in the
world for more than a certain quantity or measure of renown. The
necessary business of life, the immediate pleasures or pains of every
condition, leave us not leisure beyond a fixed proportion for
contemplations which do not forcibly influence our present welfare. When
this vacuity is filled, no characters can be admitted into the
circulation of fame, but by occupying the place of some that must be
thrust into oblivion. The eye of the mind, like that of the body, can
only extend its view to new objects, by losing sight of those which are
now before it.

Reputation is therefore a meteor, which blazes a while and disappears
for ever; and, if we except a few transcendent and invincible names,
which no revolutions of opinion or length of time is able to suppress;
all those that engage our thoughts, or diversify our conversation, are
every moment hasting to obscurity, as new favourites are adopted by
fashion.

It is not therefore from this world, that any ray of comfort can
proceed, to cheer the gloom of the last hour. But futurity has still its
prospects; there is yet happiness in reserve, which, if we transfer our
attention to it, will support us in the pains of disease, and the
languor of decay. This happiness we may expect with confidence, because
it is out of the power of chance, and may be attained by all that
sincerely desire and earnestly pursue it. On this therefore every mind
ought finally to rest. Hope is the chief blessing of man, and that hope
only is rational, of which we are certain that it cannot deceive us.

No. 204. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 29, 1752

_Nemo tam divos habuit faventes,
Crastinum ut possit sibi polliceit_. SENECA.

Of heaven's protection who can be
So confident to utter this?--
To-morrow I will spend in bliss. F. LEWIS.

Seged, lord of Ethiopia, to the inhabitants of the world: To the sons of
_Presumption_, humility and fear; and to the daughters of _Sorrow_,
content and acquiescence.

Thus, in the twenty-seventh year of his reign, spoke Seged, the monarch
of forty nations, the distributor of the waters of the Nile: "At length,
Seged, thy toils are at an end; thou hast reconciled disaffection, thou
hast suppressed rebellion, thou hast pacified the jealousies of thy
courtiers, thou hast chased war from thy confines, and erected
fortresses in the lands of thine enemies. All who have offended thee
tremble in thy presence, and wherever thy voice is heard, it is obeyed.
Thy