r me, I am a friend of the Gods and of good men, an agreeable
companion to the artisan, a household guardian to the fathers of
families, a patron and protector of servants, and associate in all true
and generous friendships. The banquets of my votaries are never costly,
but always delicious; for none eat or drink at them who are not invited
by hunger and thirst. Their slumbers are sound, and their wakings
cheerful.

12. My young men have the pleasure of hearing themselves praised by
those who are in years, and those who are in years, of being honoured by
those who are young. In a word, my followers are favoured by the gods,
beloved by their acquaintance, esteemed by their country, and after the
close of their labours, honoured by posterity.

13. We know by the life of this memorable hero, to which of these two
ladies he gave up his heart; and I believe, every one who reads this,
will do him the justice to approve his choice.

14. I very much admire the speeches of these ladies, as containing in
them the chief arguments for a life of virtue, or a life of pleasure,
that could enter into the thoughts of an heathen: but am particularly
pleased with the different figures he gives the two goddesses. Our
modern authors have represented pleasure or vice with an alluring face,
but ending in snakes and monsters: here she appears in all the charms of
beauty, though they are all false and borrowed; and by that means
compose a vision entirely natural and pleasing.

15. I have translated this allegory for the benefit of the youth in
general; and particularly of those who are still in the deplorable state
of non-existence, and whom I most earnestly intreat to come into the
world. Let my embryos shew the least inclination to any single virtue,
and I shall allow it to be a struggling towards birth.

16. I do not expect of them that, like the hero in the foregoing story,
they should go about as soon as they are born, with a club in their
hands, and a lion's skin on their shoulders, to root out monsters and
destroy tyrants; but as the finest author of all antiquity has said upon
this very occasion, though a man has not the abilities to distinguish
himself in the most shining parts of a great character, he has certainly
the capacity of being just, faithful, modest, and temperate.

_Virtue rewarded; The History of Amanda_.

SPECTATOR, No. 375.

1. I have more than once had occasion to mention a noble saying of
Seneca the ph