1 R,

IHAVE lately been called, from a mingled lise ot business and amusement, to attend the last hours ot an old friend; an office which has filled me, if not with melancholy, at least with serious rertections, and turned my thoughts towards the contemplation of thole subjects, which, though of the utmost importance, and os indubitable certainty, are gener ally secluded from our regard, by the jollity of health, tiie hurry of employment, and even by the ..aimn diversions of study and speculation; or if rhey become accidental topicks of conversation and argument, yet rarely sink deep into the heart, but give occasion only to Ionic subtilties of reasoning,

When lo! thy tomb forgotten lies.

Francis.

To the RAMBLER.

or

or elegancies of declamation, which are heard, applauded, and forgotten.

It is, indeed, not hard to conceive how a man accustomed to extend his views through a long concatenation of causes and effects, to trace things from their origin to their period, and compare means with ends, may discover the weakness of human schemes; detect the fallacies by which mortals are deluded ; shew the insufficiency of wealth, honours, and power, to real happiness; and please himself, and his auditors, with learned lectures on the vanity of lise.

But though the speculatist may see and shew the folly of terrestrial hopes, sears, and desires, every hour will give prooss that he never selt it. Trace him through the day or year, and you will find him acting upon principles which he has in common with the illiterate and unenlightened, angry and pleased like the lowest of the vulgar, pursuing, with the fame ardour, the fame designs, grasping, with all the eagerness of transport, thofe riches which he knows he cannot keep, and swelling with the applause which he has gained by proving that applause is of no value.

The only conviction that rushes upon the foul, and takes away from our appetites and passions the power of resistance, is to be found, where I have received it, at the bed of a dying friend. To enter this school of wisdom is not the peculiar privilege of geometricians; the most sublime and important precepts require no uncommon opportunities, nor laborious preparations, they are ensorced without the aid of eloquence, and understood without skill in analytick science. Every tongue can utter them,

and

and every understanding can conceive them. He that wishes in earnest to obtain just sentiments concerning his condition, and would be intimately acquainted with the world, may find instructions on every side. He that desires to enter behind the scene, which every art has been employed to decorate, and every pailion labours to illuminate, and wishes to see lise stripped of thofe ornaments which make it glitter on the stage, and expofed in its natural meanness, impotence, and nakedness, may find all the delusion laid open in the chamber of disease: he will there find vanity divested of her robes, power deprived of her sceptre, and hypocrisy without her mask.

The friend whom I have lost was a man eminent for genius, and, like others of the same class, sufficiently pleased with acceptance and applause. Being caressed by thofe who have preserments and riches in their dispofal, he considered himself as in the direct road of advancement, and had caught the flame of ambition by approaches to its object. But in the midst of his hopes, his projects, and his gaieties, he was seized by a lingering disease, which, srom its first stage, he knew to be incurable. Here was an end of all his visions os greatness and happiness; from the first hour that his health declined, all his former pleasures grew tasteless. His sriends expected to please him by thofe accounts of the growth of his reputation, which were formerly t errain of being well received; but they soon found how little he was now affected by compliments, and how vainly they attempted, by flattery, to exhilarate the languor of weakness, and relieve the solicitude tude of approaching death. Whoever would know how much piety and virtue surpass all external goods, might here have seen them weighed against each other, where all that gives motion to the active, and elevation to the eminent, all that sparkles in the eye of hope, and pants in the bosom of susbicion, at once became dust in the balance, without weight and without regard. Riches, authority, and praise, lofe all their influence when they are considered as riches which to-morrow shall be bestowed upon another, authority which shall this night expire for ever, and praise which, however merited, or however sincere, shall, aster a sew moments, be heard no more.

In thofe hours of seriousness and wisdom, nothing appeared to raise his spirits, or gladden his heart, but the recollection of acts of goodness, nor to excite his attention but some opportunity for the exercise of the duties of religion. Every thing that terminated on this fide of the grave was received with coldness and indifference, and regarded rather in consequence of the habit of valuing it, than from any opinion that it deserved value; it had little more prevalence over his mind than a bubble that was now broken, a dream from which he was awake. His whole powers were engrossed by the consideration of another state, and all conversation was tedious, that had not some tendency to disengage him from human affairs, ahd open his profpects into suturity.

It is now past, we have clofed his eyes, and heard him breathe the groan of expiration. At the sight of this last conflict, I selt a sensation never

known known to me before; a consusion of passions, an awsul stilness of sorrow, a gloomy terrour without a name. The thoughts that entered my foul were too strong to be diverted, and too piercing to be endured; but such violence cannot be lasting, the ilorm subsided in a snort time, I wept, retired, and grew calm.

I have from that time frequently revolved in my mind, the effects which the observation of death produces, in thofe who are not wholly without the power and use of reflection; for by sar the greater part it is wholly unregarded, their friends and their enemies link into the grave without raising any uncommon emotion, or reminding them that they are themselves on the edge of the precipice, and that they must soon plunge into the gulph of eternity.

It seems to me remarkable that death increases our veneration for the good, and extenuates our hatred of the bad. Thole virtues which once we envied, as Horace observes, because they eclipsed our own, can now no longer obstruct our reputation, and we have therefore no interest to suppress their praise. That wickedness, which we seared for its malignity, is now become impotent, and the man whole name filled us with alarm, and rage, and indignation, can at last be considered only with pity, or contempt.

NY hen a friend is carried to his grave, we at once find excuses for every weakness, and pallia-^ tions of every sault; we recollect a thousand endearments, which before glided_ off our minds without impression, a thousand savours unrepaid,

a thou