the margins of rivers, of lakes, and of the sea itself. These are so happy that they know not what to do with themselves. Their attitudes, their vivacity, their leaps out of the water, their frolics in it which I have noticed a thousand times with equal attention and amusement-all conduce to show their excess of spirits, and are simply the effects of that excess. Walking by the sea-side in a calm evening upon a sandy shore and with an ebbing tide, I have frequently remarked the appearance of a dark cloud, or rather a very thick mist, hanging over the edge of the water, to the height, perhaps, of half a yard, and of the breadth of two or three yards, stretching along the coast as far as the eye could reach, and always retiring with the water. When this cloud came to be examined, it proved to be nothing else than so much space filled with young shrimps in the act of bounding into the air from the shallow margin of the water, or from the wet sand. If any motion of a mute animal could express delight, it was this; if they had meant to make signs of their happiness, they could not have done it more intelligibly. Suppose then, what I have no doubt of, each individual of this number to be in a state of positive enjoyment; what a sum, collectively, of gratification and pleasure have we here before our view! ing anything to say; and with walking, without knowing where to go. And, prior to both these, I am disposed to believe that the waking-hours of infancy are agreeably taken up with the exercise of vision, or perhaps, more properly speaking, with learning to see. But it is not for youth alone that the great Parent of creation hath provided. Happiness is found with the purring cat no less than with the playful kitten; in the arm-chair of dozing age, as well as in either the sprightliness of the dance or the animation of the chase. To novelty, to acuteness of sensation, to hope, to ardour of pursuit, succeeds what is, in no inconsiderable degree, an equivalent for them all, "perception of ease." Herein is the exact difference between the young and the old. The young are not happy but when enjoying pleasure; the old are happy when free from pain. And this constitution suits with the degrees of animal power which they respectively possess. The vigour of youth was to be stimulated to action by impatience of rest; whilst to the imbecility of age, quietness and repose become positive gratifications. In one important step the advantage is with the old. A state of ease is, generally speaking, more attainable than a state of pleasure. A constitution, therefore, which can enjoy ease, is preferable to that which can enjoy The young of all animals appear to me only pleasure. This same perception of to receive pleasure simply from the ease oftentimes renders old age a conexercise of their limbs and bodily facul- dition of great comfort, especially when ties, without reference to any end to be riding at its anchor after a busy or temattained, or any use to be answered by pestuous life. It is well described by the exertion. A child, without knowing Rousseau to be the interval of repose and anything of the use of language, is in a enjoyment between the hurry and the high degree delighted with being able to end of life. How far the same cause speak. Its incessant repetition of a few extends to other animal natures, cannot articulate sounds, or perhaps of the single be judged of with certainty. The apword which it has learned to pronounce, pearance of satisfaction with which most proves this point clearly. Nor is it less animals, as their activity subsides, seek pleased with its first successful endea- and enjoy rest, affords reason to believe vours to walk, or rather to run-which that this source of gratification is apprecedes walking-although entirely igno- pointed to advanced life under all or rant of the importance of the attainment most of its various forms. In the species to its future life, and even without apply- with which we are best acquainted, ing it to any present purpose. A child namely, our own, I am far, even as an is delighted with speaking, without hav-observer of human life, from thinking that youth is its happiest season, much the falsehood. It is upon this principle less the only happy one. Natural Theology. WHAT CONSTITUTES A LIE. A LIE is a breach of promise; for whoever seriously addresses his discourse to another, tacitly promises to speak the truth, because he knows the truth is expected. Or the obligation of veracity may be made out from the direct ill consequences of lying to social happiness. Which consequences consist either in some specific injury to particular individuals, or in the destruction of that confidence which is essential to the intercourse of human life; for which latter reason a lie may be pernicious in its general tendency, and therefore criminal, though it produce no particular or visible mischief to any one. There are falsehoods which are not lies; that is, which are not criminal; as, 1. Where no one is deceived, which is the case in parables, fables, novels, jests, tales to create mirth, ludicrous embellishments of a story, where the declared design of the speaker is not to inform but to divert; compliments in the subscription of a letter; a servant's denying his master; a prisoner's pleading not guilty; an advocate asserting the justice, or his belief of the justice, of his client's cause. In such instances no confidence is destroyed, because none was reposed; no promise to speak the truth is violated, because none was given. 2. When the person to whom you speak has no right to know the truth, or, more properly, where little or no inconveniency results from the want of confidence in such cases; as where you tell a falsehood to a madman for his own advantage; to a robber, to conceal his property; to an assassin, to defeat or divert him from his purpose. The particular consequence is by the supposition beneficial; and as to the general consequence, the worst that can happen is, that the madman, the robber, the assassin will not trust you again, which is sufficiently compensated by the immediate benefit which you propose by that, by the laws of war, it is allowed to deceive an enemy by feints, false colours, spies, false intelligence, or the like; but by no means in treaties, truces, signals of capitulation or surrender: and the difference is, that the former supposes hostilities to continue, but the latter are calculated to terminate or suspend them. In the conduct of war there is no place for confidence between the contending parties; but in whatever relates to the termination of war, the most religious fidelity is expected, because without it wars could not cease, nor the victors be secure but by the destruction of the vanquished. Many people indulge in serious discourse a habit of fiction and exaggeration, in the accounts they give of themselves, of their acquaintance, or of the extraordinary things which they have seen or heard; and so long as the facts they relate are indifferent, and their narratives though false are inoffensive, it may seem a superstitious regard for truth to censure them merely for truth's sake. But this liberty in conversation defeats its own end. Much of the pleasure, and all the benefit of conversation depends upon our own opinion of the speaker's veracity, for which this rule leaves no foundation. The faith, indeed, of a hearer must be extremely perplexed, who considers the speaker, or believes that the speaker considers himself, as under no obligation to adhere to truth, but according to the particular importance of what he relates. But beside and above both these reasons, white lies always introduce others of a darker complexion. I have seldom known any one who deserted truth in trifles, that could be trusted in matters of importance. Nice distinctions are out of the question upon occasions like those of speech, which return every hour. The habit, therefore, of lying, when once formed, is easily extended to serve the designs of malice or interest; like all habits, it spreads indeed of itself. As there may be falsehoods which are not lies, so there may be lies without literal or direct falsehood; as when the literal and grammatical signification of a sentence is different from the popular and customary meaning. It is the wilful deceit that makes the lie; and we wilfully deceive when our expressions are not true in the sense in which we believe the hearer to apprehend them: besides that, it is absurd to contend for any sense of words in opposition to usage; for all senses are founded upon usage, and upon nothing else. Or a man may act a lie, as by pointing his finger in a wrong direction when a traveller inquires of him his road; or when a tradesman shuts up his windows to induce his creditors to believe that he is abroad: for to all moral purposes, and therefore as to veracity, speech and action are the same; speech being only a mode of action. Or, lastly, there may be lies of omission. A writer of English history, who, in his account of the reign of Charles the First, should wilfully suppress any evidence of that prince's despotic measures and designs, might be said to be a liar; for by entitling his book a History of England, he engages to tell the whole truth of the history, or at least all that he knows of it.-Ibid. [SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D. 1709-1784.] CLASSIC GROUND. We were now treading that illustrious island which was once the luminary of the Caledonian regions, whence savage clans and roving barbarians derived the benefits of knowledge and the blessings of religion. To abstract the mind from all local emotion would be impossible if it were endeavoured, and would be foolish if it were possible. Whatever withdraws us from the power of our senses, whatever makes the past the distant, or the future, predominate over the present, advances us in the dignity of thinking beings. Far from me and my friends be such frigid philosophy as may conduct us indifferent and unmoved over any ground which has been dignified by wisdom, bravery, or virtue. The man is little to be envied whose patriotism would not gain force on the plains of Marathon, or whose piety would not grow warmer among the ruins of Iona.-Journey to the Hebrides. [OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 1728-1774. } THE LOVE OF LIFE. AGE, that lessens the enjoyment of life, increases our desire of living. Those dangers which, in the vigour of youth, we had learned to despise, assume new terrors as we grow old. Our caution increasing as our years increase, fear becomes at last the prevailing passion of the mind, and the small remainder of life is taken up in useless efforts to keep off our end, or provide for a continued existence. Strange contradiction in our nature, and to which even the wise are liable! If I should judge of that part of life which lies before me by that which I have already seen, the prospect is hideous. Experience tells me that my past enjoyments have brought no real felicity, and sensation assures me that those I have felt are stronger than those which are yet to come. Yet experience and sensation in vain persuade; hope, more powerful than either, dresses out the distant prospect in fancied beauty; some happiness, in long perspective, still beckons me to pursue; and, like a losing gamester, every new disappointment increases my ardour to continue the game. 66 to Our attachment to every object around us increases in general from the length of our acquaintance with it. "I would not choose," says a French philosopher, see an old post pulled up with which I had been long acquainted. A mind long habituated to a certain set of objects insensibly becomes fond of seeing them; visits them from habit, and parts from them with reluctance. ceeds the avarice of the old in every kind of possession; they love the world and all that it produces; they love life and all its advantages, not because it gives From hence pro them pleasure, but because they have known it long. nancy of anguish in the fatal separation. [BISHOP BERKELEY. 1684-1753.] LUXURY THE CAUSE OF NATIONAL DECAY. FRUGALITY of manners is the nourish which to surprise, yet still we love it; destitute of every enjoyment, still we love Chinvang the Chaste, ascending the it; husband the wasting treasure with inthrone of China, commanded that all creasing frugality, and feel all the poigwho were unjustly detained in prison during the preceding reigns should be set-Essays. free. Among the number who came to thank their deliverer on this occasion there appeared a majestic old man, who, falling at the emperor's feet, addressed him as follows: "Great father of China, behold a wretch, now eighty-five years old, who was shut up in a dungeon at the age of twenty-two. I was imprisoned ment and strength of bodies politic. It though a stranger to crime, or without is that by which they grow and subsist, being even confronted by my accusers. until they are corrupted by luxury,-the I have now lived in solitude and darkness | natural cause of their decay and ruin. Of for more than fifty years, and am grown this we have examples in the Persians, familiar with distress. As yet, dazzled Lacedæmonians, and Romans: not to with the splendour of that sun to which mention many later governments which you have restored me, I have been have sprung up, continued a while, and wandering the streets to find out some then perished by the same natural friend that would assist, or relieve, or re- causes. But these are, it seems, of no member me; but my friends, my family, use to us: and, in spite of them, we are and relations are all dead, and I am for- in a fair way of becoming ourselves gotten. Permit me then, O Chinvang, another useless example to future ages. to wear out the wretched remains of life Simplicity of manners may be more in my former prison; the walls of my easily preserved in a republic than a dungeon are to me more pleasing than monarchy; but if once lost, may be. the most splendid palace; I have not sooner recovered in a monarchy, the long to live, and shall be unhappy except I example of a court being of great efficacy, spend the rest of my days where my either to reform or to corrupt a people; youth was passed—in that prison from that alone were sufficient to discountewhence you were pleased to release me." nance the wearing of gold or silver, either The old man's passion for confinement in clothes or equipage, and if the same is similar to that we all have for life. were prohibited by law, the saving so We are habituated to the prison, we look much bullion would be the smallest round with discontent, are displeased benefit of such an institution; there being with the abode, and yet the length of our nothing more apt to debase the virtue captivity only increases our fondness for and good sense of our gentry of both the cell. The trees we have planted, the sexes than the trifling vanity of apparel, houses we have built, or the posterity we which we have learned from France, and have begotten, all serve to bind us closer which hath had such visible ill conseto earth, and imbitter our parting. Life quences on the genius of that people. sues the young like a new acquaintance; Wiser nations have made it their care to the companion, as yet unexhausted, is at shut out this folly by severe laws and once instructive and amusing; its com- penalties, and its spreading among us can pany pleases, yet for all this it is but forebode no good, if there be any truth little regarded. To us, who are declined in the observation of one of the ancients, in years, life appears like an old friend; that the direct way to ruin a man is to its jests have been anticipated in former dress him up in fine clothes. conversation; it has no new story to make But we are doomed to be undone. us smile, no new improvement with Neither the plain reason of the thing, nor the experience of past ages, nor the examples we have before our eyes, can restrain us from imitating, not to say surpassing, the most corrupt and ruined people in those very points of luxury that ruined them. Our gaming, our operas, our masquerades, are, in spite of our debts and poverty, become the wonder of our neighbours. If there be any man so void of all thought and common-sense, as not to see where this must end, let him but compare what Venice was at the league of Cambray, with what it is at present, and he will be convinced how truly those fashionable pastimes are calculated to depress and ruin a nation. cepts of truth sink deep in thy heart, so shall the charms of thy mind add lustre to the elegance of thy form; and thy beauty, like the rose it resembleth, shall retain its sweetness when its bloom is withered. In the spring of thy youth, in the morning of thy days, when the eyes of men gaze on thee with delight, and nature whispereth in thine ear the meaning of their looks; ah! hear with caution their seducing words; guard well thy heart, nor listen to their soft persuasions. Remember that thou art made man's reasonable companion, not the slave of his passion; the end of thy being is not merely to gratify his loose desire, but to assist him in the toils of life, to soothe him with thy tenderness, and recompense his care with soft endearments. Who is she that winneth the heart of man, that subdueth him to love, and reigneth in his breast? Lo! yonder she walketh in maiden sweetness, with innocence in her mind and modesty on her cheek. Her hand seeketh employment, her foot delighteth not in gadding abroad. She is clothed with neatness, she is fed with temperance: humility and meekness are as a crown of glory circling her head. On her tongue dwel It is not to be believed, what influence public diversions have on the spirit and manners of a people. The Greeks wisely saw this, and made a very serious affair of their public sports. For the same reason, it will, perhaps, seem worthy the care of our legislature to regulate the public diversions, by an absolute prohibition of those which have a direct tendency to corrupt our morals, as well as by a reformation of the drama; which, when rightly managed, is such a noble entertainment, and gave those fine lessons of morality and good sense to the Athen-leth music, the sweetness of honey floweth ians of old, and to our British gentry above a century ago; but for these last ninety years, hath entertained us, for the most part, with such wretched things as spoil, instead of improving, the taste and manners of the audience. Those who are attentive to such propositions only as may fill their pockets, will probably slight these things as trifles below the care of the legislature. But I am sure all honest, thinking men must lament to see their country run headlong into all those luxurious follies, which, it is evident, have been fatal to other nations, and will undoubtedly prove fatal to us also, if a timely stop be not put to them.-Essays. ་་་་ [ROBERT DODSLEY. 1703-1764.] A TRUE WOMAN. GIVE ear, fair daughter of love, to the instructions of prudence, and let the pre from her lips. Decency is in all her |