mes at the close of life will come too late to
give much delight; yet all human happiness has its defects. Of what we
do not gain for ourselves we have only a faint and imperfect fruition,
because we cannot compare the difference between want and possession, or
at least can derive from it no conviction of our own abilities, nor any
increase of self-esteem; what we acquire by bravery or science, by
mental or corporeal diligence, comes at last when we cannot communicate,
and, therefore, cannot enjoy it.

Thus every period of life is obliged to borrow its happiness from the
time to come. In youth we have nothing past to entertain us, and in age,
we derive little from retrospect but hopeless sorrow. Yet the future
likewise has its limits, which the imagination dreads to approach, but
which we see to be not far distant. The loss of our friends and
companions impresses hourly upon us the necessity of our own departure;
we know that the schemes of man are quickly at an end, that we must soon
lie down in the grave with the forgotten multitudes of former ages, and
yield our place to others, who, like us, shall be driven awhile by hope
or fear about the surface of the earth, and then like us be lost in the
shades of death.

Beyond this termination of our material existence, we are therefore
obliged to extend our hopes; and almost every man indulges his
imagination with something, which is not to happen till he has changed
his manner of being: some amuse themselves with entails and settlements,
provide for the perpetuation of families and honours, or contrive to
obviate the dissipation of the fortunes, which it has been their
business to accumulate; others, more refined or exalted, congratulate
their own hearts upon the future extent of their reputation, the
reverence of distant nations, and the gratitude of unprejudiced
posterity.

They whose souls are so chained down to coffers and tenements, that they
cannot conceive a state in which they shall look upon them with less
solicitude, are seldom attentive or flexible to arguments; but the
votaries of fame are capable of reflection, and therefore may be called
to reconsider the probability of their expectations.

Whether to be remembered in remote times be worthy of a wise man's wish,
has not yet been satisfactorily decided; and, indeed, to be long
remembered, can happen to so small a number, that the bulk of mankind
has very little interest in the question. There is never room