yment, no
act or purpose terminates in itself, but every motion is referred to
some distant end; the accomplishment of one design begins another, and
the ultimate wish is always pushed off to its former distance.

At length fame is observed to be uncertain, and power to be dangerous;
the man whose vigour and alacrity begin to forsake him, by degrees
contracts his designs, remits his former multiplicity of pursuits, and
extends no longer his regard to any other honour than the reputation of
wealth, or any other influence than his power. Avarice is generally the
last passion of those lives of which the first part has been squandered
in pleasure, and the second devoted to ambition. He that sinks under the
fatigue of getting wealth, lulls his age with the milder business of
saving it.

I have in this view of life considered man as actuated only by natural
desires, and yielding to their own inclinations, without regard to
superior principles, by which the force of external agents may be
counteracted, and the temporary prevalence of passions restrained.
Nature will indeed always operate, human desires will be always ranging;
but these motions, though very powerful, are not resistless; nature may
be regulated, and desires governed; and, to contend with the
predominance of successive passions, to be endangered first by one
affection, and then by another, is the condition upon which we are to
pass our time, the time of our preparation for that state which shall
put an end to experiment, to disappointment, and to change.

No. 152. SATURDAY, AUGUST 31, 1751.

--Tristia maestum
Vullum verba decent, iratum plena minarum. HOR. De Ar. Poet. 105.

Disastrous words can best disaster shew;
In angry phrase the angry passions glow. ELPHINSTON.

"It was the wisdom," says Seneca, "of ancient times, to consider what is
most useful as most illustrious." If this rule be applied to works of
genius, scarcely any species of composition deserves more to be
cultivated than the epistolary style, since none is of more various or
frequent use through the whole subordination of human life.

It has yet happened that, among the numerous writers which our nation
has produced, equal, perhaps, always in force and genius, and of late in
elegance and accuracy, to those of any other country, very few have
endeavoured to distinguish themselves by the publication of letters,
except such as were written in the discharge of publick trusts, and