confidering that irrefolution feems to me to be the most common and manifeft vice of our nature; witness the famous verfe of Publius the mimic, The difficulty of determining the characters of Malum confilium ejt quod mutari non potest *. Bad is the counsel which cannot be changed. There is fome probability of forming a judgment of a man from his most common courfe of life, but confidering the natural inftability of our manners and opinions, I have often men in general. thought even our beft authors wrong in endeavouring, with fo much obftinacy, to make us all of a piece, or confiftent. They pitch upon the general air of a man, and, according to that appearance, endea vour to range and interpret all his actions, and, if they cannot twist them to a tolerable uniformity, they impute them to diffimulation. Auguftus has efcaped their memory; for in this man there was fo manifeft, fudden, and continual a variety of actions throughout his life, that he is flipped away intire and uncenfured by the boldest critics. There is nothing I am so hardly induced to believe as a man's conftancy, and believe nothing more readily than his inconftancy. He that would judge of a man particularly, diftinctly, and take him to pieces, would oftener be fure of fpeaking truth. 'Tis a hard matter, out of all antiquity, to pick a dozen men who have paffed their lives in one certain conftant course, which is the principal aim of wifdom. For, to comprize all in one word, fays an ancient author, and to collect all the rules of human life into one, is to " will the "fame thing always, and always not to will it +. I "need not add this fmall exception, provided that what "thou willeft be right; for, if it be not right, the "fame thing cannot always please any one." I have, indeed, formerly learned, that vice is nothing but the want of rule and meafure, and by confequence it is impoffible to fix conftancy to it. 'Tis reported to be a faying of Demosthenes, that the beginning of all virtue is confultation and deliberation, and the end and perfection Ex Publii Mimis, apud A. Gell, lib. xvii. c. 14. ↑ Senec. Ep. 20. of of it, conftancy. If we would fet out upon a certain course, after mature deliberation, we fhould take the best way, but no-body has thought on it: inclinations of Quod petiit, fpernit; repetit quod nuper omifit, Eftuat, et vita difconvenit ordine toto *: He now despises what he late did crave, And what he last neglected, now would have: He fluctuates, and flies from that to this, And his whole life a contradiction is. Our ordinary practice is to follow the our appetites, be it to the right or to the left, upwards or downwards, according as cy of our conwe are impelled by occafions. We never confider of what we would have, till the inftant we would have it, and are as changeable as that animal which receives its colour from what place foever it is laid upon. What we juft now propofed to ourselves, we immediately alter, and presently recur to it; which is nothing but wavering and inconftancy : Ducimur ut nervis alienis mobile lignum †. The inconftan duct, on what founded: Like tops, with leather-thongs, we're whipp'd about. We do not go of ourselves, but are driven just like things that float on the water, fometimes flowly, at other times fwiftly, according to the rapidity or gentleness of the stream: -nonne videmus Quid fibi quifque velit nefcire, et quærere femper, Tales funt bominum mentes, quali pater ipfe Horat. Ep. I. lib. i. ver. 98, 99. f Horat. lib. ii. Sat. . ver. 82. Cicer. Fragm. Poemat. lib. x. 4 As are the days and weather, fair or foul, Juft fuch the motions of th' inconftant foul. We fluctuate between various opinions, we will nothing freely, nothing abfolutely, nothing conftantly. In a person who had prescribed and established determinate rules for his own conduct, we should fee an equality of behaviour, a fettled order, and a neverfailing connexion of things, one with another, fhine in every part of his life. (Empedocles obferved this inconfiftency in the Agrigentines +, that they abandoned themselves to voluptuoufnefs, as if every day was to be their laft, and built as if they were never to die.) The difcuffion of this point would be very eafy, as it is vifible in the younger Cato; he that has touched one key, touches all 'tis a harmony of very according founds,wherein there is not one jarring ftring; but with us 'tis quite the reverse; every particular action muft have a particular judgment, wherein the fureft way to fteer, inmy opinion, would be to take our measures from the neareft allied circumftances, without engaging in a longer difquifition, and without drawing any other conLequence from it. A young woman, of a dubious character, throws herfelf out of a window ravished. During the civil disorders of our poor kingdom, I was told, that a maid, hard by the place where I then was, threw herself out of a window, to avoid being ravished by a common foldier that was quartered in for fear of being the house. She was not killed by the fall, and therefore, in order to pursue her defign, fhe attempted to cut her throat, but was hindered in it; nevertheless fhe was fo dangeroufly wounded, that the confeffed the foldier had not as yet importuned her, otherwife than by courtship, follicitations, and prefents, but fhe was afraid, that at last he would have proceeded to violence; and this the delivered with fuch an accent and afpect, as, together with her effufion of Senec. Epift. 52. + Diog. Laert. on the Life of Empedocles, lib. viii. fect. 63. Elian afcribes this paffage to Plato, Var. Hift. lib. xii. sap. 29. blood, blood, gave fueh a teftimony of her virtue, that the appeared perfectly like another Lucretia: and yet I have been very well affured, that, both before and fince, the proved not fo hard-hearted. Therefore, as the ftory fays, though you are ever fo handfome, and ever fo much of the gentleman, because you have mifcarried in your point, do not immediately conclude your mistress to be inviolably chafte, fince you are not fure but she may have a feoret kindness for the man that looks after your mules. of his foldiers A foldier who loft all his valour on his being cur ed of a diffem Antigonus, having taken a fancy to one for his gallant bravery, ordered his phyficians to attend him for an inward ailment that had long tormented him; and perceiving, after he was cured, that he went much more coldly to work than before, Who or what had fo altered him?"Yourself, Sir, faid he, in having eafed me of the pains, which made me "fo weary of my life, that I did not value it." per. he asked him, A foldier of Lucullus, having been robbed by the enemy, revenged himself on them by a gal- A foldier of Lu. lant exploit, and, when he had made him- cullus infpired felf amends, Lucullus, having conceived with courage by a good opinion of him, would fain have being robbed. employed him in fome defperate enterprize, and, for that purpose, made ufe of all the moft plaufible argu ments he could think of, Verbis que timido quoque poffent addere mentem †. Words which would animate the rankest coward. Pray, faid he, employ fome miferable plundered foldier, in that undertaking: -quantumvis rufticus, ibit, bit eò, quò vis, qui zonam perdidit, inquit +. Seek fome poor wretch that bends the fuppliant knee, Your counfel ne'er fhall be purfu'd by me: Plutarch, in the Life of Pelopidas, ch. 1, Hor. lib. ii. Epift. 2: yer. 36. 1 Id. ibid. ver. 40. and abfolutely refused to go. When we read, that Mahomet having feverely reprimanded Chafan, the commander of his Janizaries, for cowardice, when he faw the Hungarians break into his troops; and that Chasan, without any other anfwer, rufhed furiously, by himself, with his drawn fcymetar, into the firft body of the enemy that advanced, where he was immediately cut to pieces : this, perhaps, was not fo much to vindicate himself from the reproach, as the effect of a fecond thought; nor fo much natural courage as a fudden fally of anger. He that you saw fo adventurous yesterday, do not think it ftrange, if you find him, next day, as great a poltroon: anger, neceffity, or company, or wine, or the found of a trumpet had roufed his fpirits. This was not courage formed by reafon, but established by fome or other of thofe circumstances; and therefore no wonder, if, by other contrary circumstances, it become quite another thing. Thefe variations and contradictions, fo manifeft in us, have induced fome perfons to think, that we have two fouls, others, two diftinct powers, that always accompany and animate us, each after its own manner, the one to do good, the other to do evil; it being hardly poffible, that two qualities, fo contrary to each other, could affociate in one fubject. The mind of man is incon. ftant and changeable. The wind of every accident not only puffs me along with it, which way foever it blows; but, moreover, I disturb and trouble myself by the unfettledness of my posture; and whoever nicely confiders it, will hardly find himself twice in the very fame ftate. I give my mind fometimes one hue, fometimes another, according to the fide I lie on. If I fpeak variously of myself, it is because I confider myfelf in different lights, as having all contrarieties within me, in their turn and meafure; bafhful, infolent, chafte, licentious, talkative, taciturn, laborious, delicate, ingenious, stupid, morofe, complaifant, a lyar, a true fpeaker, learned, ignorant, covetous, liberal, and prodigal all thefe Í perceive within me, more or lefs, according as I turn myfelf; and whoever ftudies himself attentively, finds |