From my own experience, to resolve on which side the advantage of pleasure falls.

You imagine I have acted in both the characters of saint and sinner, and tried the extremes of virtue and vice. In the last I am too much experienced; but this makes me more capable of passing a censure; for I was a sort of philosophic libertine, and pursued pleasure for the sake of demonstration. I paused, I reasoned, I made critical reflections on every enjoyment; I proposed something beyond gratifying a low and sensual inclination; mine was a deliberate search after happiness; while the method was wrong, my end was right; but every guilty experiment brought its own conviction, and left me restless and disappointed.

Sometimes I exclaimed in prose, sometimes in verse; I burlesqued the vanities of life and the weakness of human nature; I turned moralist, looked grave, and acted soberly: but this was a situation too cold for my temper, it was neither sleeping nor waking; this supine indolence was but a poor exchange for the jovial activities I had resigned, nor could I assent to that spiritless maxim, that Virtue was its own reward, if there was no future expectation: Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die, appeared to me a much more rational conclusion.

However, this deliberation, this pause, this mo

step I made towards real happiness. In the absence of sensual amusements my thoughts found leisure for a nobler application; my soul grew familiar with itself and sought acquaintance with intellectual beings: distressed with the vicissitudes of mortal things, it traced back its own divine original, and claimed paternal refuge from the great. Spring of all existence. I felt the attraction strong as the bands of Nature; that felicity I had blindly sought, the unknown God I had ignorantly worshipped, now revealed himself to me, as the sovereign Good, and my peculiar bliss.

How an almighty agent acts no language of men can describe; but I felt the sacred influence, I heard the heavenly sound, the soft melodious voice, calling me away from earthly vanities; while a ray of celestial beauty sparkling on my soul eclipsed, the glories of the world, and darkened all the pride of nature; the mists of ignorance and error vanished before the divine illumination, which, with a pleasing evidence, compelled my assent to the glorious truths it proposed; my apprehensions were enlarged, and a sanctity of disposition infused; those heights of virtue, which I once thought impracticable, now appeared easy, and attended with ineffable delight, such as gave me some delicious prelibations

Of those immortal banquets, those rich draughts
Of vital pleasure, which my thirsty soul

Shall drink for ever in

These are no fantastic delusions, but real and divine enjoyments, such as enlarge the mind, and give it a nobler disposition, while, conscious of its own grandeur, it rests in nothing below boundless and immortal felicity.

This is what you seem anxiously to inquire after: how happy shall I be, if my experience can direct you in such an important search! You will excuse the sending you these negligent lines on a subject so superior to my genius.

On HAPPINESS.

WHATEVER diff'rent paths mankind pursue,
Oh, Happiness! 'tis thee we keep in view:
'Tis thee in ev'ry action we intend,
The noblest motive, and superiour end!
Thou dost the scarcely-finish'd soul incline;
It's first desire, and conscious thought, is thine;
Our infant breasts are sway'd by thee alone,
When pride and jealousy are yet unknown.
Through life's obscure and wild variety,
Our stedfast wishes never start from thee :
Thou art of all our waking thoughts the theme,
We court thee too in ev'ry nightly dream :
Th' immortal flame with equal ardour glows,
Nor one short moment's intermission knows:
Whether to courts or temples we repair,

With restless zeal we search thee ev'ry where;
Whether the roads that to perdition lead,
Or those which guide us to the stars we tread,
Thine is the hope, th' inestimable prize,
The glorious mark on which we fix our eyes!

Thy charms th' enamour'd Libertine entice,

}

Th' advent'rous man refines on sin, and makes,
In search of thee, to hell new-beaten tracks;
Enchanting pleasure dances in his sight,

And tempts him forward by a treach'rous light:
But while thy flatt'ring smiles his thoughts inflame,
Thou prov'st to him a mere fantastic name,
A fair delusion, and a pleasing cheat,

A gaudy vision, and a soft deceit ;

Which, while the wretch pursues with eager pace,
And seems to overtake thee in the race,
An airy phantom mocks his close embrace;
His arms in vain the sportive shade would fold;
Still like a gliding ghost it slips his fondest hold:
The disappointment heightens yet his rage,
And tempts him with fresh ardour to engage:
Successless, but unweary'd in the strife,
He still pursues thee to the verge of life;
With life compell'd his dotage to resign,
The last despairing sigh he breathes is thine.

The pious man directs his vows to thee,
And proves thy most pathetic votary.
Virtue itself, ev'n virtue he regards
But as thy favour the fatigue rewards:
To silent shades and solitude obscure,
Far from the world thou dost his steps allure;
But there he lives retir'd, a glorious Epicure,
And gladly quits the fleeting joys of sense
In search of bliss more lasting and intense;
Not such as the fond lover's heart beguiles,
When without art his yielding mistress smiles;
Not such as fills the youthful hero's mind,
When wreaths of victory his temples bind :
His thoughts a nobler luxury would prove,
Such as the bless'd immortals know above;

A spark divine, like theirs, his breast inflames,
Enjoyments all divine, like theirs he claims,
Licentious and unbounded in his aims.

To pleasure's sacred spring his soul aspires,
There only hopes to quench his infinite desires :
Not envious Hell the passion can suppress,
Fir'd by thy name, alluring Happiness!
Undaunted he maintains the gen'rous strife,
And struggles for thee to the close of life;
Then joyful clasps thee in his dying arms,

And yields his breath, possess'd of all thy charms.

This is the conclusion to which I stand, after the exactest trial of sensual and intellectual pleasures; without hesitation I give my voice on the side of Virtue, and this is the gayest period of my life, unruffled with adversity or disappointment, in the affluence of fortune, and the luxury of youth, with a mind capacious of bliss, and panting after happi

ness.

In this situation you cannot object against the severity of my temper. However, as few persons care to be wise at other people's expence, I cannot expect that, without any farther trial, you will acquiesce in the judgment of

Your most humble servant.

LETTER VII.

To LUCIUS.

Ir was you that proposed this subject to my Muse, but I have hardly the vanity to hope the perfor