the cause of any affliction, or could draw defences from my own judgment, I imbibed commiferation, remorse, and an unmanly gentleness of mind, which has enfnared me into ten thousand calamities, and from whence I can reap no advantage, except it be, that in such a humour as I am now in, I can the better indulge myself in the foftnesses of humanity, and enjoy that sweet anxiety which arifes from the memory of past afflictions. We who are very old, are better able to remember things which befel us in our distant youth, than the paffages of later days. For this reason it is that the companions of my ftrong and vigorous years present pref themselves more immediately to me in this office of forrow. Untimely or unhappy deaths are what we are most apt to lament; so little are we able to make it indifferent when a thing happens, though we know it must happen. Thus we groan under life, and bewail those who are relieved from it. Every object that returns to our imagination raises different paffions, according to the circumstance of their departure. Who can have lived in an army, and in a serious hour reflect upon the many gay and agreeable men who might have long flourished in the arts of peace, and not join with the imprecations of the fatherless and widow, on the tyrant to whose ambition they fell facrifices? But gallant men who are cut off by the sword, move rather our veneration than our pity: And we gather relief enough from their own contempt of death, to make it no evil, which was approached with so much cheerfulness, and attended with so much honour. But when we turn our thoughts from the great parts of life on such occafions, and instead of lamenting those who stood ready to give death to those who had the fortune to receive it; I fay, when we let our thoughts wander from fuch noble objects, and confider the havock which is made among the tender and innocent, pity enters with an unmixed foftness, and possesses all our fouls at once. Here (were there words to express such sentiments with proper tenderness) I should record the beauty, immocence, and untimely death, of the first object my eyes ever beheld with love. The beauteous virgin! How ignorantly did the charm, how carelessly excel ! O death! Thou hast a right to the bold, to the ambitious, to the high, and to the haughty; but why this cruelty to the humble, to the meek, to the undifcerning, to the thoughtless? Nor age, nor business, nor distress, can erase the dear image from my imagination. In the same week, I saw her dressed for a ball, and in a shroud! How ill did the habit of death become the pretty trifler! I still behold the smiling earch. TATLER, Vol. III. No. 181. MY HAPPINESS. Y lady Lizard is never better pleased than when she fees her children about her, engaged in any profitable discourse. I found her last night fitting in the midst of her daughters, and forming a beautiful femicircle about the fire. I immediately took my place in an elbow chair, which is always left empty for me in one corner. Our conversation fell insensibly upon the subject of happiness, in which every one of the young ladies gave her opinion, with that freedom and unconcernedness which they always use when they are in company only with their mother and myself. Mrs. Jane declared, that the thought it the greatest happiness to be married to a man of merit, and placed at the head of a well regulated family. I could not but observe, that in her character of a man of merit, she gave us a lively description of Tom Worthy, who has long made his addresses to her. The fifters did not discover this at first, till the began to run down fortune in a lover, and among the accomplishments of a man of merit, she unluckily mentioned white teeth and black eyes. Mrs. Arabella, after having rallied her fister upon her man of merit, talked much upon conveniences of life, affluence of fortune, and easiness of temper, in one whom she should pitch upon for a husband. In short, though the baggage would not speak out, I found the fum of her wishes was a rich fool, or a man so turned to her purposes, that the might enjoy his fortune, and insult his understanding. The romantic Cornelia was for living in a wood among choirs of birds with zephyrs, echoes, and rivulets to make up the concert; the would not seem to include a hufband in her scheme, but at the fame time talked fo paffionately of cooing turtles, mofly banks, and beds of violets, that one might easily perceive the was not without thoughts of a companion in her folitudes. Miss Betty placed her fummum bonum in equipages, affemblies, balls, and birthnights, talked in raptures of Sir Edward Shallow's gilt coach, and my lady Tattle's room, in which the faw company; nor would the have easily given over, had the not observed, that her mother appeared more ferious than ordinary, and by her looks shewed that she did not approve such a redundance of vanity and impertinence. My favourite, the Sparkler, with an air of innocence and modefty, which is peculiar to her, said that the never expected fuch a thing as Happiness; and that she thought the most any one could do, was to keep themfelves from being uneasy; for, as Mr. Ironside has often told us, says the, we should endeavour to be eafy here, and happy hereafter: At the same time the begged me to acquaint them by what rules this cafe of mind, or if I would please to call it happiness, is best attained. My lady Lizard joined in the fame request with her youngest daughter, adding, with a ferious look, the thing feemed to be of fo great consequence, that she hoped I would, for once, forget that they were all women, and give my real thoughts of it with the fame juft ness I would use among a company of my own sex. I complied with her defire, and communicated my fentiments to them on this subject, as near as I can remember, pretty much to the following purpose : As nothing is more natural than for every o ne to defire to be happy, it is not to be wondered at that the wisest men in all ages have spent so much time to discover what happiness is, and wherein it chiefly consists. An eminent writer, named Varro, reckons up no less than two hundred and eighty eight different opinions upon this subject; and another called Lucian, after having given us a long catalogue of the notions of feveral philosophers, endeavours to shew the abfurdity of all of them, without establishing any thing of his own. That which seems to have made so many err in this case, is the resolution they took to fix a man's happiness to one determined point, which I conceive cannot be made up but by the concurrence of several particulars. I shall readily allow Virtue the first place, as she is the mother of Content. It is this which calms our thoughts, and makes us survey ourselves with ease and pleasure. Naked virtue, however, is not alone fufficient to make a man happy. It must be accompanied with at least a moderate provision of all the neceffaries of life, and not ruffled and disturbed by bodily pains. A fit of the stone was sharp enough to make a stoic cry out, that Zeno, his master, taught him false, when he told him that pain was no evil. But befides this, virtue is so far from being alone fufficient to make a man happy, that the excess of it in some particulars, joined to a soft and feminine temper, may often give us the deepest wounds, and chiefly contribute to render us uneasy. I might instance in pity, love, and friendship. In the two last passions it often happens, that we so entirely give up our hearts, as to make our happiness wholly depend upon another person; a trust for which no human creature, however excellent, can possibly give us a fufficient security. The man therefore who would be truly happy, must, befides an habitual virtue, attain to such a strength of mind, as to confine his happiness within himself, and keep it from being dependent upon othA man of this make will perform all thofo ers. VOL. II. M 2 good-natured offices that could have been expected from the most bleeding pity, without being fo far affected at the common misfortunes of human life, as to disturb his own repose. His actions of this kind are so much more meritorious than another's, as they flow purely from a principle of virtue, and a sense of his duty; whereas a man of a softer temper, even while he is affifting another, may in fome measure be faid to be relieving himself. A man endowed with that strength of mind I am here speaking of, though he leaves it to his friend or mistress to make him ftill more happy, does not put it in the power of either to make him miferable. From what has been already faid, it will also appear, that nothing can be more weak than to place our happiness in the applause of others, since by this means we make it wholly independent of ourselves. People of this humour, who place their chief felicity in reputation and applaufe, are also extremely fubject to Envy, the most painful as well as the most abfurd of all paffions. The surest means to attain that strength of mind, and independent state of happiness I am here recommending, is, a virtuous mind sufficiently furnished with ideas to fupport folitude, and keep up an agreeable conversation with itself. Learning is a very great help on this occafion, as it lays up an infinite number of notions in the memory, ready to be drawn out, and set in order upon any occafion. The mind often takes the fame pleasure in looking over these her treafures, in augmenting and disposing them into proper forms, as a prince does in a review of his army. At the fame time I must own, that as a mind thus furnished, feels a fecret pleafure in the confciousness of its own perfection, and is delighted with fuch occafions as call upon it to try its force, a lively imagination shall produce a pleasure very little inferior to the former in persons of much weaker heads. As the first therefore may not be improperly called, the heaven of a wise man; the latter is extremely well represented by our vulgar expression, which terms it a fool's para |