en of a
prolongation of their present misery, and are struck with horror at
the least mention of their life and pains being drawing to a
period.--More irksome, doubtless, it must still be to those, who
having every thing they could wish for here, find they must soon be
torn from all the blessings they enjoy.--This is indeed a weakness;
but it is a weakness of nature, and which neither religion nor
philosophy are sufficient to arm us against; and the very endeavours
we make to banish, or at least to conceal our disquiets on this score,
occasion a certain peevishness in the sweetest temper, and make us
behave with a kind of churlishness, even to those most dear to us.

Few, indeed, care to confess this truth, tho' there are scarce any,
who do not shew it in their behaviour, even at the very time they are
forcing themselves to an affectation of indifference for life, and a
resignation to the will of Heaven.

The great skill of his physicians, however, and the yet greater care
his tender consort took to see their prescriptions obeyed with the
utmost exactitude, at length recovered Natura from the brink of the
grave.--He was out of danger from the disease which had so long
afflicted him; but though it had entirely left him, the attack had
been too severe for a person at the age to which he was now arrived,
to regain altogether the former man.--He had, in his sickness,
contracted habits, which he was unable to throw off in health, and he
could no more behave, than look, as he had done before.

The mind would certainly be unalterable, and retain the same vigour it
ever had in youth, even to extreme old age, could the constitution
preserve itself entire.--It is that perishable part of us, which every
little accident impairs, and wears away, preparing, as it were, by
degrees, for a total dissolution, which hinders the nobler moiety of
the human species from actuating in a proper manner:--those organs,
which are the vehicles, through which its meanings shoot forth into
action, being either shrivelled, abraded by long use, or clogged up
with humours, shew the soul but in an imperfect manner, often disguise
it wholly, and it is for want of a due consideration only, that we are
so apt to condemn the _mind_, for what, in reality, is nothing but the
incumbrances laid on it by the infirmities of the _body_.

It is true, that as we grow older, the passions naturally subside; yet
that they do so, is not owing to themselves, as I thin