ness of any adverse circumstance weaken the strength of our resolution." The same reasonable and steady confidence in hope, may cheer and conduct us happily, in the pursuits of a private station, as well as in the more noticed career of martial exploits. A well-ordered mind is always consistent.

ANXIETY.

1.

How painful a thing it is, to a divided mind, to make a well-joined answer!

Remark.

And yet how rigorously does self-love demand, even fixed attention, from that class of our friends who, evidently torn by distractions, ought to awaken a kinder expectation! Where is the justice, the humanity, of this

exaction? What does it prove? But that we value the devotedness of friendship, rather as an oblation to vanity, than as a free interchange of hearts; an endearing contract of sympathy, mutual forbearance, and respect !

2.

Hope itself is a pain, while it is overmatched by fear.

3.

It is a hell of dolours, when the mind still in doubt, for want of resolution can make no resistance.

Remark.

The uncertainty of suspense is the cause of its ever-increasing pangs. Its fears being enlarged by imagination, augment dread over dread, until every calamity seems pending; and the terrified wretch, self-betrayed, meets misery in advance, by giving himself up to phantoms of his own raising. In all cases it shews a very ill-judging kindness, to leave any one in anxiety, when it is in our power to de

cide on the object of it, whether good or bad. If good, it is the cruellest of all robberies to withhold one moment of happiness which is the right of another: and if bad, suspense being at an end, the ranging spirits collect, and form that faculty of bearing a determined and visible evil, which uncertainty and indistinctness totally dissipate. Who is there that would not rather be led out to the axe, than live for days and weeks, with the expectation of death or torture?

DESPONDENCE.

1.

Love is careful; and misfortune is subject to doubtfulness.

2.

Nothing is achieved, before it be thoroughly attempted.

3.

Lying still doth never go forward.

4.

Who only sces the ill, is worse than blind.

5.

No man doth speak aright, who speaks in fear.

6.

Solitary complaints do no good to him whose help stands without himself.

7.

How weakly they do, that rather find fault with what cannot be amended, than seek to amend wherein they have been faulty!

Remark.

These thoughts on Despondency are not less admonitory to men who delight in obscuring the prospects of others, than to that despairing disposition, which inclines some persons to regard their own views through similar clouds. Such friends may verily be called Job's comforters: they are the mildews of life; the blights which wither the spring

of Hope, and encumber sorrow with weeds of deeper mourning. Instead of consoling the afflicted, they irritate his grief by dwelling on the circumstances of its cause: instead of encouraging the unfortunate to new enterprizes, they lead him to lamentable meditation on old disappointments; and to waste that time in regret, which might have been used to repair loss or earn acquisition. These lachrymal counsellors, with one foot in the cave of despair, and the other invading the peace of their friends, are the paralizers of action, the pests of society, and the subtlest homicides in the world; they poison with a tear; and convey a dagger to the heart, while they press you to their bosoms. Life is a warfare; and he who easily desponds, deserts a double duty; he betrays the noblest property of man, which is dauntless resolution; and he rejects the providence of that All-gracious Being, who guides and rules the universe.