"The amiable creature feemed afflicted at my fickness; and the appeared to have so much concern and care for me, as raised in me a great inclination and tenderness for her. She came every day into my chamber to inquire after my health; I asked who the was, and I was answered, that she was niece to the countess of Venofki. " I verily believe that the constant fight of this charming maid, and the pleasure I received from her careful attendance, contributed more to my recovery than all the medicines the physicians gave me. In short, my fever left me, and I had the fatisfaction to fee the lovely creature overjoyed at my recovery. She came to fee me oftener as I grew better; and I already felt a stronger and more tender affection for her, than I ever bore to any woman in my life: when I began to perceive that her conftant care of me was only a blind, to give her an opportunity of feeing a young Pole whom I took to be her lover. He seemed to be much about her age, of a brown complexion, very tall, but finely shaped. Every time she came to fee me, the young gentleman came to find her out; and they usually -retired to a corner of the chamber, where they feemed to converfe with great earnestnefs. The aspect of the youth pleased me wonderfully; and if I had not fufpected that he was my rival, I should have taken delight in his person and friendship. They both of them often asked me if I were in reality a German? which when I continued to affirm, they feemed very much troubled. One day I took notice that the young lady and gentleman, having retired to a window, were very intent upon a picture; and that every now and then they caft their eyes upon me, as if they had found fome refemblance betwixt that and my features. I could not forbear to ask the meaning of it; upon which the lady anfwered that if I had been a Frenchman, she should have imagined that I was the perfon for whom the picture was drawn, because it exactly resembled me. I defired to fee it. But how great was my surprise, when I found it to be the very painting which I had fent to the queen five years before, and which the commanded me to get drawn to be given to my children! After I had viewed the piece, I caft my eyes upon the young lady, and then upon the gentleman I had thought to be her lover. My heart beat, and I felt a fecret emotion which filled me with wonder. I thought I traced in the two young perfons fome of my own features, and at that moment I said to myfelf, Are not these my children? The tears came into my eyes, and I was about to run and embrace them; but constraining myself with pain, I asked whose picture it was? The maid, perceiving that I could not speak without tears, fell a weeping. Her tears abfolutely confirmed me in my opinion; and falling upon her neck, Ah, my dear child,' faid I, 'yes, I am your father!" I could say no more. The youth feized my hands at the fame time, and kifling, bathed them with his tears. Throughout my life, I never felt a joy equal to this; and it must be owned, that nature inspires more lively emotions and pleasing tenderness than the passions can poffibly excite." Spectator. § 12. Remarks on the Swiftness of Time. The natural advantages which arise from the position of the earth which we inhabit, with respect to the other planets, afford much employment to mathematical speculation, by which it has been discovered, that no other conformation of the system could have given fuch commodious distributions of light and heat, or imparted fertility and pleasure to so great a part of a revolving sphere. It may be perhaps observed by the moralist, with equal reason, that our globe seems particularly fitted for the refidence of a Being, placed here only for a short time, whose task is to advance himself to a higher and happier state of existence, by unremitted vigilance of caution, and activity of virtue. The duties required of man are such as human nature does not willingly perform, and such as those are inclined to delay who yet intend some time to fulfil them. It was therefore neceffary that this univerfal reluctance should be counteracted, and the drowsiness of hefitation wakened into refolve; that the danger of procraftination should be always in view, and the fallacies of security be hourly detected. To this end all the appearances of nature uniformly confpire. Whatever we fee on every fide, reminds us of the lapse of time and the flux of life. The day and night fucceed each other, the rotation of seasons diversifies the year, the fun rifes, attains the meridian, declines and fets; and the moon every night changes its form. The day has been confidered as an image of the year, and a year as the reprefentation fentation of life. The morning answers He that is carried forward, however ssiftly, by a motion equable and easy, perceives not the change of place but by the variation of objects. If the wheel of life, which rolls thus filently along, passed on through undistinguishable uniformity, we should never mark its approaches to the end of the course. If one hour were like another; if the passage of the fun did not thew that the day is wasting; if the change of seasons did not impress upon us the flight of the year; quantities of duration equal to days and years would glide unobferved. If the parts of time were not varioufly coloured, we should never difcern their departure or fucceffion, but should live thoughtless of the past, and careless of the future, without will, and perhaps with out power to compute the periods of life, or to compare the time which is already loft with that which may probably re main. But the course of time is so visibly marked, that it is even observed by the pallage, and by nations who have raised their minds very little above animal infinct: there are human beings, whose language does not fupply them with words by which they can number five, but I have read of none that have not names for Day and Night, for Summer and Winter. Yet it is certain that these admonitions of nature, however forcible, however importunate, are too often vain; and that many who mark with such accuracy the course of time, appear to have little fenfibility of the decline of life. Every man has fomething to do which he neglects; every man has faults to conquer which he delays to combat. So little do we accustom ourselves to consider the effects of time, that things neceñary and certain often surprise us like merpected contingencies. We leave the beauty in her bloom, and, after an absence of twenty years, wonder, at our return, to find her faded. We meet those whom we left children, and can scarcely perfuade The ourselves to treat them as men. traveller visits in age those countries through which he rambled in his youth, and hopes for merriment at the old place. The man of business, wearied with unsatiffactory profperity, retires to the town of his nativity, and expects to play away the last years with the companions of his childhood, and recover youth in the fields where he once was young. From this inattention, so general and so mischievous, let it be every man's study to exempt himself. Let him that defires to fee others happy, make hafte to give while his gift can be enjoyed, and remember, that every moment of delay takes away fomething from the value of his benefaction. And let him who proposes his own happiness, reflect, that while he forms his purpose the day rolls on, and the night cometh, when no man can work." Idler. § 13. The Folly of mis-spending Time. An ancient poet, unreasonably discontented at the present state of things, which his system of opinions obliged him to represent in its worst form, has observed of the earth, "That its greater part is covered by the uninhabitable ocean; that of the reft, fome is encumbered with naked mountains, and some loft under barren sands; some scorched with unintermitted heat, and some petrified with perpetual frost, so that only a few regions remain for the production of fruits, the pasture of cattle, and the accommodation of man." The fame obfervation may be tranfferred to the time allotted us in our present state. When we have deducted all that is absorbed in fleep, all that is inevitably appropriated to the demands of nature, or irrefiftibly engrossed by the ty-. ranny of custom; all that pafles in regulating the superficial decorations of life, or is given up in the reciprocations of civility to the difpofal of others; all that is torn from us by the violence of disease, or stolen imperceptibly away by lassitude and languor; we shall find that part of our duration very small of which we can truly call ourselves masters, or which we can spend wholly at our own choice. Many of our hours are loft in a rotation of petty cares, in a constant recurrence of the fame employments; many of our provifions for ease or happiness are always exhaufted by the present day; and a great part of our exiflence C2 existence serves no other purpose, than that of enabling us to enjoy the rest. Of the few moments which are left in our difpofal, it may reasonably be expected, that we should be fo frugal, as to let none of them flip from us without fome equivalent; and perhaps it might be found, that as the earth, however straitened by 10ck and waters, is capable of producing more than all its inhabitants are able to confume, our lives, tho' much contracted by incidental distraction, would yet afford us a large space vacant to the exercise of reafon and virtue; that we want not time, but diligence, for great performances; and that we squander much of our allow ance, even while we think it sparing and infufficient. This natural and necessary comminution of our lives, perhaps, often makes us infenfible of the negligence with which we fuffer them to flide away. We never consider ourselves as possessed at once of time fufficient for any great design, and therefore indulge ourselves in fortuitous amusements. We think it unnecessary to take an account of a few fupernumerary moments, which, however employed, could have produced little advantage, and which were exposed to a thousand chances of difturbance and interruption. It is obfervable, that, either by nature or by habit, our faculties are fitted to images of a certain extent, to which we adjust great things by division, and little things by accumulation. Of extenfive furfaces we can only take a survey, as the parts succeed one another; and atoms we cannot perceive, till they are united into maffes. Thus we break the vait periods of time into centuries and years; and thus, if we would know the amount of moments, we must agglomerate them into days and weeks. The proverbial oracles of our parfimonious ancestors have informed us, that the fatal waste of fortune is by small expences, by the profufion of fums too little fingly to alarm our caution, and which we never fuffer ourselves to confider together. Of the fame kind is the prodigality of life: he that hopes to look back. hereafter with fatisfaction upon past years, muit learn to know the present value of single minutes, and endeavour to let no particle of time fall uselefs to the ground. It is usual for those who are advised to the attainment of any new qualifications, to look upon themselves as required to change the general course of their conduct, to dismiss their business, and exclude pleasure, and to devote their days or nights to a particular attention. But all common degrees of excellence are attainable at a lower price; he that should steadily and refolutely affign to any fcience or language those interftitial vacancies which intervene in the most crowded variety of diversion or employment, would find every day new irradiations of knowledge, and discover how much more is to be hoped from frequency and perfeverance, than from violent efforts and sudden defires; efforts which are foon remitted when they encounter difficulty, and defires which, if they are indulged too often, will shake off the authority of reason, and range capricioufly from one object to another. The difpofition to defer every important design to a time of leisure, and a itate of fettled uniformity, proceeds generally from a false estimate of the human powers. If we except those gigantic and stupendous intelligences who are faid to grafp a system by intuition, and bound forward from one feries of conclufions to another, without regular steps through intermediate propofitions, the most successful students make their advances in knowledge by short flights, between each of which the mind may lie at reft. For every fingle act of progression a short time is sufficient; and it is only necessary, that whenever that time is afforded, it be well employed. Few minds will be long confined to fevere and laborious meditation; and when a successful attack on knowledge has been made, the student recreates himself with the contemplation of his conquest, and forbears another incurfion till the new-acquired truth has become familiar, and his curiosity calls upon him for fresh gratifications. Whether the time of intermiffion is spent in company, or in folitude, in neceffary business, or in voluntary levities, the understanding is equally abstracted from the object of enquiry; but, perhaps, if it be detained by occupations less pleasing, it returns again to study with greater alacrity than when it is glutted with ideal pleafures, and furfeited with intemperance of application. He that will not fuffer himself to be discouraged by fancied impossibilities, may fometimes find his abilities invigorated by the necessity of exerting them in short intervals, as the force of a current is encreased by the contraction of its channel. From From fome cause like this, it has probably proceeded, that among those who have contributed to the advancement of learning, many have risen to eminence, in oppofition to all the obstacles which external circumstances could place in their way, amidit the tumult of business, the distresses of poverty, or the dissipations of a wandering and unfettled state. A great part of the life of Erafinus was one continual peregrination: ill fupplied with the gifts of fortune, and led from city to city, and from kingdom to kingdom, by the hopes of patrons and preferment, hopes which always flattered and always deceived him; he yet found means, by unshaken constancy, and a Vigilant improvement of those hours, which, in the midst of the most restless activity, will remain unengaged, to write more than another in the fame condition would have hoped to read. Compelled by want to attendance and folicitation, and so much verfed in common life, that he has tranfmitted to us the most perfect delineation of the manners of his age, he joined to his knowledge of the world fuch application to books, that he will stand for ever in the find rank of literary heroes. How this proficiency was obtained, he sufficiently difcovers, by informing us, that the Praife of Folly, one of his most celebrated performances, was composed by him on the road to kaly; ne tetum illud tempus quo equo fuit infdendam, illiteratis fabulis tereretur, left the hours which we was obliged to spend on horieback should be tattled away without regard to literature. An Italian philosopher expressed in his motto, that time was his eftate; an estate indeed, which will produce nothing without cultivation, but will always abundantly repay the labours of industry, and fatisfy the most extensive defires, if no part of it be fañered to lie waste by negligence, to be Over-run with noxious plants, or laid out for thew rather than for use. Rambler. 14. The Importance of Time, and the proper Methods of spending it. We all of us complain of the shortness of time, faith Seneca, and yet have much more than we know what to do with. Our Lives, says he, are spent either in doing nothing at all, or doing nothing to the purpole, or in doing nothing that we ought to do. We are always complaining our days are few, and acting as though there would be no end of them. That noble philofopher has described our inconfiftency with ourselves in this particular by all those various turns of expreffion and thought which are peculiar in his writings. I often confider mankind as wholly inconfiftent with itself, in a point that bears some affinity to the former. Though we seem grieved at the shortness of life, in general, we are withing every period of it at an end. The minor longs to be at age, then to be a man of business, then to make up an eftate, then to arrive at honours, then to retire. Thus, although the whole of life is allowed by every one to be short, the several divisions of it appear long and tedious. We are for lengthening our span in general, but would fain contract the parts of which it is compofed. The usurer would be very well fatisfied to have all the time annihilated that lies between the prefent moment and the next quarter-day. The politician would be contented to lose three years in his life, could he place things in the posture which he fancies they will stand in after such a revolution of time. The lover would be glad to strike out of his existence all the moments that are to pass away before the happy meeting. Thus, as fast as our time runs, we should be very glad, in most parts of our lives, that it ran much faster than it does. Several hours of the day hang upon our hands; nay, we wish away whole years, and travel through time, as through a country filled with many wild and empty wastes which we would fain hurry over, that we may arrive at those several little fettlements or imaginary points of rest which are difperfed up and down in it. If we divide the life of most men into twenty parts, we shall find that at least nineteen of them are mere gaps and chasms, which are neither filled with pleasure nor business. I do not however include in this calculation the life of those men who are in a perpetual hurry of affairs, but of those only who are not always engaged in scenes of action; and I hope I shall not do an unacceptable piece of service to these perfons, if I point out to them certain methods for the filling up their empty spaces of life. The methods I shall propose to them are as follow: The first is the exercise of virtue, in the most general acceptation of the word. That particular scheme which comprehends the social virtues, may give employment to the most industrious temper, and find a man business more than the moft active station of life. To advise the ignorant, C3 relieve relieve the needy, comfort the afflicted, are duties that fall in our way almost every day of our lives. A man has frequent opportunities of mitigating the fierceness of a party; of doing juftice to the character of a deserving man; of foftening the envious, quieting the angry, and rectifying the prejudiced; which are all of them employments suitable to a reasonable nature, and bring great fatisfaction to the person who can bufy himself in them with difcretion. 'There is another kind of virtue that may find employment for those retired hours in which we are altogether left to ourselves, and deftitute of company and conversation; I mean that intercourse and communication which every reasonable creature ought to maintain with the great Author of his being. The man who lives under an habitual sense of the divine prefence, keeps up a perpetual chearfulness of temper, and enjoys every moment the fatisfaction of thinking himself in company with his dearest and best of friends. The time never lies heavy upon him: it is impoffible for him to be alone. His thoughts and paffions are the most bufied at such hours when those of other men are the most unactive. He no fooner steps out of the world but his heart burns with devotion, fwells with hope, and triumphs in the consciousness of that prefence which every where furrounds him; or, on the contrary, pours out its fears, its forrows, its apprehenfions, to the great Supporter of its existence. I have here only confidered the necessity of a man's being virtuous, that he may have something to do; but if we confider further, that the exercise of virtue is not only an amusement for the time it lafts, but that its influence extends to those parts of our existence which lie beyond the grave, and that our whole eternity is to take its colour from those hours which we here employ in virtue or in vice, the argument redoubles upon us, for putting in practice this method of paffing away our time. When a man has but a little stock to improve, and has opportunities of turning it all to good account, what shall we think of him if he fuffers nineteen parts of it to lie dead, and perhaps employs even the twentieth to his ruin or disadvantage But because the mind cannot be always in its fervours, nor ftrained up to a pitch of virtue, it is necessary to find out proper employments for it, in its relaxations. The next method therefore that I would propose to fill up our time, should be useful and innocent diversions. I must confess I think it is below reasonable creatures to be altogether converfant in such diverfions as are merely innocent, and have nothing else to recommend them, but that there is no hurt in them. Whether any kind of gaming has even thus much to fay for itself, I shall not determine; but I think it is ver very wonderful to fee persons of the best sense passing away a dozen hours together in shuffling and dividing a pack of cards, with no other conversation but what is made up of a few game phrafes, and no other ideas but those of black or red spots ranged together in different figures. Would not a man laugh to hear any one of this species complaining that life is short? The stage might be made a perpetual source of the most noble and useful entertainments, were it under proper regulations. But the mind never unbends itself fo agreeably as in the conversation of a wellchofen friend. There is indeed no blefing of life that is any way comparable to the enjoyment of a difcreet and virtuous friend. It eases and unloads the mind, clears and improves the understanding, engenders thought and knowledge, animates virtue and good refolution, foothes and allays the passions, and finds employment for most of the vacant hours of life. Next to fuch an intimacy with a parti cular person, one would endeavour after a more general conversation with fuch as are capable of edifying and entertaining those with whom they converse, which are qualities that feldom go asunder. There are many other useful amusements of life, which one would endeavour to multiply, that one might, on all occasions, have recourse to something rather than fuffer the mind to lie idle, or run adrift with any paffion that chances to rise in it. A man that has a taste in music, painting, or architecture, is like one that has another sense, when compared with such as have no relith of those arts. The florift, the planter, the gardener, the husbandman, when they are only as accomplishments to the man of fortune, are great reliefs to a country life, and many ways ufeful to those who are poffeffed of them. Spectator. |