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207 that strengthen the bodie, are fitter for men of low degree; and in all cases it is good to provide remedies against the irritating occurrences of mutable fortune.

Some men's fortunes indeed are like Homer's verses, that have a slide and easinefs more than others, but all ought to provide against that which is the usual lot of humanity.

The best sailors are made on the rockiest fhores, and the faculties of men are best improved by frequent danger.

The fox hath become the most cunning of a nimals as being continually exposed to the greatest number of enemies.

Let a man therefore dilligently perfect himself in this grand part of the art of life, adding daily to the strength of his industrious habits.

In this also hee will find vertue, as in other cases, its own reward.

For it is in the dislocation of the powers of the understanding and imagination, that mental misery consisteth, and man is always happy when the spirits have an easy flow, and when hee is in pursuit of something pleasing which hee thinketh hee may obtain.

Now a man in that state is not only easy and happy in himself, but he is agreeable also to others, and particularly to his family and companions; for he will not be exposed to lie heavy upon the enjoyments of other men, or meddle injuriously with their particulars.

April 10% When hee cometh to his own fireside, he will be in good humour with his wife and his family, especially if they are also busy in their own respective siz

tuations.

Hee will cast a cheerful look around him wheresoever hee goeth, and bee kind to his fellows, because hee is at peace with himself. About a good man in such a state there is an atmosphere of contentment and cheerfulness that is the sweetest air a man can desire to breathe in; and women will delight in him, for hee may give them pleasure without trouble or contradiction, and hee will say pleasing things to them, which charmeth and holdeth all the daughters of Eva.

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Although their thoughts may seem too severe who think that few ill natured men goe to Heaven; yet it must be acknowledged that good natured persons are best founded for that place; especially as it is certainly a very mistaken conceit that we shall have nothing to do in the mansions of eternity with the social vertues, since Heaven is exprefsly called the city of God.

Now a city pre-eminently exprefses what is social.

But whatever succefs they may have as to Heaven, they are the acceptable men on earth; and hap py is hee who hath his quiver full of them for his friends.

These are not the dens wherein falsehood lurks, and hypocrisy hides its head; wherein frowardness makes its nest, or where malice, hard heartedness,

209 and oppression love to dwell; but such as carry their hearts in their countenances, and need not be scrutinized, who make not only the best friends, but the most generous enemies.

Of the Roman emperors and other potentates, the best were the busiest and best natured; witnefs Trajan, Titus, and Marcus Aurelius; those pretious elohims of the earth, whose number is so small that they might be all written in the posey of a gold ring.

I remember to have been present at the last advices and injunctions given by a wise and honourable man to his son and heir, then just entering into the tempestuous conflicts of life, and they made upon my mind so deep an imprefsion, that I fhall endeavour to set them down in this place.

The wife, the family, and servants of the good old man being present, he raised himself up upon his death bed, and he spake thus, with clear but feeble accents :

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Advice of a father to his son.

My son, I have trained thee up in the habits of industry and vertue. Continue to live happy in the elizium of a vertuously composed mind; and let intellectual contentments still hold the first place over those that are sensual.

"Keep a tight rein upon the wild horses of Plato, that they may not carry you aside from your celestial journey :—thus much to thee as a scholar. But now, as unto a poor fallible creature, I must tell thee, (with the desire of edifying all here present as well as thyself,) that without being constantly VOL. XIV.

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employed, it is hard, if not impofsible, to be worthy.

"Make amusements your recreations, or intermissive relaxations, and not your life and profefsion. Tranquillity is better than jollity, and to avoid and appease pain is better than to invent new pleasure.

"Our hard entrance into the world, our miserable going out of it, our sicknesses, disturbances, and sad rencounters in it, doe all clamourously tell us wee come not into the world to run a race of delight, but to perform the sober acts and serious purposes of man and citizen, which to omit were foully to miscarry in the advantage of humanity, and to play away the noble stake of life which can never be renewed.

"Standing upon the narrow isthmus of life look forward to the boundlefs ocean of eternity, and remember, that " non mutant animos qui trans mare currunt," that is, as the tree falls soe fhall it lye. Think not that it bee pofsible for a refined spiritual nature to bee extinct by the dissolution of the body which it animated. That which is thus once alive, will in some way be always, except it des troyeth itself; and let me warn thee, that by plunging the celestial matter, as it may be figured, of the soul, in the grofsnefs of sensuality, it may be finally and utterly destroyed, or become a vefsel (as the apostle sayeth,) fitted for destruction.

"Confirm thyself therefore my son, and may all here present confirm themselves in the habits of indus try and benevolence, and by studying the true art of life, prepare themselves for a peaceful and happy departure !"

ON REVENUE LAWS.

For the Bee.

Continued from p. 94.

HAVING already, I am afraid, availed myself too freely of the indulgence of the Editor of the Bee, in laying before the public a series of efsays, which, though on an important subject, are very uninteresting to many readers, I fhall now only beg permifsion to conclude my observations, by pointing out the manner in which high excise duties on articles of home manufacture occasion that great oppression of which the people so universally complain.

It is not by the amount of the money paid, that taxes can, in a nation so wealthy as this, produce any material hardship; because it ultimately comes out of the pockets of the wealthy inhabitants of the country; and the labouring people receive wages in proportion to the prices of the articles necefsarily consumed by them, which are affected by the taxes. But the evils that arise in society from high taxes are occasioned by their being injudiciously laid on ; and the numerous fiscal regulations that become necefsary for levying them.

We have examined, in my last efsay, p. 91, some of the hardships that accrue to traders in consequence of the necessary regulations for the prevention of smuggling in cases of high duties being imposed. Hardships of the same nature, as the reader will readily perceive, are felt by manufacturers in a much stronger degree; their

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