Puslapio vaizdai
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The beasts that roam over the plain My form with indifference see: They are so unacquainted with man, Their tameness is shocking to me.

Society, friendship, and love,

Divinely bestowed upon man, Oh, had I the wings of a dove, How soon would I taste you again!

My sorrows I then might assuage,

In the ways of religion and truth; Might learn from the wisdom of age, And be cheered by the sallies of youth.

Religion!-what treasure untold
Resides in that heavenly word!
More precious than silver and gold,
Or all that this earth can afford.

But the sound of the church-going bell
These valleys and rocks never heard;
Ne'er sighed at the sound of a knell,

Or smiled when a Sabbath appeared. Ye winds, that have made me your sport, Convey to this desolate shore Some cordial endearing report

Of a land I shall visit no more!

My friends, do they now and then send
A wish or a thought after me?
Oh! tell me I yet have a friend,
Though a friend I am never to see.
How fleet is a glance of the mind!
Compared with the speed of its flight,
The tempest itself lags behind,

And the swift-winged arrows of light.

When I think of my own native land,
In a moment I seem to be there;
But, alas! recollection at hand,

Soon hurries me back to despair.

But the sea-fowl is gone to her rest,
The beast is laid down in his lair;
Even here is a season of rest,

And I to my cabin repair.

There's mercy in every place;
And mercy, encouraging thought!
Gives even affliction a grace,

And reconciles man to his lot.

Curiosity.

JOHNSON. THE life of this great writer, born in 1709, and deceased in 1784, has been already touched upon in an extract from the brilliant pen of Macaulay.

Curiosity is one of the permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous intellect. Every advance into knowledge opens new prospects, and produces new incitements to farther progress. All the attainments possible in our present state are evidently inadequate to our capacities of enjoyment; conquest serves no purpose but that of kindling ambition; discovery has no effect but of raising expectation; the gratification of one desire, encourages another: and after all our labours, studies, and inquiries, we are continually at the same distance from the completion of our schemes, have still some wish importunate to be satisfied, and some faculty restless and turbulent for want of its enjoyment.

The desire of knowledge, though often animated by extensive and adventitious motives, seems on many occasions to operate without subordination to any other principle; we are eager to see and hear, without intention of referring our observations to a further end; we climb a mountain for a prospect of the plain; we run to the strand in a storm, that we may contemplate the agitation of the water; we range from city to city, though we profess neither architecture nor fortification; we cross seas only to view nature in nakedness, or magnificence in ruins; we are equally allured by novelty of every kind, by a desert or a palace, a cataract or a cavern, by everything rude, and everything polished, everything great, and everything little. We do not see a thicket but with some temptation to enter it, nor remark an insect flying before us, but with an inclination to pursue it.

This passion is, perhaps, regularly heightened in proportion as the powers of the mind are elevated and enlarged. Lucan therefore introduces Cæsar speaking with dignity suitable to the grandeur of his designs and the extent of his capacity, when he declares to the high-priest of Egypt, that he has no desire equally powerful with that of finding the origin of the Nile, and that he would quit all the projects of the civil war for a sight of those fountains which had been so long concealed. And Homer, when he would furnish the sirens with a temptation, to which his hero, renowned for wisdom, might yield without disgrace, makes them declare, that none ever departed from them but with increase of knowledge.

There is, indeed, scarce any kind of ideal acquirement which may not be applied to some use, or which may not at least gratify pride with occasional superiority; but whoever attends the motions of his own mind, will find that, upon the first appearance of an object, or the first start of a question, his inclination to a nearer view or more accurate discussion, precedes all thoughts of profit, or of competition; and that his desires take wing by instantaneous

impulse, though their flight might be invigorated, or their efforts renewed by subsequent considerations. The gratification of curiosity rather frees us from uneasiness than confers pleasure; we are more pained by ignorance, than delighted by instruction. Curiosity is the thirst of the soul; it inflames and torments us, and makes us taste everything with joy, however otherwise insipid, by which it may be quenched.

It is evident that the earliest searchers after knowledge must have proposed knowledge only as their reward: and that Science, though perhaps the nursling of Interest, was the daughter of Curiosity for who can believe that they who first watched the course of the stars foresaw the use of their discoveries to the faci litation of commerce, or the mensuration of time? They were delighted with the splendour of the nocturnal skies, they found that the lights changed their places; what they admired they were anxious to understand, and in time traced their revolutions.

There are, indeed, beings in the form of men, who appear satisfied with their intellectual possessions, and seem to live without desire of enlarging their conceptions, before whom the world passes without notice, and who are equally unmoved by nature or art.

This negligence is sometimes only the temporary effect of a predominant passion; a lover finds no inclination to travel any path but that which leads to the habitation of his mistress; a trader can spare little attention to common occurrences, when his fortune is endangered by a storm. It is frequently the consequence of a total immersion in sensuality; corporeal pleasure may be indulged till the memory of every other kind of happiness is obliterated; the mind, long habituated to a lethargic and quiescent state, is unwil ling to wake to the toil of thinking; and though she may sometimes be disturbed by the obtrusion of new ideas, shrinks back again to ignorance and rest.

But, indeed, if we deduct those to whom the continual task of procuring the supports of life, denies all opportunities of deviation from their own narrow track, the number of such as live without the ardour of inquiry is very small, though many content them. selves with cheap amusement, and waste their lives in researches of no importance.

There is no snare more dangerous to busy and excursive minds, than the cobwebs of petty inquisitiveness, which entangle them in trivial employments and minute studies, and detain them in a middle state, between the tediousness of total inactivity, and the fatigue of laborious efforts, enchant them at once with ease and novelty, and vitiate them with the luxury of learning. The necessity of doing something, and the fear of undertaking much, sinks the historian to a genealogist, the philosopher to a journalist of the weather, and the mathematician to a constructor of dials.

It is happy when those who cannot content themselves to be idle, nor resolve to be industrious, are at least employed without injury to others; but it seldom happens that we can contain our

selves long in a neutral state, or forbear to sink into vice, when we are no longer soaring towards virtue.

Nugaculas was distinguished in his earlier years by an uncom mon liveliness of imagination, quickness of sagacity, and extent of knowledge. When he entered into life he applied himself, with particular inquisitiveness, to examine the various motives of human actions, the complicated influence of mingled affections, the different modifications of interest and ambition, and the various causes of miscarriage and success, both in public and private affairs.

Though his friends did not discover to what purpose all these observations were collected, or how Nugaculas would much improve his virtue or his fortune by an incessant attention to changes of countenance, bursts of inconsideration, sallies of passion, and all the other casualties by which he used to trace a character, yet they could not deny the study of human nature to be worthy of a wise man; they therefore flattered his vanity, applauded his discoveries, and listened with submissive modesty to his lectures on the uncertainty of inclination, the weakness of resolves, and the instability of temper; to his account of the various motives which agitate the mind, and his ridicule of the modern dream of the ruling passion.

Such was the first incitement of Nugaculas to a close inspection into the conduct of mankind. He had no interest in view, and therefore no design of supplantation; he had no malevolence, and therefore detected faults without any intention to expose them; but having once found the art of engaging his attention upon others, he had no inclination to call it back to himself, but has passed his time in keeping a watchful eye upon every rising character, and lived upon a small estate, without any thoughts of increasing it.

He is, by continual application, become a general master of secret history, and can give an account of the intrigues, private marriages, competitions, and stratagems of half a century. He knows the mortgages upon every man's estate, the terms upon which every spendthrift raises his money, the real and reputed fortune of every lady, the jointure stipulated by every contract, and the expectations of every family from maiden aunts and childless acquaintances. He can relate the economy of every house, knows how much one man's cellar is robbed by his butler, and the land of another underlet by his steward; he can tell when the manor-house is falling, though large sums are yearly paid for repairs; and when the tenants are felling wood without the consent of the owner.

To obtain all this intelligence, he is inadvertently guilty of a thousand acts of treachery. He sees no man's servant without draining him of his trust; he enters no family without flattering the children into discoveries; he is a perpetual spy upon the doors of his neighbours, and knows, by long experience, at whatever distance, the looks of a creditor, a borrower, a lover, and a pimp. Nugaculas is not ill-natured, and therefore his industry has not hitherto been very mischievous to others, or dangerous to himself;

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