the memory, overlooked and neglected. Thus far the mind resembles the body, but here the fimilitude is at an end. The manner in which external force acts upon the body is very little fubject to the regulation of the will; no man can at pleasure obtund or invigorate his fenfes, prolong the agency of any impulfe, or continue the presence of any image traced upon the eye, or any found infufed into the ear. But our ideas are more fubjected to choice; we can call them before us, and command their stay, we can facilitate and promote their recurrence, we can either repress their intrufion, or haften their retreat. It is therefore the business of wisdom and virtue, to felect among numberless objects ftriving for our notice, fuch as may enable us to exalt our reason, extend our views, and fecure our happiness. But this choice is to be made with very little regard to rareness or frequency; for nothing is valuable merely because it is either rare or common, but because it is adapted to fome ufeful purpose, and enables us to supply fome deficiency of our nature. Milton has judiciously represented the father of mankind, as feized with horror and aftonifhment at the fight of death, exhibited to him on the mount of vifion. For furely, nothing can fo much difturb the paffions, or perplex the intellects of man, as the difruption of his union with visible nature; a feparation from all that has hitherto delighted or engaged him; a change not only of the place, but the manner of his being; an entrance into a flate not fimply which he knows not, but which perhaps he has not faculties to know; an immediate and perceptible com munication with the fupreme Being, and, what is above all distressful and alarming, the final fentence, and unalterable allotment. Yet we to whom the fhortnefs of life has given frequent occafions of contemplating mortality, can, without emotion, fee generations of men pafs away, and are at leisure to establish modes of forrow, and adjust the ceremonial of death. We can look upon funeral pomp as a common fpectacle in which we have no concern, and turn away from it to trifles and amufements, without dejection of look, or inquietude of heart. It is, indeed, apparent from the conftitution of the world, that there must be a time for other thoughts; and a perpetual meditation upon the laft hour, however it may become the folitude of a monaftery, is inconsistent with many duties of common life. But furely the remembrance of death ought to predominate in our minds, as an habitual and fettled principle, always operating, though not always perceived; and our attention fhould feldom wander fo far from our own condition, as not to be recalled and fixed by fight of an event, which must foon, we know not how foon, happen likewise to ourselves, and of which, though we cannot appoint the time, we may fecure the confequence. Every inftance of death may justly awaken our fears and quicken our vigilance, but its frequency fo much weakens its effect, that we are seldom alarmed unless fome close connection is broken, fome scheme frustrated, or fome hope defeated. Many therefore seem to pafs on from youth to decrepitude without any reflection on the end of life, because they are wholly involved within themselves, and look on others only as inhabitants of the common earth, without any expectation of receiving good, or intention of bestowing it. Events, of which we confefs the importance, excite little fenfibility, unless they affect us more nearly than as sharers in the common interest of mankind; that defire which every man feels of being remembered and lamented, is often mortified when we remark how little concern is caufed by the eternal departure even of those who have paffed their lives with publick honours, and been diftinguished by extraordinary performances. It is not poffible to be regarded with tenderness except by a few. That merit which gives greatness and renown, diffuses its influence to a wide compafs, but acts weakly on every single breaft; it is placed at a distance from common fpectators, and fhines like one of the remote stars, of which the light reaches us, but not the heat. The wit, the hero, the philofopher, whom their tempers or their fortunes have hindered from intimate relations, die, without any other effect than that of adding a new topic to the converfation of the day. They impress none with any fresh conviction of the fragility of our nature, because none had any particular intereft in their lives, or was united to them by a reciprocation of benefits and endear ments. Thus it often happens, that those who in their lives were applauded and admired, are laid at last in the ground without the common honour of a ftone; because by thofe excellencies with which many were delighted, none had been obliged, and though though they had many to celebrate, they had none to love them. Custom fo far regulates the fentiments, at least of common minds, that I believe men may be generally obferved to grow lefs tender as they advance in age. He, who, when life was new, melted at the lofs of every companion, can look in time, without concern, upon the grave into which his laft friend was thrown, and into which himself is ready to fall; not that he is more willing to die than formerly, but that he is more familiar to the death of others, and therefore is not alarmed fo far as to confider how much nearer he approaches to his end. But this is to fubmit tamely to the tyranny of accident, and to fuffer our reafon to lie ufelefs. Every funeral may juftly be confidered as a fummons to prepare for that state, into which it fhews us that we muft fome time enter; and the fummons is more loud and piercing, as the event of which it warns us is at lefs diftance. neglect at any time preparation for death, is to fleep on our poft at a fiege, but to omit it in old age, is to fleep at an attack. To It has always appeared to me one of the most striking paffages in the vifions of Quevedo, which ftigmatifes those as fools who complain that they failed of happiness by fudden death. How," fays he, "can death be fudden to a being who always knew "that he must die, and that the time of his death was "uncertain ?" Since bufinefs and gaiety are always drawing our attention away from a future ftate, fome admonition is frequently neceffary to recal it to our minds, and what can more properly renew the impreffion than the the examples of mortality which every day fupplies? The great incentive to virtue is the reflection that we muft die; it will therefore be useful to accuftom ourfelves, whenever we fee a funeral, to confider how foon we may be added to the number of those whose probation is past, and whofe happiness or misery fhall endure for ever. SUSPICION, however neceffary it may be to our fafe paffage through ways beset on all fides by fraud and malice, has been always confidered, when it exceeds the common measures, as a token of depravity and corruption, and a Greek writer of fentences has laid down as a standing maxim, that he who believes not another on his oath, knows himfelf to be perjured. We can form our opinions of that which we know not, only by placing it in comparison with fomething that we know; whoever therefore is over-run with fufpicion, and detects artifice and ftratagem in every propofal, muft either have learned by experience or obfervation the wickednefs of mankind, and been |
