These are the chief ingredients, if not all:
Take an estate neither too great, nor small,
Which quantum sufficit the doctors call.
Let this estate from parent's care descend;
The getting it too much of life does spend.
Take such a ground, whose gratitude may be
A fair encouragement for industrie.

Let constant fires the Winter's fury tame;
And let thy kitchen be a vestal flame.
Thee to the town let never suit at law,
And rarely, very rarely, business draw:
Thy active mind in equa! temper keep,
In undisturbed peace, yet not in sleep.
Let exercise a vigorous health maintain,
Without which all the composition's vain.
In the same weight prudence and innocence take,
Ana of each does the just mixture make.
But a few friendships wear, and let them be
By nature and by fortune fit for thee.
Instead of art and luxury in food,

Let mirth and freedom make thy table good;
If any cares into the day time creep,

At night, without wine's opium, let them sleep.
Let rest, which Nature does to darkness wed,
And not lust, recommend to thee thy bed;
Be satisfied, and pleased, with what thou art;
Act chearfully and well the allotted part;
Enjoy the present hour, be thankful for the past,
And neither fear, nor wish the approaches of the last."

I have often and deeply reflected how far this state of existence is in right of itself capable of happiness; and what are the circumstances which afford the best chance of attaining it; and I am firmly convinced that the description given by Martial of the ingredients

most

most conducive to it, is founded not merely in the dreams of a poet's fancy, but in solid and unalterable truth.

The great difficulty is the concurrence of the ingredient, which is least likely to be combined with the rest, but without which all the rest are vain:

"Quod sis, esse velis; nihilque malis."

Unless a man knows how to value such a lot; unless he is thoroughly aware of the emptiness or the perplexities of wealth, and grandeur, and rank, and power; as long as he is dazzled by show, or sighs after distinction, the moderate pleasures within his reach will appear insipid and dull.

To see so large a portion of mankind pass by, unheeded, the very exquisite enjoyments, which offer themselves to their embrace, in pursuit of the most delusive phantoms, which they are seeking at the expense of ease, virtue, health, fortune, and reputation, is indeed amongst the most deplorable proofs of our fallen nature. To rise of a morning with a head unburthened with perplexing business, and a heart unclouded with care; to behold, as the sun pierces through the mistiness of the dawn, the scenes of nature opening before us in dewy brilliance; to be at liberty to wander uncontrouled amid this beautiful landscape, and, while exercise strengthens and braces the body, to inhale freshness and exquisite odours, and exhilarating spirits from the pure airs of heaven, is not mere negative happiness, but rapture and enchantment! From hence to return home, even to a straw-roofed cottage, where there is neatness, and competence, and peace; and a book, and a virtuous friend, of a cultivated mind, to

meet one, is only a variety, and not a diminution, of the day's pleasure. The sacred charm of innocence, instead of leaving the sting of regret in the recollection of the past, adds, on reflection, to the poignancy of the enjoyment; and the corporeal frame, healthy from its own habits, and untouched by mental uncasiness, becomes attuned to sensations of happiness, such as almost lift it above humanity!

I am as sure, as I am of any human truth, that grandeur and ambition, at the very moment of attaining their utmost wishes, never felt pleasures, which, even in a worldly point of view, could bear a comparison with these cheap and innocent occupations! Occupations, in the power of thousands, and tens of thousands, who desert them for the paths of bitterness, disappointment, disgrace, crime, and eternal misery!

But, alas! the rarest of all earthly attainments is content! It seems to be one of the most radical defects of our frail nature. We cannot bear to see our neighbours mounted over our heads; we cannot bear to see bloated greatness look down upon us with neglect and scorn; when we ought to consider the robe of office that covers the insignificant, and the coronet which encircles the brows of the weak, as nothing more than the fool's cloak and cap, which point him out more distinctly to the contempt of the world. It must be confessed, indeed, that there are times, when the best regulated minds cannot entirely restrain their indignation on this subject. Never perhaps did the period exist in this country, when these abuses were carried so far, as they have lately been. Upstarts of the most offensive sort have been obtruded into too many high offices, and decked out with too many unmerited dis

tinctions,

tinctions, which have enabled them to insult men, their superiors as well in all the gifts of nature, as in all those artificial claims which have hitherto been recognized by the wisdom of human institutions. These men, even where they have been blessed with native genius have uniformly been inebriated with the fumes of sudden prosperity, and belied the honourable expectations, which they had raised. In truth, they are so engrossed with themselves, that they have no conception of any pretensions but their own. But these circumstances, though they may palliate, can by no means justify, the disturbance of that peace of mind, which becomes true wisdom, and true virtue!

There is, however, a species of celebrity, which it is not unbecoming a well-attempered disposition to seek. I mean the fame, which is merited by eminence in literature; more especially by the sublime efforts of poetry. This pursuit is not inconsistent with that station and those habits, which Martial describes as affording the best probability of happiness here; but, on the contrary, would be most cherished by them. Anxieties never cease to embitter the pillow of greatness; a large retinue, a crowd of dependents, surround it with intrigues and troubles; calumny, envy, and malice are constantly at work; luxury enfeebles the constitution; idleness weakens the mind; and while all in this world appears but the vanity of vanities, the hopes of the next grow fainter and fainter, for the sake of delusions, from which the unhappy victim is yet too feeble to extricate himself.

O how I sigh for the enviable state, so beautifully delineated by the poet; and in the first place

"Lis nunquam, toga rara, mens qiueta;"

that toga, from which I turn with such unfeigned abhorrence; which covers a heart, so restless, so feverish, so artificial; and is surmounted by a head so full of quips, and quirks, and sophistry; and so occupied in groveling labours, when it might aspire to speculations which would exalt it in the ranks of intellectual existence! To behold a crowd of lawyers, in a narrow and heated court, breathing pestilence and poison, with wan looks, sallow cheeks, and distracted countenances, insisting with artificial energy on some technical nonsense, subversive of wisdom, justice, and equity, is a spectacle, from which I early fled with unconquerable disgust. What wise man would for a moment exchange for it the lot of the poor and uncultivated ploughman, whom I have heard, in the exuberance of his heart-felt joy, make the echoes rebound with his voice, as I have seen him, in a cold drizzling morning of December, striking his furrow in distant fields, far amid solitary woodlands, and remote from all that is deemed the gaiety of life!

The heart, that has lost its zest for the scenery of Nature, that is untouched by the simplest pleasures, however harsh the designation may seem, is depraved! A walk, a ride, in the open air, at a distance from towns, and a return to the most unostentatious cottage, where only competence, and cleanliness, and peace preside, offers to a virtuous bosom the utmost gratification, of which we are capable, except what may arise from the retrospect of a duty performed, or a benefit conferred.

If these sentiments are faintly, or imperfectly expressed, the reader is entreated to notice, that they