CONTENTMENT.

THERE is perhaps no sounder or more generally acknowledged axiom than that the value of a thing is in proportion to its scarcity. This may be one great reason why contentment has found such favor in the eyes of the multitude; every one setting the highest value on what he had not, and indifferent to the praise which might be bestowed upon its virtues and efficacy, so long as he knew his neighbor no richer than himself. Thus it is, that this thing, whose intrinsic value (except in a very limited degree,) is not worth a cent, has, as a regularly be-praised subject, equalled even Shakspeare's Works, Warren's blacking, or La Fayette. Now I mean to say that as far as the share contentment has in the enjoyment a man feels in eating his dinner, smoking his cigar, or, after his daily labor enjoying the comforts of his fire-side, it is a good; but, I also say, that taken in any extended

sense, it is an evil of the first magnitude. To be content is to be satisfied-to wish for nothing-to aim at nothing, but to rest satisfied in whatever situation you may be placed. Now look at the world as it exists; you will find little or no such thing, and well it is so. What is it that freights the ships-beautifies the cities-encourages the arts, and promotes the wealth, intelligence, and importance of a free and enterprising nation? Assuredly not contentment. It is a passive principle. and, as such, man can have little sympathy with it. He is an active animal. His pleasures lie not so much in the possession as the pursuit. Is the me chant happier when, quitting the din and bustle of the city, his ships, his freights, and his speculations he hastens to the enjoyment of rural life, purchases a beautiful villa, and looking around him, says within himself "I am content." Is he so? no such thing! He must still busy himself with the news, the business, and the exchanges; or, let him look at home, every thing is wrong, every thing wants improving-a part of his house is misbuilthis walks are badly laid out, or a clump of trees spoils his prospect. These are mended, and this gives rise to new wants, and fresh improvements. So he goes on, and dies at last amid all the mighty bustle attendant on the planting of an orchard

the cutting of a canal, or the building of a greenhouse. Perhaps the best personification of contentment is a fat London Alderman, seated, after a plentiful dinner, in his easy chair-his wine before him -his pipe-his optics half closed, and not an idea in his brain of either past, present, or future. It is rather to be remarked that it is always confined to "fat, gross men." Contentment and corpulency go hand in hand. There is no analogy between it and leanness. A thin contented man is quite a paradox. Now look at its effects upon human nature. Where is it that all your bold, fiery, active, daring, enterprising spirits are to be found? Is it among your men of bone and muscle, or your men of fat and oil? how many fat men are there on record that have ever done a daring deed? Cæsar disliked Cassius for his want of the aldermanic characteristics. "That Cassius is too thin," he exclaims,and again," although I fear him not, would he were fatter."

Had Milton been a contented man, think ye the world would have been in possession of Paradise Lost. Had Byron been so, would he have written Childe Harold? Would a contented man have painted the Cartoons; or, had Columbus been so, would he have been the discoverer of America? No! were contentment to become in any degree

general, its benumbing influence would spread itself over all the active principles of our nature. Can it be supposed that such a lethargic thing and the lofty aspirations of genius could exist in the same person ? No! the nonsense of contentment and a cottage is prettier in the pages of poetry than it would be useful in actual life. Look at its effects upon nations. Was the free and fiery Spartan, or the noble Roman, famed for it? Or, to come to modern times, is it not notorious that it is to be found in the greatest degree among the degraded serfs of a Russian autocrat? there is not in the world a more contented class of men, or who have less wish to change their situations than the Russian peasantry. It does and can only exist with ignorance, and where man is free and in possession of his active faculties it flies from him.

END OF VOL. I.