and oppose a Torrent of Anger, or the Sollicitations of Revenge, with Success.  But Indolence is a Stream which flows slowly on, but yet undermines the Foundation of every Virtue.  A Vice of a more lively Nature were a more desirable Tyrant than this Rust of the Mind, which gives a Tincture of its Nature to every Action of ones Life.  It were as little Hazard to be lost in a Storm, as to lye thus perpetually becalmed:  And it is to no Purpose to have within one the Seeds of a thousand good Qualities, if we want the Vigour and Resolution necessary for the exerting them.  Death brings all Persons back to an Equality; and this Image of it, this Slumber of the Mind, leaves no Difference between the greatest Genius and the meanest Understanding:  A Faculty of doing things remarkably praise-worthy thus concealed, is of no more use to the Owner, than a Heap of Gold to the Man who dares not use it.

To-Morrow is still the fatal Time when all is to be rectified:  To-Morrow comes, it goes, and still I please my self with the Shadow, whilst I lose the Reality; unmindful that the present Time alone is ours, the future is yet unborn, and the past is dead, and can only live (as Parents in their Children) in the Actions it has produced.

The Time we live ought not to be computed by the Numbers of Years, but by the Use has been made of it; thus tis not the Extent of Ground, but the yearly Rent which gives the Value to the Estate.  Wretched and thoughtless Creatures, in the only Place where Covetousness were a Virtue we turn Prodigals!  Nothing lies upon our Hands with such Uneasiness, nor has there been so many Devices for any one Thing, as to make it slide away imperceptibly and to no purpose.  A Shilling shall be hoarded up with Care, whilst that which is above the Price of an Estate, is flung away with Disregard and Contempt.  There is nothing now-a-days so much avoided, as a sollicitous Improvement of every part of Time; tis a Report must be shunned as one tenders the Name of a Wit and a fine Genius, and as one fears the Dreadful Character of a laborious Plodder:  But notwithstanding this, the greatest Wits any Age has produced thought far otherwise; for who can think either Socrates or Demosthenes lost any Reputation, by their continual Pains both in overcoming the Defects and improving the Gifts of Nature.  All are acquainted with the Labour and Assiduity with which Tully acquired his Eloquence.

Seneca in his Letters to Lucelius[1] assures him, there was not a Day in which he did not either write something, or read and epitomize some good Author; and I remember Pliny in one of his Letters, where he gives an Account of the various Methods he used to fill up every Vacancy of Time, after several Imployments which he enumerates; sometimes, says he, I hunt; but even then I carry with me a Pocket-Book, that whilst my Servants are busied in disposing of the Nets and other Matters I may be employed in