make the application of it to ourselves, according to our feveral wants, capacities, and defires, by saying only in general, I am.

Again, page 27, he thus difcourfes: "There is more folid joy and comfort, more real delight and fatisfaction of mind, in one fingle thought of God, rightly formed, than all the riches, and honours, and pleafures of this world, put them altogether, are able to afford-Let us then call in all our fcattered thoughts from all things here below, and raise them up, and unite them all to the moft High God; not apprehending him under the idea, image, likeness of any thing elfe, but as infinitely greater, and higher, and better than all things; as one exifting in and of himself, and giving effence and existence to all things in the world befides himself; as one fo pure and fimple, that there is nothing in him but himself, but effence and being itself; as one fo infinite and omnipotent, that wherefoever any thing else is in the whole world, there He is and be yond the world, where nothing elfe is, there all things are, becaufe He is there; as one fo wise, so knowing, so omniscient; that he at this very moment, and always, fees what all the angels are doing in Heaven; what all the fowls are doing in the air; what all the fifhes are doing in the waters; what all the devils are doing in hell; what all the men, and beafts, and the very infects, are doing upon earth; as one powerful and omnipotent, that he can do whatsoever he will, only by willing it fhould be done; as one fo great, fo good, fo glorious, fo immutable, fo tranfcendant, fo infinite, fo incomprehenfible, fo eternal, what shall I say? So Jehovah, that the more we think of him, the more we admire him, the more we adore him; the more we love him, the more we may, and ought; our highest conceptions of him being as much beneath him, as our greatest services come short of what we owe him.

"Seeing therefore we cannot think of God fo highly as he is, let us think of him as highly as we can : And for that end let us get above ourselves and above VOL. II. K

the world, and raise up our thoughts higher and higher still, and when we have got them up as high as poffibly we can, let us apprehend a Being infinitely higher than the highest of them; and then finding ourselves at a lofs, amazed, confounded at fuch an. infinite height of infinite perfections, let us fall down in humble and hearty defires to be freed from thefe dark prifons wherein we are now immured, that we may take our flight into eternity, and there, (through the merits of our ever bleffed Saviour) fee this infinite Being face to face, and enjoy him for ever."

GUARDIAN, Vol. I. No. 74.

GOOD-HUMOUR.

A MAN advanced in years who thinks fit to look

back upon his former life, and calls that only life which was paffed with fatisfaction and enjoyment, excluding all parts which were not pleasant to him, will find himself very young, if not in his infancy. Sickness, ill-humour, and idlenefs, will have robbed him of a great fhare of that fpace we ordinarily call our life. It is therefore the duty of every man who would be true to himself, to obtain, if poffible, a difpofition to be pleafed, and place himself in a constant aptitude for the fatisfactions of his being. Instead of this, you hardly fee a man who is not uneafy in proportion to his advancement in the arts of life. An affected delicacy is the common improvement we meet with in thofe who pretend to be refined above others: They do not aim at true pleasure themselves, but turn their thoughts upon obferving the falfe pleafures of other men. Such people are valetudinarians in fociety, and they should no more come into company than a fick man fhould come into the air: If a man is too weak to bear what is a refreshment to men in health, he must ftill keep his chamber. When any one in Sir Roger's company complains he is out of order, he immediately calls for fome poffet-drink for him; for which reafon that fort of people who are

ever bewailing their conftitution in other places, are the cheerfulleft imaginable when he is prefent.

It is a wonderful thing, that fo many, (and they not reckoned abfurd) fhall entertain thofe with whom they converfe, by givingthem the hiftory of their pains and aches; and imagine fuch narrations their quota of the converfation. This is of all others the meanest help to discourse, and a man must not think at all, or think himself very infignificant, when he finds an account of his head-ache answered by another asking what news in the last mail? Mutual good-humour is a drefs we ought to appear in wherever we meet, and we should make no mention of what concerns our felves, without it be of matters wherein our friends ought to rejoice: But indeed there are crowds of pcople who put themfelves in no method of pleafing themfelves or others: Such are thofe whom we ufually call indolent perfons. Indolence is, methinks, an intermediate state between pleasure and pain, and very much unbecoming any part of our life after we are out of the nurfe's arms. Such an averfion to labour creates a conftant wearinefs, and one would think fhould make exiftence itfelf a burden. The indolent man defcends from the dignity of his nature, and makes that being which was rational, merely vegetative: His life confifts only in the mere increase and decay of a body which, with relation to the rest of the world, might as well have been uninformed, as the habitation of a reasonable mind.

Of this kind is the life of that extraordinary couple Harry Terfett and his lady. Harry was in the days of his celibacy one of thofe pert creatures who have much vivacity and little understanding; Mrs. Rebecca Quick

whom he married, had all that the fire of youth and a lively manner could do towards making an agreeable woman. Thefe two people of feeming merit, fell into each other's arms; and paflion being fatiated, and no reafon or good-fenfe in each to fucceed it, their life is now at a ftand; their meals are infipid, and their time tedious; their fortune has placed them above care, and their lofs of taste reduced them below

diverfion. When we talk of these as inftances of i exiftence, we do not mean, that in order to live, it is neceffary we should always be in jovial crews, or crowned with chaplets of rofes, as the merry fellows among the ancients are defcribed; but it is intended by confidering thefe contraries to pleasure, indolence and too much delicacy, to fhew, that it is prudence to preferve a difpofition in ourselves to receive a certain. delight in all we hear and fee.

This portable quality of good-humour seasons all the parts and occurrences we meet with, in fuch a manner, that there are no noments loft; but they all pafs with fo much fatisfaction, that the heaviest of loads (when it is a load) that of time, is never felt by us. Varilas has this quality to the highest perfection, and communicates it wherever he appears: The fad, the merry, the fevere, the melancholy, fhew a new cheerfulness when he comes among them.

At the fame time no one can repeat any thing that Varilas has ever faid, that deferves repetition; but the man has that innate goodness of temper, that he is welcome to every body, because every man thinks he is so to him. He does not feem to contribute any thing to the mirth of the company; and yet upon reflection you find it all happened by his being there. I thought it was whimfically faid of a gentleman, that if Verilas had wit, it would be the best wit in the world. It is certain when a well corrected, lively imagination and good-breeding are added to a sweet difpofition, they qualify it to be one of the greatest bleffings, as well as pleasures, of life.

Men would come into company with ten times the pleasure they do, if they were fure of hearing nothing which fhould fhock them, as well as expected what would please them. When we know every perfon that is fpoken of, is reprefented by one who has no ill-will, and every thing that is mentioned, defcribed. by one who is apt to fet it in the beft light, the entertainment must be delicate, because the cook has nothing brought to his hand but what is the moft excellent in its kind. Beautiful pictures are the entertainments

of pure minds; and deformities, of the corrupted. It is a degree towards the life of angels, when we enjoy converfation wherein there is nothing reprefented but. in its excellence; and a degree towards that of dæmons, wherein nothing is fhewn but in its degenera

cy.

SPECTATOR, Vol. II. No. 100.

GOOD-NATURE.

MAN is fubject to innumerable pains and forrows

by the very condition of humanity, and yet, as if nature had not fown evils enough in life, we are continually adding grief to grief, and aggravating the common calamity by our cruel treatment of one another. Every man's natural weight of afflictions is ftill made more heavy by the envy, malice, treachery, or injuftice of his neighbour. At the fame time that the ftorm beats upon the whole fpecies, we are falling foul upon one another..

Half the mifery of human life might be extinguifhed, would men alleviate the general curfe they lie under, by mutual offices of compaffion, benevolence, and humanity. There is nothing therefore, which we ought more to encourage in ourfelves and others, than that difpofition of mind which in our language goes under the title of good-nature, and which I fhall choofe for the fubject of this day's fpeculation.

Good-nature is more agreeable in converfation than wit, and gives a certain air to the countenance which is more amiable than beauty. It fhews virtue in the faireft light, takes off in fome meafure from the deformity of vice, and makes even folly and impertinence fupportable:

There is no fociety or converfation to be kept up in the world without good-nature, or fomething which must bear its appearance, and fupply its place. For this reafon mankind have been forced to invent a kind. of artificial humanity, which is what we exprefs by the word good-breeding. For if we examine thorough VOL. II.. K. 2