HAPPINESS.

"This new and gorgeous garment

Sits not so easy on me as you think."

INCESSANT, earnest, ardent, is man's pursuit of Happinessthe philosopher's stone of every age and nation since Eve's transgression drove our first parents from its earthly abode; and rendered its attainment so difficult to their descendants. Ponderous tomes of divinity, huge volumes of philosophy, essays without number, maxims without end, have been written by our fellow-labourers to assist us in the pursuit; and, certainly, when we lose our way it is not from a deficiency of finger-posts on the road. Yet, stale as the subject is, it can scarcely be uninteresting;-useless as advice may be, it will generally obtain listeners: there are disorders enough in the world to find employment for quacks as well as for physicians; and while men continue subject to head-aches and heart-aches, they will give their attention to every old woman or empiric who promises either cure or alleviation.

There are a few ingredients in the composition of earthly Happiness which are indispensable, and for which no substitute can be admitted: over the lonely inmate of a bed of pain and sickness, whose pangs poverty exasperates, whose once kind nurses death has removed, even religion's holy influence must fail; her angel-smile and soothing whispers of better things to come can only avert despair, and produce a state of patient calmness and quiet hope. Extreme misery, however, is as rare as extreme felicity; and with the exception of those who dig out their own wretchedness as eagerly as if they were digging for diamonds, and of a few others, intended, perhaps, as perennial proofs of a future state of retribution, Happiness is more equally and more generally diffused than is usually imagined. A mighty magician, silent and invisible in his operations, is ever at work to produce this equilibrium; and few are the circumstances of life which can resist the incessant touch of his powerful fingers. This magician is Habit, the friend of heaven, who renders self-denial easy and pleasant to the virtuous; the ally of hell, by whom the wicked are familiarized to crime. It is Habit that takes away their relish from the luxuries of the rich, and makes the coarse fare of the peasant palatable and sweet;-that renders the cloister pleasant to the once weeping nun, the ball-room insipid to the once raptured debutante; that makes the husband gaze uncharmed on the thousand beauties which enchanted the lover, and listen unirritated to those querulous tones and sharp rebukes which, in earlier days, nearly drove him distracted. Habit, wonderful Habit, can teach the proud bride to clasp her diamond necklace without one throb of

exultation, and the captive or the Corinthian to wear his fetters or his stays without a groan-can bid us gaze unmoved by wonder or gratitude on suns setting in glory, and heavens spangled by a thousand stars, while a comet or a coronation will set all England in a bustle of admiration and delight.

To those possessed of a clear conscience, of Christian hopes, of health, and ease, and competence, it would appear, that Happiness ought to be a close companion-an inseparable handmaid; yet this is not the case; and we frequently find more fretfulness and complaining, more vapid days and restless nights among the children of affluence, surrounded by a thousand blessings, than among those who rise every morning to a routine of hardship and of labour. A few directions may be of service to those prosperous people in whom " much joy has dried away the balmy dew" of content and gratitude. First, let no one expect ecstasies in this life, but consider the absence of pain as pleasure, seize every moment of calm enjoyment with grateful alacrity, and duly estimate the blessings of peace and of repose. Joy is a wild and transitory feeling, unfitted to our present state of existence ;-so unfitted, that we know not how to denote its excess but by tears. Few and far between" are its visits. The recovery of a dear friend from dangerous sickness, the return of another after long absence, the first moments of happy love, when doubt and fear fly before the delicious certainty of mutual affection, the first sight of one's offspring, or their noble conduct in after-life ;-these are a few of those "bright sunny spots," which, if unshaded by counterpoising sorrows, glitter upon the waste of human life like the fair Oases of the desert. But rare, indeed, are moments of this description, and seldom are we able to resign ourselves to their full enjoyment: they make not up the sum of human life, and those are the wisest among us who, seizing joy gratefully when it comes, look not forward to it with any sanguine expectation; in other words, who are well pleased to see a haunch of venison on their table, but can dine contentedly upon mutton every day.

Again, let us not consider any circumstance as insignificant which can have the slightest effect upon our tempers and comforts. For what is a happy life? Is it not so many happy years and days; and are not days made up of hours and minutes? Every minute, therefore, from which we can subtract dulness or discontent-every trifling arrangement which can stop complaint and impart even momentary pleasure, will have a beneficial effect on the sum total of our annual felicity.

The ignorant are informed that this more elegant appellation has superseded its predecessor Dandy, once so popular in every rank. Sic transit, &c.

He whose temper is under the influence of the weather, and who grows gloomy as the skies grow dull, he who is annoyed by the cries in the London streets, or fretted by the creaking of his servant's shoes, is less happy than the man over whom such minute distresses have no effect; for every querulous exclamation, every feeling of vexation impairs the comfort of the moment, and may, by continual dripping, wear out the stone upon which our daily Happiness rests.

Some persons travel, go abroad, and look about them in order to lose instead of gaining pleasure; they purchase the sight of a chef-d'œuvre by the dissatisfaction of the rest of their lives, and spend their time in making unfavourable comparisons between what they see to-day and what they saw yesterday. If they have once beheld St. Peter's or the Bay of Naples, no other church or prospect is worth seeing,-the beauty of an English landscape is lost in the remembrance of Italian scenery; and while others can derive a refreshing delight from the view at Richmond-hill, or even the unpretending beauties of a few sloping fields and waving woods, these unfortunate travellers are shut out from all gratification, turn away their eyes in contempt, and despise the ignorant pleasure of their companions. Surely, if the height of admiration, once experienced, is to forbid all lower degrees of it in future, better is it never to travel at all--better never to lose the capability of being gratified by those objects among which our lives are to be passed.

There are few things which tend more decidedly to promote our Happiness, to give vigour to the mind and animation to the spirits, than the pursuit of some useful possession or honourable attainment, and perhaps there is nothing more useful and honourable, more interesting and pleasing, than the pursuit of knowledge. "Literature, like virtue, is its own reward," and possesses every charm which can win us to its embrace. It is full of variety and beauty; it is inexhaustible; it has just so much difficulty as to excite interest in the contest, and triumph in the victory; it raises us in the scale of social and of intellectual beings, and brings us into a sort of mysterious communion with the wise of every age and nation. In Marmontel's words, "c'est un plaisir qui coute peu, qu'on trouve partout, et qui jamais ne lasse." In the words of Owen Feltham, "Knowledge is the guide of youth, to manhood a companion, and to old age a cordial and an antidote. If I die to-morrow my life will be somewhat the sweeter to-day for knowledge."

If we look around us, we shall be speedily convinced, that most men feel the importance of a pursuit, and shall be amused by the curious expedients and strange substitutes to which those have recourse who refuse to take pleasure in rational employment. Some pursue the improvement of their own persons,

hunt out fashionable tailors, study the tie of their neckcloth,' and muse upon the arrangement of their hair; some collect trinkets, hang seals to their watches by dozens, dote upon diamond-rings, and adore musical snuff-boxes; others aim at the high arts of rowing and sailing, or seek the reputation of being capital cricketers, or ruin their constitutions by pedestrianism, or their fortunes by racing. Then there are the male collectors of illegible and unreadable books, of counterfeit coins, defaced statues, Claudes which were born in England, and Cuyps of yesterday's production: and the female fanciers of china covered with unnatural figures and hideous designs, of preserved butterflies, and of shells and fossils with forgotten names. Most single women, indeed, have one great object of pursuit for which they dress by day, of which they dream by night, and which fixes their attention from sixteen to sixty; while those who are married hunt for cooks who never over-roast the meat, or oil the melted-butter," faultless monsters whom the world ne'er saw," or strive to brighten plain children into beauties, or dull ones into prodigies, or emulate the gay parties of some fashionable contemporary, and spend three hundred and sixtyfour days of the year in contriving plans for cheating, or coaxing, or worrying, or scolding their husbands into giving a ball that shall half-ruin them on the three hundred and sixty-fifth.

Young ladies ought to be happy; they have always some innocent little pursuit in view, besides the great object of their existence, which, like the under-plot in the play, may fill up the dull moments of their drama of life, and occupy the attention till the hero of the piece appears. Sometimes they collect impressions of seals; sometimes surrounded by new bread and Prussian blue they make the seals themselves; sometimes they fill a dozen fairy music-books with the scarcely visible notes of waltzes and quadrilles, or cover the beautiful paper of a large and splendid volume with old bon-mots, stupid riddles, and silly songs. Others imitate Indian work, or Brussels lace, and injure the brilliancy, and diminish the use, of their eyes, while they pore over the minute tracery of a cabinet, or the miniature embroidery of a veil; others, again, paint velvet by wholesale, and look forward with high ambition towards the glorious time when the curtains, and sofas, and cushions of their mother's drawing-room shall be flaring with poppies and pionies, yellow lilies and flaunting tulips, all the produce of their own fingers--the offspring of their own labours.

Some degree of difficulty, however, is necessary, in order to give interest to an object and eagerness to our pursuit of it; and it is the ease with which the rich and the great obtain all they desire which so frequently renders their lives vapid and spiritless, and sends them to the gambling-table for excitement

and animation. There, and perhaps there only, they are placed on an equality with their companions; chance is no aristocrat, the dice stop not even by the command of a sceptre; there they experience the alternations of hope and fear, the excitation of danger and of doubt; and while love palls because it always smiles, luxuries are insipid because they court acceptance, and the path of life is rendered dull by the very pioneer who makes it so invariably smooth; they rush like madmen to the table where the choking interest of an hour may be purchased at an enormous price---may be followed by ruin and by death.

Most true it is that happiness most frequently takes up her abode in the middle ranks of life. The mind of man is so constituted as to take more pleasure in anticipating a future good than in enjoying a present one: ease is ten times sweeter when gained by our own exertions; rest is never truly delightful till purchased by previous labour; what we procure for ourselves seems more precious than any inherited possessions; and the little acquisitions and indulgencies for which we work and for which we economize, are pleasanter amusements in pursuit, and greater blessings in enjoyment, than all the luxury and splendour to which the rich and noble are familiarized from their birth, and which spring not in the remotest degree from their own merit or exertions.

Some conversation I had with a friend a short time since occasioned the following letter from him to explain the state of his mind, and the reasons of a joylessness of manner, on which I had made a few remarks. It proves the impossibility of cor rectly estimating the happiness of any individual by the obser vation of his outward circumstances only.

"MY DEAR FRIEND,-Some men, you know, doat upon riches, strive for them, slave for them, sin for them; others are the miserable victims of love, whose chains they fain would break, but cannot-whose tyrannical commands in spite of reason they obey. My discomforts proceed from very different causes; wealth is my annoyance, freedom from love my grief.

"I was born a descendant from younger sons, with only a noble name for my inheritance, and compelled to gain my subsistence by labour and industry. Happy necessity! For ten years of my life I rose every morning to a day of monotonous business; for ten years every moment of leisure was precious. You must remember the delight with which I welcomed my annual holidays, the glee with which I set out to gaze on green fields and inhale fresh breezes. I often envy my former self, the transports of joy which the permission to shoot over a manor excited. What preparation of powder and shot, what borrowing of dogs, and cleaning of guns, what voluntary hardships and willing fatigues! The careful arrangement of my expenditure was another source of interest and amusement. How rich, how very rich I felt when I had twenty guineas more than I absolutely wanted; how I spe