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 JACK EASY.


 * But Hudibras, who scorn’d to stoop

To Fortune, or be said to droop,

Cheer’d up himself with ends of verse,

And sayings of philosophers.”

AMONG the happy people in the world, are those, in whose minds, nature or philosophy has placed a kind of acid, with which care or disappointment will not easily mix.

This acid differs very much from ill-nature; it is rather a kind of salt, expressed from frequent observations on the folly, the vanity, and the uncertainty of human events; from that best of all philosophy, which teaches us to take men as we find them, and circumstances as they occur, good or bad, for better or for worse; that dwells not on future prospects, reflects not on past troubles, and cares not a fig for present difficulties, but dexterously turns them to ridicule or advantage; snatching, at every opportunity, accidental pleasures, and nobly bearing up against the rubs of ill-fortune.

When reflections upon the troubles of life are mixed up in a disposition naturally ill-tempered, they compose what is called