enjoyment of a discreet and virtuous friend. it eases and unloads the mind, clears and improves the understanding, engenders thoughts and knowledge, animates virtue, and good resolutions, soothes and allays the passions and finds employment for most of the vacant hours of life.

16. Next to such an intimacy with a particular person, one would endeavor after a more general conversation with such as are able to entertain and improve those with whom they converse, which are qualifications that seidom go asunder.

17. There are many other useful amusements of life, which one would endeavor to multiply, that one might on all occasions have recourse to something rather than suffer the mind to lie idle or run adrift with any passion that chances to rise in it...

18. A man that has a taste for music, painting or architecture, is like one that has another sense when compared with such as have no relish of those arts. The florist,. 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 useful to those who are possessed of them..

'I

OF CHEERFULNESS.

HAVE always preferred cheerfulness to mirth.

The latter I consider as an act, the former as a habit of the mind. Mirth is short and transient, cheerfulness fixed and permanent. Those are often raised into the greatest transports of mirth, who are subject to the greatest depressions of melancholy; on the contrary, cheerfulness though it does not give the mind such an exquisite gladness, prevents us from falling into any depths of sorrow. Mirth is like a flash of lightning that breaks through a gloom of clouds, and glitters for a moment; cheerfulness keeps up a kind of day light in the mind, and fills it with. a steady and perpetual serenity:

2. Men of austere principles look upon mirth as too wanton and dissolute for a state of probation, and is filled with a certain triumph and insolence of heart that is inconsistent with a life which is every moment obnoxious to the greatest dangers. Writers of this complexion have observed, that the sacred person who was the great pat tern of perfection was never seen to laugh.

3. Cheerfulness of mind is not liable to any of these exceptions; it is of a serious and composed nature; it does not throw the mind into a condition improper for the present state of humanity, and is very conspicuous in the characters of those who are looked upon as the greatest philosophers among the heathens, as well as among those who have been deservedly esteemed as saints and holy men among christians.

4. If we consider cheerfulness in three lights, with regard to ourselves, to those we converse with, and to the great Author of our being, it will not a little recommend itself on each of these accounts. The man who is possessed of this excellent frame of mind, is not only easy in his thoughts, but a perfect master of all the powers and faculties of the soul; his imagination is always clear, and his judgment undisturbed: his temper is even and unruffled, whether in action or in solitude. He comes with a relish to all those goods which nature has provided for him, tastes all the pleasures of the creation which are poured about him, and does not feel the full weight of those accidental evils which may befal him.

5. If we consider him in relation to the persons whom he converses with, it naturally produces love and good will towards him. A cheerful mind is not only disposed to be affable and obliging, but raises the same good humor in those who come within its influence. A man finds himself pleased he does not know why, with the cheerfulness of his companion: it is like a sudden sunshine that awakens a secret delight in the mind without her attending to it. The heart rejoices of its own accord and naturally flows out into friendship and benevolence towards the person who has so kindly an effect upon it.

6. When I consider this cheerful state of mind in its third relation, I cannot but look upon it as a constant habitual gratitude to the great Author of nature. An inward cheerfulness is an implicit praise and thanksgiving to providence under all its dispensations. It is a kind of acquiescence in the state wherein we are placed, and a secret approbation of the divine will in his conduct towards man.

7. There are but two things, which in my opinion, can reasonably deprive us of this cheerfulness of heart. The first of these is the sense of guilt. A man who lives in a state of vice and impenitence can have no title to that

evenness and tranquility of mind which is the health of the soul, and the natural effect of virtue and innocence.-Cheerfulness in an ill man deserves a harder name than language can furnish us with, and is many degrees beyond what we commonly call folly or madness.

8. Atheism, by which I mean the disbelief of a Supreme: Being, and consequently of a future state, under, whatsoever title it shelters itself, may likewise very reasonably deprive a man of his cheerfulness of temper. There is something so particularly gloomy and offensive to human nature in the prospect of non-existence, that I cannot but wonder, with many excellent writers, how it is possible for a man to outlive the expectation of it. For my own part, I think the being of a God is so little to be doubted that it is almost the only truth we are sure of, and such a truth as we meet with in every object, in every occurrence. and in every thought.

9. If we look into the characters of this tribe of infidels, we generally find they are made up of pride, spleen and cavil; it is indeed no wonder, that men, who are uneasy to themselves should be so to the rest of the world; and how is it possible for a man to be otherwise than uneasy in himself, who is in danger every moment of losing his entire existence, and dropping into nothing?

10. The vicious man and atheist have therefore no pre- . tence to cheerfulness, and would act very unreasonably, should they endeavor after it. It is impossible for any one to live in good humor and enjoy his present existence who is apprehensive either of torment or of annihilation; of being miserable, or of not being at all.

11. After having mentioned these two great principles,. which are destructive of cheerfulness in their own nature, as well as right reason, I cannot think of any other that ought to banish this happy temper from a virtuous mind. Pain and sickness, shame and reproach, poverty and old age, nay death itself, considering the shortness of their duration, and the advantage we may reap from them, do not deserve the name of evils.

12. A good mind may bear up under them with fortitude with independance and, with cheerfulness of heart. The tossing of a tempest does not discompose him, which he is sure will bring him to a joyful harbor.

13. A man who uses his best endeavors to live according to the dictates of virtue and right reason, has two perpetual sources of cheerfulness, in the consideration of his own nature, and of that Being on whom he has a dependence.

14. If he looks into himself, he cannot but rejoice in that existence, which is so lately bestowed upon him, and which after millions of ages will be still new, and still in its beginning. How many self congratulations naturally arise in the mind, when it reflects on this its entrance into eternity, when it takes a view of those improveable facultes, which in a few years, and even at its first setting out, have made so considerable a progress, and which will be still receiving an increase of perfection, and conse quently an increase of happiness,

15. The consciousness of such a being spreads a perpetual diffusion of joy through the soul of a virtuous man, and makes him look upon himself every moment as morc happy than he knows how to conceive.

16. The second source of cheerfulness to a good mind is, its consideration of that Being on whom we have our dependence, and in whom, tho' we behold him as yet in the first faint discoveries of his perfections, we see every thing that we can imagine as great, glorious or amiable.--We find ourselves every where upheld by his goodness, and surrounded by an immensity of love and mercy.

17. In short, we depend upon a Being, whose power qualifies him to make us happy by an infinity of means, whose goodness and truth engage him to make those hap-py who desire it of him, and whose unchangeableness will. secure us in this happiness to all eternity..

18. Such considerations, which every one should per petually cherish in his thoughts, will banish from us all that secret heaviness of heart, which unthinking men are subject to when they lie under no real affliction, all that anguish which we may feel from any evil that actually op-presses us, to which I may likewise add those little cracklings of mirth and folly, that are apter to betray virtue than support it; and establish in us such an even and cheerful temper as makes us pleasing to ourselves, to those with whom we converse, and to him whom we are made to please..

I

ON CLEANLINESS.

Spectator, No. 631 HAD occasion to go a few miles out of town, some days since, in a stage coach, where I had for my fellow-travellers, a dirty beau; and a pretty young quaker woman. Having no inclination to talk much at that time, I placed myself backward, with a design to survey them, and pick a speculation out of my two companions. Their different figures were sufficient of themselves to draw my attention.

2. The gentleman was dressed in a suit, the ground whereof had been black, as I perceived from some few spaces that had escaped the powder which was incorporated with the greatest part of his coat; his perriwig which cost no small sum, was after so slovenly a manner cast over his shoulders, that it seemed not to have been combed since the year 1712; his linen, which was not much concealed, was daubed with plain Spanish from the chin to the lowest button, and the diamond upon his finger (which naturally dreaded the water) put me in mind how it sparkled amidst the rubbish of the mine where it was first discovered.

3. On the other hand, the pretty quaker appeared in ail the elegance of cleanliness. Not a speck was to be found on her. A clear, clean oval face, just edged about with little thin plaits of the purest cambric, received great advantages from the shade of her black hood; as did the whiteness of her arms from that sober colored stuff in which she had clothed herself. The plainness of her dress was very well suited to the simplicity of her phrases, all which put together, though they could not give me a great opinion of her religion, they did of her innocence.

4. This adventure occasioned my throwing together a few hints upon cleanliness, which I shall consider as one of the half virtues, as Aristotle calls them, and shall recom→ mend it under the three following heads: As it is a mark of politeness; as it produceth love; and as it bears analogy to the purity of mind.

5. First it is a mark of politenes. It is universally agreed upon that no one unadorned with this virtue, can go into company without giving a manifest offence. The easier or higher any one's fortune is, this duty rises proportionably. The different nations of the world are as