noble chance; and there is nothing in this worth our thoughts or our paffions. If we should be disappointed, we are still no worse than the rest of our fellowmortals; and if we fucceed in our expectations we all eternally happy”.

SPECTATOR, Vol. II. No. 143. T.

I have always preferred cheerfulness to mirth; the latter I confiderasan act, the former as an habit of the mind. Mirth is fhort and tranfient, cheerfulness fixed and permanent. Thofe are often raifed into the greatest tranfports of mirth, who are fubject to the greatest depreffions of melancholy on the contrary, cheerfulnefs, though it does not give the mind fuch an exquifite gladnefs, prevents us from falling into any depths of forrow. Mirth is like a flash of lightning, that breaks through a gloom of clouds, and glitters for a moment: cheerfulness keeps up a kind of day-light in the mind, and fills it with a steady and perpetual ferenity.

Cheerfulness of mind is of a ferious and compofed nature; it does not throw the mind into a condition improper for the prefent ftate of humanity, and is very confpicuous in the characters of thofe who are looked upon as the greatest philofophers among the heathens, as well as among thofe who have been deserved. ly esteemed as faints and holy men among Christians.

If we confider cheerfulness in three lights, with regard to ourselves, to those we converfe with, and to the great author of our Being, it will not a little recommend itself on each of thefe accounts. The man who is poffeffed of this excellent frame of mind, is not only eafy in his thoughts, but a perfect mafter of all the powers and faculties of his foul. His imagination is always clear, and his judgement undisturbed: His temper is even and unruffled, whether in action or in folitude. He comes with a relish to all thofe goods which nature has provided for him, taftes all the pleasures of the creation which are poured about him, and does not feel the full weight of thofe accidental evils which may befall him.

If we confider him in relation to the perfons whom he converses with, it naturally produces love and good will towards him. A cheerful mind is not only difpofed to be affable and obliging, but raifes the fame good humour in those who come within its influence. A man finds himself pleafed, he does not know why, with the cheerfulness of his companion. It is like a fudden funfhine that awakens a cheerful delight in the mind, without her attending to it. The heart rejoices of its own accord, and naturally flows out into friendfhip and benevolence towards the perfon who has fo kindly an effect upon it.

An

When I confider this cheerful state of mind in its third relation, I cannot but look upon it as a conftant habitual gratitude to the great author of nature. inward cheerfulness is an implicit praise and thankfgiving to Providence under all its difpenfations. It is a kind of acquiefcence in the ftate wherein we are placed, and a fecret approbation of the Divine Will in his conduct towards man.

A man who uses his beft endeavours to live according to the dictates of virtue and right reafon, has two perpetual fourses of cheerfulness in the confideration of his own nature, and of that Being on whom he has a dependance. If he looks into himself, he cannot. but rejoice in that existence which is fo lately beftowed upon him, and which, after millions of ages, will be ftill new, and ftill in its beginning. How many felfcongratulations naturally arife in the mind, when it reflects on this its entrance into eternity, when it takes a view of thofe improveable faculties which in a few years, and even at its firft fetting out, have made fo confiderable a progrefs, and which will be still receiving an increase of perfection, and confequently an increase of happiness! The confcioufnefs of fuch a being fpreads a perpetual diffufion of joy through the foul of a virtuous man, and makes him look upon himself every moment as more happy than he knows

how to conceive.

The fecond fource of cheerfulness to a good mind, is its confideration of that Being on whom we have S

our dependance, and in whom, though we behold him as yet in the first faint discoveries of his perfections, we fee every thing that we can imagine as great, glorious, or amiable. We find ourselves every where upheld by his goodness, and furrounded with an immenfity of love and mercy. In fhort, we depend upon a Being, whose power qualifies him to make us happy. by an infinite means, whofe goodness and truth engage him to make thofe happy who defire it of him, and whofe unchangeableness will fecure us in this happinefs to all eternity.

Such confiderations, which every one fhould perpetually cherish in his thoughts, will banifh from us all that fecret heavinefs of heart which unthinking men are fubject to, when they lie under no real afflic tion; all that anguifh which we may feel from any evil which actually oppreffes us, to which I may likewife add those little cracklings of mirth and folly that are apter to betray virtue than fupport it; and establifh in us fuch an even and cheerful temper, as makes us pleafing to ourselves, to those with whom we converfe, and to Him whom we were made to please.

SPECTATOR, Vol. V. No. 391. I.

A cheerful temper joined with innocence will make beauty attractive, knowledge delightful, and wit goodnatured. It will lighten fickness, poverty, and afflic tion, convert ignorance into an amiable fimplicity, and render deformity itself agreeable.

TATLER, Vol. IV. No. 192.

CHERUBIMS AND SERAPHIMS.

SOME of the Rabbins tell us, that the Cherubims

are a fet of angels who know mot, and the Seraphims a fet of angels who love moft. Whether this diftinction be not altogether imaginary, I fhall not here examine; but it is highly probable, that among the fpirits of good men, there may be fome who will be more pleafed with the employment of one faculty

than of another, and this perhaps according to thofe virtuous habits or inclinations which have here taken

the deepest root,

SPECTATOR, Vol. VIII. No. 600.

CHILDREN.

Mr. SPECTATOR,

As your papers is part of the equipage of the tea

table, I conjure you to print what I now write to you; for I have no other way to communicate what I have to fay to the fair fex, on the most important circumftances of life, even the care of children. I do not understand that you profefs your paper is always to confift of matters which are only to entertain the learned and polite, but that it may agree with your defign to publifh fome which may tend to the infor mation of mankind in general; and when it does fo, you do more than writing wit and humour. Give me leave then to tell you, that of all the abuses that ever you have as yet endeavoured to reform, certainly not one wanted fo much your affiftance as the abufe in nurfing children. It is unmerciful to fee, that a woman endowed with all the perfections and bleffings of nature, can, as foon as fhe is delivered, turn off her innocent tender and helpless infant, and give it up to a woman that is (ten thoufand to one) neither in health nor good condition, neither found in mind nor body, that has neither honour nor reputation, neither love nor pity for the poor babe, but more regard for the money than the whole child, and never will take farther care of it than what by all the encouragement of money and prefents fhe is forced to; like fop's earth, which would not nurfe the plant of another ground, although never fo much improved, by reason that plant was not of its own production. And fince another child is no more natural to a nurse, than a plant to a ftrange and different ground, how can it be fuppofed that the child fhould thrive? And if it thrives, muft it not im

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ADDISONIAN MISCELLANY.

bibe the grofs humours and qualities of the nurse, like bibe thin a different ground or like a graft upon a difobferve, that a lamb fucking much its nature, nay, even its fkin ferent ftock? Do not we

2

a goat changes very!

and wool into the goat kind? The power of a nurse qualities and difpofition, is fufficiently and daily obever a child, by intufing into it, with her milk, her ferved. Hence came that old faying concerning an ill-natured and malicious fellow, that he had imbibed his malace with his nurfe's milk, or that fome brute or other had been his nurse.

Hence Romulus and Re

were faid to have been nurfed by a wolf, Telephus the fon of Hercules by a hind, Peleus the fon of Neptune by a mare, and gifthus by a goat; not that they had actually fucked thofe creatures, as fome fimpletons have imagined, but that their nurfes had been fuch a nature and temper, and infused fuch into them.

Many inftances may be produced from good authorities and daily experience, that children actually fuck in the feveral paffions and depraved inclinations of their nurfes; as anger, malace, fear, melancholy, fadnefs, defire, and averfion. This Diodorus, Lib. 2. witneffeth when he speaks, faying, that Nero the em peror's nurfe, had been very much addicted to drinking; which habit Nero. received from his nurse, and was fo very particular in this that the people took fo much notice of it, as inftead of Tibetius Nero, they called him Biberius Nero. The fame Diodorus alfo relates of Caligula, predeceffor to Nero, that his nurse used to moiften the nipples of her breaft frequently with blood, to make Caligula take the better hold of them ; which, fays Diodorus, was the caufe that made him fo bloodthirfty and cruel all his life-time after, that he not only committed frequent murder by his own hand, but likewife wished that all human kind wore but one neck, that he might have the pleasure to cut it off. Such like degeneracies aftonish the parents, who not knowing after whom the child can take, fee one incline to tealing, another to drinking, cruelty, stupidity; yet. all thefe are not minded. Nay, it is eafy to demonftrate, that a child, although it be born from the beft