3. In learning the useful part of every profession, very moderate abilities will suffice: great abilities are generally obnoxious to the possessor. Life has been compared to a race; but the allusion still improves, by observing, that the most swift are ever the most apt to stray from the course.

4. To know one profession only, is enough for one man to know; and this, whatever the professors may tell you to the contrary, is soon learned. Be contented, therefore, with one good employment; for if you understand two at a time, people will give you no business in either.

er.

5. A conjurer and a tailor once hapened to converse togeth"Alas!" cries the tailor, "what an unhappy poor creature am I! If people ever take into their heads to live without clothes, I am undone; I have no other trade to have recourse to.""Indeed, friend, I pity you sincerely," replies the conjurer; "but, thank Heaven, things are not quite so bad with me; for, if one trick should fail, I have a hundred tricks more for them yet. However, if at any time you are reduced to beggary, apply to me, and I will relieve you."

6. A famine overspread the land; the tailor made a shift to live, because his customers could not be without clothes; but the poor conjurer, with all his hundred tricks, could find none that had money to throw away; it was in vain that he promised to eat fire, or to vomit pins; no single creature would relieve him, till he was at last obliged to beg from the very tailor whose calling he had formerly despised.

7. There are no obstructions more fatal to fortune than pride and resentment. If you must resent injuries at all, at least suppress your indignation till you become rich, and then show away. The resentment of a poor man is like the efforts of a harmless insect to sting; it may get him crushed, but cannot defend him. Who values that anger which is consumed only in empty menaces?

8. Once upon a time, a goose fed its young by a pond side; and a goose, in such circumstances, is always extremely proud, and excessively punctilious. If any other animal, without the least design to offend, happened to pass that way, the goose was immediately at it. "The pond," she said, "was her's, and she would maintain her right in it, and support her honor, while she had a bill to hiss, or a wing to flutter.'

9. In this manner she drove away ducks, pigs, and chickens; nay, even the insidious cat was seen to scream. A lounging mastiff, however, happened to pass by, and thought it no harm

if he should lap a little of the water, as he was thirsty. The guardian goose flew at him like a fury, pecked at him with her beak, and flapped him with her wings.

10. The dog grew angry, and had twenty times a mind to give her a sly snap, but suppressing his indignation, because his master was nigh, "A pox take thee," cried he, "for a fool; sure those who have neither strength nor weapons to fight, at least, should be civil." So saying, he went forward to the pond, quenched his thirst in spite of the goose, and followed his master.

11. Another obstruction to the fortune of youth is, that while they are willing to take offence from none, they are also equally desirous of giving nobody offence. From hence they endeavor to please all, comply with every request, and attempt to suit themselves to every company; have no will of their own; but, like wax, catch every contiguous impression. By thus attempting to give universal satisfaction, they at last find themselves miserably disappointed. To bring the generality of admirers on our side, it is sufficient to attempt pleasing a very few.

12. A painter of eminence was once resolved to finish a piece which should please the whole world. When, therefore, he had drawn a picture in which his utmost skill was exhausted, it was exposed in the public market place, with directions at the bottom for every spectator to mark, with a brush that lay by, every limb and feature that seemed erroneous.

13. The spectators came, and in general applauded; but each, willing to show his talent at criticism, stigmatized whatever he thought proper. At evening, when the painter came, he was mortified to find the picture one universal blot; not a single stroke that had not the marks of disapprobation.

14. Not satisfied with this trial, the next day he was resolved to try them in a different manner; and exposing his picture as before, desired that every spectator would mark those beauties he approved or admired.

15. The people complied; and the artist returning, found his picture covered with the marks of beauty; every stroke that had yesterday been condemned, now received the character of approbation. "Well," cries the painter, "I now find, that the best way to please all the world, is to attempt pleasing one half of it."

LESSON XCIX.

The Hero and the Sage.-MAVOR.

1. A WARRIOR,* who had been the successful commander of armies, on boasting of the thousands he had slain in the field, or cut off by stratagem, roused the indignant but humane feelings of a Sage, who unawed by military prowess, thus rebuked the insolence of his triumph: "You seem to exult, Sir, in the destruction of your kind, and to recapitulate with satisfaction the numbers you have deprived of life, or rendered miserable. As a man, I blush for you; as a philosopher, I pity you; as a christian, I despise you."

2. The hero reddened with wrath; he frowned with contempt; but he did not yet open his lips. "I am patriot enough," continued the Sage, "to wish well to the arms of my country. I honor her valiant sons who support her glory and independence, and who risk their lives in her defence; but however meritorious this may be, in a just cause, the truly brave will lament the cruel necessity they are under of sacrificing their fellow-men; and the generous will rather commiserate than triumph.

3. "I never read of a battle, of the destruction of thousands and tens of thousands, but I involuntarily enter into calculations on the extent of misery which then ensues. The victims of the sword are, perhaps, least the objects of pity; they have fallen by an instant death, and are removed from the consciousness of the woes they have left behind. I extend my views to their surviving relatives and friends. I bewail the lacerated ties of nature. I sympathize with the widow and the orphan. My heart bleeds for parental agonies. I depict the warm vows of a genuine affection for ever lost; the silent throb of exquisite anguish; the tear which perhaps is forbidden to flow; and, from such a contemplation, I turn away with a sensibility that represses exultation for victory, however brilliant, and for success, however complete."

4. The warrior clapped his hand on his sword; he looked with indignation, but still was mute. The Sage went on. "I almost forget the name of enemy, when I reflect on the misery of man. The malignant passions that excite hostilities, between nations or individuals, seldom return on the aggressor's heads. Were this the case, moral justice would be satisfied, and reason would have less to censure or lament. But when the innocent * Pronounced war-yur.

suffer for the guilty, who can think without concern, or withhold commiseration, though fell necessity may sanction the devastations of war."

5. "Do you mean to insult me, Sir?" sternly demanded the Hero. "This canting hypocritical affectation of sentiment I will not brook. But you are too insignificant for my resentment." "I confess my insignificance," rejoined the Sage, "my actions have never been blazoned in gazettes; yet I have neither been idle nor uselessly employed. As far as my abilities would allow, I have endeavored to make mankind wiser and better. have failed to increase the stock of human happiness, my heart does not accuse me of diminishing its supplies. Few have an opportunity of doing much good; but the most insignificant and contemptible are qualified to do harm."

If I

6. Here the Hero and the Sage parted; neither was able to convince the other of the importance of his services; the former ordered his coach, and was gazed at with admiration by the unthinking mob; the latter retired to his garret, and was forgotten.

LESSON C.

The Blind Preacher.-WIRT.

1. I HAVE been, my dear S- on an excursion through the countries which lie along the eastern side of the Blue Ridge ;* a general description of that country and its inhabitants, may form the subject of a future letter. For the present, I must entertain you with an account of a most singular and interesting adventure, which I met with in the course of my tour.

2. It was one Sabbath, as I travelled through the county of Orange, that my eye was caught by a cluster of horses tied near an old, ruinous, wooden house, in the forest, and not far from the road side. Having frequently seen such objects before, in travelling through these states, I had no difficulty in understanding that this was a place of religious worship. Devotion, alone, should have stopped me to join in the duties of the congregation, but I must confess that curiosity to hear the preacher of such a wilderness was not the least of my motives.

3. On entering the house, I was struck with his preternatural appearance. He was a tall and very spare old man; his head, which was covered with a white linen cap, his shrivelled hands,

* A ridge of mountains in Virginia, east of the Alleghany range.

and his voice, were all shaking under the influence of a palsy; and a few moments convinced me that he was blind. The first emotions which touched my breast, were those of mingled pity and veneration.

4. But ah! how soon were all my feelings changed! It was a day of the administration of the sacrament, and his subject, of course, was the passion of our Saviour. I had heard the subject handled a thousand times. I had supposed it exhausted long ago. Little did I expect that in the wild woods of America I was to meet with a man whose eloquence would give to this topic a new and more sublime pathos, than I had ever before witnessed.

5. As he descended from the pulpit, to distribute the mystic symbols, there was a peculiar, a more than human solemnity in his air and manner, which made my blood to run cold, and my whole frame to shiver. He then drew a picture of the sufferings of our Saviour;-his trial before Pilate ;-his ascent up Calvary; his crucifixion, and his death. I knew the whole history; but never, until then, had I heard the circumstances so selected, so arranged, so colored! It was all new, and I seemed to have heard it for the first time in my life. His enunciation was so deliberate, that his voice trembled on every syllable; and every heart in the assembly trembled in unison.

6. His peculiar phrases, had such a force of description, that the original scene appeared, at that moment, acting before our eyes. We saw the very faces of the Jews, the starting, frightful distortions of malice and rage. We saw the buffet;-my soul kindled with a flame of indignation, and my hands were involuntarily and convulsively clenched.

7. But when he came to touch the patience, the forgiving meekness of our Saviour,-when he drew, to the life, his blessed eyes streaming in tears to heaven-his voice breathing to God, a soft and gentle prayer of pardon on his enemies: Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do,"-the voice of the preacher, which had all along faultered, grew fainter and fainter, until his utterance became entirely obscured by the force of his feelings; he raised his handkerchief to his eyes, and burst into a loud and irrepressible flood of tears. The effect was inconceivable. The whole house resounded with the mingled groans, and sobs, and shrieks of the congregation.

8. It was some time before the tumult had subsided, so as to permit him to proceed. Indeed, judging by the usual, but fallacious standard of my own weakness, I began to be very uneasy for the situation of the preacher. For I could not conceive how