understandings, and exalt our virtues. We need but make the experiment to find, that the greatest 'pleasures will arise from such endeavours.

It is trifling to allege, in opposition to this 'truth, that knowledge cannot be acquired, nor 'virtue pursued, without toil and efforts, and that all efforts produce fatigue. God requires nothing disproportioned to the powers he has given, and in the exercise of those powers consists the highest satisfaction.

Toil and weariness are the effects of vanity: 'when a man has formed a design of excelling others in merit, he is disquieted by their advances, and leaves nothing unattempted, that he may step before them: this occasions a thousand un'reasonable emotions, which justly bring their 'nishment along with them.

pu

'But let a man study and labour to cultivate and 'improve his abilities in the eye of his Maker, and with the prospect of his approbation; let him at'tentively reflect on the infinite value of that ap'probation, and the highest encomiums that men can bestow will vanish into nothing at the comparison. When we live in this manner, we find that we live for a great and glorious end.

• When this is our frame of mind, we find it no 'longer difficult to restrain ourselves in the gratifi'cations of eating and drinking, the most gross enjoyments of sense. We take what is necessary. 'to preserve health and vigour, but are not to give ourselves up to pleasures that weaken the attention, and dull the understanding.'

And the true sense of Mr. Pope's assertion, that Whatever is, is right, and I believe the sense in which it was written, is thus explained: A sa'cred and adorable order is established in the go•vernment of mankind. These are certain and ' unvaried truths: he that seeks God, and makes 'it his happiness to live in obedience to him, shall 'obtain what he endeavours after, in a degree far ' above his present comprehension. He that turns 'his back upon his Creator, neglects to obey him, and perseveres in his disobedience, shall obtain ' no other happiness than he can receive from en'joyments of his own procuring; void of satisfaction, weary of life, wasted by empty cares and ' remorses equally harassing and just, he will ex'perience the certain consequences of his own 'choice. Thus will justice and goodness resume their empire, and that order be restored which 'men have broken.'

I am afraid of wearying you or your readers with more quotations, but if you shall inform me that a continuation of my correspondence will be well received, I shall descend to particular passages, shew how Mr. Pope gave sometimes occasion to mistakes; and how Mr. Crousaz was misled by his suspicion of the system of fatality.

I am, SIR, yours, &c.

PRELIMINARY DISCOURSE

TO THE

LONDON CHRONICLE,

JANUARY 1, 1757.

IT has always been lamented, that of the little time allotted to man, much must be spent upon. superfluities. Every prospect has its obstructions, which we must break to enlarge our view; every step of our progress finds impediments, which, however eager to go forward, we must stop to remove. Even those who profess to teach the way to happiness, have multiplied our incumbrances, and the author of almost every book retards his instructions by a preface.

The writers of the Chronicle hope to be easily forgiven, though they should not be free from an infection that has seized the whole fraternity, and instead of falling immediately to their subjects, should detain the Reader for a time with an account of the importance of their design, the extent of their plan, and the accuracy of the method which they intend to prosecute. Such premonitions, though not always necessary when the Reader has the book complete in his hand, and may find by his own eyes whatever can be found in it, yet may be more easily allowed to works published gra

dually in successive parts, of which the scheme can only be so far known as the author shall think fit to discover it.

The Paper which we now invite the Publick to add to the Papers with which it is already rather wearied than satisfied, consists of many parts; some of which it has in common with other periodical sheets, and some peculiar to itself.

The first demand made by the reader of a journal is, that he should find an accurate account of foreign transactions and domestick incidents. This is always expected, but this is very rarely performed. Of those writers who have taken upon themselves the task of intelligence, some have given and others have sold their abilities, whether small or great, to one or other of the parties that divide us; and without a wish for truth or thought of decency, without care of any other reputation than that of a stubborn adherence to their abettors, carry on the same tenor of representation through all the vicissitudes of right and wrong, neither depressed by detection, nor abashed by confutation, proud of the hourly increase of infamy, and ready to boast of all the contumelies that falsehood and slander may bring upon them, as new proofs of their zeal and fidelity.

With these heroes we have no ambition to be numbered, we leave to the confessors of faction the merit of their sufferings, and are desirous to shelter ourselves under the protection of truth. That all our facts will be authentick, or all our remarks just, we dare not venture to promise: we can relate but what we hear, we can point out but what we see. Of remote transactions, the

first accounts are always confused, and commonly exaggerated: and in domestick affairs, if the power to conceal is less, the interest to misrepresent is often greater; and, what is sufficiently vexatious, truth seems to fly from curiosity, and as many enquirers produce many narratives, whatever engages the public attention is immediately disguised by the embellishments of fiction. We pretend to no peculiar power of disentangling contradiction or denuding forgery, we have no settled correspondence with the Antipodes, nor maintain any spies in the cabinets of princes. But as we shall always be conscious that our mistakes are involuntary, we shall watch the gradual discoveries of time, and retract whatever we have hastily and erroneously advanced.

In the narratives of the daily writers every reader perceives somewhat of neatness and purity wanting, which at the first view it seems easy to supply: but it must be considered, that those passages must be written in haste, and that there is often no other choice, but that they must want either novelty or accuracy; and that as life is very uniform, the affairs of one week are so like those of another, that by any attempt after variety of expression, invention would soon be wearied, and language exhausted. Some improvements however we hope to make; and for the rest we think that when we commit only common faults, we shall not be excluded from common indulgence.

The accounts of prices of corn and stocks are to most of our Readers of more importance than narratives of greater sound; and as exactness is