ر 43 to imwill be conduct :- and uld be its ufeful, .: and fe as a prefented g from it: 1, prudence, of our precomfortable ar purfuits Tor, well deJoted. Our fbmitted to individual has this is, even and amiable, Sits line; and e of much infeliothers;-thererint and correcTom much of our pin-thefe we , and difcipline ture, defign, tenof what is withed is tion with the wife fmuch confequence ald be peaceful and iter wishes the wife, a happy new year! MORALIS. fouth-weft, by Yorkshire and the river Tees; and, on the weft, by Weftmorland and Cumberland. It extends thirty-feven miles in length from north to fouth, and forty-feven in breadth from eaft to weft. It contains one city, feven market-towns, one hundred and thirteen parishes, and near two hundred and thirty villages. It fends four members to parliament; two for the county, and two for the city of Durham. The western angle of this county is, in gene al, a mountainous, naked, and barren region; being croffed by that ridge of hills, which has not unaptly been called the Appenines of England. It is enriched, however, by mines of lead and iron; and the mineral tract continues along the northern fide of the county, till it is terminated by the great beds of coal, which are found between the lower parts of the Tyne and the Were. Coal is also met with on the fouthern fide. The caftern and middle parts of Durham, are, for the most part, fertile and agreeable, varied by hill and dale, arable and pafturage. It abounds in cattle, numbers of which are fent to the foutliern counties. The air of this county is wholetome; and, though very fharp in the western parts, is milder toward the fea, the warm vapours of which mitigate the feverity of the winter feafons. The Derwent, the principal river of this county, has it fource near the wild borders of Northumberland; forms the boundary of the two counties for fome space; and then, croffing a corner of Durham, flows through a . beautifully romantic country to the Tyne, which it joins a little above Newcastle. On and near its banks, toward its confluence with the Tyne, are fome capital iron works, where the ore is fmelted, and the metal caft and wrought into various maffy ar-ticles. The Were, a beautiful river, rifes juft in the western angle of the county, and receiving numerous tributary rills from the mountains, takes its courfe along a fine valley by the city of Durham, to the fea below Sunderland. The Tees rifes very near the fource of the Were, and runs a winding courfe, of about equal length, to the fea, which it enters, with a broad mouth, below Stockton. By this river, the lead and corn of the county find a conveyance for exportation. With refpect to the commerce of this county, we may obferve, that the large and thriving town of Sunderland, and the confiderable and populous village of South Shields, participate with Newcastle in the exportation of coal. At Sunderland, also, are feveral glafs-houses; and hence are exported grindstones and other articles. Bishop's Weremouth and Stockton have manufactories of failcloth. Darlington has been long noted for the manufacture of the table and napkin linen called huckabacks. It has alfo a thriving manufactory of woollen fluffs or camblets. A curious water machine for grinding optical glaffes, and for fpinning linen yarn, has lately been erected here, the invention of a native of this town. THOUGHTS on the NEW YEAR. NOTHER year is elapfed, and another year is commenced! One mingled with years beyond the flood and one yet in referve, for the execution of much bulinefs, the endurance of much forrow-the tolerance of much pain--the futaining of much trouble, and the commifion of much fin! To the generality of the community this will be, in varied inftances and degrees, the cafe: but fome there are whofe minds are of a complexion fuperior to the common level: to thefe I attempt to offer a word of exhortation and of instruction. There I wila to obtain the fame good things, from the beft ufe and due improvement, of the fleeting, yet in valuable valuable bleffing, Time, which I wifh and defire for myself. To the wife, then, I prefume to addrefs a word of advice, as conducive to reflection and to-happiness. One more has recently been added to the number of years already gone :-gone for ever: -gone beyond the poñibility of our improvement of them; of fupplying their defects, or of correcting their errors ! To the wife and the confiderate, how much fhame and remorfe ;-how little caufe of felf complacency and felf applaufe, do the recollection of paft times, events, and circumstances, produce! How great caufe have the beft minds, and the moft competent judges of the value of time, to lament and bewail its lapfe, and its lofs! These best know that 'Tis later with the wife than he's aware.' These wish to improve the remainder of their days to better account than has yet been done, and thefe moft ingenuously and moft deeply lament the comparative nonimprovement of their most happy and fruitful hours; and of the common ones they are greatly afhamed! Such, I am perfuaded, are the fentiments of the best qualified to judge of this matter. It remains to enquire how the future may be better employed, and more improved?- and to form firm refclu tions fo to employ, and fo to improve them! Perhaps this will be found to confift much in our conduct our pursuits-our tempers-and our wifes. Our conduct should be wife, and our employments ufeful, both to ourfelves and others: and nothing will fo well direct thefe as a line of conducting ourselves prefented by wifdom, and refulting from it: i. e. reflection, deliberation, prudence, and forecaft. On this much of our prefent happiness and future comfortable retrofpect depends. Our pursuits fhould be laudable, proper, well defigned, and well regulated. Our tempers fhould also be fubmitted to much difcipline: each individual has his peculiar one; and this is, even where generally good and amiable, often apt to tranfgrefs its line; and where bad, productive of much infelicity to ourfelves and others;-therefore needs much restraint and correction. Our wishes form much of our comfort, or our pain;-thefe we fhould direct wifely, and difcipline feverely. The nature, defign, tendency, and end, of what is wished is much in contemplation with the wife and good; and of much confequence to thofe who would be peaceful and happy. The writer wiflies the wife, in thefe refpects, a happy new year! MORALIS. On the Happiness attainable in the last Moments of Life.. Have fo long habituated myself to of pleafure and profperity, as oblite I confider life as a drama, in which the last scene or cataftrophe decides the happiness or mifery of the hero, and distributes, with decifive judgment, fuccefs or difappointment; the rewards of virtue, or the juft punifhment of vice; that I am not only prepared to acknowledge, with certain philofophers of antiquity, that no man can be pronounced happy or miferable till he is dead, but I am, at times, almost tempted to confider the longest and most fuccessful career rated by a final termination in mifery and difappointment, and one clofing hour of tranfient life, brightened by competence and focial felicity, as an ample compenfation for all the clouds of penury and anxiety, with which the morn and noontide of existence may be faddened and overcaft. This, I am well aware, is talking but little in the ftrain of a young man, the greater part of whofe path of life may naturally be expected ftill to lie before him, and who, urged forward F 2 by by the vivacity of youthful paffions, is eager to feize felicity wherever the may be found, wantoning over the enamelled mead, or reclining in the cheerful bowers of gaiety or love. But reflection is fometimes the companion of ardour; the honours of the goal are more attractive to the managed fteed, than the foftness and verdure of the level courfe; and I frankly confefs that this principle has taken fuch root in my mind, that could I once be induced to hope to obtain, by importunity, those bleffings which the course of nature muft withhold or confer, or the efforts of prudence and virtue can alone infure, my constant prayer would be, not that riches, and honours, and gaiety might attend me through the varying fcenes of life, but that the laft ftage of my existence might be tranquil and ferene; that the hour of my death might be free from bodily or mental pain, and that I might meet the fatal ftroke with religious fortitude, undisturbed by any emotions but those of fympathetic feeling for the friends, who with the folicitude of affection fhould furround my bed, mourning our tranfient feparation, but confoled by the lively hope of a speedy reunion in realms, where death and feparation come no more. That I am not fingular in this difpofition, to pronounce a general fentence on the happiness or misery of life, from the complexion of its final period, the page of hiftory, and the evident feelings of mankind, will fufficiently evince, fince ancient biography furnishes a variety of instances of perfons who have destroyed themfelves in the very height of felicity, and the full enjoyment of their dearest defires, left they should fall-from the happy pinnacle they had attained, and be robbed of the blifs they had fo long ftruggled to fecure; and fince we all of us must have obferved the avidity and delight with which thofe tales of woe are perused, which, after a long feries of embaraffiment and grief, prefent the lively picture of one genial day of profperous felicity, while the fatal catastrophe of the most interesting tale, leaves the mind of the reader depreffed by disappointment and grief. The evident fuperiority of pleafure, derived from the pleafing picture of tranfitions from grief to joy, has often induced me to wonder that the writers of fiction should so often attach themselves to melancholy cataftrophes; but with respect to the exhibitions of real life, human vanity cannot but be mortified, that the unravelling of the plot should be so little in our power, and the inftances of concluding felicity be fo dubious and fo rare. A youth of gaiety and pleafure, clouded by a premature age of debility and pain; a long race of profperous ambition terminating in difappointment and ignominy; the long continued reign of friendship and of love overturned by ingratitude, and yielding in the season of adverfity, to hopeless isolation; these are inftances fo frequent and fo common, that fober reflection needs not the ftriking examples of emperors, kings, and cardinals, to evince that the fplendour of fucceffive conquefts may be fucceeded by the disgrace of irremediable defeats, and the pomps of war, and pageantries of courts be fuperfeded, in the defpairing moments of death, by the fullen refuge of the cloistered fanctuary. Nor were the poetical embellishments of the fate of Jane Shore requifite to prove, that the fmiles of princes, and the amorous dalliance of voluptuous courts, may terminate in the fad catastrophe of houseless mifery and unalleviated want. But, independent of the unforeseen viciffitudes of life, and even of the more important confiderations of moral conduct, there seem to be difpofitions in human nature which may fometimes preclude the poffibility of this last, and moft defirable, of mortal bleffings; and fome original tendency to fuperftitious terrors, accompanied by a conftitutional depreffion of the fpirits, may fometimes fo overcloud even the strongeft ftrongest minds, that this laft ray of fetting felicity cannot pervade the fullen gloom. 'You know,' faid the ever-to-beadmired, but inconfiftent Johnson, Inever thought confidence with regard to futurity any part of the character of a brave, a wife, or a good man. Bravery has no place where it can avail nothing; wifdom impreffes ftrongly the consciousness of thofe faults, of which it is, perhaps, an aggravation; and goodness, always withing to be better, and imputing every deficiency to criminal negligence, and every fault to voluntary corruption, never dares to fuppofe the condition of forgivenefs fulfilled, nor what is wanting in the crime fupplied by penitence. This is the state of the best; but what must be the condition of him whose heart will not fuffer him to rank himself among the best, or among the good? Such must be his dread of the approaching trial, as will leave little attention to the opinion of those whom he is leaving for ever; and the ferenity that is not felt it can be no virtue to feign.' Is it not surprising that a genius like that of the author of the Rambler, should thus exert itself to give plaufibility to a fyftem, by which religion, the best confolation of the dying hour, is changed into a fcourge of terror; virtue is robbed of the bright profpect of its reward; and philofophy difarmed of its fortitude and ferenity, at a time when its affiftance is most to be defired? Are then aspiration and hope incompatible with courage? Does not experience evince the unattainability of perfection? And fhall not wifdom be confoled with the consciousness of having endeavoured well? And as for goodness; if this cannot yield us a lively hope of future felicity, and thus lay foftly beneath the languid head the pillow of death, we may indeed exclaim with the pagan Brutus, O virtue! I have worshipped thee as a real good; but I find thou art an empty fhadow!' To meet with ferenity the inevitable ftroke of fate is, in my opinion, not only the nobleft effort, but the moft demonftrative proof of courage; of a courage, which wisdom and virtue muft confpire to conftitute; and which, whenever it is thus difplayed, calls forth the most sublime feelings of virtuous admiration. Among the inftances of perfons who have met death with ferenity, and even dignity, without being influenced by the confolatory and animating principles of religion, not one has been more oftentatiously held up as an object of admiration, than that of the celebrated deift, Mr. Hume. It has been extolled as a triumphant inftance of the power of philofophy in ennobling and tranquillizing the last hours of a glorious life. To me, however, this triumph has ever appeared unfounded and premature; and the manner in which this apoftle of scepticism and infidelity affected to meet his diffolution, appears characteristic of a degree of levity not lefs inconfiftent with philofophic dignity, than weak lamentation or daftardly apprehenfion. Death must ever appear an awful period to every thinking being; and muft therefore be met with due folemnity by the man who has fubdued his fears without filencing reflection; and counterpoifed the love of life by the animating hopes of religion, rather than tilted the beam by the forced efforts of levity and affectation. If this principle then be admitted, we must turn with disgust from our dying philofopher's idle jefts about Lucian and the Stygian boatman, and confefs that they rather fuggeft the ideas of levity and infenfibility, than of fortitude and wisdom; and that they would have been more in character, as the laft words of a jester, or a buffoon, than of a grave historian and philofopher. The behaviour of the fincere Chriftian, in his dying moments, is humble and unaffected. The retrospect of his life infpires him not with pre sumptuous |