and idly boaft of trimming the nocturnal lamp of wisdom, without reflecting that the trueft lamp of wifdom is that which, untrimmed, and inexhaustible, burns from day to day, and from year to year, at once to affift and to illuftrate the refearches of the philofophic ftudent; but the half of whofe fplendour is thoughtlessly permitted to fhine on the oblivious couch of imperfect and infalubrious flum

ber.

Of this imprudent practice, I own I have, myfelf, but too frequently been guilty; and I have, accordingly, though yet, in point of years, in the very verdure of my youth, but too many conftitutional reasons to lament the improvidence of my conduct: feeling, as I do, but too frequently, the valetudinarian langour which, on every vifitation of a cloudy atmofphere, or a fouth-easterly wind, diffufes itself at once over mind and body, and blights the springing blooms of active fancy.

The return of the vernal feafon, fo important, and fo delightful to one in fuch a flate of health, having naturally occafioned this train of reflections to recur to my mind, I was led, in a great meafure, perhaps by the extreme finenefs of the weather, to extend them ftill farther, and not only to confider that the night is but too frequently devoted to thofe duties which belong to the day, but that alfo by not properly attending to the invitations of nature, days and feafons are frequently misapplied; and that much of our time is of confequence, virtually loft, by not being employed in thofe pursuits to which it is best adapted.

How inconfiftent, for example, faid I to myfelf, now that heaven fheds abroad the cheering, genial radiance of the fummer, and vegetation almost visibly shooting forth to meet the joyful ardour, offers the most invigorating pleasures, both to the corporeal and intellectual eye; - how inconfiftent would it be, neglectful of all the allurements of nature, to confume the day in the confines of the ftudy, and refer to fome other feafon, too dull perhaps for enjoyment, too comfortlefs for exercife, the hours of vacation, which Nature occafionally will crave; and in which, in despite of the perfeverance of ftudious application, fooner or later, fhe will peremptorily be indulged.

Thefe reflections had no fooner occurred, than my refolution was taken; and, quitting my ftudy, I fallied forth upon a pedestrian expedition, in queft of health and recreation.

The Peripatetic.

IN one refpect, at least, faid I to myself, after quitting the public road, in order to purfue a path, faintly tracked through the luxuriant herbage of the fields, and which left me at liberty to indulge the folitary reveries of a mind, to which the volume of nature is for ever open at fome page of inftruction and delight, in one refpect, at least, I may boaft of a refemblance to the fimplicity of the ancient fages, I purfue my meditations on foot, and can find occafions for philofophic reflection wherever yon fretted vault (the philofopher's beft canopy) extends its glorious covering.

4

Immor

Immortal fages! ye nobleft benefactors of mankind, unworthy as I am to lift my foul to hopes of your beatitude, or revive the awful fimplicity of your precepts in a degenerate and fuperftitious age, let me for awhile indulge my fancy with an ideal converfation with your wifdom. These fields-thefe hedge-rows fhall form my Academus; through this valley, I will fuppofe ye have walked, pouring forth divine inftruction; and resting upon these hillocks, have collected the filent energy of your fouls, and foared in awful contemplation to hea ven. Here the fublime vifion of Plato might have been revealed; there the fubtile eloquence of Ariftotle might have penetrated the labyrinths of the laws of nature; and there the divine Socrates, with perfuafive plainness, might have explained the awful myfteries of futurity, and of God.

Purfuing this reverie, I could not but compare the ancient modes of education with thofe of modern times, and lament that the nobleft parts of philofophy fhould have fallen into fuch flight eftimation, and that there fhould no longer be a porch, or grove, or attic-columned fchool, where emulous youth, thronging round the long experienced fage, might imbibe the lore of wisdom and of virtue, and improve each noble talent of his foul; but that the inftruction of our early and invaluable years fhould be carelefsly refigned to pedants, fycophants, and blockheads, who, if once mankind fhould be emancipated from all diftinctions, but those which intellects create, would fink into the humble

ranks of labourers and mechanics. Nor could I but reflect, with painful, anxiety, on my own untoward fate, doomed, with the strong thirft of philofophy, to ftruggle unaffifted along the thorny paths of fcience, impeded in my course by the heavy chains of nature and affection.

Let not, however, the young adventurer defpond. If mute are the Lages of antiquity, the inftructive voice of nature is ever eloquent and loud:

if unbleft with companions of congenial foul, who might improve, with inftructive converse, the moments of relaxation and pleasure, ftill the fields and groves afford their entertaining and intelligent fociety. These trees, these fhrubs, this fmiling turf, enamelled with these fimple blossoms, all invite to intellectual exercife, and render even the idle walk not vain.

'For to Reflection's fober train
Each plant a leffon gives.
A moralizer on the plain

Each turf and bloffom lives."

As roving, excurfively, from these to a variety of other reflections, I purfued my tranquil and cheerful way, along the fields, and fmiled to behold, at irregular diftances, to the right, and to the left, the clouds of duft which marked the winding courses of the roads, and in which the morefavoured fons of fortune, were suffocating themselves for the benefit of the air, I felt a glow of health and vivacity, which the bustle and loaded atmosphere of the metropolis never yet afforded; and I could not but reflect, that from the peripatetic habits of the ancient philofophers, and the attachment to rural life displayed by them all, in oppofition to the practice of modern ftudents, who are in fome degree compelled, by the inftitutions of fociety, to bury themselves in large cities, we might readily account for the apparent paradox, why the health of the latter fhould be fo proverbially debilitated, while the former have been fo preeminent for their longevity.

1

AND yet,' continued I, gay and infpiring as thefe objects are, they afford not the nobleft leffons inftinctive nature has prepared. . The pomp of groves, and garniture of fields,' may furnish a lively picture of the external ornaments of religion, and the full chorus of the fpring may affift devotion to foar, on grateful pinions of rapture, to the throne of him from whom all bleffings flow; but the aweful study of natural history is replete with still purer leffons; and from the

ftork, that bears its aged parent on its back, and the pelican, whofe maternal care has produced the fable of its foftering the younglings of its neft from its own bleeding bofom, we learn the practical religion of the heart, the glorious maxims of relative and focial duty.

Though, loudeft of the feather'd choir
Alanda* pour the vocal strain,
To heav'n with raptur'd wing aspire,
And, floating thro' the ethereal plain,
Call up the radiant east, to raise
The choral fong of pious praife;
Yet fhall the Stork whofe grateful wing
Aloft the feeble parent bears
(What tho' no labour'd strain she sing!)
And kindly fhares, and fooths, his
cares;
Or fhe whofe fond maternal breast,
Pours nutritive the vital ftream,
To all the younglings of her neft,

(Tho' ne'er the fail'd, with stately pride,
Down warbling Pindus' facred tide,
To join the Mufes' hallow'd lays,
And heav'nward waft the song of praise)
More bask in heav'n's approving beam.

Then, as in the focial sphere

Man a wider range enjoys,
Let his hallow'd zeal
appear
In the bleffings it fupplies.

Vain the woodlark's hermit ftrain,
Mufing thro' the lone retreat;
Vain the sweet afpiring vein

Of yon minstrel warbling sweet; Vain alike the hymn, the pray'r, Pride's full oft, or Sloth's pretence, Would you heav'n's beft favour share, Be your fuit-Benevolence! Whence, as from the genial beam,

Darting o'er the humid ground, Fruitful bleffings ever team, Realms, and smiling worlds around!

The Beggar.

without any apparent occupation, or fubject of amusement.

If it were growing toward dark now,' faid I to myself, looking around, and observing that no other perfon was in fight, one might be rather fearful of two fuch ill-looking fellows; and the scar still confpicuous on my head, the remembrancer of former ill-ufage, might juftify the palpitation with which I fhould pass them. But light, friendly light! although thou haft no tongue to reveal, no arm to arrest, yet art thou of thyfelf a guardian, and fhamefaced guilt dares not stalk forward in hideous action in thy presence.

I had once a ftriking proof of this. An impudent fellow, whofe mimic lameness, and failor-like appearance, has frequently been of no fmall use to him, in the vicinity of the metropolis, with those who have more regard than myself for the trade of war, had once accosted me in fuch terms of rude importunity as were not at all calculated to open my purfe-ftrings, and I had accordingly repulfed him with repeated denial; when brandishing his crutch, and looking round the field we alone were croffing, he fwore, with a dreadful oath, that if he had me there in the dark, he would make me give, not only halfpence, but all that I had.

It may well be fuppofed I fhuddered with no fmall degree of horror at fuch atrocity, when turning round I read but too plainly in his countenance and whole deportment, the fincerity of his threat.

1

And why not now?' thought I as foon as I had recovered my calmnefs, With respect to the world it is always dark when no one is prefent to behold what is done; and as for the Creator, what cloud fo thick, what deadly fhades fo dark as to fhut out aught from him? But fuch is the inconfiftency of "fophifticated man!" Fortunate inconfitency! that either from a confufed affociation of the ideas of light and publicity, or perhaps from the remains of that confcience

that " divinity that ftirs within us," and from which fcarcely the longest habits of vice can entirely free us, we dread to perpetrate that crime in the broad eye of day, which we even glory in, while we imagine ourselves concealed beneath the covert of the night.

The Haymaker.

THE affociation of ideas naturally led me from the above circumftance, to the remembrance of another of no very different complexion, in some of the reflections it fuggefted, how diffimilar foever, according to all the evidences of a tranfient and accidental intercourse, might be the character of the individual who was the co-actor in the fcene.

I was taking one day, in the funfhining interval between the then frequent fhowers, my wonted ramble, folitarily by the banks of the New River, across fome pleasant fields, feveral miles on the other fide of London, no very confiderable time after the accident before alluded to, when I was accofted by a labouring man, in tolerably decent attire, but who with a pathetic voice pleaded for charity.

My mind happened to be wrapt, at the time, in abftrufe contemplation, and, as I have rather an habitual prejudice-not against diftrefs- Almighty Difpofer of the ever-veering fortunes of mankind, forbid it!-but against profeffional beggary-it is the vicious profeffion of indolence and hypocrify-I paffed filently on, purfuing my road, and the chain of my meditations, and he in a contrary direction proceeded without any audible murmur, in queft of fome more generous traveller, whose bosom unfteeled by prejudice, could feel the gentle puncture of compaffion.

Somehow or other, however, my eye glanced as he paffed upon the formidable weapon he was trailing dejectedly along the ground. It was the implement of ruftic labour, fuited to the feafen, though the long continuance

Y y 2

tinuance of unfavourable weather had prevented the opportunities of its ufe.

Our feelings for our fellow-creatures depend much upon the opportunities we have of making comparifons between them; and I could not but, on the prefent occafion, compare the humble (I blush to fay the unanswered) petition of this unhappy ruftic, with the atrocious violence, by which, under circumstances of scarcely fuperior privacy, my life had been fo recently endangered.

How eafily (the thought paffed inftantaneously acrofs my mind) might this poor being, whofe modesty speaks his genuine diftrefs, (for feldom is real mifery importunate) pervert his inftrument of industry into that of hoftility, and relieve the oppreffions of diftrefs, which the hard conditions of fociety, too much, too unneceffarily prone to unequal diftribution, have laid upon him. How quickly, indeed, might the fharp prongs of that implement level the proud diftinction, between this moving and this infenfate earth! O let not every one who lolls on the couch of luxurious affluence, or beholds the comfortable board of competency fpread before him, be certain that he might not be tempted (were the keen tooth of hunger now gnawing at his vitals) to feize this opportunity to abuse the peaceful steel.

I turned inftantly round, and my hand fympathizing with the feelings of my heart, waited not for the cold approbation of reason, but went immediately, and instinctively, to my pocket.

I know not whether it was, that the neglected fuppliant perceived me to be rather inattentive than unfeeling, and had therefore hopes of my repentance, or whether the involuntary reproach of filent anguish dictated his emotion, but certain it is that, juft at the fame moment, as if by the fame inftinét, he turned round again toward me, and difplayed to me as meek, as honest, and as fupplicating a countenance as ever was shaded by few grey hairs.

His garb was decent, and his coarse fhirt, buttoned about his neck, without any handkerchief, though brown, was evidently clean; and though the marks of want were confpicuous in his countenance, his whole appearance had nothing of that emaciation which characterizes habitual wretchedness.

Such were the impreffions he made upon my mind, as, with an attitude which feemed to say, 'Can you behold with indifference the aged victim of unforeseen misfortune?' he approached toward me.

He had come, with others, from a diftant county, in order, while employment was yet fcarce at home, (the harvefts of every kind, as is well known, being always earliest in the neighbourhood of the metropolis) to earn a little fomething for his family, by helping to get in the hay in this part of the country; and he had spent all his little ftock, unavoidably, upon the road; but rainy weather having moft unfeasonably set in, and as (by a ftrange neglect in the provifions for the labouring poor) they are paid by the day, and not by the season, we all of us very well know, that though funfhine and rain are equally neceffary for the general support of mankind, the labourer is only enabled to eat when the fky is clear.

Such were the reflections produced by his fimple tale; a tale whofe veracity I had no reason to doubt, as it was rather told as an apology for his having folicited, than as a plea to excite my compaffion; I having, before he opened his lips, given him, what fome prudent people perhaps would think more than my circumftances would juftify, though I have fince often been inclined to conceive, lefs than a better judge will think I ought to have bestowed, confidering how much misfortune had caft him beneath even my own humble lot.

It is always a maxim with me, that we should either give rather liberally, or not at all. If the petitioner is a common profeffional beggar, even