lution. I have fuffered very little pain from my diforder; and what is more ftrange, have, notwithstanding the great decline of my perfon, never suffered a moment's abatement of my fpirits; infomuch, that were I to name the period of my life, which I fhould moft choose to pass over again, I might be tempted to point to this later period. I poffefs the fame ardour as ever in ftudy, and the fame gaiety in company. I confider, befides, that a man of fixty-five, by dying, cuts off only a few years of infirmities; and though I fee many many fymptoms of my literary reputation's breaking out at laft with additional luftre, I knew that I could have but few years to enjoy it. It is difficult to be more detached from life than I am at prefent. To conclude hiftorically with my own character. I am, or rather was (for that is the ftyle I must now use in speaking of myfelf, which emboldens me the more to speak my fentiments); I was, I fay, a man of mild difpofitions, of command of temper, of an open, focial, and cheerful cheerful humour, capable of attachment, but little fufceptible of enmity, and of great moderation in all my paffions. Even my love of literary fame, my ruling paffion, never foured my temper, notwithstanding my frequent disappointments. My company was not unacceptable to the young and carelefs, as well as to the ftudious and literary; and as I took a particular pleafure in the company of modeft women, I had no reason to be displeased with the reception I met with from them. In a word, though most men any Ꭰ wife wife eminent, have found reafon to complain of calumny, I never was touched, or even at tacked by her baleful tooth: and though I wantonly exposed myfelf to the rage of both civil and religious factions, they seemed to be disarmed in my behalf of their wonted fury. never had occafion to vindicate any one circumftance of my cha My friends racter and conduct: not but that the zealots, we may well fuppofe, would have been glad to invent and propagate any story to my difadvantage, but they could never find any which they thought |