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less, there is such a smart thing to be said at the same time, that the design of being admired destroys itself. Thus the unhappy Merah, though a wit and beauty, is allowed to be neither, because she will always be both.

Albacinda has the skill as well as power of pleasing. Her form is majestic, but her aspect humble. All good men should beware of the destroyer. She will speak to you like your sister until she has you sure; but is the most vexatious of tyrants when you are so. Her familiarity of behaviour, her indifferent questions, and general conversation, make the silly part of her votaries full of hopes, while the wise fly from her power. She well knows she is too beautiful and too witty to be indifferent to any who converse with her, and therefore knows she does not lessen herself by familiarity, but gains occasions of admiration, by a seeming ignorance of her perfections.

Eudosia adds to the height of her stature a nobility of spirit which still distinguishes her above the rest of her sex. Beauty in others is lovely, in others agreeable, in others attractive; but in Eudosia it is commanding: Love towards Eudosia is a sentiment like the love of glory. The lovers of other women are softened into fondness, the admirers of Eudosia exalted into ambition.

Eucratia presents herself to the imagination with a more kindly pleasure, and as she is woman, her praise is wholly feminine. If we were to form an image of dignity in a man, we should give him wisdom and valour, as being essential to the character of manhood. In like manner, if you describe a right woman in a laudable sense, she should have gentle softness, tender fear, and all those parts of life which distinguish her from the other sex; with some subor'nation to it, but such an inferiority that makes her more lovely. Eucratia is that creature, she is all woman, kindness is all her art, and beauty all he arms.

Her look, her voice, her gesture, and

but the Being which contains all these must be im mortal.

"The elder Cyrus, just before his death, is repre sented by Xenophon speaking after this manner: Think not, my dearest children, that when I depart from yon I shall be no more, but remember, that my soul, even while I lived among you, was invisible to you; yet by my actions you were sensible it existed in this body. Believe it therefore existing still, though it be still unseen. How quickly would the honours of illustrious men perish after death, if their souls performed nothing to preserve their fame? For my own part, I never could think that the soul, while in a mortal body, lives, but when departed out of it, dies; or that its consciousness is lost when it is discharged out of an unconscious habitation. But when it is freed from all corporeal alliance, then it truly exists. Further, since the human frame is broken by death, tell us what becomes of its parts? It is visible whither the materials of other beings are translated, namely, to the source from whence they had their birth. The soul alone, neither present or departed, is the object of our eyes.'

"Thus Cyrus. But to proceed. No one shall persuade me, Scipio, that your worthy father, or your grandfathers Paulus and Africanus, or Africanus his father or uncle, or many other excellent men whom I need not name, performed so many actions to be remembered by posterity, without being sensible that futurity was their right. And, if I may be allowed an old man's privilege, to speak of myself, do you think I would have endured the fatigue of so many wearisome days and nights, both at home and abroad, if I imagined that the same boundary which is set to my life must terminate my glory? Were it not more desirable to bave worn out my days in ease and tranquil. lity, free from labour, and without emulation? But I know not how, my soul has always raised itself, and looked forward on futurity, in this view and expecta

tion, that when it shall depart out of life, it shall then live for ever; and if this were not true, that the mind is immortal, the souls of the most worthy would not, above all others, have the strongest impulse to glory.

"What besides this is the cause that the wisest men die with the greatest equanimity, the ignorant with the greatest concern? Does it not seem that those minds. which have the most extensive views, foresee they are removing to a happier condition, which those of a narrower sight do not perceive? I, for my part, am transported with the hope of seeing your ancestors, whom I have honoured and loved, and am earnestly desirous of meeting not only those excellent persons whom I have known, but those too of whom I have heard and read, and of whom I myself have written; nor would I be detained from so pleasing a journey. O happy day, when I shall escape from this crowd, this heap of pollution, and be admitted to that divine assembly of exalted spirits! When I shall go not only to those great persons I have named, but to my Cato, my son, than whom a better man was never born, and whose funeral rites I myself performed, whereas he ought rather to have attended nine. Yet has not his soul deserted me, but, seeming to cast back a look on me, is gone before to those habitations to which it was sensible I should soon follow him. And though I might appear to have borne my loss with courage, I was not unaffected with it, but I comforted myself in the assurance that it would not be long before we should meet again, and be divorced no more."

HEEDLESS PROMISERS CENSURED.

Fadius hoc aliquid quandoque audebis.

In time to greater baseness you'll proceed.

THE

JUV.

first steps towards ill are very carefully to be avoided, for men insensibly go on when they are once entered, and do not keep up a lively abhorrence of the least unworthiness. There is a certain frivolous falsehood that people indulge themselves in, which ought to be had in greater detestation than it commonly meets with: what I mean is a neglect of promises made on small and indifferent occasions, such as parties of pleasure, entertainments, and sometimes meetings out of curiosity in men of like faculties to be in each other's company. There are many causes to which one may assign this light infidelity. Jack Sippet never keeps the hour he has appointed to come to a friend's to dinner, but he is an insignificant fellow who does it out of vanity. He could never, he knows, make any figure in company, but by giving a little disturbance at his entry, and therefore takes care to drop in when he thinks you are just seated. He takes his place after having discomposed every body, and desires there may be no ceremony; then does he begin to call himself the saddest fellow, in disappointing so many places as he was invited to elsewhere. It is the fop's vanity to name houses of better cheer, and to acquaint you that he chose yours out of ten dinners, which he was obliged to be at that day. The last time I had the fortune to eat with him, he was imagining how very fat he should have been had he eaten all he had ever been invited to. But it is impertinent to dwell upon the manners of such a wretch as obliges all whom he disappoints, though his circumstances constrain them to be civil to him. But there are those

that every one would be glad to see, who fall into the same detestable habit. It is a merciless thing, that any one can be at ease, and suppose a set of people who have a kindness for him, at that moment waiting out of respect to him, and refusing to taste their food or conversation with the utmost impatience. One of these promisers sometimes shall make his excuses for not coming at all, so late that half the company have only to lament, that they have neglected matters of moment to meet him whom they find a trifler. They immediately repent of the value they had for him; and such treatment repeated, makes company 'never depend upon his promise any more; so that he often comes at the middle of a meal, where he is secretly slighted by the persons with whom he eats, and cursed by the servants, whose dinner is delayed by his prolonging their master's entertainment. It is wonderful, that men guilty this way could never have observed, that the whiling time, the gathering together, and waiting a little before dinner, is the most awkwardly passed away of any part in the four-and-twenty hours. If they did think at all, they would reflect upon their guilt, in lengthening such a suspension of agreeable life. The constant offending this way has, in a degree, an effect upon the honesty of his mind who is guilty of it, as common swearing is a kind of habitual perjury: it makes the soul unattentive to what an oath is, even while it utters it at the lips. Phocion beholding a wordy orator while he was making a magnificent speech to the people full of vain promises, "Methinks," said he, " I am now fixing my eyes upon a cypress tree; it has all the pomp and beauty imagin. able in its branches, leaves, and height, but, alas! it bears no fruit."

Though the expectation which is raised by impertinent promisers is thus barren, their confidence, even after failures, is so great, that they subsist by still promising on. Indeed I cannot let heedless promisers,

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