n the
Satisfaction of some innocent Pleasure, or Pursuit of some laudable
Design, we are in the Possession of Life, of human Life. Fortune will
give us Disappointments enough, and Nature is attended with
Infirmities enough, without our adding to the unhappy Side of our
Account by our Spleen or ill Humour. Poor _Cottilus_, among so many
real Evils, a chronical Distemper and a narrow Fortune, is never heard
to complain: That equal Spirit of his, which any Man may have that,
like him, will conquer Pride, Vanity, and Affectation, and follow
Nature, is not to be broken, because it has no Points to contend for.
To be anxious for nothing but what Nature demands as necessary, if it
is not the way to an Estate, is the way to what Men aim at by getting
an Estate. This Temper will preserve Health in the Body, as well as
Tranquility in the Mind. _Cottilus_ sees the World in an Hurry, with
the same Scorn that a sober Person sees a Man drunk. Had he been
contented with what he ought to have been, how could, says he, such a
one have met with such a Disappointment? If another had valued his
Mistress for what he ought to have loved her, he had not been in her
Power: If her Virtue had had a Part of his Passion, her Levity had
been his Cure; she could not then have been false and amiable at the
same Time.

Since we cannot promise our selves constant Health, let us endeavour
at such a Temper as may be our best Support in the Decay of it.
_Uranius_ has arrived at that Composure of Soul, and wrought himself
up to such a Neglect of every thing with which the Generality of
Mankind is enchanted, that nothing but acute Pains can give him
Disturbance, and against those too he will tell his intimate Friends
he has a Secret which gives him present Ease. _Uranius_ is so
thoroughly perswaded of another Life, and endeavours so sincerely to
secure an Interest in it, that he looks upon Pain but as a quickening
of his Pace to an Home, where he shall be better provided for than in
his present Apartment. Instead of the melancholy Views which others
are apt to give themselves, he will tell you that he has forgot he is
mortal, nor will he think of himself as such. He thinks at the Time of
his Birth he entered into an eternal Being; and the short Article of
Death he will not allow an Interruption of Life, since that Moment is
not of half the Duration as is his ordinary Sleep. Thus is his Being
one uniform and consistent Series of chearful Diversions and mode