A Y XIV. ESSAY AGE, that leffens the enjoyment of life, increases our defire of living. Thofe dangers which, in the vigour of youth, we had learned to defpife, affume new terrors as we grow old. Our caution increafing as our years increase, fear becomes at laft the prevailing paffion of the mind; and the fmall remainder of life is taken up in ufelefs ef forts to keep off our end, or provide for a conti nued existence. STRANGE Contradiction in our nature, and to which even the wife are liable! If I should judge of that part of life which lies before me, by that which I have already feen, the prospect is hideous. Experience tells me, that my paft enjoyments have brought no real felicity; and sensation affures me, that those I have felt, are stronger than those which are yet to come. Yet experience and fenfation in vain perfuade; hope, more powerful than either, dreffes out the diftant pro fpect in fancied beauty; fome happiness, in long perfpective, ftill beckons me to pursue; and, like a lofing gamefter, every new difappointment in creafes my ardour to continue the game. WHENCE then is this increased love of life, which grows upon us with our years? whence comes it, that we thus make greater efforts to preferve our exiftence, at a period when it he comes fearce, worth the keeping? Is it that Nas ture, attentive to the prefervation of mankind, increases increases our wishes to live, while fhe leffens our enjoyments? and, as fhe robs the fenfes of every pleafure, equips imagination in the spoils? Life would be infupportable to an old man, who, loaded with infirmities, feared death no more than when in the vigour of manhood: the numberlefs calamities of decaying Nature, and the consciousness of surviving every pleasure, would at once induce him, with his own hand, to terminate the scene of mifery: but, happily, the contempt of death forsakes him at a time when it could only be prejudicial; and life aequires an imaginary value, in proportion as its real value. is no more. OUR attachment to every object around us inereafes, in general, from the length of our acquaintance with it. "I would not choofe," fays a French philofopher, " to fee an old poft pulled "up with which I had been long acquainted." A mind long habituated to a certain fet of objects, infenfibly becomes fond of feeing them; vifits them from habit, and parts from them with reluctance from hence proceeds the avarice of the old in every kind of poffeffion: they love the world, and all that it produces; they love life, and all its advantages; not because it gives them pleasure, but because they have known it long. CHINVANG the Chafte, afcending the throne of China, commanded that all who were unjustly detained in prison, during the preceding reigns, fhould be fet free. Among the number who came to thank their deliverer on this occafion, there appeared a majeftick old man, who, falling at the em peror's feet, addressed him as follows: "Great "father "father of China, behold a wretch, now eigh "ty-five years old, who was fhut up in a dun. geon at the age of twenty-two. I was impri"foned though a ftranger to crime, or without "being even confronted by my accufers. I have "now lived in folitude and darkness for more "than fifty years, and am grown familiar with "diftrefs. As yet dazzled with the fplendor of "that fun to which you have restored me, I "have been wandering the streets to find out "fome friend that would affift, or relieve, or "remember me but my friends, my family, ❝ and relations, are all dead, and I am forgotPermit me then, O Chinvang, to wear " out the wretched remains of life in my for66 mer prifon; the walls of my dungeon are to "me more pleafing than the moft fplendid pa"lace: I have not long to live, and fhall be "unhappy except I spend the reft of my days ❝ ten. where my youth was paffed; in that prifon. "from whence you were pleased to release me.” THE old man's paffion for confinement is fi milar to that we all have for life. We are ha bituated to the prifon, we look round with dif content, are difpleafed with the abode, and yet the length of our captivity only increases our fondness for the cell. The trees we have planted, the houses we have built, or the pofterity we have begotten, all ferve to bind us clofer to the earth, and embitter our parting. Life fues the young like a new acquaintance: the companion, as yet unexhaufted, is at once inftructive and amufing; its company pleases; yet, for all this it is but little regarded. To us, who are declined in years, life appears like an old. old friend; its jefts have been anticipated in former converfation: it hath no new story to make us fmile, no new improvement with which to furprize; yet ftill we love it: deftitute of every enjoyment, ftill we love it; hufband the wafting treasure with increafing frugality, and feel all the poignancy of anguifh in the fatal feparation. SIR PHILIP MORDAUNT was young, beautiful, fincère, brave, an Englishman. He had a complete fortune of his own, and the love of the king his mafter, which was equivalent to riches. Life opened all her treasures before him, and promised a long fucceffion of happiness. He came, tafted of the entertainment, but was difgufted even at the beginning. He profeffed an averfion to living; was tired of walking round the fame circle; had tried every enjoyment, and found them all grow weaker at every repetition. "If life be, in youth, fo difpleafing," cried he to himfelf," what will it appear when age " comes on? If it be at prefent indifferent, fure it will then be execrable." This thought embittered every reflection; till at last, with all the ferenity of perverted reafon, he ended the debate with a piftol! Had this felf-deluded man been apprized, that existence grows more defirable to us the longer we exift, he would then have faced old age without fhrinking; he would have boldly dared to live; and ferved that fociety by his future affiduity, which he basely injured by his desertion.. ESSAY ESSAY XV. FOREIGNERS obferve, that there are no la dies in the world more beautiful or more ill dreffed than thofe of England. Our country women have been compared to thofe pictures, where the face is the work of a Raphael, but the draperies thrown out by fome empty pretender, deftitute of tafte, and entirely unacquainted with defign. If I were a poet, I might obferve, on this occafion, that fo much beauty, fet off with all the advantages of drefs, would be too powerful an antagonift for the oppofite fex; and therefore it was wifely ordered, that our ladies fhould want tafte, left their admirers should entirely want reason. Bur to confefs a truth, I do not find they have a greater averfion to fine clothes than the women of any other country whatsoever. I cannot fancy that a fhopkeeper's wife in Cheapfide has a greater tenderness for the fortune of her husband, than a citizen's wife in Paris; or that mifs in a boarding-fchool is more an economist in dress than mademoiselle in a nunnery. ALTHOUGH Paris may be accounted the foil in which almoft every fashion takes its rife, its influ ence is never fo general there as with us. They ftudy there the happy method of uniting grace and fashion, and never excufe a woman for being awkwardly dreffed, by faying, her clothes are in |