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the dead; which in all probability, produced the following dream:

I was conveyed, methought, into the entrance of the infernal regions, where I saw Rhadamanthus, one of the judges of the dead, seated on his tribunal. On his left hand, stood the keeper of Erebus, on his right the keeper of Esium. I was told he sat upon women that day, there being several of the sex lately arrived, who had not yet their mansions assigned them. I was surprised to hear him ask every one of them the same question, namely, what they had been doing? Upon this question being proposed to the whole assembly, they stared one upon another, as not knowing what to answer. He then interrogated each of them separately. Madam says he to the first of them, you have been upon the earth about fifty years: what have you been doing there all this while? Doing says she; really I do not know what I have been doing: I desire I may have time given me to recollect, After about half an hour's pause she told him that she had been playing at crimp; upon which Rhadamanthus beckoned to the keeper on his left hand to take her into custody. And you madam, says the judge, that look with such a soft and languishing air; I think you set out for this place in your nineand-twentieth year, what have you been doing all this while? I had a great deal of business on my hands, says she, being taken up, the first twelve years of my life in dressing a jointed baby, and all the remaining part of it in reading plays and romances. Very well, says he, you have employed your time to good purpose. Away with her. The next was a plain country woman;. Well, mistress, says Rhadamanthus, and what have you been doing? An't please your worship, says she, I did not live quite forty years; and in that time brought my husband seven daugh. ters, made him nine thousand cheeses, and left my youngest girl with him, to look after his house in my absence; and who, I may venture to say, is as pretty a house wife as any in the country. Khadamanthus smiled at the simplicity of the good woman, and ordered the keeper of Elysium to take her into And you, fair lady, says he, what have you been doing these five and thirty years? I have been doing no hurt I assure you, sir, said she. That is well, said he; but what good have you been doing? The lady was in great confusion at this question: and not knowing what to answer, the two keepers leaped out to seize her at the same time; the one took her by the land to convey her to Elysium, the other caught hold of her to carry her away to Erebus; but Rhadamanthus observing an ingenious modesty in her countenance and behaviour, bid them both let her loose, and set her aside for re-examination when he was more at leisure. An old woman, of a proud and sour look, presended herself next at the bar; and being asked what she had been doing? Truly, said she, Ilived three score and ten years in a very wicked world, and was so angry

his care.

at the behaviour of a parcel of young flirts, that I passed most of my last years in condemning the follies of the times. I was every day blaming the silly conduct of people about me, in order to deter those I conversed with from falling into the like errors and miscarriages. Very well, says Rhadamanthus, but did you keep the same watchful eye over your own actions? Why truly says she, I was so taken up in publishing the faults of others that I had no time to consider my own. Madam, says Rhadamanthus, be pleased to file off to the left, and inake room for the venerable matron that stands behind you. Old gentlewoman, says he, I think you are four score: you have heard. the question; what have you been doing so long in the world? Ah, sir, says she, I have been doing what I should not have done; but I had made a firm resolution to have changed my life, if I had not been snatched off by an untimely end. Madam, says he, you will please to follow your leader; and spying anuther of the same age, interrogated her in the same form. To which the matron replied, I have been the wife of a husband who was as dear to me in his old age as in his youth. I have been a mother, and very happy in my children, whom I en. deavoured to bring up in every thing that is good. My eldest son is blest by the poor, and beloved by every one that knows him. I lived within my own family, and left it much more wealthy than I found it. Rhadamanthus, who knew the value of the old lady, smiled upon her in such a manner, that the keeper of Elysium, who knew his office, reached out his hand to her. He no sooner touched her, but her wrinkles vanished, her eyes sparkled, her cheeks glowed with blushes, and she appeared in full bloom and beauty. A young woman, observing that this officer who conducted the happy to Elysium, was so great a beautifier, longed to be in his hands; so that pressing through the crowd, she was the next that appeared at the bar: and being asked what she had been doing the five-and-twenty years that she had passed in the world? I have endeavoured, says she, ever since I came to years of discretion, to make my self lovely and gain admirers. In order to it, passed my time in bottling up May-dew, inventing white washes, mixing colours, cutting out patches, consulting my glass, suiting my complexion. Rhadamanthus, without hearing her out, gave the sign to take her off. Upon the approach of the keeper of Erebus, her colour faded, her face was puckered up with wrinkles, and her whole person lost in deformity.

I was then surprised with a distant sound of a whole troop of females, that came forward, laughing, singing and dancing. I was very desirous to know the reception they would meet with, and withal was very apprehensive that Rhadamanthus would spoil their mirth; but at a nearer approach, the noise grew so very great, that it awakened me.

I lay some time, reflecting in my self the oddness of this

dream; and could not forbear asking my own heart what I had been doing? 1 answered my self, that I was writing Guardians. If my readers make as good a use of this work as I design they should, I hope it will never be imputed to me as a work that is vain and unprofitable.

I shall conclude this paper with recommending to them the same short self-examination. If every one of them frequently lays his hand upon his heart, and considers what he is doing, it will check him in all the idle, or what is worse, the vicious moments of life; lift up his mind when it is running on in a series of indifferent actions, and encourage him when he is engaged in those which are virtuous and laudable. In a word, it will very much alleviate that guilt, which the best of men have reason to acknowledge in their daily confessions, of "leaving undone those things which they ought to have done, and of doing those things which they ought not to have done."

XVI, Character of Francis I.

FRANCIS died at Ramboullet, on the last day of March, in the fifty-third year of his age, and the thirty-third of his reign. During twenty-eight years of that tinie, an avowed rivalship subsisted between him and the emperor; which involved, not only their own dominions, but the greater part of Europe, in wars, prosecuted with more violent animosity, and drawn out to a greater length than had been known in any former period. Many circumstances contributed to both. Their animosity was founded in opposition of interest, heightened by personal emulation, and exasperated not only by mutual injuries, but by reciprocal insults. At the same time, whatever advantage one seemed to possess towards gaining the ascendant, was wonderfully balanced by some favourable circumstances peculiar to the other. The emperor's dominions were of great extent; the French king's lay more compact: Francis governed his kingdom with absolute power; that of Charles was limited, but he supplied the want of authority by address; the troops of the former were more impetuous and enterprising those of the latter, better disciplined and more patient of fatigue.

The talents and abilities of the two monarchs were as different as the advantages which they possessed, and contributed no less to prolong the contest between them. Francis took his resolution suddenly; prosecuted them, at first, with warmth; and pushed them into execution with a most adventurous courage but, being destitute of the perseverance necessary to surmount difficulties, he often abandoned his designs, or relaxed the vigour of pursuit, from impatience, and sometimes from levity. Charles deliberated long, and determined with coolness: but, having once fixed his plan, he adhered to it with in

flexible obstinacy: and neither danger nor discouragement could turn him aside from the execution of it.

The success of their enterprises was as different as their characters, and was uniformly influenced by them. Francis, by his impetuous activity, often disconcerted the emperor's best laid schemes; Charles, by a more calm, but steady prosecution of his designs checked the rapidity of his rival's career, and baffled or repulsed his most vigorous efforts. The former, at the opening of a war or campaign, broke in upon his enemy with the violence of a torrent, and carried all before him; the latter, waiting until he saw the force of his rival begin to abate, recovered in the end, not only all that he had lost, but made new acquisitions. Few of the French monarch's attempts towards conquest, whatever promising aspect they might wear at first, were conducted to an happy issue; many of the emperor's enterprises, even after they appeared desperate and impracticable, terminated in the most prosperous manner. t

The degree, however, of their comparative merit and reputation, has not been fixed, either by strict scrutiny into their abili ties for government, or by an impartial consideration of the greatness and success of their undertakings? and Francis is one of those monarchs, who occupy a higher rank in the temple of fame, than either their talents or performances entitled them to hold. This pre-eminence he owed to many different circumstances. The superiority which Charles acquired by the victory of Pavia, and which, from that period, he preserved through the remainder of his reign, was so manifest, that Francis's struggle against his exorbitant and growing dominion, was viewed by most of the other powers, not only with the partiality which naturally arises from those who gallantly maintain an unequal contest, but with the favour due to one who was resisting a common enemy, and endeavouring to set bounds to a mo narch equally formidable to them all. The characters of princes, too, especially among their contemporaries depend, not only upon their talents for government, but upon their qualities as men. Francis, notwithstanding the many errors conspicuous in his foreign policy and domestic administration, was, nevertheless, humane, beneficent, generous. He possessed dignity with. out pride; affability free from meanness, and courtesy exempt from deceit. All who had access to know him, (and no man of merit was ever denied that privilege,) respected and loved him, Captivated with his personal qualities, his subjects forgot his defects as a monarch; and admiring him as the most accomplished, and amiable gentleman in his dominions, they hardly mur mured at acts of mal-administration, which, in a prince of less engaging dispositions, would have been deemed unpardonable.

This admiration, however, must have been temporary only, and would have died away with the courtiers who bestowed it; the allusion arising from his private virtues must have ceased,

and posterity would have judged of his public conduct with its usual impartiality: but another circumstance prevented this; and his name hath been transmitted to posterity with increasing reputation. Science and the arts had, at that time, made little progress in France. They were just beginning to advance beyond the limits of Italy, where they had revived, and which had hitherto been their only seat. Francis took them immediately under his protection, and vied with Leo himself, in the zeal and munificence with which he encouraged them. He invited learned men to his court, he conversed with them familiarly, he employed thèm in business, he raised them to offices of dignity, and honoured them with his confidence. That race of men, not more prone to complain when denied the respect to which they fancy themselves entitled, than apt to be pleased when treated with the distinction which they consider as their due, thought they could not exceed in gratitude to such a bene factor, and strained their invention, and employed all their ingenuity, in panegyric.

Succeeding authors, warmed with their descriptions of Francis's bounty, adopted their encomiums, and refined upon them. The appellation of Father of Letters, bestowed upon Francis, had rendered his memory sacred among historians; and they seem to have regarded it as a sort of impiety to uncover his infirmities, or to point out his defects. Thus Francis notwithstanding his inferior abilities and want of success, hath more than equalled the fame of Charles. The virtues which he possessed as a man, have entitled him to greater admiration and praise, than have been bestowed upon the extensive genius, and fortunate arts, of a more capable, but less amiable rival.

XVII. The Supper and Grace,

1

A SHOE coming loose from the fore foot of the thill horse, at the beginning of the ascent of mount Taurira, the postillion dismounted, twisted the shoe off, put it into his pocket: as the ascent was of five or six miles, and that horse our main depen. dence, I made a point of having the shoe fastened on again, as well as we could; but the postillion had thrown away the nails, and, his hammer in the chaise box being of no great use, with. out them, I submitted to go on.

He had mounted half a mile higher, when coming to a flinty piece of road, the poor devil lost a second shoe, and from off his other fore foot. I then got out of the chaise in good earnest; and seeing a house about a quarter of mile to the left hand, with a great deal to do, I prevailed upon the postil. lion to turn up to it. The look of the house, and every thing about it, as we drew nearer, soon reconciled me to the disaster. It was a little farm house, surrounded with about twenty acres of vineyard, about as much corn; and, close to the house, on