fierceness of a party; of doing justice to the character of a deserving man; of softening the envious, quieting the angry, and rectifying the prejudiced; which are all of them employments suited to a reasonable nature, and bring great satisfaction to the person who can busy himself in them with discretion.

8. There is another kind of virtue that may find employment for those retired hours in which we are altogcther left to ourselves, and destitute of company and conversation: I mean that intercourse and communication which every reasonable creature ought to maintain with the great Author of his being.

9. The man who lives under an habitual sense of the divine presence, keeps up a perpetual cheerfulness of temper, and enjoys every moment the satisfaction of thinking himself in company with the dearest and best of friends. The time never lies heavy upon him; it is impossible for him to be alone.

10. His thoughts and passions are the most busied at such hours when those of other men are the most inactive; he no sooner steps out of the world, but his heart burns with devotion, swells with hope, and triumphs in the consciousness of that presence which every where surrounds him; or, on the contrary, pours out its fears, its sorrows, its apprehensions, to the great supporter of its existence.

11. I have here only considered the necessity of a man's being virtuous that he may have something to do; but if we consider further, that the exercise of virtue is not only an amusement for the time it lasts, but that its influence extends to those parts of our existence which lie beyond the grave, and that our whole eternity is to take its colour from those hours which we here employ in virtue or in vice, the argument redoubles upon us, for putting in practice this method of passing away our time.

12. When a man has but a little stock to improve, and has opportunities of turning it all to a good account, what shall we think of him if he suffers nineteen parts of it to lie dead, and perhaps employs even the twentieth to his ruin or disadvantage? But because the mind cannot be always in its fervour, nor strained up to a pitch of virtue, it is necessary to find out proper employments for it in its relaxations.

13. The next method therefore that I would propose to fill up our time, should be useful and innocent diversion. I must confess I think it is below reasonable creatures to be altogether conversant in such diversions as are merely innocent, and having nothing else to reccommend them but that there is no hurt in them.

14. Whether any kind of gaming has even thus much to say for itself I shall not determine; but I think it is very wonderful to see persons of the best sense, passing away a dozen hours together in shuffling and dividing a pack of cards, with no other conversation but what is made up of a few game phrases, and no other ideas but hose of black or red spots ranged together in diffierent figures. Would not a man laugh to hear any one of his species complaining that life is short.

15. The stage might be made a perpetual source of the most noble and useful en'ertainments, were it under proper regulations.

But the mind never unbends itself so agreeably as in the conversation of a well-chosen friend. There is indeed no blessing of life that is any way comparable to the enjoyment of a discreet and virtuous friend. It eases and unloads the mind, clears and improves the understanding, engenders thoughts and knowledge, animates virtue and good resolution, sooths and allays the passions, and finds employment for most of the vacant hours of life.

16. Next to such an intimacy with a particular person, one would endeavour after a more general conversation with such as are able to entertain and improve those with whom they converse, which are qualifications that seldom go asunder.

There are many other useful amusements of life, which one would endeavour to multiply, that one might on all occasions have recourse to something rather than suffer the mind to lie idle, or run adrift with any passion that chances to rise in it.

17. A man that has a taste in music, painting, or architecture, is like ane that has another sense when compared with such as have no relish for those arts. The florist, the planter,the gardener, the husbandman, when they are only as accomplishments to the man of fortune, are great

reliefs to a country life, and many ways useful to those who are possessed of them.

SPECTATOR, No. 93.

18. I WAS yesterday busy in comparing together the industry of man with that of other creatures; in which I could not but observe, that notwithstanding we are obliged by duty to keep ourselves in constant employ, after the same manner as inferior animals are prompted to it by instinct, we fall very short of them in this particular. 19. We are the more inexcusable, because there is a greater variety of business to which we may apply ourselves. Reason opens to us a large field of affairs, which other creatures are not capable of. Beasts of prey, and I believe all other kinds, in their natural state of being, divide their time between action and rest. They are always. at work or asleep. In short, their awaking hours are wholly taken up in seeking after their food, or in consuming it.

20. The human species only, to the great reproach of our natures are filled with complaints-That the day hangs heavy on them, that they do not know what to do with themselves, that they are at a loss how to pass away their time, with many of the like shameful murmurs, which we often find in the mouth of those who are styled reasonable beings.

21. How monstrous are such expressions among creatures who have the labours of the mind as well as those of the body to furnish them with proper employments; who, besides the business of their proper callings and professions, can apply themselves to the duties of religion, to meditation, to the reading of useful books, to discourse; in a word, who may exercise themselves in the unbounded pursuits of knowledge and virtue, and every hour of their lives make themselves wiser or better than they were before.

22. After having been taken up for some time in this course of thought, I diverted myself with a book, according to my usual custom, in order to unbend my mind be. fore I went to sleep. The book I made use of on this occasion was Lucian, where I amused my thoughts for about an hour among the dialogues of the dead, which in all probability produced the following dream:

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23. I was conveyed, methought, into the entrance of

the infernal regions, where I saw Rhadamanthus, one of the judges of the dead, seated in his tribunal. On his left hand stood the keeper of Erebus, on his right the keeper of Elysium. I was told he sat upon women that day, there being several of the sex lately arrived, who had not yet their mansions assigned them.

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24. I was surprised to hear him ask every one of them the same question, namely, What they had been doing? Upon this question being proposed to the whole assembly, they stared upon one another, as not knowing what to answer. He then interrogated each of them separately. Madam, says he to the first of them, you have been upon the earth about fifty years: what have you been doing there all this while? Doing, says she, really I do not know what I have been doing: I desire I may have time given me to recollect.

25. After about half an hour's pause, she told him that she had been playing at crimp: upon which Rhadamanthus beckoned to the keeper on his left hand, to take her into custody. And you, Madam, says the judge, that look with such a soft and languishing air; I think you set out for this place in your nine and twentieth year; what have you been doing all this while? I had a great deal of business on my hands, says she, being taken up the first twelve years of my life in dressing a jointed baby, and all the remaining part of it in reading plays and romances.

26. Very well, says he, you have employed your time to good purpose. Away with her. The next was a plain country woman: Well, mistress, says Rhadamanthus, and what have you been doing? An't please your worship, says she, I did not live quite forty years; and in that time brought my husband seven daughters, made him nine thousand cheeses, and left my eldest girl with him to look after his house in my absence, and who, I may venture to say, is as pretty a housewife as any in the country. 27. Rhadamanthus smiled at the simplicity of the good woman, and ordered the keeper of Elysium to take her into his care. And yeu, fair lady, says he, what have you been doing these five and thirty years? I have been doing no hurt, I assure you sir, said she. That is well, says he, but what good have you been doing? The lady was in great confusion at this question,and not knowing what to answer

the two keepers leaped out to seize her at the same time; the one took her by the hand to convey her to Elysium: the other caught hold of her to carry her away to Erebus,

28. But Rhadamanthus observing an ingenious modesty in her countenance and behaviour, bid them both let her loose, and set or aside for a re-examination when he was more at leisure. An old woman, of a proud and sour look, presented herself next at the bar, and being asked what she had been doing? Truly, says she, I lived threescore and ten years in a very wicked world, and was so angry at the behaviour of a parcel of young flirts, that I past most of my last years in condemning the follies of the tines.

29. I was every day blaming the silly conduct of pecple about me, in order to deter those I conversed with from falling into the like errors and miscarriages. Very well, says Rhadamanthus, but did you keep the same watchful eye over your own actions? Why truly, says she, I was so taken up with publishing the faults of others, that I had no time to consider my own.

30. Madam, says Rhadamanthus, be pleased to file off to the left, and make room for the venerable matron that stands behind you. Old gentlewoman, says he, I think you are fourscore? You have heard the question, what have you been doing so long in the world? Ah! sir, says she, I have been doing what I should not have done, but I had made a firm resolution to have changed my life, if I had not been snatched off by an untimely end.

31. Madam, says he, you will please to follow your leader, and spying another of the same age, interrogated her in the same form. To which the matron replied, I have been the wife of a husband, who was as dear to me in his old age as in his youth. I have been a mother, and very happy in my children, whom I endeavoured to bring up in every thing that is good.

32. My eldest son is blest by the poor, and beloved by every one that knows him. I lived within my own family, and left it much more wealthy than I found it. Rhadamanthus, who knew the value of the old lady, smiled upon her in such a manner, that the keeper of Elysium, who knew his office, reached out his hand to her. He no sooner touched her but her wrinkles vanished, her eyes sparkled, her cheeks glowed with blushes, and she appeared in full bloom and beauty.