reason in a natural way------we have done the great bufinefs of our lives. Our lives are fo fufficient for this, that they afford us time for more, even when we begin late; especially if we proceed in every other inquiry by the fame rule. To discover error in axioms, or in first principles grounded on facts, is like the breaking of a charm. The inchanted caftle, the fteep rock, the burning lake, disappear; and the paths that lead to truth, which we imagined to be fo long, fo embarrassed, and fo difficult, fhow as they are, fhort, open, and easy. When we have fecured the neceffaries, there may be time to amuse ourselves with the fuperfluities, and even with the trifles, of life. Dulce eft defipere," faid Horace: "Vive la bagatelle!" fays Swift. I oppofe neither; not the Epicurean, much less the Chriftian philofopher: but I infift that a principal part of these amusements be the amusements of study and reflection, of reading and converfation. You know what converfation I mean; for we lose the true advantage of our nature and constitution, if we fuffer the mind to come, as it were, to a stand. When the body, instead of acquiring new vigour, and tasting new pleafures, begins to decline, and is fated with plea fures, or grown incapable of taking them, the mind may continue still to improve and indulge itself in new enjoyments. Every advance in

know

knowledge opens a new fcene of delight; and the joy that we feel in the actual poffeffion of one, will be heighened by that which we expect to find in another: fo that, before we can exhaust this fund of fucceffive pleasures, death will come to end our pleafures and our pains at once. "In his ftudiis laboribusque viventi, non "intelligitur quando obrepit fenectus: ita fen"fim fine fenfu ætas fenefcit, nec fubito frangitur, fed diuturnitate extinguitur.

This, my Lord, is the wifeft and the most agreeable manner in which a man of sense can wind up the thread of life. Happy is he whose fituation and circumftances gave him the opportunity and means of doing it! Though he fhould not have made any great advances in knowledge, and fhould fet about it late, yet the task will not be found difficult, unlefs he has gone too far out of his way; and unless he continues too long to halt, between the diffipations of the world, and the leifure of a retired life:

-Vivendi recte qui prorogat horam, Rufticus expectat dum defluat amnis

You know the reft. I am fenfible, more fenfible than any enemy I have, of my natural infirmities, and acquired difadvantages: but I have begun, and I will perfift: for he who jogs forward on a battered horse, in the right way, may get to the end of his journey; which he cannot do, who gallops the fleetest courfer of New-Market, out of it.

Adieu, my dear Lord. Though I have much more to fay on this fubject, yet I perceive, and I doubt you have long perceived, that I have faid too much, at least for a letter, already. The reft fhall be referved for converfation whenever we meet and then I hope to confirm, under your Lordship's eye, my fpeculations by my practice. In the mean time, let me refer you to our friend Pope. He fays I made a philofopher of him: I am fure he has contributed very much, and I thank him for it, to the making an hermit of me.

REFLE C

REFLECTIONS

UPON

E X I L

M DCC XVI.

E*

ADVERTISEMENT. That the public may not be impofed upon by any lame and unequal tranflation, of the following treatise, from the French, in which language part of it has been lately printed, and retailed in a monthly Mercury; it is judged proper to add it here, at the end of this volume, from the author's original manuscript, as he himself had finished it for the prefs.

ISSIPATION of mind, and length of time, the remedies to which the greatest part of mankind trust in their afflictions. But the first of these works a temporary, the fecond a flow, effect; and both are unworthy of a wife man. Are we to fly from ourselves that we may fly from our misfortunes, and fondly to imagine that the disease is cured because we find means to get fome moments of respite from pain? Or fhall we expect from time, the phyfi

cian

*Several paffages of this little treatise are taken from SENECA; and the whole is writ with fome allufion to his ftyle and manner, "quanquam non omnino temere fit, quod de fententiis illius queritur Fabius," &c. ERAS. de fen. jud.