would be apt to conclude it was made for our pleafure. The fun, which is as the great foul of the univerfe, and produces all the neceffaries of life, has a particular influence in chearing the mind of man, and making the heart glad.

Those feveral living creatures which are made for our service or fuftenance, at the fame time either fill the woods with their mufic, furnish us with game, or raise pleasing ideas in us by the delightfulness of their appearance. Fountains, lakes, and rivers, are as refreshing to the imagination, as to the foil through which they pass.

There are writers of great diftinction, who have made it an argument for Providence, that the whole earth is covered with green, rather than with any other colour, as being fuch a right mixture of light and fhade, that it comforts and ftrengthens the eye instead of weakning or grieving it. For this reafon, feveral painters have a green cloth hanging near them, to eafe the eye upon, after too great an application to their colouring. A famous modern philofopher accounts for it in the following manner: all colours that are more luminous, overpower and diffipate the animal fpirits which are employed in fight: on the contrary, thofe that are more obscure do not give the animal spirits a fufficient exercise; whereas, the rays that produce in us the idea of green, fall upon the eye in fuch a due proportion, that they give the animal fpirits their proper play, and, by keeping up the ftruggle in a juft balance, excite a very pleafing and agreeable fenfation. Let the cause be what it will, the effect is certain; for which. reason, the poets afcribe to this particular colour the epithet of chearful.

To confider further this double end in the works of nature, and how they are, at the fame time, both. useful and entertaining, we find that the most important parts in the vegetable world are thofe which are the most beautiful. Thefe are the feeds by which the feveral races of plants are propagated and continued,. and which are always lodgedi n flowers or bloffoms.

Nature

Nature feems to hide her principal defign, and to be induftrious in making the earth gay and delightful, while the is carrying on her great work, and intent upon her own prefervation. The husbandman, after the fame manner, is employed in laying out the whole country into a kind of garden or landfkip, and making every thing fmile about him, whilft, in reality, he thinks of nothing but of the harvest, and increase which is to arise from it.

We may further obferve how Providence has taken care to keep up this chearfulness in the mind of man, by having formed it after fuch a manner, as to make it capable of conceiving delight from feveral objects which feem to have very little ufe in them; as from the wildness of rocks and deferts, and the like grotesque parts of nature. Those who are verfed in philofophy may ftill carry this confideration higher by obferving, that, if matter had appeared to us endowed only with those real qualities which it actually poffeffes, it would have made but a very joyless and uncomfortable figure; and why has Providence given it a power of producing in us fuch imaginary qualities, as taftes and colours, founds and fmells, heat and cold, but that man, while he is converfant in the lower ftations of nature, might have his mind cheared and delighted with agreeable fenfations? In fhort, the whole univerfe is a kind of theatre filled with objects that either raise in us pleafure, amufement, or admiration.

The reader's own thoughts will fuggeft to him the viciffitude of day and night, the change of feafons, with all that variety of fcenes, which diverfify the face of nature, and fill the mind with a perpetual fucceffion of beautiful and pleafing images.

I fhall not here mention the feveral entertainments of art, with the pleasures of friendship, books, converfation, and other accidental diverfions of life, becaufe I would only take notice of fuch incitements to a chearful temper, as offer themfelves to perfons of all ranks and conditions, and which may fufficiently shew as, that Providence did not defign this world fhould be

2.

filled

filled with murmurs and repinings, or that the heart of man fhould be involved in gloom and melancholy.

I the more inculcate this chearfulness of temper, as it is a virtue in which our countrymen are obferved to be more deficient than any other nation. Melancholy is a kind of demon that haunts our island, and often conveys herself to us in an easterly wind. A celebrated French novelift, in oppofition to those who begin their romances with a flowery season of the year, enters on his ftory thus: In the gloomy month of November, when the people of England hang and drown themfelves, a dif confolate lover walked out into the fields, &c.

Every one ought to fence against the temper of his climate or conftitution, and frequently to indulge in himself those confiderations which may give him a ferenity of mind, and enable him to bear up chearfully against thofe little evils and misfortunes which are common to human nature, and which, by a right improvement of them, will produce a fatiety of joy, and an uninterrupted happiness.

At the fame time that I would engage my reader to confider the world in its molt agreeable lights, I must own there are many evils which naturally fpring up, amidst the entertainments that are provided for us; but thefe, if rightly confidered, fhould be far from overcafting the mind with forrow, or destroying that chearfulness of temper which I have been recommending. This interfperfion of evil with good, and pain with pleafure, in the works of nature, is very truly afcribed by Mr. Locke in his Effay upon Human Understanding, to a moral reafon, in the following words:

Beyond all this, we may find another reafon why God bath fcattered up and down feveral degrees of pleasure and pain, in all the things that environ and affect us, and blended them together, in almost all that our thoughts and fenfes have to do with; that we finding imperfection, diffatisfaction, and want of compleat happiness in all the enjoyments which the creatures can afford us, might be led to feek it in the enjoyment of him, with whom there is fulness of joy, and at whofe right hand are pleafures for evermore.

On Cruelty to Brutes, with an Elegy on a Black-bird. [Advent. No. 37-]

T

Hough it be generally allowed, that to communicate happiness is the characteristic of virtue, yet this happiness is feldom confidered as extending beyond our own fpecies; and no man is thought to become vicious, by facrificing the life of an animal to the pleasure of hitting a mark. It is, however, certain, that by this act more happiness is deftroyed than produced; except it be fuppofed, that happiness should be estimated, not in proportion to its degree only, but to the rank of the being by whom it is enjoyed: but this is a fuppofition, which perhaps cannot easily be fupported. REASON, from which alone man derives his fuperiority, fhould, in the prefent queftion, be confidered only as SENSIBILITY: a blow produces more pain to a man, than to a brute; becaufe to a man it is aggravated by a fenfe of indignity, and is felt as often as it is remembered; in the brute it produces only corporal pain, which in a fhort time ceases for ever. But it may be justly afferted, that the fame degree of pain in both subjects, is in the fame degree an evil; and that it cannot be wantonly inflicted, without equal violation of right. Neither does it follow from the contrary pofitions, that man fhould abstain from animal food; for by him that kills merely to eat, life is facrificed only to life; and if man had lived upon fruits and herbs, the greater part of those animals which die to furnish his table, would never have ved; inftead of increafing the breed as a pledge of plenty, he would have been compelled to destroy them to prevent a famine.

There is great difference between killing for food, and for fport. To take pleasure in that by which pain is inflicted, if it is not vicious, is dangerous; and every practice which, if not criminal in itself, yet wears out the fympathizing fenfibility of a tender mind, must render human nature proportionably lefs fit for fociety.

In my purfuit of this train of thought, I confidered the inequality with which happiness appears to be diftributed among the brute creation, as different animals are in a different degree expofed to the capricious cruelty of mankind; and in the fervor of my imagination, I began to think it poffible that they might participate in a future retribution; efpecially, as mere matter and motion approach no nearer to fenfibility, than to thought: and he, who will not venture to deny that brutes have fenfibility, fhould not haftily pronounce, that they have only a material existence. While my mind was thus bufied, the evening ftole imperceptibly away; and at length morning fucceeded to midnight my attention was remitted by degrees, and I fell asleep in my chair.

Though the labours of memory and judgment were now at an end, yet fancy was ftill bufy: by this roving wanton I was conducted through a dark avenue; which, after many windings, terminated in a place which he told me was the elyfium of birds and beafts. Here I beheld a great variety of animals, whom I perceived to be endowed with reafon and fpeech: this prodigy, however, did not raife aftonishment, but curiofity. I was impatient to learn, what were the topics of difcourfe in fuch an affembly; and hoped to gain a valuable addition to my remarks upon human life. For this purpose I approached a HORSE and an Ass, who feemed to be engaged in ferious converfation; but I approached with great caution and humility: for I now confidered them as in a state fuperior to mortality; and I feared to incur the contempt and indignation, which naturally rife at the fight of a tyrant who is divested of his power. My caution was, however, unneceflary, for they feemed wholly to difregard me; and by degrees I came near enough to overhear them.

"If I had perifhed," faid the Ass," when I was "difmiffed from the earth, I think I fhould have been a lofer by my exiftence; for during my whole life, "there was fcarce an interval of an hour, in which I

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