Were we not counted out by an intelligent Supervisor, we should sometimes be overcharged with multitudes, and at others waste away into a desert "; we should be sometimes a populus virorum, as Florus elegantly expresses it, a generation of males, and at others a species of women. We may extend this consideration to every species of living creatures, and consider the whole animal world as an huge army made up of an innumerable corps, if I may use that term, whose quotas have been kept entire near five thousand years, in so wonderful a manner, that there is not probably a 10 single species lost during this long tract of time. Could we have

general bills of mortality of every kind of animals, or particular ones of every species in each continent and island, I could almost say in every wood, marsh, or mountain, what astonishing instances would they be of that Providence which watches over all its works?

I have heard of a great man in the Romish church, who upon reading those words in the 5th chapter of Genesis, And all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years, and he died; and all the days of Seth were nine hundred and twelve years, 20 and he died; and all the days of Methuselah were nine hundred and sixty nine years, and he died; immediately shut himself up in a convent, and retired from the world, as not thinking any thing in this life worth pursuing, which had not regard to another".

The truth of it is, there is nothing in history which is so improving to the reader as those accounts which we meet with of the deaths of eminent persons, and of their behaviour in that dreadful season. I may also add, that there are no parts in history which affect and please the reader in so sensible a manner. The reason I take to be this, because there is no other single 30 circumstance in the story of any person, which can possibly be the case of every one who reads it. A battle or a triumph are conjunctures in which not one man in a million is likely to be engaged; but when we see a person at the point of death, we cannot forbear being attentive to every thing he says or does, because we are sure that some time or other we shall ourselves be in the same melancholy circumstances. The general, the statesman, or the philosopher, are perhaps characters which we may never act in; but the dying man is one whom, sooner or later, we shall certainly resemble.

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It is, perhaps, for the same kind of reason, that few books,

written in English, have been so much perused as Dr. Sherlock's n discourse upon death; though at the same time I must own, that he who has not perused this excellent piece, has not perhaps read one of the strongest persuasives to a religious life that ever was written in any language.

The consideration with which I shall close this essay upon death is one of the most ancient and most beaten morals that has been recommended to mankind. But its being so very common and so universally received, though it takes away from it the grace of 10 novelty, adds very much to the weight of it, as it shews that it falls in with the general sense of mankind. In short, I would have every one consider, that he is in this life nothing more than a passenger, and that he is not to set up his rest here, but to keep an attentive eye upon that state of being to which he approaches every moment, and which will be for ever fixed and permanent. This single consideration would be sufficient to extinguish the bitterness of hatred, the thirst of avarice, and the cruelty of ambition.

I am very much pleased with the passage of Antiphanes", a very 20 ancient poet, who lived near an hundred years before Socrates, which represents the life of man under this view, as I have here translated it word for word. Be not grieved, says he, above measure for thy deceased friends. They are not dead, but have only finished that journey which is necessary for every one of us to take : ave ourselves must go to that great place of reception in which they are all of them assembled, and, in this general rendezvous of mankind, live together in another state of being.

I think I have, in a former paper, taken notice of those beautiful metaphors in scripture, where life is termed a pilgrimage 30 and those who pass through it are called strangers and sojourners upon earth. I shall conclude this with a story, which I have somewhere read in the travels of Sir John Chardin ": that gentleman, after having told us that the inns which receive the caravans, in Persia and the eastern countries, are called by the name of Caravansaries, gives us a relation to the following purpose.

A dervise, travelling through Tartary, being arrived at the town of Balk, went into the king's palace by mistake, as thinking it to be a public inn or caravansary. Having looked about him for some time, he entered into a long gallery, where he laid down his wal40 let, and spread his carpet, in order to repose himself upon it after

the manner of the eastern nations. He had not been long in this posture before he was discovered by some of the guards, who asked him what was his business in that place? The dervise told them he intended to take up his night's lodging in that caravansary. The guards let him know, in a very angry manner, that the house he was in was not a caravansary, but the king's palace. It happened that the king himself passed through the gallery during this debate, and smiling at the mistake of the dervise, asked him how he could possibly be so dull as not to distinguish a palace from a caravansary? 10 'Sir,' says the dervise, ‘give me leave to ask your Majesty a question or two. Who were the persons that lodged in this house when it was first built?' The king replied, his ancestors. ' And who,' says the dervise, 'was the last person who lodged here?' The king replied, his father. 'And who is it,' says the dervise, 'that lodges here at present?' The king told him, that it was he himself. 'And who,' says the dervise, 'will be here after you?' The king answered, the young prince his son. 'Ah, Sir,' said the dervise, 'a house that changes its inhabitants so often, and receives such a perpetual succession of guests, is not a palace but a caravansary.' L.

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No. 349. Death sets the seal on life; fortitude in meeting death ; Petronius, Sir Thomas More, the Emperor of Morocco.

Quos ille timorum

Maximus haud urget lethi metus; inde ruendi

In ferrum mens prona viris, animæque capaces
Mortis.

LUCAN. i. 454.

I am very much pleased with a consolatory letter of Phalaris, to one who had lost a son that was a young man of great merit. The thought, with which he comforts the afflicted father, is, to the best of my memory, as follows: That he should consider death had set a kind of seal upon his son's character, and placed him out of the reach of vice and infamy: that while he lived he was still within the possibility of falling away from virtue, and losing the fame of which he was possessed. Death only closes a man's reputation, and determines it as good or bad.

This, among other motives, may be one reason why we are 30 naturally averse to the launching out into a man's praise till his head is laid in the dust. While he is capable of changing, we

may be forced to retract our opinions. He may forfeit the esteem we have conceived of him, and some time or other appear to us under a different light from what he does at present. In short, as the life of any man cannot be called happy or unhappy, so neither can it be pronounced vicious or virtuous, before the conclusion of it.

It was upon this consideration that Epaminondas, being asked whether Chabrias, Iphicrates, or he himself", deserved most to be esteemed? You must first see us die,' said he, 'before that quesIo tion can be answered.'

As there is not a more melancholy consideration to a good man than his being obnoxious to such a change, so there is nothing more glorious than to keep up an uniformity in his actions, and preserve the beauty of his character to the last.

The end of a man's life is often compared to the winding up of a well written play, where the principal persons still act in character, whatever the fate is which they undergo. There is scarce a great person in the Grecian or Roman history, whose death has not been remarked upon by some writer or other, and censured or 20 applauded according to the genius or principles of the person who has descanted on it. Monsieur de St. Evremont " is very particular in setting forth the constancy and courage of Petronius Arbiter during his last moments, and thinks he discovers in them a greater firmness of mind and resolution than in the death of Seneca, Cato, or Socrates. There is no question but this polite author's affectation of appearing singular in his remarks, and making discoveries which had escaped the observation of others, threw him into this course of reflexion. It was Petronius's merit, that he died in the same gaiety of temper in which he lived; but 30 as his life was altogether loose and dissolute, the indifference which he shewed at the close of it is to be looked upon as a piece of natural carelessness and levity, rather than fortitude. The resolution of Socrates proceeded from very different motives, the consciousness of a well spent life, and a prospect of a happy eternity. If the ingenious author above-mentioned was so pleased with gaiety of humour in a dying man, he might have found a much nobler instance of it in our countryman Sir Thomas More ".

This great and learned man was famous for enlivening his or40 dinary discourses with wit and pleasantry, and, as Erasmus tells

him in an epistle dedicatory, acted in all parts of life like a second Democritus.

He died upon a point of religion, and is respected as a martyr by that side for which he suffered. That innocent mirth which had been so conspicuous in his life did not forsake him to the last; he maintained the same chearfulness of heart upon the scaffold which he used to shew at his table; and, upon laying his head on the block, gave instances of that good humour with which he had always entertained his friends in the most ordinary 10 Occurrences. His death was of a piece with his life; there was nothing in it new, forced, or affected. He did not look upon the severing his head from his body as a circumstance that ought to produce any change in the disposition of his mind; and as he died under a fixed and settled hope of immortality, he thought any unusual degree of sorrow and concern improper on such an occasion, as had nothing in it which could deject or terrify him.

There is no great danger of imitation from this example; men's natural fears will be a sufficient guard against it. I shall only observe, that what was philosophy in this extraordinary man would 20 be a frenzy in one who does not resemble him as well in the chearfulness of his temper, as in the sanctity of his life and

manners.

I shall conclude this paper with the instance of a person who seems to me to have shewn more intrepidity and greatness of soul in his dying moments, than what we meet with among any of the most celebrated Greeks and Romans. I met with this instance in the history of the revolutions in Portugal, written by the Abbot de Vertot.

When Don Sebastian king of Portugal had invaded the terri30 tories of Muly Moluc, emperor of Morocco, in order to dethrone him, and set his crown upon the head of his nephew, Moluc was wearing away with a distemper which he himself knew was incurable. However, he prepared for the reception of so formidable an enemy. He was indeed so far spent with his sickness that he did not expect to live out the whole day, when the last decisive battle was given; but knowing the fatal consequences that would happen to his children and people, in case he should die before he put an end to that war, he commanded his principal officers, that, if he died during the engagement, they should 40 conceal his death from the army, and that they should ride up to