Dick paid down the price, and riding out to enjoy the evening, fell with his new horse into a ditch; they got out with difficulty, and as he was going to mount again, a countryman looked at the horse and perceived him to be blind. Dick went to the feller, and demanded back his money; but was told, that a man who rented his ground must do the beft for himself, that his landlord had his rent tho' the year was barren, and that whether horses had eyes or no, he should sell them to the highest bidder.

SHIFTER now began to be tired with ruftick fimplicity, and on the fifth day took posfeffion again of his Chambers, and bad farewel to the regions of calm Content and placid Meditation,

N° 72. Saturday, September 1.

ME

EN complain of nothing more frequently than of deficient Memory; and indeed, every one finds that many of the ideas which he defired to retain have flipped irretrievably away; that the acquifitions of the mind are fometimes equally fugitive with the gifts of fortune; and that a fhort intermiffion of attention more certainly leffens knowledge than impairs an estate.

To affift this weakness of our nature many methods have been propofed, all of which may be justly fufpected of being ineffectual; for no art of memory, however its effects have been boasted or admired, has been ever adopted into general use, nor have those who poffeffed it, appeared to excel others in readiness of recollection or multiplicity of attainments.

THERE is another art of which all have

felt the want, tho' Themistocles only confeffed

it. We fuffer equal pain from the pertinacious adhesion of unwelcome images, as from the evanefcence of thofe which are pleafing and useful; and it may be doubted whether we should be more benefited by the art of Memory or the art of Forgetfulness.

FORGETFULNESS is neceffary to Remembrance. Ideas are retained by renovation of that impreffion which time is always wearing away, and which new images are ftriving to obliterate. If useless thoughts could be expelled from the mind, all the valuable parts of our knowledge would more frequently reand' every recurrence would reinftate them in their former place.

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It is impoffible to confider, without fome regret, how much might have been learned, or how much might have been invented by a rational and vigorous application of time, uselefsly or painfully paffed in the revocation of events, which have left neither good nor evil behind them, in grief for misfortunes either repaired or irreparable, in refentment of injuries known only to ourfelves, of which death has put the authors beyond our power.

PHILOSOPHY

PHILOSOPHY has accumulated precept upon precept, to warn us against the anticipation. of future calamities. All useless mifery is certainly folly, and he that feels evils before they come may be defervedly cenfured; yet furely to dread the future is more reasonable than to lament the paft. The business of life is to go forwards; he who fees evil in prospect meets it in his way, but he who catches it by retrospection turns back to find it. That which is feared may fometimes be avoided, but that which is regretted to-day may be regretted again to-morrow.

REGRET is indeed ufeful and virtuous, and not only allowable but neceffary, when it tends to the amendment of life, or to admonition of error which we may be again in danger of committing. But a very fmall part of the moments spent in meditation on the past, produce any reasonable caution or falutary forrow. Moft of the mortifications that we have fuffered, arofe from the concurrence of local and temporary circumftances, which can never meet again; and most of our disappointments have fucceeded thofe expectations, which life allows not to be formed a fecond time.

1

It would add much to human happiness, if an art could be taught of forgetting all of which the remembrance is at once useless and afflictive, if that pain which never can end in pleasure could be driven totally away, that the mind might perform its functions without incumbrance, and the past might no longer encroach upon the present.

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LITTLE can be done well to which the whole mind is not applied; the business of every day calls for the day to which it is affigned; and he will have no leisure to regret yesterday's vexations who refolves not to have a new subject of regret to-morrow.

BUT to forget or to remember at pleasure, are equally beyond the power of man. Yet as memory may be affifted by method, and the decays of knowledge repaired by stated times of recollection, fo the power of forgetting is capable of improvement. Reason will, by a refolute conteft, prevail over imagination, and the power may be obtained of transferring the attention as judgment fhall direct.

THE incurfions of troublefome thoughts are often violent and importunate; and it

is