"Who does his father's bounded stores despise,
"And whom his own too never can suffice.
"My humble thoughts no glittering roofs require,
"Or rooms, that shine with aught but constant fire.
"I well content the avarice of my sight

"With the fair gildings of reflected light:
"Pleasures abroad, the sport of nature yields,
"Her living fountains, and her smiling fields;
"And then at home, what pleasure is't to see
"A little, cleanly, chearful family?

"Which if a chaste wife crown, no less in her
"Than fortune, I the golden mean prefer.
"Too noble, nor too wise, she should not be ;

No, nor too rich, too fair, too fond of me.
"Thus let my life slide silently away
"With sleep all night, and quiet all the day."

ESSAY 49.

ESSAY WRITING.

(Sir Richard Blackmore.)

AN Essay is an instructive writing, either in prose or verse, distinguished from complete treatises and voluminous works, by its shorter extent and less accurate method. It is natural to desire the acquisition of knowledge by the most casy and expeditious ways, and therefore few persons have been so patient of labour and application as to be delighted with prolix compositions, in which the main design of the author being long suspended, the discourse grows so tedious to many, that they imagine it will never be finished. But the disrelish of such diffusive pieces in these times is more universal, and carried so far that great books are looked upon as oppressive, and by their bulk concluded to be dull and spiritless; while those in which the principal end as well as the sentiments of the author, are con

tracted into a narrower compass, if well written, meet with general approbation. And if it happens that a large volume is well received in the present age, it must be adorned with variety of matter, as well as pure diction, and wrought up to a great degree of perfection; otherwise the reader is discouraged, and throws it away as too painful a task to be undertaken.

Since discourses contracted into a narrow room, if they are written with strength and perspicuity, and contain variety of good sense, are more acceptable to readers, by not putting them to too much labour and attention, it must for that reason be acknowledged, that their usefulness is more diffusive, than that of long and elaborate volumes; and though they do not exhibit truth in such a clear and perfect scheme, nor set it in so full a light, as it appears in a large and methodical system, they are however, very beneficial, and promote the interest of literature and virtue. And since most men take greater delight in this manner of writing, than in prolix and unwieldy productions, whose enor mous size puts them in a fright; to gratify the general taste, as well as to avoid all affectation of the air of the schools, and ostentation of learning, many authors have applied themselves