to live for ourselves, when we are under no obligation of living for others? SIMILIS, a captain of great reputation under TRAJAN and ADRIAN, having obtained leave to retire, paffed feven years in his retreat, and then dying, ordered this infcription to be put on his tomb: that he had been many years on earth, but that he had lived only feven*. If you are wife, your leisure will be worthily employed, and your retreat will add new luftre to your character. Imitate THUCYDIDES in Thracia, or XENOPHON in his little farm at Scillus. In fuch a retreat you may fit down, like one of the inhabitants of Elis, who judged of the Olympic games, without taking any part in them. Far from the hurry of the world, and almost an unconcerned fpectator of what paffes in it, having paid in a public life what you owed to the prefent age, pay in a private life what you owe to pofterity. Write, as you live, without paffion; and build your reputation, as you build your happiness, on the foundations of truth. If you want the talents, the inclination, or the neceffary materials for fuch a work, fall not however into floth. Endeavour to * XIPHIL. copy copy after the example of SCIPIO at LinBe able to fay to yourself, ternum. "Innocuas amo delicias doctamque quietem." 66 Rural amusements, and philofophical meditations, will make your hours glide fmoothly on; and if the indulgence of Heaven has given you a friend like Laelius, nothing is wanting to make you completely happy. THESE are fome of those reflections which may serve to fortify the mind under banishment, and under the other misfortunes of life, which it is every man's interest to prepare for, because they are common to all men * : I fay they are common to all men; because even they who escape them are equally expofed to them. The darts of adverse fortune are always levelled at our heads. Some reach us, fome graze against us, and fly to wound our neighbours. Let us therefore impofe an equal temper on our minds, and pay without murmuring the tribute which we owe to humanity. The winter brings cold, and * SIN. Ep. 107. we we must freeze. The fummer returns with heat, and we must melt. The inclemency of the air disorders our health, and we must be fick. Here we are expofed to wild beafts, and there to men more favage than the beasts and if we efcape the inconveniencies and dangers of the air and the earth, there are perils by water and perils by fire. This established course of things it is not in our power to change; but it is in our power to affume fuch a greatness of mind as becomes wife and virtuous men ; as may enable us to encounter the accidents of life with fortitude, and to conform ourselves to the order of nature, who governs her great kingdom, the world, by continual mutations. Let us fubmit to this order, let us be perfuaded that whatever does happen ought to happen, and never be so foolish as to expoftulate with nature. The best refolution we can take is to fuffer what we cannot alter, and to purfue, without repining, the road which Providence, who directs every thing, has marked out to us: for it is not enough to follow; and he is but a bad foldier who fighs, and marches on with reluctancy. We must receive the orders with spirit and chearfulness, and not endeavour to flink out of the poft which is affigned us in this beautiful difpofition of things, whereof even our sufferings make a neceffary part. Let us addrefs ourselves to GOD, who governs all, as CLEANTHES did in thofe admirable verses, which are going to lofe part of their grace and energy in my translation of them. Parent of nature! Master of the World! Fate leads the willing, drags the backward on. Thus let us speak, and thus let us act. Refignation to the will of God is true magnanimity. But the fure mark of a pufillanimous and base spirit, is to struggle against, to cenfure the order of Providence, and, instead of mending our own conduct, to fet up for correcting that of our Maker. THE EN D. ERRAT A. Page 471, 472, for ARISTIDES read PHOCION. Hh |