So far indeed these objectors may be right, that, considered as a matter of mere sensation, as that faculty by which instant and immediate pleasure is received from beauty, taste has no absolute criterion. We cannot apply to it any standard, till we regard it as a matter of discernment, as related to the brightest and purest capacities of the soul, as consisting not of an organical impulse, but in the reflex operations of the mind."

This is all I can recollect of our traveller's discourse on this delicate and difficult subject, to which I know my readers are welcome, if they can discover any thing pleasing or new in the argument. It was natural for this exertion of my memory to put all my thoughts into motion on the subject; and it is my intention to publish the result in a future paper, if I can remember the progeny of my own mind, as well as that of my travelled friend.

N° 75. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 19.

Cur valle permutem Sabinâ

Divitias operosiores?

Why leave my little Sabine field,

HORAT.

For cumbrous wealth, so hard to wield?

I HAVE always been forcibly struck with the amiable colours in which Christianity has dressed the virtue of contentedness; and consider it as one of those peculiar excellencies which it possesses above the imperfect system of heathen morality. A kind of gloomy resignation, very wide of true contentment, was inculcated by the philosophy of the ancients, grounded on the fruitlessness and impiety of murmuring against the dispensations of the gods, and on the general necessity of unequal conditions among mankind. The querulous were silenced without being satisfied, and awed without being convinced. But the Christian religion, by the grander prospects which it has opened to us of a future recompence, has made these temporary inequalities of much less account; and, by the awful conditions of an eternity of pain or pleasure, has taught us to see danger in abundance, and consolation in want. Christianity breathes no defiance to nature, by endeavouring to destroy our inborn propensities; but proposes only a change of objects, by which, under proper exercise, these propensities may become the source of solid advantage.

Man, under the severe discipline of philosophy, learns indeed to subdue his desires, and to controul his feelings: he learns to look upon life with apathy, and to rear a sullen satisfaction on a basis of scorn. He is led by a string of maxims, and is forging fetters for himself, while he triumphs in the freedom he is gaining he is frittering away the best part of his nature, while he thinks he is only reasoning down his passions and his prejudices. But Christianity knows the value of all the energies of our minds too well to destroy them; and, instead of petrifying them into torpid stillness, gives them a kinder action and benigner impulse, by directing them towards objects on which they cannot be too much exerted-on objects which irritate and inflame by no disappointments, which inspire complacency while they exercise the feelings, which purify our enjoyment while they dilate our capacities of pleasure, and which cool the ardours without refrigerating the system of life, or damping the charities of the heart.

It is by reasoning on those principles which Christianity has promulged, that our eyes are so strengthened as to pierce the veil of opulence and splendor, to separate truth from appearance, and grandeur from greatness, till we look back upon our own littleness with secret exultation. We learn from the same source, that were our sight still farther strengthened, could we contemplate the circumstances of life with those eyes with which we probably may regard them from our place of observation in another state, in what an inverted order the objects of our contemplation would present themselves! Greatness sunk into the squalidest ranks of infamy, and poverty shining in robes of purple! a new race of shepherdkings; and princesses again drawing water from a well, as in the days of Homer!

My greatest quarrel with discontentedness is on the account of its base submission to the dictates and decrees of other men. We are in general dissatisfied with our lot, not because we feel it to be uneasy, but because we think it appears so to others. Any particular distress, or specific ground of sorrow, I separate from the character of discontentedness, which implies a habit of repining, built on a general comparison of our own condition with that of other men: and this is a quality so much the more contemptible, as it is not the genuine offspring of our own minds, not the legitimate result of our natural reason, but the bastard issue of vulgar ignorance, adopted by pride, and fostered by envy. I have ever, in my passage through life, consulted the frame of my mind; and balancing it against my exterior circumstances, have found them equal to the rate of ability 1 possess, and have been content.

It is with individuals as it is with society; that state is the happiest to man, in his collective character, in which he can best exercise his natural capacity for improvement-a state of society, fitted to draw out the social energies of his mind, adapted to his local wants, and suited to his physical character and complexion. So, in his individual capacity, that state is really the most eligible which is best calculated to foster his good inclinations, and to turn his talents to account; that which is most proportioned to the reach of his mind, and which exacts nothing beyond the promise of his intellect-in a word, which produces that harmony and equilibrium, that mutual action between the external and internal condition of the man, without which we must expect eccentricities and anomalies of conduct, and at the best an unsteady course of morality, and irregular fruits of virtue. With such a rule and measure to direct us,

we are most of us able to mark out a scheme of happiness for ourselves, and discover that this our great aim does not exist in the abstract of life, not in a certain list of objects, a certain denomination of enjoyments; but is conditional, complexional, and relative; must be considered with a reference to some specific state or condition of man, and must be estimated by certain laws of proportion, which take into calculation much of the detail of life.

I am much pleased with a passage from Antoninus Pius, that touches upon my present subject, both the Greek and English of which I shall here present to my readers. Φυσις δε ισες κατ' αξίαν τες μερισμός χρόνων, εσίας, αίτις, ενεργειας, συμβάσεως, εκα τοις ποιείται σκόπει δε, μη ει το προς το εν ισον ευρήσεις επι παντος, αλλά ει συλλήβδην τα πανία τε δε, προς αθρόας Ta T8 Eleg8.-" If we take into consideration the different situations and exigencies of life, we shall find that nature has made a proportionate distribution of time, matter, form, faculty, and opportunity. But you will not perceive this by partial views of particular subjects, but on comparing the wholes together."

It will sometimes happen, indeed, that great abilities are found in low situations; but this does not always justify discontent with the arrangements and dispositions of society; it is oftener attributable to some certain disqualifications with which these abilities are accompanied, or some alloy by which they are debased; to some reasons, in short, which should turn our reproaches inwards, and inspire discontent, not with mankind or the order of things, but with ourselves and the disorder of our own minds. Let it be remembered too, that the powers of man may be easily overcharged, though gigantic in their strength, by the duties and responsibilities of great situations;