Verfe the fourth. I found a dart.] The Vatican manufcript for I reads it, but this must have b en the hallucination of the tranfcriber, who probably mistook the dash of the I for a T.

Stanza the second, verse the second. The fatal ftroke.] Scioppius, Salmafius, and many others, for the read, but I have ftuck to the ufual reading.

Verfe the third, Till by her wit.] Some manufcripts have it his wit, others your, others their wit. But as I find Corinna to be the name of a woman in other authors, I cannot doubt but it thould be her.

Stanza the third, verfe the first. A long and lafting anguifh.] The German manufcript reads a lasting pain, but the rhime will not admit it.

Verse the second. For Belvidera I endure.] Did not all the manufcripts reclaim, I fhould change Belvidera into Pelvidera; Pelvis being ufed by feveral of the ancient comick writers for a looking-glafs, by which means the etymology of the word is very vifible, and Pelvidera will fignify a lady, who often looks in her glafs; as indeed the had very good reafon, if fhe had all thofe beauties which our poet here afcribes to her.

Verfe the third. Hourly I figh, and hourly languish.] Some for the word hourly read daily, and others nighty; the laft has great authorities of its fide.

Verse the fourth. The wonted cure.] The elder Stevens reads wanted cure.

Stanza the fourth, verfe the fecond. After a thoufand beauties.] In feveral copies we meet with a hundred beauties, by the ufual error of the transcribers, who probably omitted a cypher, and had not talle enough to know that the word thousand was ten times a greater compliment to the poet's miftrefs than an hundred.

Verfe the fourth. And finds variety in one.] Most of the ancient manufcripts have it in two. Indeed fo many of them concur in this laft reading, that I am very much in doubt whether it ought not to take place. There are but two reafons which incline me to the reading as I have published it; First, becaufe the rhime, and, fecondly, because the fenfe is preferved by it. It might likewife proceed from the ofcitancy of tranfcribers, who, to dispatch their work the fooner, ufed to write all

number

numbers in cyphers, and feeing the figure 1 followed by a little dafh of the pen, as is customary in old manufcripts, they perhaps mistook the dafh for a fecond figure, and by cafting up both together, compofed out of them the figure 2. But this I fhall leave to the learned, without determining any thing in a matter of fo great uncertainty. C

N° 471

Saturday, August 30.

Ἐν ἐλπίσιν χρὴ τὰς σοφὸς βιῦν.

The wife with hope fupport the pains of life.

THE

Euripid.

HE time prefent feldom affords fufficient employment to the mind of man. Objects of pain or pleafure, love or admiration, do not lie thick enough together in life to keep the foul in conftant action, and fupply an immediate exercife to its faculties. In order, therefore, to remedy this defect, that the mind. may not want bufinefs, but always have materials for thinking, fhe is endowed with certain powers, that can recal what is paffed, and anticipate what is to come.

That wonderful faculty, which we call the memory, is perpetually looking back, when we have nothing prefent to entertain us. It is like thofe repofitories in feveral animals that are filled with ftores of their former food, on which they may ruminate when their prefent pafture fails.

As the memory relieves the mind in her vacant moments, and prevents any chafms of thought by ideas of what is past, we have other faculties that agitate and employ her for what is to come. These are the paffions of hope and fear.

By these two paffions we reach forward into futurity, and bring up to our prefent thoughts objects that lie hid in the remotest depths of time. We fuffer mi

N 3

fory,

fery, and enjoy happiness, before they are in being; we can fet the fun and ftars forward, or lofe fight of them by wandring into thofe retired parts of eternity, when the heavens and earth fhall be no more.

By the way, who can imagine that the existence of a creature is to be circumfcribed by time, whose thoughts are not? But I fhall, in this paper, confine my felf to that particular paffion which goes by the name of hope.

Our actual enjoyments are fo few and tranfient, that man would be a very miferable Being, were he not endowed with this paffion, which gives him a taste of thofe good things that may poffibly come into his poffeffion. We should hope for every thing that is good, fays the old poet Linus, because there is nothing which may not be hoped for, and nothing but what the Gods are able to give us. Hope quickens all the fill parts of life, and keeps the mind awake in her most remifs and indolent hours. It gives habitual ferenity and good humour. It is a kind of vital heat in the foul, that cheers and gladdens her, when she does not attend to it. It makes pain eafy, and labour pleafant.

is

Befide these feveral advantages which rife from bope, there is another which is none of the least, and that is, its great efficacy in preferving us from fetting too high a value on prefent enjoyments. The faying of Cajar very well known. When he had given away, all his eftate in gratuities among his friends, one of them asked what he had left for himself; to which that great man replied, Hope. His natural magnanimity hindered him from prizing what he was certainly poffeffed of, and turned all his thoughts upon fomething more valuable that he had in view. I question not but every reader will draw a moral from this ftory, and apply it to himfelf without my direction.

The old ftory of Pandora's box (which many of the learned believe was formed among the Heathens upon the tradition of the fall of man) fhews us how deplorable a state they thought the prefent life, without hope: To fet forth the utmost condition of mifery they tell us, that our forefather, according to the Pagan theology, had a great veffel prefented him by Pandora: Upon his lifting

lifting up the lid of it, fays the fable, there flew out all the calamities and diftempers incident to men, from which, till that time, they had been altogether exempt. Hope, who had been inclofed in the cup with fo much bad company, inftead of flying off with the reft, stuck fo close to the lid of it, that it was fhut down upon her.

I fhall make but two reflexions upon what I have hitherto faid. First, that no kind of life is fo happy as that which is full of hope, efpecially when the hope is well grounded, and when the object of it is of an exalted kind, and in its nature proper to make the perfon happy who enjoys it. This propofition must be very evident to thofe who confider how few are the prefent enjoyments of the moft happy man, and how infufficient to give him an intire fatisfaction and acquiefcence in them.

My next obfervation is this, that a religious life is that which most abounds in a well-grounded hope, and fuch an one as is fixed on objects that are capable of making us entirely happy. This hope in a religious man is much. more fure and certain than the hope of any temporal bleffing, as it is ftrengthened not only by reafon, but by faith. It has at the fame time its eye perpetually fixed on that ftate, which implies in the very notion of it the moft full and the most complete happiness.

I have before fhewn how the influence of hope in general fweetens life, and makes our prefent condition fupportable, if not pleasing; but a religious hope has ftill greater advantages. It does not only bear up the mind under her fufferings, but makes her rejoice in them, as they may be the inftruments of procuring her the great and ultimate end of all her hope.

Religious hope has likewife this advantage above any other kind of hope, that it is able to revive the dying man, and to fill his mind not only with fecret comfort and refreshment, but fometimes with rapture and tranfport. He triumphs in his agonies, whilft the foul fprings forward with delight to the great object which the has always had in view, and leaves the body with an expectation of being re-united to her in a glorious and joyful refurrection.

I shall conclude this effay with those emblematical expreffions of a lively hope, which the Pfalmift made use of in the midst of those dangers and adverfities which furrounded him; for the following paffage had its prefent and perfonal, as well as its future and prophetick fenfe. I have fet the Lord always before me: Because he is at my right hand I shall not be moved. Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoiceth: my flesh alfo fhall rest in hope. For thou wilt not leave my foul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine holy one to see corruption. Thou wilt fhew me the path of life: in thy prefence there is fulness of joy, at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore. C

Monday, September 1.

N° 472

Voluptas

Solamenque mali

Virg. Æn. 3. V. 660.

I

This only folace his hard fortune fends.

DRYDEN.

Received fome time ago a propofal, which had a preface to it, wherein the author discoursed at large of the innumerable objects of charity in a nation, and admonished the rich, who were afflicted with any distemper of body, particularly to regard the poor in the fame fpecies of affliction, and confine their tendernefs to them, fince it is impoffible to affift all who are prefented to them. The propofer had been relieved from a malady in his eyes by an operation performed by Sir William Read, and being a man of condition, had taken a refolution to maintain three poor blind men during their lives, in gratitude for that great bleffing. This misfortune is fo very great and unfrequent, that one would think, an establishment for all the poor under it might be easily accomplished, with the addition of a very few others to those wealthy who are in the

fame