Remark.

Perhaps this impression is made on the mind, more by the influence of pity, (which is an endearing sentiment,) than by any addition of positive beauty, which sorrow gives to an already charming object. The tender emotions of sympathy may easily be mistaken for those of her softer brother; they glide into each other;-" Pity melts the mind to love!"

6.

The widowed heart enjoys such a liberty as the banished man hath; who may, if he list, wander over the world; but is for ever restrained from his most delightful home!

Remark.

Cicero's grief for the death of his daughter Tullia, and Lord Lyttleton's lamentations over his deceased wife, most pathetically prove the truth of the observation, that "great minds

are most sensible of such losses; and the sentiments of humanity and affection are usually most tender, where in every respect there is the greatest strength of reason.” But, it is not necessary, that what is strong should be turbulent; or, that what is lasting should be ever present to the eye. That grief is the most durable, which flows inward, and buries its streams with its fountain, in the depths of the heart.

7.

Burn not your house to make it clean; but, like a wise father, who turns even the fault of his children to any good that may come of it, make the adversities of life the accomplisher of its virtues for that is the fruit of wisdom,

and the end of judgment.

Remark.

This is an argument against suicide; and that precursor of self-violence, impatience under misfortune, which hurries the afflicted into desperate execution of rash resolves; and

though it stops at death, often, by its precipitation, makes a permanent calamity of what might only have been a temporary disappoint

ment.

8.

Woe makes the shortest time seem long.

9.

The spirits dried up with anguish, leave the performance of their ministry, where-upon our life dependeth.

10.

The heart, stuffed up with woefulness, is glad greedily to suck the thinnest air of com

fort.

Remark.

To brood over sorrows, is to increase them. When we have distresses on our minds, the more we are kept in motion the better: when these bodies of ours do not bestir themselves, our cares no longer fluctuate on the surface, but sink to the very bottom of the heart.— Company forces us from the contemplation of

our miseries: the abstractedness which they occasion, being inconsistent with politeness, we must either leave society, or fly from the remembrance of things, which distract the attention and absorb the spirits. This essay, often repeated, gradually wears away regret; and restores the soul to tranquillity and cheerfulness.

11.

Care stirring the brains, and making thin the spirits, breaketh rest; but those griefs, wherein one is determined there is no preventing, do breed a dull heaviness, which easily clothes itself in sleep.

12.

Past greatness increaseth the compassion to see a change.

13.

The noble nature is such, that though his grief be so great, as to live is a grief unto him; and that even his reason is darkened with sorrow; yet the laws of hospitality give still such a sway to his proceeding, that he will no way

suffer the stranger lodged under his roof, to receive (as it were,) any infection of his anguish.

14.

As in labour, the more one doth exercise, the more one is enabled to do, strength growing upon work; so, with the use of suffering, men's minds get the habit of suffering; and all fears and terrors are to them but as a summons to battle, whereof they know beforehand they shall come off victorious.

HOPE.

1.

WHO builds not upon hope, shall fear no earthquake of despair.

Remark.

The reasonableness of a project ought to be its foundation; and hope, the ladder only,