hollowness above. But that hollow on the top is at present an orchard, and the mountain throughout bereft of its

terrors.

C. SANDYS

462. TRUE WISDOM, WHEREIN IT CONSISTS. That is the truest wisdom of a man which doth most conduce to the happiness of life. For wisdom as it refers to action, lies in the proposal of a right end, and the choice of the most proper means to attain it: which end doth not refer to any one part of a man's life, but to the whole as taken together. He therefore only deserves the name of a wise man, not that considers how to be rich and great when he is poor and mean, nor how to be well when he is sick, nor how to escape a present danger, nor how to compass a particular design; but he that considers the whole course of his life together, and what is fit for him to make the end of it, and by what means he may best enjoy the happiness of it. I confess it is one great part of a wise man never to propose to himself too much happiness here; for whoever doth so is sure to find himself deceived, and consequently is so much more miserable as he fails in his greatest expectations. But since God did not make men on purpose to be miserable, since there is a great difference as to men's conditions, since that difference depends very much on their own choice, there is a great deal of reason to place true wisdom in the choice of those things which tend most to the comfort and happiness of life. That which gives a man the greatest satisfaction in what he doth, and either prevents, or lessens, or makes him more easily bear the troubles of life, doth the most conduce to the happiness of it. It was a bold saying of Epicurus, 'That it is more desirable to be miserable by acting according to reason, than to be happy by going against it;' and I cannot tell how it can well agree with his notion of felicity: but it is a certain truth, that in the consideration of happiness, the satisfaction of a man's own mind doth weigh down all the external accidents of life.

E. STILLINGFLEET

463. DESPOTIC GOVERNMENTS, UNFAVOURABLE TO LEARNING. The first thing every one looks after, is to provide himself with necessaries. This point will engross our thoughts until it be satisfied. If this is taken care of to our hands, we look out for pleasures and amusements; and among a great number of idle people, there will be many whose

pleasures will lie in reading and contemplation. These are the two great sources of knowledge, and as men grow wise they naturally love to communicate their discoveries; and others, seeing the happiness of such a learned life, and improving by their conversation, emulate, imitate, and surpass one another, until a nation is filled with races of wise and understanding persons. Ease and plenty are therefore the great cherishers of knowledge: and as most of the despotic governments of the world have neither of them, they are naturally overrun with ignorance and barbarity. In Europe, indeed, notwithstanding several of its Princes are absolute, there are men famous for knowledge and learning; but the reason is because the subjects are many of them rich and wealthy, the Prince not thinking fit to exert himself in his full tyranny like the Princes of the eastern nations, lest his subjects should be invited to new-mould their constitution, having so many prospects of liberty within their view. But in all despotic governments, though a particular Prince may favour arts and letters, there is a natural degeneracy of mankind, as you may observe from Augustus's reign, how the Romans lost themselves by degrees, until they fell to an equality with the most barbarous nations that surrounded them.

J. ADDISON

464. EVANESCENCE OF IDEAS. The ideas, as well as children, of our youth, often die before us: and our minds represent to us those tombs, to which we are approaching; where though the brass and marble remain, yet the inscriptions are effaced by time, and the imagery moulders away. The pictures drawn in our minds are laid in fading colours, and, if not sometimes refreshed, vanish and disappear. Whether the temper of the brain makes this difference, that in some it retains the characters drawn on it like marble, in others like freestone, and in others little better than sand, I shall not here enquire: though it may seem probable, that the constitution of the body does sometimes influence the memory; since we oftentimes find a disease quite strip the mind of all its ideas, and the flames of a fever in a few days calcine all those images to dust and confusion, which seemed to be as lasting as if graved in marble.

465. PREFACE TO ENDYMION. Knowing within myself the manner in which this Poem has been produced, it is not

without a feeling of regret that I make it public. What manner I mean, will be quite clear to the reader, who must soon perceive great inexperience, immaturity, and every error denoting a feverish attempt, rather than a deed accomplished. The two first books, and indeed the two last, I feel sensible are not of such completion as to warrant their passing the press; nor should they, if I thought a year's castigation would do them any good; it will not: the foundations are too sandy. It is just that this youngster should die away: a sad thought for me, if I had not some hope that while it is dwindling, I may be plotting, and fitting myself for verses fit to live.

This may be speaking too presumptuously, and may deserve a punishment: but no feeling man will be forward to inflict it: he will leave me alone, with the conviction that there is not a fiercer torment than the failure in a great object. This is not written with the least atom of purpose to forestall criticisms of course, but from the desire I have to conciliate men who are competent to look, and who do look, with a zealous eye, to the honour of English literature. The imagination of a boy is healthy, and the mature imagination of a man is healthy; but there is a space of life between, in which the soul is in a ferment, the character undecided, the way of life uncertain, the ambition thick-sighted: thence proceeds mawkishness, and all the thousand bitters which those men I speak of must necessarily taste in going over the following pages.

I hope I have not in too late a day touched the beautiful mythology of Greece, and dulled its brightness: for I wish to try once more, before I bid it farewell.

J.. KEATS

466. DEATH OF CYRUS THE GREATER. According to Xenophon, Cyrus the Greater, when dying, spake as follows: 'Do not suppose, my dearest sons, that when I have departed from you, I shall be nowhere or no being. For neither whilst I was with you did you see my mind, but supposed it to be in this body from the actions which I performed. Believe therefore that the same still exists, even though you behold none. Nor in truth would the honours of illustrious men continue after death, if their minds were inefficacious towards our longer retaining them in memory. I certainly can never be persuaded that minds live so long as they are in mortal bodies, and when they have departed out of these, wholly die; nor yet that the mind then is foolish when it hath

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escaped out of a foolish body: but that, when freed from every admixture of body it hath begun to be pure and entire, then also is it wise. You further also behold that nothing is so like death as sleep ;-Now the minds of sleeping persons most clearly declare their divine nature, for when thus released from the body and free, they foresee many future events. From which is easily understood of what nature they will be. when they shall have been wholly released from the bondage of the body.'

467. CHARACTER. He was a man of a blundering understanding. He was haughty beyond expression: abject to those he saw he must stoop to, but imperious to all others. He had a violence of passion that carried him often to fits like madness, in which he had no temper. If he took a wrong view, it was a vain thing to study to convince him: that would rather provoke him to swear he would never be of another mind. He was to be let alone: and perhaps he would have forgot what he said, and come about of his own accord. He was the coldest friend and the violentest enemy I ever knew: I felt it too much not to know it. He at first despised wealth; but he delivered himself up afterwards to luxury and sensuality, and by that means he ran into a vast expense, and stuck at nothing that was necessary to support it. In his long imprisonment he had great impressions of religion on his mind, but he wore these out so entirely, that scarce any trace of them was left.

468. THE FORCE OF ASSOCIATION. Places and things, which have an association with any of the events or feelings of past life, will greatly assist the recollection of them. A man of strong associations finds memoirs of himself already written on the places where he has conversed with happiness or misery. If an old man wished to animate for a moment the languid and faded ideas which he retains of his youth, he might walk with his crutch across the green, where he once played with companions, who are now probably layed to repose in another spot not far off. An aged saint may meet again some of the affecting ideas of his early piety in the place where he first thought it happy to pray. A walk in a meadow, the sight of a bank of flowers, perhaps even of some one flower, a landscape with the tints of autumn, the descent into a valley, the brow of a mountain, the house where a

friend has been met, or has resided, or has died, have often produced a much more lively recollection of our past feelings and of the objects and events which caused them, than the most perfect description could have done: and we have lingered a considerable time for the pensive luxury of thus resuming the departed state.

469. OUR DUTIES TOWARDS GOD. In one sense, every duty is a duty towards God, since it is his will which makes it a duty: but there are some duties of which God is the object, as well as the author; and these are peculiarly, and in a more appropriated sense, called duties towards God. That silent piety, which consists in a habit of tracing out the Creator's wisdom and goodness in the objects around us, or in the history of his dispensations; of referring the blessings we enjoy to his bounty, and of resorting in our distresses to his succour; may possibly be more acceptable to the Deity than any visible expressions of devotion whatever. Yet these latter (which, although they may be excelled, are not superseded, by the former) compose the only part of the subject which admits of direction or disquisition from a moralist. Our duty towards God, so far as it is external, is divided into worship and reverence. God is the immediate object of both; and the difference between them is, that the one consists in action, the other in forbearance. When we go to church on the Lord's day, led thither by a sense of duty towards God, we perform an act of worship; when, from the same motive, we rest in a journey upon that day, we discharge a duty of

reverence.

W. PALEY

470. CONSIDERATION OF MORTALITY. It is recorded of some eastern monarch, that he kept an officer in his house, whose employment it was to remind him of his mortality, by calling out every morning at a stated hour, Remember, Prince, that thou shalt die! And the contemplation of the frailness and uncertainty of our present state appeared of so much importance to Solon of Athens, that he left this precept to future ages; Keep thine eye fixed upon the end of life. A frequent and attentive prospect of that moment, which must put a period to all our schemes, and deprive us of all our acquisitions, is indeed of the utmost efficacy to the just and rational regulation of our lives; nor would ever any thing wicked, or