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sies, which renders them very necessary to, and very much caressed by, the poor deluded moneyhunters.

There is certainly something very bewitching in the pursuit after mines of gold and silver and other valuable metals, and many have been ruined by it. A sea-captain of my acquaintance used to blame the English for envying Spain their mines of silver, and too much despising or overlooking the advautages of their own industry and manufactures. "For my part," says he, "I esteem the banks of Newfoundland to be a more valuable possession than the mountains of Potosi; and when I have been there on the fishing account, have looked upon every cod pulled up into the vessel as a certain quantity of silver ore, which required only carrying to the next Spanish port to be coined into pieces of eight; not to mention the national profit of fitting out and employing such a number of ships and seamen." Let honest Peter Buckram, who has long, without success, been a searcher after hidden money, reflect on this, and be reclaimed from that unaccountable folly. Let him consider, that every stitch he takes when he is on his shop-board is picking up part of a grain of gold, that will in a few days' time amount to a pistole; and let Faber think the same of every nail he drives, or every stroke with his plane. Such thoughts may make them industrious, and, of consequence, in time they may be wealthy. But how absurd is it to neglect a certain profit for such a ridiculous whimsey! to spend whole days at the George, in company with an idle pretender to astrology, contriving schemes to discover what was never hid. den, and forgetful how carelessly business is ma

naged at home in their absence! to leave their wives and a warm bed at midnight (no matter if it rain, hail, snow, or blow a hurricane, provided that be the critical hour), and fatigue themselves with the violent exercise of digging for what they shall never find, and perhaps getting a cold that may cost their lives, or at least disordering themselves so as to be fit for no business beside for some days after! Surely this is nothing less than the most egregious folly and madness.

I shall conclude with the words of my discreet friend, Agricola, of Chester county, when he gave his son a good plantation :-" My son," says he, "I give thee now a valuable parcel of land; I assure thee I have found a considerable quantity of gold by digging there; thee mayest do the same: but thee must carefully observe this, Never to dig more than plough-deep."

DIALOGUE

BETWEEN PHILOCLES AND HORATIO, MEETING ACCIDENTALLY IN THE FIELDS, CONCERNING VIRTUE AND PLEASURE.

From the Pennsylvania Gazette, No. 84, June 23, 1730.

Philocles. My friend Horatio! I am very glad to see you; prithee how came such a man as you alone? and musing too? What misfortune in your pleasures has sent you to philosophy for relief?

Horatio. You guess very right, my dear Philocles: we pleasure-hunters are never without them; and yet so enchanting is the game, we cannot quit the

chace. How calm and undisturbed is your life! how free from present embarrassments and future cares! I know you love me, and look with compassion upon my conduct; show me, then, the path which leads up to that constant and invariable good, which I have heard you so beautifully describe, and which you seem so fully to possess.

Phil. There are few men in the world I value more than you, Horatio! for, amidst all your foibles and painful pursuits of pleasure, I have oft observed in you an honest heart, and a mind strongly bent towards virtue. I wish, from my soul, I could assist you in acting steadily the part of a reasonable creature; for if you would not think it a paradox, I should tell you I love you better than you do yourself.

Hor. A paradox indeed! Better than I do myself? when I love my dear self so well, that I love every thing else for my own sake.

Phil. He only loves himself well, who rightly and judiciously loves himself.

Hor. What do you mean by that, Philocles? You men of reason and virtue are always dealing in mysteries, though you laugh at them when the church makes them. I think he loves himself very well, and very judiciously too, as you call it, who allows himself to do whatever he pleases.

Phil. What, though it be to the ruin and destruction of that very self which he loves so well? That man alone loves himself rightly, who procures the greatest possible good to himself through the whole of his existence; and so pursues pleasure as not to give for it more than it is worth.

Hor. That depends all upon opinion. Who shall

judge what the pleasure is worth? Suppose a pleasing form of the fair kind strikes me so much, that I can enjoy nothing without the enjoyment of that one object; or that pleasure in general is so favourite a mistress, that I will take her, as men do their wives, for better, for worse; minding no consequences, nor regarding what is to come-why should I not do it?

Phil. Suppose, Horatio, that a friend of yours enters into the world about two-and-twenty, with a healthful, vigorous body, and a fair plentiful estate of about five hundred pounds a year; and yet, before he had reached thirty, should, by following his own pleasures, and, not as you, duly re. garding consequences, have run out of his estate, and disabled his body to that degree, that he had neither the means nor capacity of enjoyment left, nor any thing else to do but wisely shoot himself through the head to be at rest; what would you say to this unfortunate man's conduct? Is it wrong by opinion or fancy only? or is there really a right and wrong in the case? Is not one opinion of life and action juster than another? or one sort of conduct preferable to another? or does that miserable son of pleasure appear as reasonable and lovely a being in your eyes, as a man who, by prudently and rightly gratifying his natural passions, had preserved his body in full health, and his estate entire, and enjoyed both to a good old age, and then died with a thankful heart for the good things he had received, and with an entire submission to the will of him who first called him into being? Say, Horatio, are these men equally wise and happy? and is every thing to be measured by mere fancy and

opinion, without considering whether that fancy or opinion be right?

Hor. Hardly so neither, I think: yet sure the wise and good Author of nature could never make us to plague us. He could never give us passions, on purpose to subdue and conquer them; nor produce this self of mine, or any other self, only that it may be denied; for that is denying the works of the great Creator himself. Self-denial, then, which is what I suppose you mean by prudence, seems to be not only absurd, but very dishonourable to that supreme wisdom and goodness, which is supposed to make so ridiculous and contradictory a creature, that must be always fighting with himself in order to be at rest, and undergo voluntary hardships in order to be happy. Are we created sick only to be commanded to be sound? are we born under one law, our passions, and yet bound to another, that of reason? Answer me, Philocles; for I am warmly concerned for the honour of Nature, the mother of us all.

Phil. I find, Horatio, my two characters have affrighted you; so that you decline the trial of what is good by reason, and had rather make a bold attack upon Providence; the usual way of you gentlemen of fashion-who when, by living in defiance of the eternal rules of reason, you have plunged yourselves into a thousand difficulties, endeavour to make yourself easy by throwing the burthen upon nature. You are, Horatio, in a very miserable condition indeed; for you say you cannot be happy if you control your passions, and feel yourself miserable by an unrestrained gratification of

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