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of the privation proportionable to its union with them so true is that maxim of Saint Augustine, "'Tis impossible to lose any thing without sorrow, "but what we possess without passion."

There are few persons free from an infinite number of these engagements; and though we are ignorant of them till an actual separation discovers what they are, we may, nevertheless, conceive something, by separating ourselves from them in our thoughts, and imagining we are deprived of them by some accident.

For instance, take a person who does not seem to place his happiness in the objects of sight, and fancies they contribute nothing to the tranquillity of his mind; and suppose him suddenly deprived of his sight, though in all other circumstances happy, we should find him affected with the loss as the greatest misfortune. The sight of mankind gives us some consolation, because we always discover in them a certain appearance of compassion capable to give us succour in our necessities; which at least indulges our hopes, and those hopes excite a kind of secret joy.

The objects which in some respects are disgusting to the soul, and raise its fears and aversion, yet in other views fail not to sustain it. For though these uneasy passions cannot be altogether appeased, yet the imagination always furnishes them with means or hopes that quiet them while the

pursuit of these means, or the hopes of arriving at the end of their desires, employ and divert the mind.

All the objects to which the soul is joined, by the senses, imagination, reason, or passions, are its goods and riches; and even those we call poor abound in these sort of goods: if they want palaces, or even a cottage, they have the sky, the sun, and stars, of which the prospect is so magnificent, that St Augustine says, "It is a greater blessing "for the poor to behold the heavenly luminaries, "than for the rich to view their golden roofs."

Thus, in the privation of some advantages we comfort ourselves with others, true or false, that we either possess or hope for. As the body always finds something to bear it, since even when through weariness it falls to the ground, it there finds a support; so the soul, sick and feeble, never fails of something to sustain it; and when there is nothing real, forms imaginary supports, on which (vain as they are) it leans.

This necessity of human consolations is not peculiar to vicious men; in some degree the virtuous want their relief. There are few persons so perfect but they have still some remaining tie to the world; fatigued by a long attention to spiritual objects, they are forced, in divers instances, to abandon themselves, and fly for satisfaction to their friends, their children, their estates, to a field of

their own planting, or an edifice of their own raising.

This is the condition of Man in this life, which may help us to comprehend what Death is, with the effects it produces. We ought to look on it as the rupture of all that unites us to the creatures; a general separation from the objects of sense; the cancelling all human ties and every pleasure the soul found in them, with a total privation of what it loved and enjoyed on earth. When a man dies, he loses not only what he called his wealth, but the firmament, the sun, the stars, the air, the earth, and all the rest of Nature; he loses his body, and all those sensations that gave him pleasure; he loses his relations, his friends, and all mankind; he loses all relief, all support, and, in short, all the objects of his senses and passions.

Indeed, if the soul, in some degree united to these, finds itself also united to God by a holy love, though the privation of the creatures cause some emotion, yet it sinks not into despair: For this Divine principle sustains it; and growing more active, confirms its hopes of being shortly united to and overwhelmed in that abyss of pleasure which alone can satisfy all its capacity of loving.

But who is able to conceive the state of the miserable soul, when it comes by death to be rent from all the objects of its inclinations; from all that sustained it during life, and finds nothing in itself on

which to lean its propensities to love, and enjoy what it loved, become beyond comparison more lively and ardent, while all the soul was fond of escapes, and flies before her with an everlasting flight, without leaving the least hope of fruition; she loses all, finds nothing, all sinks under her, all vanishes and disappears for ever.

It is not possible in this world to comprehend a state so perfectly miserable; all one can say, to give some idea of it, is this:-It is a terrible fall of the soul, by a sudden removal of all its supports; it is an horrible famine, by a privation of its nourishment; it is an infinite void, by the annihilation of all that filled it; it is an extreme poverty, by the entire loss of that which was its wealth; it is a ghastly solitude, by the separation it finds itself in from all union and society; it is a dreadful desolation, by the want of all consolation; it is a cruel rupture, which violently rends the soul from every object of its love.

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LETTERS

MORAL AND ENTERTAINING.

PART I.

LETTER I.

From PHILARIO to his Friend relating his unhappy amour with AMASIA.

W

My dear Chamont,

HATEVER reproaches my past follies have deserved, I know my present misfortunes will raise your compassion.-The gentle Amasia is no more! she expired in my arms, and I have paid the last rites to her memory.

Your suspicions were just, that I had perverted and secretly kept her, contrary to all the friendly admonitions you gave me. The spring of my misery was my father's marrying me at twelve years old, (O cursed avarice!) to a girl of ten, only to secure her vast fortune to his family. As I grew old, instead of liking, I conceived an unconquerable aversion to the innocent creature; but no arguments could prevail with my father to break the contract, and I was as obstinate never to complete the marriage. Thus entangled, I grew uneasy;