POWER OF SLIGHT INCIDENTS."

Tis curious to observe the triumph of flight

IT

incidents over the mind;-What incredible weight they have in forming and governing our opinions, both of men and things-that trifles light as air, fhall waft a belief into the foul, and plant it fo immoveable within it,that Eu clid's demonstrations, could they be brought to batter it in breach, fhould not all have power to overthrow it.

T. SHANDY, VOL. II, CHAP. 62.

CROSSES IN LIFE.

MANY

ANY, many are the ups and downs of life, and fortune must be uncommonly gracie ous to that mortal who does not experience a great variety of them:though perhaps to these may be owing as much of our pleasures as our pains: there are scenes of delight in the vale as well as the mountain; and the inequalities of nature may not be lefs neceffary to please the eye Than the varieties of life to improve the heart, At beft we are but a short-fighted race of beings, with just light enough to discern our way

-to do that is our duty, and fhould be our care; when a man has done this, he is fate, the reft is of little confequence

Cover his head with a turf or a flone,

It is all one, it is all one!

LETTER, IV. TO HIS FRIENDS.

2

THE CONTRAST.

TH

HINGS are carried on in this world, fometimes fo contrary to all our reasonings, and the feeming probabilities of fuccefs,—that even the race is not to the fwift, not the battle to the strong;-nay, what is ftranger ftill-nor, yet bread to the wife, who fhould laft ftand in want of it, nor yet riches to the men of understanding, who you would think best qualified to acquire them,-nor yet favour to men of skill, whofe merit and pretences bid the faireft for it,but that there are fome fecret and unfeen workings in human affairs, which baffle all our endeavours, and turn afide the courfe of things in fuch a manner, that the most likely caufés difappoint and fail of producing for us the effect which] we wished, and naturally expected from them.

You will fee a man, of whom was you to' form a conjecture from the appearances of things}

in

in his favour, you would fay was setting out in the world, with the fairest prospect of making his fortune in it;-with all the advantages of birth to recommend him,-of perfonal merit to fpeak for him,and of friends to pufh him forwards: you will hehold him, notwithstanding this, difappointed in every effect you might naturally have looked for, from them; every step he takes towards his advancement. fomething invisible shall pull him back, fome unforeseen obftacle fhall rife up perpetually in his way, and keep there.-In every application he makes fome untoward circumftance fhall blast it-He fhall rife early,-late take reft, and eat the bread of carefulness, yet fome happier man shall rise up, and ever ftep in before him, and leave him ftruggling to the end of his life, in the very fame place in which he first began.

The hiftory of a fecond, fhall in all refpects, by the contrast to this. He fhall come into the world with the most unpromising appearance,fhall fet forwards without fortune, without friends without talents to procure him either the one or the other. Nevertheless, you will fee this clouded profpe&t brighten up infenfibly,' unaccountably before him; every thing prefented in his way fhall turn out beyond his expectations, in fpite of that chain of unfurmountable difficulties which, first threatened him,-time and chance fhall open him a way,-a feries of

fuccefsful

fuccessful occurrences shall lead him by the hand, to the fummit of honour and, fortune, and, in a word, without giving him the pains of thinking, or the credit of projecting, it shall place him in a fafe poffeffion of all that ambition could with

for.

SERMON VIII. p. 152.

SELFISHNESS AND MEANNESS,

TH

HAT there is felfifhhefs and meannefs enough in the fouls of one part of the world, to hurt the credit of the other part of it, is what I'fhall not difpute against; but to judge of the whole from this bad fample, and because. one man is plotting and artful in his nature ;➡ or, a fecond openly makes his pleasure or his profit the whole center of all his defigns;-or. because a third ftrait-hearted wretch fits confined within himself, feels no misfortunes, but those which touch himfelf; to involve the whole race without mercy under fuch detefted charac ters, is a conclufion as falfe as it is pernicious; and was it in general to gain credit, could ferve no end, but the rooting out of our nature all. that is generous, and planting in the ftead of it fuch an averfion to each other, as muft untie the bands of fociety, and rob us of one of the great

P.

est

eft pleasures of it, the mutual communications of kind offices; and by poifoning the fountain, rendering every thing fufpected that flows through it. SERMON VII. PAGE 137.

VICE NOT WITHOUT USE.

HE lives of bad men are not without ufe,

TH

and whenever fuch a one is drawn, not with a corrupt view to be admired, but on purpose to be detested-it must excite fuch a horror against vice, as will strike indirealy the fame good impreffion. And though it is painful to the laft degree to paint a man in the fhades which his vices have caft upon him, yet when it ferves this end, it carries its own excufe with it.

WHAT

HAT by fucceffive misfortunes; by failings and cross accidents in trade; by mifcarriage of projects:--what by unfuitable expenfes of parents, extravagances of children, and the many other fecret ways whereby riches make themselves wings and fly away; so many furprising revolutions do every day happen in families, that it may not feem strange to say,

that