methods as unjustifiable, and will enjoy himself better in a moderate fortune that is gained with honour and reputation, than in an overgrown effate that is cankered with the acquifitions of rapine and exaction. Were all our of fices difcharged with fuch an inflexible integrity, we fhould not fee men in all ages, who grow up to exorbitant wealth with the abilities which are to be met with in an ordinary mechanic. I cannot but think that fuch a corruption proceeds chiefly from men's employing the first that offer themselves, or thofe who have the character of shrewd worldly men, instead of searching out such as have had a liberal education, and have been trained up in the studies of knowledge and virtue. It has been obferved, that men of learning who take to bufiness, discharge it generally with greater honetty than men of the world. The chief reafon for it I take to be as follows. A man that has spent his youth in reading, has been ufed to find virtue extolled, and vice ftigmatized. A man thar has paffed his time in the world, has often feen vice triumphant, and virtue discountenanced. Extortion, rapine, and injuftice, which are branded with infamy in books, often give a man a figure in the world; while feveral qualities which are celebrated in authors, as generofity, ingenuity, and good-nature, impoverish and ruin him. This cannot but have a proportionable effect on men, whofe tempers and principles are equally good and vicious. There would be at least this advantage in employing men of learning and parts in bufinefs, that their profperity would fit more gracefully on them, and that we should not fee many worthless perfons fhot up into the greatest figures of life. C N° CCCCLXX. FRIDAY, AUGUST 29. TURPE EST DIFFICILES HABERE NUGAS, MART. EPIG. LXXXVI. L. 2. V. 9. 'TIS FOLLY ONLY, AND DEFECT OF SENSE, Have been very often difappointed of late years, upon examining the new edition of a claffic author, I have found above half the volume taken up with various readings. When I have expected to meet with a learned note upon a doubtful paffage in a Latin poet, I have only been informed, that fuch or fuch ancient manufcripts for an et write an ac, or of fome other notable difcovery of the like importance. Indeed, when a different reading gives us a different fenfe, or a new elegance in an author, the editor does very well in taking notice of it; but when he only entertains us with the feveral ways of fpelling the fame word, and gathers together the various blunders and mistakes of twenty or thirty different tranfcribers, they only take up the time of the learned reader, and puzzle the minds of the ignorant. I have often fancied with myfelf how enraged an old Latin author would be, fhould he fee the feveral abfurdities in fenfe and grammar, which are imputed to him by fome or other of thefe various readings. In one he (peaks nonfenfe; in another makes ufe of a word that was never heard of: and indeed there is fcarce a folecifm in writing which the best writer is not guilty of, if we may be at liberty to read him in the words of fome manufcript, which the laborious editor has thought fit to examine in the profecution of his work. I question not but the ladies and pretty fellows will be very curious to underftand what it is that I have been hitherto talking of; I fhall therefore give them a notion of this practice, by endeavouring to write after the manner of feveral perfons who make an eminent figure in the republic of letters. To this end we will fuppofe that the following fong is an old ode, which I prefent to the public in a new edition, with the feveral various readings which I find of it in former editions, and in ancient manufcripts. Thofe who cannot relish the various readings, will perhaps find their account in the fong, which never before appeared in print. My My love was fickle once and changing, Nor e'er would fettle in my heart; From beauty ftill to beauty ranging, In ev'ry face I found a dart. 'Twas first a charming face enflav'd me, An eye then gave the fatal ftroke: Till by her wit Corinna fav'd me, And all my former fetters broke. But now a long and lasting anguish For here the falfe unconftant lover, After a thousand beauties fhown, Does new furprising charms discover, And finds variety in one. VARIOUS READINGS. Stanza the first, verse the first, ' And changing. The and in fome manufcripts is written thus, &, but that in the Cotton library writes it in three diftinct letters. Verfe the fecond, Nor e'er would.'] Aldus reads it, ever would;' but as this would hurt the metre, we have restored it to the genuine reading, by obferving that Synærefis which had been neglected by ignorant transcribers. Ibid. In my heart.'] Scaliger and others, on my heart.' Verfe the fourth, I found a dart.'] The Vatican manufcript for I reads it; but this must have been the hallucination of the tranfcriber, who probably miftook the dash of the I for a T. Stanza the fecond, verfe the fecond, The fatal stroke.'] Scioppins, Salmafus, and many others, for the read a; but I have stuck to the ufual read ing. Verfe the third, Till by her wit.'] Some manuscripts have it bis wit, others your, others their wit. But as I find Corinna to be the name of a woman, in other authors, I cannot doubt but it fhould be ber. Stanza the third, verfe the firft, A long and lasting anguish.'] The German manufcript reads, a lasting paf Verfe the third, Hourly I figh, and hourly languish.'] Some for the word hourly read daily, and others rightly; the laft has great authorities of it's fide. Verfe the fourth, The wonted cure.'] The elder Stevens reads wanted cure. Stanza the fourth, verfe the second, 'After a thoufand beauties.'] In feveral copies we meet with a hundred beauties,' by the ufual error of the tranfcribers, who probably omitted a cypher, and had not tafte enough to know that the word Thousand was ten times a greater compliment to the poet's miftrefs than an hundred. Verfe the fourth, And finds variety in one.'] Most of the ancient manufcripts have it in two. Indeed fo many of them concur in the laft reading, that I am very much in doubt whether it ought not to take place. There are but two reasons which incline me to the reading as I have published it; firit, because the rhyme; and, fecondly, becaufe the fenfe is preferved by it. It might likewife proceed from the ofcitancy of tranfcribers, who, to dispatch their work the fooner, used to write all numbers in cyphers, and feeing_the figure'r followed by a little dafh of the pen, as is cuftomary in old manufcripts, they perhaps miftook the dash for a fecond figure, and by cafting up both together, compofed out of them the figure 2. But this I fhall leave to the learned, without determining any thing in a matter of fo great uncertainty, C N° CCCCLXXI. SATURDAY, AUGUST 30. Εν ἐλπίσιν χρὴ τὰς σοφὰς ἔχειν βίον. EURIPID THE WISE WITH HOPE SUPPORT THE PAINS OF LIFE. HE time prefent feldom affords THE fufficient employment to the mind of man. Objects of pain or pleasure, love or admiration, do not lie thick enough together in life to keep the foul in constant action, and fupply an imme. diate exercise to it's faculties. In order, therefore, to remedy this defect, that the mind may not want bufinefs, but always have materials for thinking, she is endowed with certain powers, than can recal what is paffed, and anticipate what is to come. That wonderful faculty, which we call the memory, is perpetually looking back, when we have nothing prefent to entertain us. It is like thofe repofitories in feveral animals that are filled with itores of their former food, on which they may ruminate when their prefent pature fails. As the memory relieves the mind in her vacant moments, and prevents any chafms of thought by ideas of what is past, we have other faculties that agitate and employ her upon what is to come. Thefe are the paffions of hope and fear. By these two paffions we reach forward into futurity, and bring up to our prefent thoughts objects that lie hid in the remoteft depths of time. We fuffer mifery, and enjoy happiness, before they are in being; we can fet the fun and fars forward, or lofe fight of them by wandering into those retired parts of eternity, when the heavens and earth hall be no more. By the way, who can imagine that the exiftence of a creature is to be circumfcribed by time, whofe thoughts are not? But I fhall, in this paper, confine myself to that particular passion which goes by the name of hope. Our actual enjoyments are fo few and tranfient, that man would be a very miferable being, were he not endowed with this paffion, which gives him a taste of thofe good things that may poffibly come into his poffeffion. We thould hope for every thing that is good,' fays the old post Linus, because there is nothing · which may not be hoped for, and nothing but what the gods are able to give us. Hope quickens all the still parts of life, and keeps the mind awake in her most remifs and indolent hours. It gives habitual ferenity and good humour. It is a kind of vital heat in the foul, that cheers and gladdens her, when the does not attend to it. It makes pain easy, and labour pleasant. Befides these feveral advantages which rife from Hope, there is another which is none of the leaft, and that is, it's great efficacy in preferving us from setting too high a value on prefent enjoyments. The faying of Cæfar is very well known. When he had given away all his eftate in gratuities amongst his friends, one of them afked what he had left for himself; to which that great man replied, Hope. His natural magnanimity hindered him from prizing what he was certainly poffeffed of, and turned all his thoughts upon fomething more valuable that he had in view. I question not but every reader will draw a moral from this ftory, and apply it to himself without my direction. The old ftory of Pandora's box, which many of the learned believe was formed among the heathens upon the tradition of the fall of man, fhews us how deplorable a ftate they thought the prefent life, without hope. To fet forth the utmoft condition or mifery, they tell us, that our forefather, according to the Pagan theology, had a great veffel prefented him by Pandora: upon his lifting up the lid of it, fays the fable, there Ale out all the calamities and distempers incident to men, from which, until that time, they had been altogether exempt. Hope, who had been inclofed in the cup with fo much bad company, instead of flying off with the reft, ftuck to close to the lid of it, that it was fhut down upon her. I fhall make but two reflections upon what I have hitherto faid. First, that no kind of life is fo happy as that which is full of hope, efpecially when the hope is well grounded, and when the objec of |