"That man is of few days." Let us examine the truth of the other, and fee, whether he is not likewife full of trouble. - And here we must not take our account from the flattering outside of things, which are generally fet off with a glittering appearance enough, especially in what is called, higher life. Nor can we fafely trust the evidence of fome of the more merry and thoughtless amongst us, who are fo fet upon the enjoyment of life as feldom to reflect upon the troubles of it ;or who, perhaps, because they are not yet come to this portion of their inheritance, imagine it is not their common lot. Nor laftly, are we to form an idea of it, from the delufive ftories of a few of the more profperous passengers, who have fortunately failed through and escaped the rougher toils and diftreffes. But we are to take our accounts from a clofe furvey of human life, and the real face of things, ftripped of every thing that can palliate or gild it over. We muft hear the general complaint of all ages, and read the hiftories of mankind. If we look into them, and examine them to the -bottom, what do they contain but the hiftory of fad and uncomfortable passages, which a good-natured man cannot read but with oppreflion of fpirits.-Confider the dreadful fucceffion of wars in one part or other of the earth, perpetuated from one century to another with fo little intermiffion, that mankind have scarce had time to breathe from them, fince ambition first came into the world; confider the horrid effects of them in all those barbarous devastations we read of, where whole nations have been put to the fword, or have been driven out to nakedness and famine to make room for new comers. For a fpecimen of this, let us reflect upon the story related by Plutarch, when by order of the Roman fenate, feventy populous cities were unawares facked and destroyed at one prefixed hour, by P. Æmilius, by whom one hundred and fifty thousand unhappy people were driven in one day into captivity, to be fold to the highest bidder to end their days in cruel anguifh.--Confider how great a part of our fpecies in all ages down to this, have been trod under the feet of cruel and capricious tyrants, who would neither hear their their cries, nor pity their diftreffes. Confider flavery-what it is, how bitter a draught, and how many millions have been made to drink of it ;-which if it can poifon all earthly happiness when exercifed barely upon our bodies, what must it be, when it comprehends both the flavery of body and mind?To conceive this, look into the hiftory of the Romish church and her tyrants, (or rather executioners) who seem to have taken pleasure in the pangs and convulfions of their fellow-creatures.-Examine the prisons of the inquifition, hear the melancholy notes founded in every cell.--Confider the anguish of mock trials, and the exquifite tortures confequent thereupon, mercilessly inflicted upon the unfortunate, where the racked and weary foul has fo often wished to take its leave,but cruelly not fuffered to depart.-Confider how many of these helpless wretches have been haled from thence in all periods of this tyrannic ufurpation, to undergo the maffacres and flames to which a falfe and a bloody religion has condemned them. If this fad history and detail of the more public causes of the miseries of man are not fuffi cient, let us behold him in another light with respect to the more private causes of them, and fee whether he is not full of trouble likewife there, and almost born to it as naturally as the fparks fly upwards. If we confider man as a creature full of wants and neceffities (whether real or imaginary) which he is not able to fupply of himself, what a train of disappointments, vexations and dependencies are to be seen, iffuing from thence to perplex and make his being uneafy ?-How many justlings and hard struggles do we undergo, in making our way in the world-How barbarously held back ?— How often and bafely overthrown, in aiming only at getting bread ?----How many of us never attain it-at least not comfortably, but from various unknown caufes eat it all their lives long in bitternefs? If we fhift the fcene, and look upwards, towards those whofe fituation in life feems to place them above the forrows of this kind, yet where are they exempt from others? Do not all ranks and conditions of men meet with fad accidents and VOL. II. D number numberless calamities in other refpects, which often make them go heavily all their lives long? How many fall into chronical infirmities, which render both their days and nights restless and infupportable ?*-How many of the highest rank are tore up with ambition, or foured with disappointments, and how many more from a thousand fecret causes of difquiet pine away in filence, and owe their deaths to forrow and dejection of heart?If we caft our eyes upon the lowest class and condition of life, the scene is more melancholy ftill.Millions of our fellow-creatures, born to no inheritance but poverty and trouble, forced by the neceflity of their lots to drudgery and painful employments, and hard fet with that too, to get enough to keep themselves and families alive. So that upon the whole, when we have examined the true ftate and condition of human life, and have made fome allowances for a few fugacious, deceitful pleafures, there is scarce any thing to be found *N. B. Most of these reflections upon the miferies of life, are taken from Wollafton. which |