summing up the account, all, all is found to be seated merely in the imagination-The faster he has pursued, the faster the phantom fled before him; and, to use the Satyrift's comparison of the chariot wheels, hafte as they will, they must for ever keep the same distance.

But what? though I have been thus far disappointed in my expectations of happiness from the possession of riches-" Let me try, " whether I shall not meet with it, in the " spending and fashionable enjoyment of " them."

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Behold! I will get me down, and make me great works, and build me houses, and plant me vineyards, and make me gardens and pools of water. And I will get me fervants and maidens, and whatsoever my eyes desire, I will not keep from them.

In prosecution of this-he drops all gainful pursuits-withdraws himself from the bufy part of the world-realizes-pulls downbuilds up again. -Buys statues, pictures plants-and plucks up by the roots-levels mountains

mountains and fills up vallies-turns rivers into dry ground, and dry ground into rivers. - Says unto this man, Go, and he goeth; and unto another, Do this, and he doeth it;and whatsoever his foul lusteth after of this kind, he with-holds not from it. When every thing is thus planned by himself, and executed according to his wish and direction, surely he is arrived to the accomplishment of his wishes, and has got to the summit of all human happiness?-Let the most fortunate adventurers in this way answer the question for him, and say-how often it rises higher than a bare and fimple amusement and well, if you can compound for that-since 'tis often purchased at so high a price, and so foured by a mixture of other incidental vexations, as to become too often a work of repentance, which in the end will extort the fame forrowful confeffion from him, which it did from Solomon in the like cafe-Lo! I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought, and on the labour that I had laboured to do-and behold all was vanity and vexation of spirit-and there was no profit to me under the fun.

To inflame this account the more -'twill

VOL. I.

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be

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be no miracle if, upon cafting it up, he has gone farther lengths than he first intended run into expences which have entangled his fortune, and brought himself into fuch difficulties as to make way for the laft experiment he can try-and that is to turn miser, with no happiness in view but what is to rise out of the little designs of a fordid mind, set upon saving and scraping up, all he has injudicioufly spent.

In this last stage-behold him a poor trembling wretch, shut up from all mankind sinking into utter contempt; spending careful days and fleepless nights, in pursuit of what a narrow and contracted heart can never enjoy: -And let us here leave him to the conviction he will one day find-That there is no end of his labour-That his eyes will never be fatisfied with riches, or will fay-For whom do I labour and bereave myself of reft? This is also a fore travel.

I believe this is no uncommon picture of the disappointments of human life-and the manner our pleasures and enjoyments flip from under us in every stage of our life. And though I would not be thought by it, as if I was denying the reality of pleasures, or disputing the being of them, any more than one would the reality of pain-yer I must observe on this head, that there is a plain distinction to be made betwixt pleasure and happiness. For tho' there can be no happiness without pleafure-yet the converse of the proposition will not hold true. We are fo made, that from the common gratifications of our appetites, and the impressions of a thousand objects, we snatch the one, like a tranfient gleam, without being suffered to taste the other, and enjoy that perpetual fun-shine and fair weather which constantly attend it. This, I contend, is only to be found in religion-in the consciousness of virtue-and the sure and certain hopes of a better life, which brightens all our prospects, and leaves no room to dread disappointments-because the expectation of it is built upon a rock, whose foundations are as deep as those of heaven and hell.

And tho' in our pilgrimage through this world-fome of us may be so fortunate as to meet with some clear fountains by the way, that may cool, for a few moments, the heat of this great thirst of happiness-yetour SAVI

Our, who knew the world, tho' he enjoyed but little of it, tells us, that whosoever drinketh of this water will thirst again:-and we all find by experience it is so, and by reason that it always must be so.

I conclude with a short observation upon Solomon's evidence in this case.

Never did the busy brain of a lean and hectic chymist search for the philosopher's stone with more pains and ardour than this great man did after happiness.-He was one of the wisest enquirers into nature-had tried all her powers and capacities, and after a thousand vain speculations and vile experiments, he affirmed, at length, it lay hid in no one thing he had tried-like the chymic's projections, all had ended in smoak, or what was worse, in vanity and vexation of spirit:-the conclufion of the whole matter was this-that he advises every man who would be happy, to fear God and keep his commandments.