word, a man might reply to one of these comforters, as
Augustus did to his friend who advised him not to grieve for the death
of a person whom he loved, because his grief could not fetch him again:
'It is for that very reason, said the emperor, that I grieve.'

18. On the contrary, religion bears a more tender regard to human
nature. It prescribes to a very miserable man the means of bettering his
condition; nay, it shews him that the bearing of his afflictions as he
ought to do, will naturally end in the removal of them: It makes him
easy here, because it can make him happy hereafter.

19. Upon the whole, a contented mind is the greatest blessing a man can
enjoy in this world; and if in the present life his happiness arises
from the subduing his desires, it will arise in the next from the
gratification of them.

_Human Miseries chiefly imaginary._

1. It is a celebrated thought of _Socrates_, that if all the misfortunes
of mankind were cast into a public stock, in order to be equally
distributed among the whole species, those who now think themselves the
must unhappy, would prefer the share they are already possessed of,
before that which would fall to them by such a division. _Horace_ has
carried this thought a great deal further; who says, that the hardships
or misfortunes we lie under, are more easy to us than those of any other
person would be, in case we should change conditions with him.

2. As I was ruminating-on these two remarks, and seated in my elbow
chair, I insensibly fell asleep; when, on a sudden, methought there was
a proclamation made by _Jupiter_, that, every mortal should bring in his
griefs and calamities, and throw them together in a heap. There was a
large plain appointed for this purpose. I took my stand in the centre of
it, and saw, with a great deal of pleasure, the whole human species
marching-one after another, and throwing down their several loads, which
immediately grew up into a prodigious mountain that seemed to rise above
the clouds.

3. There was a certain lady, of a thin airy shape, who was very active
in this solemnity. She carried a magnifying glass in one of her hands,
and was cloathed in a loose flowing robe, embroidered with several
figures of fiends and spectres, that discovered themselves in a thousand
chimerical shapes, as her garments hovered in the wind; there was
something wild, and districted in her looks.

4. Her name _Fancy_. She led up every mortal to the a