REFLECTION.

It may be laid down as a position which will feldom deceive, that when a man cannot bear his own company, there is fomething wrong. He muft fly from himself, either because he finds a tediousness in the equipoife of an empty mind, which having no tendency to one motion more than another, but as it is impelled by fome external power, must always have recourse to foreign objects; or he must be afraid of the intrufion of fome unpleafing ideas, and perhaps is ftruggling to escape from the remembrance of a lofs, the fear of a calamity, or fome other thought of greater horror.

Ibid. vol. 1, p. 27.

There are fewer higher gratifications than that of reflection on furmounted evils, when they were not incurred nor protracted by our fault, and nei ther reproach us with cowardice nor guilt.

Ibid. vol. 4, p. 233.

- All useless mifery is certainly folly, and he that feels evils before they come, may be defervedly cenfured; yet surely to dread the future, is more reasonable than to lament the past. The business of life is to go forward; he who fees evils in profpect, meets it in his way; but he who catches it by retrospection, turns back to find it.

Idler, vol. 2, p. 111..

There is certainly no greater happiness than to be able to look back on a life ufefully and virtuously employed; to trace our own progress in existence, by fuch tokens as excite neither fhame, nor forrow. It ought therefore to be the care of those who wish to pafs the laft hours with comfort, to

lay

lay up fuch a treasure of pleafing ideas, as fhall fupport the expences of that time, which is to depend wholly upon the fund already acquired.

Rambler, vol. I, p. 250 & 252.

The remembrance of a crime committed in vain, has been confidered as the most painful of all reflections. Life of Pope.

REBELLION.

To bring mifery on those who have not deferv-ed it, is part of the aggregated guilt of rebellion. Taxation no Tyranny, p. 61.

Nothing can be more noxious to fociety, than that erroneous clemency, which, when a rebellion is fuppreffed, exacts no forfeiture, and establishes no fecurities, but leaves the rebels in their former ftate.

REFINEMENT.

Ibid. p. 87.

He that pleases himself too much with minute exactness, and submits to endure nothing in ac-. commodations, attendance, or addrefs, below the point of perfection, will, whenever he enters the croud of life, be harraffed with innumerable diftreffes, from which those who have not, in the fame manner, increased their fenfations, find no disturbance. His exotic foftness will shrink at the coarseness of vulgar felicity, like a plant transplanted. to Northern nurferies, from the dews and fun-shine of the tropical regions. It is well known, that exposed to a microscope, the fimootheft polish of the moft folid bodies difcovers cavities and prominen-cies; and that the foftest bloom of roseate virginity repels

repels the eye with excrefcencies and difcolorations. Thus the fenfes, as well as the perceptions, may be improved to our own difquiet and we may, by diligent cultivation of the powers of diflike, raife in time an artificial faftidiousness, which fhall fill the imagination with phantoms of turpitude, fhew us the naked skeleton of every delight, and prefent us only with the pains of pleafure, and the deformities of beauty.

Rambler, vol. 3, p. 37.

RECOLLECTION.

That which is obvious, is not always known; and what is known, is not always prefent. Sudden fits of inadvertency will furprise vigilance; flight avocations will feduce attention; and cafual eclipfes of the mind will darken learning; fo that the writer fhall often, in vain, trace his memory at the moment of need, for that which yesterday he knew with intuitive readinefs, and which will come uncalled into his thoughts to-morrow.

Preface to Dictionary, fol. p. 10.

RETIREMENT.

There is a time when the claims of the public are fatisfied; then a man might properly retire to review his life, and purify his heart.

Prince of Abyffinia, p. 135.

Some fufpenfion of common affairs, fome paufe of temporal pain and pleasure, is doubtless neceffary to him that deliberates for eternity, who is forming the only plan in which miscarriage cannot be repaired, and examining the only queftion in which mistake cannot be rectified.

Rambler, vol. 3, p. 29.

RESENT

RESENTMENT.

It is too common for those who have unjustly fuffered pain, to inflict it likewife in their turn with the fame injuftice, and to imagine they have a right to treat others as they themselves have been treated.

Life of Savage.

Refentment is an union of forrow with malignity; a combination of a paffion which all endeavour to avoid, with a paffion which all concur to deteft. The man who retires to meditate mischief, and to exafperate his own rage; whofe thoughts are employed only on means of distress, and contrivances of ruin; whofe mind never pauses from the remembrance of his own fufferings, but to indulge fome hope of enjoying the calamities of another, may justly be numbered among the most miserable of human beings, among those who are guilty without reward, who have neither the gladness of profperity, nor the calm of innocence.

Rambler, vol. 4, p. 137.

RELAXATION.

After the exercises which the health of the body requires, and which have themselves a natural tendency to actuate and invigorate the mind, the moft eligible amusement of a rational being, feems to be that interchange of thoughts which is practifed in free and eafy converfation, where fufpicion is banished by experience, and emulation by benevolence; where every man speaks with no other reftraint than unwillingness to offend, and hears with no other difpofition than defire to be pleased.

Ibid. vol. 2, p. 204.

REPENTANCE,

REPENTANCE.

Repentance is the change of the heart, from that of an evil to a good difpofition; it is that dispofition of mind by which "the wicked man turneth away from his wickednefs, and doth that which is lawful and right;" and when this change is made, the repentance is complete.

Convicts Addrefs, p. 14 & 15.

Repentance, however difficult to be practifed, is, if it be explained without fuperftition, eafily understood. Repentance is the relinquishment of any practice, from the conviction that it has offended God. Sorrow, and fear, and anxiety, are properly not parts, but adjun&s of repentance; yet they are too clofely connected with it, to be cafily feparated; for they not only mark its fincerity, but promote its efficacy.

of remorse.

No man commits any act of negligence or obftinacy, by which his fafety or happiness in this world is endangered, without feeling the pungency He who is fully convinced, that he fuffers by his own failure, can never forbear to trace back his mifcarriage to its firft caufe, to image to himself a contrary behaviour, and to form involuntary refolutions against the like fault, even when he knows that he shall never again have the power of committing it. Danger confidered as imminent naturally produces fuch trepidations of impatience, as leave all human means of fafety behind them he that has once caught an alarm of terror, is every moment feised with useless anxieties, adding one fecurity to another, trembling with fudden doubts, and diftracted by the perpetual occurrence of new expedients. If, therefore, he whofe crimes have deprived him of the favour of Y

God,