VOLTAIRE.

I think that our Creator never meant us to be contented, and that we
should always have something to look forward to and fret about--"It is
thy vocation, Hal,"--or we sink into apathy, and become averse to the
prospect of the last great change. "Well, Mr. Graham," said a once
contented, but now expiring Nimrod to me, "after all you have said,
give me a thousand a-year, and the old bald-faced mare again, and I
don't care if I never see the kingdom of Heaven." Or, as Johnson
parodied the enjoyment of the savage--"With this cow by my side, and
this grass at my feet, what can a bull wish for more?" Contentment!
Nothing with vitality must, or ever will be contented, save a
vegetable, or a toad in the centre of a rock, and he probably is
sighing, with Sterne's starling, "I can't get out!"

Occupation seems to be the original, or true source of all enjoyment;
though for this word I would substitute that of progress, and implying
successful occupation. My friend and I each possess an estate of six
thousand pounds, but the former lately possessed twenty thousand, and
I nothing. Which of us is now the more happily situated?

Hence arises the happiness of the saint-like and self-denying hermit;
his complaint, "I can't get out!" lasts as long as he does, while he
progresses with every flying moment; and conversely, the most unhappy
man is the idle and irreligious one. Happiness was mingled with sorrow
when Gibbon penned this most interesting but melancholy passage on the
termination of twenty years' incessant labour, and which should give
us a deep insight into the philosophy of life.

"It was," says he, "on the day, or rather night, of the 27th of June,
1787, between the hours of eleven and twelve, that I wrote the last
lines of the last page, in a summer-house in my garden. After laying
down my pen, I took several turns in a _berceau_, or covered walk of
acacias, which commands a prospect of the country, the lake, and the
mountains. The air was temperate, the sky was serene; the silver orb
of the moon was reflected from the waters, and all nature was silent.
I will not dissemble the first emotions of joy on the recovery of my
freedom, and perhaps the establishment of my fame. But my pride was
soon humbled, and a sober melancholy was spread over my mind, by the
idea that I had taken an everlasting leave of an old and agreeable
companion; and that whatsoever might be the future fate of my history,
the