NUMBER CI.

SUMMARY CHARACTERISTICS.

"Wisdom and folly meet, mix, and unite,

Virtue and vice blend their black and their white."

INFERIOR animals of the same kind have in general a sameness of physiognomy, and so trifling are the shades of difference between them in any respect, that the portraiture of one individual describes the whole species. But as human animals are moral and accountable, and subject to law, a marvellous provision is made in the divine economy, for the identification of every individual; in so far that each is distinguishable from each by the look, by the voice, by the gait, by the handwriting, and by several other modes of difference, hardly describable, though plainly perceivable. Were it otherwise, the judge might be mistaken for the thief; the innocent and the guilty would be blended together, without the possibility of making any legal discrimination betwixt them.

The differences are no fewer, but perhaps more multifarious,

in the features of mind. So that, if the minds of mankind were as visible as their bodies, the individuality of each person might, perhaps, be as clearly determined from the former as from the latter.

Of the different features of minds, including qualities of heart as they appear in overt act, the following are samples; in sketching which I am constrained, for the sake of necessary brevity, to personify the twenty-six letters of the alphabet.

A-is noble-spirited but not charitable; in a public subscription his name figures well, but a Lazar might starve at his gate. B- is quite candid enough in respect to practice; but if you thwart merely his speculative opinions, he raves like a bear.

C- is a woman, peevish and querulous about little things; her heavy calamities she bears with pious resignation, and with more than masculine fortitude.

Denters with spirit into a laudable public undertaking, so the plan comes from himself, or he has the direction of it; else he will have nothing at all to do with the business, not he.

E-lives in the practice of vice; but would insult a man who should say any thing derogatory of the principles of virtue. F- takes pride in railing against pride; he hates the pride

of fashion, and is proud of being out of the fashion.

G- and his wife, abroad or in company, are all milk and honey; their ill-nature they save for domestic use.

H— is easy of temper, but very far from compassionate; his easiness of temper is nothing but apathy.

I is good or ill-tempered by fits and starts; now, he is so pleasant, that nothing can anger him; then again, he is so techy, that nothing can please him.

J-is rough and impetuous, but of a feeling heart; his mind, as respects anger, is like wood that in a moment catches fire, which as quickly goes out.

K-is slow to anger, but much slower to be appeased; once affront him, and he is coolly your enemy for ever.

L-is not hard to be reconciled in a matter, in which the fault lies altogether on the other side; but when he has been in fault himself, the consciousness of it stirs his pride and stiffens his temper.

M-feels strongly whatever relates to himself; other people's misfortunes he bears with singular calmness and fortitude.

N-, though possessed of no extraordinary share of wisdom, ist affronted if you decline to follow his advice, and is equally affronted if any one presumes to advise him.

O-'s cringing sycophancy to superiors might be thought humility, were he not brutally imperious and overbearing to inferiors and dependants.

P- loudly complains of the needy friends he abandons, to escape the reproach of abandoning them in their need.

Q- frequently changes her friends for a slight cause, or for no cause, and always likes the last best: with her, friendship is like a nosegay, which pleases only while it is fresh.

R- would appear well enough, but for his affectation of appearing extremely well, which makes him appear below himself; the vanity of being thought important rendering him ridiculous.

Stamely acquiesces in what is generally believed, because it is generally believed; he wants no other proof of the truth of a thing, than its having a plurality of numbers on its side.

Truns into extravagant singularities, from the vanity of appearing possessed of superior understanding.

U- would not be suspected of dishonesty, but for his frequently boasting that he is honest; nor of want of veracity, but for his habit of propping his word and promise with asseverations. V-passes for wise, because he is taciturn,--perhaps not so much from gravity as stupidity.

W might please every body with the eloquence and good sense of his conversation, if he knew only when to have done.

X-, a lady of fashion, affects exquisite sensibility, by her look, her manner, and her tones of voice; such is her tenderness, that she weeps over high-life scenes of fictitious distress; and such is her obduracy, that she regards, with unfeeling indifference, those vulgar objects of real distress, that have claims upon her practical charity.

Y-, a philosopher of the school of cosmopolites, possesses a fund of speculative benevolence, which he often makes use of in word, but never in deed: like his prototype, the pagan philosopher, Seneca, who wrote an excellent book upon charity, but, though he was rich, gave nothing away.

Zendeavors to commute for his neglects and trespasses in some things, by a grave and punctilious exactness in others. He will go miles to church on a stormy day; in his worldly dealings, he is not altogether a hard honest man, but hardly honest.

NUMBER CII.

OF THE NECESSITY OF SEASONABLE PRECAUTION.

THAT " an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure," is an old and true proverb, which is applicable alike to a multitude of cases: the ills we suffer in life being, in a large proportion, either of our own procuring, or such as might have been prevented by timely care and precaution.

It seems to have been a standing custom of the Asiatics, in their epistolary correspondence, to conclude a letter with this sage advice, Take care of your health; a precept which, were it generally put in practice, would save the lives of multitudes in every country. The grave is peopled with myriads, who might still have enjoyed the light of life, but for the intemperate manner of their living; and with other myriads, whose deaths were occasioned by unnecessarily exposing their health.

The lovely Belinda falls into a hectic, in the flower of her age. The life-spring within her fails; the art of medicine is unavailing; "the worm of death is in her bloom." Yet what a pound of cure cannot remove, an ounce of prudence might have prevented.