politician would be contented to lofe three years in his life, could he place things in the pofture which he fan cies they will stand in after fuch a revolution of time. The lover would be glad to ftrike out of his existence all the moments that are to pafs away before the happy meeting. Thus, as faft as our time runs, we should be very glad in moft parts of our lives that it ran much fafter than it does. Several hours of the day hang upon our hands, nay we wish away whole years; and travel through time as through a country filled with many wild and empty waftes, which we would fain hurry over, that we may arrive at thofe feveral little fettlements or imaginary points of reft which are difperfed up and down in it.

If we divide the life of moft men into twenty parts, we fhall find that at least nineteen of them are mere gaps and chafms, which are neither filled with pleafure nor bufinefs. I do not however include in this calculation the life of thofe men who are in a perpetual hurry of affairs, but of thofe only who are not always engaged in fcenes of action; and I hope I fhall not do an unacceptable piece of fervice to thefe perfons if I point out to them certain methods for the filling up their empty spaces of life. The methods I fhall propose to them are as follow.

The firft is the exercife of virtue, in the moft general acceptation of the word. That particular scheme which comprehends the social virtues, may give employment to the moft induftrious temper, and find a man in bufinefs more than the most active station of life. To advise the ignorant, relieve the needy, comfort the afflicted, are duties that fall in our way almoft every day of our lives. A man has frequent opportunities of mitigating the fiercenefs of a party; of doing juftice to the character of a deferving man; of foftning. the envious, quieting the angry, and rectifying the prejudiced; which are all of them employments fuited to a reasonable nature, and bring great fatisfaction to the perfon who can bufy himself in them with difcretion.

There is another kind of virtue that may find employment for thofe retired hours in which we are altogether left to ourfelves, and deflitute of company/

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and converfation; I mean that intercourse and communication which every reafonable creature ought to maintain with the great author of his being. The man who lives under an habitual fenfe of the divine prefence keeps up a perpetual chearfulness of temper, and enjoys every moment the fatisfaction of thinking himself in company with his dearest and beft of friends. The time never lies heavy upon him: It is impoffible for him to be alone. His thoughts and paffions are the most bufied at fuch hours when thofe of other men are the most unactive: He no fooner steps out of the world but his heart burns with devotion, fwells with hope, and triumphs in the conscioufnefs of that prefence which every where furrounds him; or, on the contrary, pours out its fears, its forows, its apprehenfions, to the great fupporter of its existence.

I have here only confidered the neceffity of a man's being virtuous, that he may have fomething to do; but if we confider further that the exercife of virtue is not only an amufement for the time it lafts, but that its influence extends to thofe parts of our exiftence which lie beyond the grave, and that our whole eternity is to take its colour from thofe hours which we here employ in virtue or in vice, the argument redoubles upon us, for putting in practice this method of paffing away cur time.

When a man has but a little ftock to improve, and has opportunities of turning it all to good account, what fhall we think of him if he fuffers nineteen parts of it to lie dead, and perhaps employs even the twentieth to his ruin or difadvantage? But becaufe the mind cannot be always in its fervours, nor ftrained up to a pitch of virtue, it is neceffary to find out proper employments for it in its relaxations.

The next method therefore that I would propose to fill up our time, fhould be ufeful and, innocent diverfions. I must confefs I think it is below reafonable creatures to be altogether converfant in fuch diverfions as are merely innocent, and have nothing else to recommend them, but that there is no hurt in them. Whether any kind of gaming has even thus much

to

to fay for itself, I fhall not determine; but I think it is very wonderful to fee perfons of the beft fenfe paffing away a dozen hours together in fhuffling and dividing a pack of cards, with no other converfation but what is made up of a few game phrafes, and no other ideas but thofe of black or red fpots ranged together in different figures. Would not a man laugh to hear any one of this fpecies complaining that life is thort?

The Stage might be made a perpetual four ce of the moft noble and ufeful entertainments, were it under proper regulations.

But the mind never unbends itself fo agreeably as in the conversation of a well-chofen friend. There is indeed no bleffing of life that is any way comparable to the enjoyment of a difcreet and virtuous friend. It cafes and unloads the mind, clears and improves the underftanding, engenders thoughts and knowledge, animates. virtue and good refolution, fooths and allays the paffions, and finds employment for most of the vacant hours of life.

Next to fuch an intimacy with a particular perfon, one would endeavour after a more general conversation with fuch as are able to entertain and improve those with whom they converfe, which are qualifications that feldom go afunder.

There are many other ufeful amufements of life, which one would endeavour to multiply, that one might on all occafions have recourfe to fomething rather than Tuffer the mind to lie idle, or run adrift with any paffion that chances to rife in it.

A man that has a tafte in mufick, painting, or architecture, is like one that has another fenfe when compared with fuch as have no relifh of thofe arts. The florift, the planter, the gardener, the husbandman, when they are only as accomplishments to the man of fortune, are great reliefs to a country life,, and many ways ufeful to thofe who are poffeffed of them.

But of all the diverfions of life, there is none fo proper to fill up its empty fpaces as the reading of ufeful and entertaining authors. But this I fhall only touch upon, because it in fome measure interferes with the third method, which I fhall propofe in another

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paper, for the employment of our dead unactive hours, and which I fhall only mention in general to be the purfuit of knowledge.

L

N° 94

Monday, June 18.

Hoc ef

Kivere bis, vitâ poffe pricri frui.

Mart. Epig. 23. 1. 10.

The prefent joys of life we doubly tafte,

By looking back with pleasure to the past.

HE laft method which I propofed in my Satur

Tday's paper, for filling up thofe empty spaces of

life which are fo tedious and burdenfome to idle people, is the employing ourselves in the purfuit of knowledge. I remember Mr. Boyle, fpeaking of a certain mineral, tells us, that a man may confume his whole life in the ftudy of it, without arriving at the knowledge of all its qualities. The truth of it is, there is not a fingle science, or any branch of it, that might not Furnish a man with bufinefs for life, though it were much longer than it is.

I fhall not here engage on those beaten fubjects of the ufefulness of knowledge, nor on the pleafure and perfection it gives the mind, nor on the methods of attaining it, nor recommend any particular branch of it, all which have been the topicks of many other writers; but fhall indulge myself in a fpeculation that is more uncommon, and may therefore perhaps be more entertaining.

I have before fhewn how the unemployed parts of life appear long and tedious, and fhall here endeavour to fhew how thofe parts of life which are exercifed in ftudy, reading, and the purfuits of knowledge, are long but not tedious, and by that means difcover a method of lengthening our lives, and at

the

the fame time of turning all the parts of them to our advantage.

Mr. Locke obferves, "That we get the idea of time, "or duration, by reflecting on that train of ideas " which fucceed one another in our minds: That for "this reafon, when we fleep foundly without dreaming, we have no perception of time, or the length of it, whilft we fleep; and that the moment wherein we leave off to think, till the moment we begin to think "again, feems to have no diftance." To which the author adds, "And fo I doubt not but it would be to "a waking man, if it were poffible for him to keep

only one idea in his mind, without variation, and "the fucceffion of others; and we fee, that one who "fixes his thoughts very intently on one thing, so as to "take but little notice of the fucceffion of ideas that pafs "in his mind whilft he is taken up with that earnest contemplation, lets flip out of his account a good part of that duration, and thinks that time shorter. "than it is."

We might carry this thought further, and confider a man as, on one fide, fhortening his time by thinking one nothing, or but a few things; fo, on the other, as lengthening it, by employing his thoughts on many subjects, or by entertaining a quick and conftant fucceffion of ideas. Accordingly Monfieur Mallebranche, in his Enquiry after Truth, (which was published feveral years. before Mr. Locke's Effay on Human Understanding) tells us, That it is poffible fome creatures may think half an hour as long as we do a thousand years; or look upon that fpace of duration which we call a minute, as an hour, a week, a month, or a whole age..

This notion of Monfieur Mallebranche is capable of fome little explanation from what I have quoted out of Mr. Locke; for if our notion of time is produced by our reflecting on the fucceffion of ideas in our mind, and this fucceffion may be infinitely accelerated or re-tarded, it will follow, that different beings may have. different notions of the fame parts of duration, according as their ideas, which we fuppofe are equally diftinct.. in each of them, follow one another in a greater or less degree of rapidity.

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