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Numb. 186. Saturday, December 28, 1751.

 

Pone me, pigris ubi nulla campis Arbor æstica recreatur Aurâ——— Dulce ridentem Lalagen amabo, Dulce loquentem.	Hor.
Place me where never summer breeze Unbinds the glebe, or warms the trees; Where ever lowering clouds appear, And angry Jove deforms th' inclement year: Love and the nymph shall charm my toils, The nymph who sweetly speaks and sweetly smiles.	Francis.

 

OF the happiness and misery of our present state, part arises from our sensations, and part from our opinions; part is distributed by nature, and part is in a great measure apportioned by ourselves. Positive pleasure we cannot always obtain, and positive pain we often cannot remove. No man can give to his own plantations the fragrance of the Indian groves; nor will any precepts of philosophy enable him to withdraw his attention from wounds or diseases. But the negative infelicity which proceeds, not from the pressure of sufferings, but the absence of enjoyments, will always yield to the remedies of reason.

One of the great arts of escaping superfluous uneasiness, is to free our minds from the habit of comparing our condition with that of others on whom the blessings of life are more bountifully bestowed, or with imaginary states of delight and security, perhaps unattainable by mortals. Few are placed in a situation so gloomy and distressful, as not to see every day beings yet more forlorn and