o do right, and wishes to
regulate his life according to his reason, is not sure that, at any
future time assignable, he shall be able to rekindle the same ardour; he
that has now an opportunity offered him of breaking loose from vice and
folly, cannot know, but that he shall hereafter be more entangled, and
struggle for freedom without obtaining it.

We are so unwilling to believe any thing to our own disadvantage, that
we will always imagine the perspicacity of our judgment and the strength
of our resolution more likely to increase than to grow less by time;
and, therefore, conclude, that the will to pursue laudable purposes,
will be always seconded by the power.

But, however we may be deceived in calculating the strength of our
faculties, we cannot doubt the uncertainty of that life in which they
must be employed: we see every day the unexpected death of our friends
and our enemies, we see new graves hourly opened for men older and
younger than ourselves, for the cautious and the careless, the dissolute
and the temperate, for men who like us were providing to enjoy or
improve hours now irreversibly cut off: we see all this, and yet,
instead of living, let year glide after year in preparations to live.

Men are so frequently cut off in the midst of their projections, that
sudden death causes little emotion in them that behold it, unless it be
impressed upon the attention by uncommon circumstances. I, like every
other man, have outlived multitudes, have seen ambition sink in its
triumphs, and beauty perish in its bloom; but have been seldom so much
affected as by the fate of Euryalus, whom I lately lost as I began to
love him.

Euryalus had for some time flourished in a lucrative profession; but
having suffered his imagination to be fired by an unextinguishable
curiosity, he grew weary of the same dull round of life, resolved to
harass himself no longer with the drudgery of getting money, but to quit
his business and his profit, and enjoy for a few years the pleasures of
travel. His friends heard him proclaim his resolution without suspecting
that he intended to pursue it; but he was constant to his purpose, and
with great expedition closed his accounts and sold his moveables, passed
a few days in bidding farewell to his companions, and with all the
eagerness of romantick chivalry crossed the sea in search of happiness.
Whatever place was renowned in ancient or modern history, whatever
region art or nature had dis