Melancholy is an enemy whofe hoftilities alarm our fears, and we therefore endeavour to refift its attack; but peevishness and ill-humour work by fap, and we become the victims of their power even before we think ourselves in danger.

LET us, however, only reflect, that by peevishness and ill-humour we not only lose a fingle day, but weeks and months together, and we shall endeavour to escape from their influence, or at least, to prevent their accefs. One unpleasant thought, if we uselessly fuffer it to difquiet and torment our minds, will deprive us, for a length of time, of the capacity to perform any thing beyond the circle of our daily Occupations. We fhould, therefore, most anxiously endeavour to prevent any the most untoward accidents of life from impeding the activity of our minds. While the attention is employed, the remembrance of forrow dies away. Thus, in literary compofition, if ideas flow with freedom and fuccefs, peevishness and ill-humour immediately disappear; and the pen, which was taken up with the frown of difcontent, is laid down with the fmiles of approbation and the face of joy.

LIFE would afford abundant leifure amidst the the greatest multiplicity of affairs, if we did not facrifice our time, or fuffer it to pafs unemployed away. The youth, who has learned the art of devoting every hour to fome ufeful purpofe, has made confiderable proficiency, and is already qualified to manage even extensive concerns. But the mind, whether from indolence or ill-humour, before it undertakes a toilfome tafk, hefitates, and endeavours to believe that it is not yet the proper season to commence the work. Indolence muft ever be careffed before it can be induced to act. Let our first care, therefore, be to fix our minds invariably upon fome object; and to pursue it fo as to place attainment beyond the reach of accident. To form the character of a man of bufinefs, firmnefs and decifion muft unite with good nature and flexibility. Surely no man ever knew better how to employ life than that mo narch of whom it was faid, "He is like marble, "equally firm and polished."

THE purfuit of fome particular object, while it prevents the lofs of time, acts like a counterpoifon to the languors of life. Every man, from the monarch on the throne to the labourer in the cottage, fhould have a daily task, which he fhould feel it his duty to perform without

delay.

delay. The legend, "It is to do this that you "are placed here," ought to be ever prefent to his mind, and ftimulate all his actions. The great monarch, exemplary to the age in which he lives, and whofe conduct furnifhes a model to pofterity, rifes every morning in fummer at four o'clock, and in winter at five. The petitions of his fubjects, the dispatches from foreign powers, the public documents of the ftate, which were prefented the preceding, evening, or have arrived during the night, are placed before him on a table. He opens and perufes the contents of every paper, and then diftributes them into three heaps. One, which requires difpatch, he answers immediately; the fecond he prepares, by remarks written in the margin with his own hand, for the minifters and other officers of the crown; the third, which contains neither amufement nor bufinefs, is configned to the fire. The fecretaries of ftate, who attend in readinefs, then enter to receive his majesty's commands; and the business of the day is delivered by the monarch into the hands of his fervants, to be immediately performed. He then mounts his horfe to review his troops, and receives in the field thofe foreigners who are defirous of being introduced to him. This fcene is fucceeded by the hofpitality of his table, to which he fits down with the gaiety of L 3

a con

a contented mind, and enlivens the converfa, tion with fentiments and apophthegms equally admirable for their truth and utility. When the repaft is finished, the fecretaries re-enter, bringing with them, properly and neatly prepared for the royal approbation, thofe documents of which they had received the rough draughts in the morning. Between the hours of four and five in the afternoon, the daily bufinefs of the nation being concluded, the monarch thinks himself at liberty to repose; and this indulgence confifts in reading to himself, or in having read to him, the best compofitions, ancient and modern, until the hour of fupper. A fovereign who thus employs his hours may fairly expect, that the time of his minifters, his generals, his officers of ftate, fhall not be mifpent.

THE activity of many men is never excited. except by matters of high importance; they refuse to employ their talents upon trifling objects; and becaufe no opportunity occurs worthy, as they think, of their exertions, they will do nothing. Others do nothing, because they do not know how to diftribute their time. Many great and ufeful purposes might be. achieved, by actively employing all the idle halfhours of life to any end they might propofe;

for

for there are many important events which can only be produced by flow degrees. But thofe who are pleased with and folicit interruption; who indulge their indolence by remaining idle until they feel an inclination to be induftrious, which can only be acquired by habit; who look profpectively for that feafon of complete leifure which no man ever finds; will foon fallaciously conclude, that they have neither opportunity nor power to exert their talents; and to kill that time which adds a burden to their lives, will faunter about on foot, or ride from place to place, morning, noon, and night.

My deceased friend ISELIN, one of the greatest and most worthy men that ever adorned SWISSERLAND, compofed his Ephemerides during the debates in the fenate of BASIL*; a work which many of the nobility of Germany have read, and all of them ought to ftudy. Our own celebrated MaSER, who now refides at Ofnaburg, equally honoured and beloved by his king, the prince, the minifters, the nobility,

* Mr. ISELIN was a register: while he was compofing his Ephemerides, the fenators of Bafil conceived that he was regiftering their debates; in the fame manner as the counsellors of Zurich thought that the immortal GESSNER was collecting their proceedings upon his tablets, while he was in fact taking the portraits of thofe worthies in caricature.