MISCELLANEOUS THOUGHTS. 131 vered her native serenity. Happy those, who in such an hour bf temptation do not lose their temper entirely beyond all recovery, She is now far advanced in years, and the infirmities which tend to put a period to life are growing upon her ; yet she is not ever loading the company with her complaints, nor repeating to them the history of her daily pains and aches, nor does she often speak of them even amongst her friends, but when it seems neces- sary to excuse her inactivity, or the omission of any of the du- ties of her place, or to prevent too much expectation from her un- der her present incapacity and weakness. " What can I get, says she, by buzzing all my ails into the ears of my friends? d shall but render myself disagreeable to the world, and my company more unpleasant to those whom I love ; and when I have talked my diseases all over to them, they cannot relieve me ; therefore I choose to complain in secret, only to him who can send relief, or give me a complete and joyful release." In the bug series of her life she met with few enemies, and those have chiefly sprung from envy at her happiness. Even while she has been scattering her blessings among mankind, she has now and then met a very unmerited reproach ; yet Placentia has never ceased her kind offices to them, but travelled on still in the paths of virtue and goodness with a sublime disregard of their malice. " So glides the moon along th' ethereal, plains, " Bright'ning the midnight world with silver blaze, ` . And, great in silent majesty, disdains " The clamorous envy of the barking race ; " Yet shines upon them still with generous light, " While brutes abuse her beams but to direct their spite. ". Philagatha, alady of six and twenty years old, was present ,while this bright character was rehearsed; she had been the mother of three children, and was still proceeding ; she was so charmed with the many agreeable parts of such a life, that she resolved, if ever she had another daughter, it should be named Placentia. LXIV: Common Occurrences moralized.' AS Theophron one evening was sitting solitary by the fire, which was sunk low, and glimmering in ashes, he mused on the sorrows that surrounded human nature, and beset the spirits that dwell in flesh. By chance he cast his eye on a worm which was lodged on the safer end of a short firebrand; it seemed very un- easy at its warm station, writhing and stretching itself every way for relief. He watched the creeping creature in all its motions. I saw it, said he, when he told this incident to Philemus, I saw it reach forward, and there it met the living coal ; backward, aid on each side, and then it touched the burning embers : still start- ing from the present torment, it retreated and ahunit away from
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