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dispatched into heaven by a paffport from Pleasure,, there to dwell with Happinefs, Virtue, and the Gods.

V. Sir Roger de Goverley's Family.

HAVING often received an invitation from my friend! Sir Roger de Coverley to país away a month with him in the country, I laft week accompanied him thither, and am fettled with him for fome time at his · country-house, where I intend to form feveral of my en fuing fpeculations. Sir Roger, who is very well acquainted with my humour, lets me rife and go to bed. when I please, dine at his own table or in my chamber as I think fit, fit ftill and fay nothing without bidding. me be merry, When the gentlemen of the country come to see him, he only fhows me at a diftance. As I have been walking in his fields, I have obferved them: ftealing a fight of me over an hedge, and have heard. the knight defiring them not to let me fee them, for that I hated to be ftared at.

I am the more at eafe in Sir Roger's family, becaufe it confifts of fober and laid perfons: for as the knight is the best master in the world, he feldom changes his fervants; and as he is beloved by all about him, his fervants never care for leaving him; by which means his domestics are all in years, and grown old with their mafter. You would take his valet-de-chambre for his brother, his butler is grey-headed, his groom is one of the graveft men I have ever feen, and his coachman has the looks of a privy-counfellor. You fee the goodness of the mafter even in the old houfe-dog, and in a gray pad that is kept in the ftable with great care and tenderness out of regard to his paft fervices,, though he has been ufclefs for feveral years..

I could not but obferve with a great deal of pleasure, the joy that appeared in the countenances of these ancient domeftics upon my friend's arrival at kis countryfeat. Some of them.could not refrain from tears at the fight of their old mafter; every one of them preffed forward to do fomething for him, and feemed difcouraged if they were not employed. At the fame time the good old knight, with a mixture of the father and the mafter of the family, tempered the inquiries after his own af

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fairs

fairs with feveral kind queftions relating to themfelves. This humanity and good-nature engages every body to him; fo that when he is pleasant upon any of them, all his family are in good humour, and none fo much as the perfon whom he diverts himfelf with: on the contrary, if he coughs, or betrays any infirmity of old age, it is eafy for a ftander-by to obferve a fecret concern in the looks of all his fervants.

My worthy friend has put me under the particular care of his butler, who. is a very prudent man, and, as well as the rest of his fellow-fervants, wonderfully defi rous of pleafing me, because they have often heard their master talk of me as of his particular friend.

My chief companion, when Sir Roger is diverting himself in the woods or the fields, is a very venerable man, who is ever with Sir Roger, and has lived at his houfe in the nature of a chaplain above thirty years. This gentleman is a perfon of good fenfe and fome learning, of a very regular life and obliging converfation : he heartily loves Sir Roger, and knows that he is very much in the old knight's esteem ;*fo that he lives in the family rather as a relation than a dependant.

I have obferved in feveral of my papers, that my friend Sir Roger, amidst all his good qualities, is fome thing of an humourift; and that his virtues, as well as imperfections, are as it were tinged by a certain extravagance, which makes them particularly his, and diftinguishes them from thofe of other men. This cast of mind, as it is generally very innocent in itself, so it renders his converfation highly agreeable, and more delightful than the fame degree of fenfe and virtue would appear in their common and ordinary colours. As I was walking with him last night, he asked me how I liked the good man whom I have just now mentioned: and, without ftaying for my anfver, told me, that he was afraid of being infulted with Latin and Greek at his own table; for which reafon he defired a particular friend of his at the univerfity to find him out a clergyman rather of plain fenfe than much learning, of a good afpeet, a clear voice, a fociable temper; and, if poffible, a man that understood a little of back-gammon. My friend, fays Sir Roger, found me out this gentle.

man;

man; who, befides the endowments required of kim, is, they tell me, a good fcholar, though he does not fhow it. I have given him the parfonage of the parish; and because I know his value, have fettled upon him a good annuity for life. If he outlives me, he fhall find that he was higher in my esteem than perhaps he thinks he is. He has now been with me thirty years; and though he does not know I have taken notice of it, has never in all that time afked any thing of me for himself, though he is every day foliciting me for fomething in behalf of one or other of my tenants his parishioners. There has not been a law-fuit in the parifh fince he has lived among them. If any difpute arifes, they apply themselves to him for the decifion: if they do not acquiefce in his judgment, which I think never happened above once or twice at moft, they appeal to me. At his first fettling with me, I made him a prefent of all the good fermons which have been printed in English; and only begged of him, that every Sunday he would pronounce one of them in the pulpit. Accordingly he has digefted them into fuch a feries, that they follow one another naturally, and make a continued fyftem of practical divinity.

As Sir Roger was going on in his ftory, the gentleman we were talking of came up to us; and upon the Knight's afking him who preached to-morrow (for it was Saturday night), told us the Bifhop of St Afaph in the morning, and Dr South in the afternoon. He then showed us his lift of preachers for the whole year; where I faw, with a great deal of pleasure, Archbishop Tillotson, Bifhop Saunderfon, Dr Barrow, Dr Calamy, with feveral living authors who have publifhed difcourfes of practical divinity. I no fooner faw this venerable man in the pulpit, but I very much approved of my friend's infifting upon the qualifications of a good afpect and a clear voice; for I was fo charmed with the gracefulness of his figure and delivery, as well as with the difcourfes he pronounced, that I think I never paffed any time more to my fatisfaction. A fermion repeated after this manner, is like the compofition of a poet in the mouth of a graceful actor.

VI. The

VI. The Folly of inconfiftent Expectations.

THIS world may be confidered as a great mart of commerce, where fortune expofes to our view various commodities, riches, eafe, tranquillity, fame, integrity, knowledge. Every thing is marked at a fettled price. Our time, our labour, our ingenuity, is fo much ready money which we are to lay out to the best advantage. Examine, compare, choose, reject: but ftand to your own judgment; and do not, like children, when you have purchased one thing, repine that you do not poffefs another which you did not purchase. Such is the force of well-regulated induftry, that a steady and vigorous exertion of our faculties, directed to one end, will generally infure fuccefs. Would you, for instance, be rich? Do you think that fingle point worth the facrificing every thing elfe to? You may then be rich. Thoufands have become fo from the loweft beginnings, by toil, and patient diligence, and attention to the minutest articles of expence and profit. But you must give up the pleafures of leífure, of a vacant mind, of a free unfufpicious temper. If you preferve your integrity, it must be a coarse-fpun and vulgar honefty. Thofe high and. lofty notions of morals which you brought with you from the fchools must be confiderably lowered, and mixed with the bafer alloy of a jealous and worldly-minded prudence. You muft learn to do hard, if not unjust things; and, for the nice embaraffments of a delicate and ingenuous fpirit, it is neceflary for you to get rid of them as faft as poffible. You must fhut your heart against the Mufes, and be content to feed your understanding with plain household truths. In fhort, you must not attempt to enlarge your ideas, or polifh your taste, or refine your fentiments; but mult keep on in one beaten track, without turning afide either to the right hand or to the left.

"But I cannot submit to drudgery like this-I feel a fpirit above it." "Tis well be above it then; only do not repine that you are not rich.

Is knowledge the pearl of price?. That, too, may be purchafed-by fteady application, and long folitary hours of ftudy and reflection. Beftow thefe, and you fhall be learned. "But," fays the man of letters, "what a hard

fhip is it, that many an illiterate fellow, who cannot conftrue the motto of the arms of his coach, fhall raile a fortune and make a figure, while I have little more than the common conveniencies of life!" Was it in order to raife a fortune that you confumed the fprightly hours of youth in study and retirement? Was it to be rich that you grew pale over the midnight-lamp, and diftilled the fweetnefs from the Greek and Roman fpring? You have then mistaken your path, and ill employed your induftry. What reward have I then for all my labours ?" What reward! A large comprehenfive foul, well pur ged from vulgar fears, and perturbations, and prejudices; able to comprehend and interpret the works of manof God. A rich, flourishing, cultivated mind, pregnant. with inexhaustible ftores of entertainment and reflection A perpetual spring of fresh ideas, and the confcious dignity of fuperiour intelligence. Good Heaven! and, what reward can you ask besides ?.

But is it not fome reproach upon the economy of Providence, that fuch a one, who is a mean dirty fellow, fhould have amaffed wealth enough to buy half a nation?" Not in the leaft. He made himself a mean dirty fellow for that very end. He has paid his health, his confcience, his liberty, for it; and will you envy his bar gain? Will you hang your head and blufh in his prefence becaufe he outfhines you in equipage and fhow? Lift up your brow with a noble confidence, and fay to yourfelf, "I have not thefe things, it is true; but it is because I have not fought, because I have not defired them; it is because I poffefs fomething better: I have chofen my lot; I am content and fatisfied."

You are a modeft man-you love quiet and indepen dence, and have a delicacy and referve in your temper which renders it impoffible for you to elbow your way in the world, and be the herald of your own merits. Be content, then, with a modeft retirement, with the esteem of your intimate friends, with the praifes of a blameless heart, and a delicate ingenuous fpirit; but refign the fplendid diftinctions of the world to those who can better fcramble for them.

The man, whofe tender fenfibility of confcience and ftrict regard to the rules of morality make him fcrupu

lous

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