When a Man has but a little Stock to improve, and has opportunities of turning it all to good Account, what shall we think of him if he suffers nineteen Parts of it to lie dead, and perhaps employs even the twentieth to his Ruin or Disadvantage?  But because the Mind cannot be always in its Fervours, nor strained up to a Pitch of Virtue, it is necessary to find out proper Employments for it in its Relaxations.

The next Method therefore that I would propose to fill up our Time, should be useful and innocent Diversions.  I must confess I think it is below reasonable Creatures to be altogether conversant in such Diversions as are meerly innocent, and have nothing else to recommend them, but that there is no Hurt in them.  Whether any kind of Gaming has even thus much to say for it self, I shall not determine; but I think it is very wonderful to see Persons of the best Sense passing away a dozen Hours together in shuffling and dividing a Pack of Cards, with no other Conversation but what is made up of a few Game Phrases, and no other Ideas but those of black or red Spots ranged together in different Figures.  Would not a man laugh to hear any one of this Species complaining that Life is short.

The Stage might be made a perpetual Source of the most noble and useful Entertainments, were it under proper Regulations.

But the Mind never unbends itself so agreeably as in the Conversation of a well chosen Friend.  There is indeed no Blessing of Life that is any way comparable to the Enjoyment of a discreet and virtuous Friend.  It eases and unloads the Mind, clears and improves the Understanding, engenders Thoughts and Knowledge, animates Virtue and good Resolution, sooths and allays the Passions, and finds Employment for most of the vacant Hours of Life.

Next to such an Intimacy with a particular Person, one would endeavour after a more general Conversation with such as are able to entertain and improve those with whom they converse, which are Qualifications that seldom go asunder.

There are many other useful Amusements of Life, which one would endeavour to multiply, that one might on all Occasions have Recourse to something rather than suffer the mind to lie idle, or run adrift with any Passion that chances to rise in it.

A Man that has a Taste of Musick, Painting, or Architecture, is like one that has another Sense when compared with such as have no Relish of those Arts.  The Florist, the Planter, the Gardiner, the Husbandman, when they are only as Accomplishments to the Man of Fortune, are great Reliefs to a Country Life, and many ways useful to those who are possessed of them.

But of all the Diversions of Life, there is none so proper to fill up its empty Spaces as the reading of useful and entertaining Authors.  But this I shall only touch upon, because it in some Measure interferes with the third Method, which I shall propose in another Paper, for the Employment of our dead unactive Hours, and which I shall only mention in general to be the Pursuit of Knowledge.