this discovery gave me, and began to examine her basket. The thorns it was covered with cost me a good deal of time to disentangle, and take them out with safety to my fingers, but I recollected them distinctly every one to be such as had perplexed me and torn my clothes as I passed along the narrow path, and which one by one I had gently broken off the boughs while I pursued my journey. These were the very individual thorns and briers; and, while I was wondering how they should come to be so collected, I came to the bottom, where I found a row of inestimable pearls, equal in number to the briers, large, even, round, and of exquisite polish. Beside them lay a scrap of paper, with these words written on it :

"Philosophy and evenness of temper are pearls, which we purchase at the price of those vexations and crosses in life that occur to us every day. Nothing in this world is to be had for nothing. Every difficulty we surmount is the purchase of some advantage. Go through the fair and see."

I perceived a good genius standing near me, and desired him to be my cicerone. We went through the booths, and examined the purchases. Here the coin paid down for health and ease, and freedom from perplexity, was stamped with care and prudence: the copper money of mere plodding perseverance was the price of wealth, honour, learning, and accomplishments. In one place there was a sort of Monmouth Street, where people were bartering old bad habits for new ones, every way more becoming, but seemed to think their bargains very hard; and the very

article of fitting them on occasioned such a variety of wry faces as would have given great diversion to a grotesque painter. It was a melancholy amusement to see how people mistook in the value they set upon things, how often they passed by, with a slighting air, those goods which at first they might have had for a trifle; and never knew the worth of them till they were engaged to other bidders, or the price was raised very high, or themselves, perhaps, gone so far off before they took the fancy of returning, that they could not find their way back without a guide; and in the whole place there was but one guide to be met with, and she of so forbidding an aspect, and so disagreeable a conversation, as made her a very undesirable companion. She severely reproved their folly, and obliged them to throw away the bargains on which they had most set their heart, and then led them back to the fair, by a rough roundabout way, to buy those they had formerly slighted; by the time they had got there she began to wear a gentle aspect, and they found so much advantage in the change of their purchases, that, notwithstanding all her rude treatment, they acknowledged Repentance as a very useful friend.

Leisure, I found, was a metal, that proved more or less valuable according to the image stamped upon it, and, as I saw what admirable curiosities it purchased in the hands of good managers, I was quite provoked to see what quantities of it were flung away: but this was nothing. I saw many fine people throw away handfuls of diamonds, that they might have their fingers at liberty to catch butterflies.

In some parts of the fair every body seemed to be playing at cross purposes: the most valuable gems were squandered away for trifles, which yet they could not purchase, and trifles offered for jewels of the highest price. I saw my friend Fosco, the antiquarian, among a multitude of the same class, who brought such a quantity of time and industry as would have purchased any thing in the whole place, and poured it out before a cabinet of copper coins, which still, after all, wanted one or two of being perfect. I saw others of gayer appearance buy a shadow, a flower, a feather, at still a higher price. At last, to my infinite vexation, a less shadowy figure stood before me, and a summons to attend some visiters that were just alighted put an end to my reverie.

MISS TALBOT.

THE

PROPER EMPLOYMENT OF TIME.

I WAS yesterday pursuing the hint which I mentioned in my last paper, and comparing together the industry of man with that of other creatures; in which I could not but observe, that notwithstanding we are obliged by duty to keep ourselves in constant employ, after the same manner as inferior animals are prompted to it by instinct, we fall very short of them in this particular. We are here the more inexcusable, because there is a greater variety of business to which we may apply ourselves. Reason opens to us a large field of affairs, which other creatures are not capable of. Beasts of prey, and I believe all

other kinds, in their natural state of being, divide their time between action and rest. They are always at work or asleep. In short, their waking hours are wholly taken up in seeking after their food or in consuming it. The human species only, to the great reproach of our natures, are. filled with complaints that " the day hangs heavy on them," that "they do not know what to do with themselves," that "they are at a loss how to pass away their time," with many of the like shameful murmurs, which we often find in the mouths of those who are styled "reasonable beings." How monstrous are such expressions among creatures who have the labours of the mind, as well as those of the body, to furnish them with proper employments; who, besides the business of their proper callings and professions, can apply themselves to the duties of religion, to meditation, to the reading of useful books, to discourse; in a word, who may exercise themselves in the unbounded pursuits of knowledge and virtue, and every hour of their lives make themselves wiser or better than they were before!

After having been taken up for some time in this course of thought, I diverted myself with a book, according to my usual custom, in order to unbend my mind before I went to sleep. The book I made use of on this occasion was Lucian, where I amused my thoughts for about an hour among the dialogues of the dead, which in all probability produced the following dream.

I was conveyed, methought, into the entrance of the infernal regions, where I saw Rhadaman

:

thus, one of the judges of the dead, seated in his tribunal. On his left hand stood the keeper of Erebus, on the right the keeper of Elysium. I was told he sat upon women that day, there being several of the sex lately arrived, who had not yet their mansions assigned them. I was surprised to hear him ask every one of them the same question, namely, "What they had been doing?" Upon this question being proposed to the whole assembly, they stared one upon another, as not knowing what to answer. He then interrogated each of them separately. "Madam," says he to the first of them, "you have been upon the earth above fifty years; what have you been doing there all this while?" "Doing!" says she, "really I do not know what I have been doing I desire I may have time given me to recollect." After about half an hour's pause, she told him she had been playing at crimp; upon which Rhadamanthus beckoned to the keeper on his left hand, to take her into custody. "And you, madam," says the judge, "that look with such a soft and languishing air, I think you set out for this place in your nine and twentieth year, and what have you been doing all this while ?" "I had a great deal of business on my hands," says she, "being taken up the first twelve years of my life in dressing a jointed baby, and all the remaining part of it in reading plays and romances." "Very well," says he, 66 you have employed your time to good purpose. Away with her!" The next was a plain country woman. "Well, mistress," says Rhadamanthus, "and what have you been doing?" "An't