No. CLX.

A Good Heart necessary to enjoy the Beauties of Nature.

By a just dispensation of Providence, it happens that they who are unreasonably selfish, seldom enjoy so much happiness as the generous and contented. Almost all the wicked deviate from the line of rectitude, that they may engross an extraordinary portion of some real or imaginary advantage. Their hearts are agitated in the pursuit of it with the most violent and painful emotions, and their eagerness, apprehensions, and solicitude, poison the enjoyment after they have obtained the possession. The nature of their pleasures is at best gross, sensual, violent, and transitory. They are always dissatisfied, always envious, always malignant. Their souls are bent down to the earth; and, destitute of all elevated and heavenly ideas, cælestium inanes. They have not powers of perception for the sublime or refined satisfactions; and are no less insensible to the tranquil delights of innocence and simplicity than the deaf and blind to the beauty of colours and the melody of music.

To the wicked, and indeed to all who are warmly engaged in the vulgar pursuits of the world, the contemplation of rural scenes, and of the manners and natures of animals, is perfectly insipid. The odour of flowers, the purling of streams, the song and plumage of birds, the sportive innocence of the lamb, the fidelity of the dog, are incapable of attracting, for one moment, the notice of him whose conscience uneasy, and passions unsubdued. Invite him to

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a morning walk through a neighbouring wood, and he begs to be excused; for he loves his pillow, and can see no charms in trees. Endeavour to allure him, on a vernal evening, when, after a shower, every leaf breathes fragrance and freshness, to saunter with you in the garden; and he pleads an engagement at whist, or at the bottle. Bid him listen to the thrush, the blackbird, the nightingale, the woodlark, and he interrupts you by asking the price of stocks, and inquiring whether the West India fleet is arrived. As you walk over the meadows enameled with cowslips and daisies, he takes no other notice, but inquires who is the owner, how much the land lets for an acre, what hay sold for at the last market. He prefers the gloomiest day in November, on which pecuniary business is transacted, or a feast celebrated, or a public diversion afforded, to all the delights of the merry month of May. He who is constantly engaged in gratifying his lust, or in gaming, becomes, in a short time, so very wise, as to consider the study of the works of God in the creation, and the external beauty both of vegetable and animated nature, as little superior to a childish entertainment. How grave his aspect! No Solon ever looked so sapient as he does when he is on the point of making a bet, or insidiously plotting an intrigue. One might conclude, from his air of importance, that man was born to shake the dice, to shuffle the cards, to drink claret, and to destroy, by debauchery, the innocence of individuals and the peace of families. Ignorant and mistaken wretch! He knows not that purity and simplicity of heart would furnish him with delights, which, while they render his life tranquil and pleasurable, would enable him to resign his soul at death into the hands of his Maker unpolluted. What stains and filth it usually contracts by an indiscriminate commerce with the

world! how comparatively pure amidst the genuine pleasure of a rural philosophical life!

As a preservative of innocence, and as the means of a most agreeable pastime, the love of birds, flowers, plants, trees, gardens, animals, when it appears in boys, as indeed it usually does, should be encouraged, and in a subordinate degree cultivated. Farewell, innocence, when such things cease to be capable of affording pleasure! The heart gradually becomes hardened and corrupted, when its objects are changed to those of a worldly and a sensual nature.

Man may indeed be amused in the days of health and vigour with the common pursuits of ordinary life; but they have too much agitation in them for the feeble powers of old age. Amusements are then required which are gentle, yet healthy; capable of engaging the thoughts, yet requiring no painful or continued exertion. Happy he who has acquired and preserved to that age a taste for simple pleasures. A fine day, a beautiful garden, a flowery field, are to him enjoyments similar in species and degree to the bliss of Elysium. A farm yard, with all its inhabitants, constitutes a most delightful scene, and furnishes him with a thousand entertaining ideas. The man who can see without pleasure a hen gather her chickens under her wing, or the train of ducklings following their parent into a pond, is like him who has no music in his soul, and who, according to Shakspeare, is fit for treasons, murders, every thing that can disgrace and degrade humanity. Vetabo iisdem sub trabibus, fragilemque mecum solvat phaselum. I will forbid him, says Horace on another occasion, to be under the same roof with me, or to embark in the same vessel.

Let it operate as an additional motive in stimulating us to preserve our innocence, that with our

innocence we preserve our sensibility to the charms of nature. It is indeed one of the rewards of innocence, that it is enabled to taste the purest pleasure which this world can bestow, without the usual consequences of pleasures, remorse and satiety. The man of a bad heart can find no delight but in bad designs and bad actions-nominal joys and real torments. His very amusements are of necessity connected with the injury of others, and with a thousand painful sensations which no language can express. But the mind of the honest, simple, and ingenuous is always gay and enlivened, like some of the southern climates, with a serenity almost perpetual. Let a man who would form an adequate idea on the different states of the good and bad heart, with respect to happiness, compare the climate of Otaheite with that of Terra del Fuego, as described by our British circumnavigators.

No. CLXI.

On the peculiar Baseness of Vice in Nobility.

MANY who have been raised to titles and estates by the virtue or good fortune of their ancestors seem to consider themselves as privileged to infringe all the common restraints established by a regard to decency, by moral philosophy, by natural and by revealed religion. They have noble blood in their veins, therefore they presume that the world was made for them to take their pastime in it. Who, they exclaim (with a volley of oaths and execra

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tions) who shall dare to say to us, Thus far shall go, and no farther? Rules, laws, and modes of superstition were made for the canaille, for the mushroom race, who sprung from dunghills, and on whom the sun of royalty has never shed its lustre. Scarcely any of the ancient philosophers could boast of this noble blood, and shall they presume to dictate to a nobleman, that is, perhaps, to a bastard of King Charles's strumpet, or to the diseased offspring of a leprous, scrophulous, sorry race of puisne lordlings, whose names are only recorded in the books of ruined tradesmen, and whose illustrious exploits are limited to the regions of a cock-pit, a horserace, a tavern, and a bawdy-house! Shall a carpenter's son dictate to a Fitzroy? His lordship pleads his privileges. Let him riot in debauchery, seduce innocence, break the peace of private families, laugh at all that is sacred and serious, for is he not a duke?

You are indeed a duke; or, in other words, your great-grandfather, by good luck or good deeds, acquired for you that noble old mansionhouse, that park, those woods, those lands, those titles, all of which you basely dishonour. Though in your appearance you have not much of ducal dignity, yet we see your ducal coronet on your prostitute's visà-vis we see you glorying in your shame, neglecting to pay your tradesmen, yet lavishing your gold on horses and harlots; stooping to the meanest company and diversions, yet retaining all the petty insolence of family pride: we see you meanly sneaking in a court; we see you rewarded, notwithstanding the infamy of your private life, with offices of trust and honour; we therefore acknowledge that you have all the common attributes and outward signs of the title which you happen to inherit. You have also had the honour of a divorce, and enjoy the