GOLDEN RULES OF LIFE.--All the air and the exercise in the universe, and the most generous and liberal table, but poorly suffice to maintain human stamina if we neglect other co-operatives--namely the obedience to the laws of abstinence, and those of ordinary gratification. We rise with a headache, and we set about puzzling ourselves to know the cause. We then recollect that we had a hard day's fag, or that we feasted over-bounteously, or that we stayed up very late: at all events we incline to find out the fault, and then we call ourselves fools for falling into it. Now, this is an occurrence happening almost every day; and these are the points that run away with the best portion of our life, before we find out what is for good or evil. Let any single individual review his past life: how instantaneously the blush will cover his cheek, when he thinks of the egregious errors he has unknowingly committed--say unknowingly, because it never occurred to him that they were errors until the effects followed that betrayed the cause. All our sickness and ailments, and a brief life, mainly depend upon ourselves. There are thousands who practice errors day after day, and whose pervading thought is, that everything which is agreeable and pleasing cannot be hurtful. The slothful man loves his bed; the toper his drink, because it throws him into an exhilarative and exquisite mood; the gourmand makes his stomach his god; and the sensualist thinks his delights imperishable. So we go on, and at last we stumble and break down. We then begin to reflect, and the truth stares us in the face how much we are to blame. * * * * * PROGRESS OF MILTON'S BLINDNESS.--It is now, I think, about ten years (1654) since I perceived my vision to grow weak and dull; and, at the same time I was troubled with pain in my kidneys and bowels, accompanied with flatulency. In the morning, as I began to read, as was my custom, my eyes instantly ached intensely, but were refreshed after a little corporeal exercise. The candle which I looked at seemed as if it were encircled by a rainbow. Not long after the sight of the left part of the left eye (which I lost some years before the other) became quite obscured, and prevented me from discerning any object on that side. The sight in my other eye has now been gradually and sensibly vanishing away for about three years; some months before it had entirely perished, though I stood motionless, every thing which I looked at seemed in motion to and fro. A stiff cloudy vapor seemed to have settled on my forehead and temples, which usually occasions a sort of somnolent pressure upon my eyes, and particularly from dinner till evening. So that I often recollect what is said of the poet Phineas in the Argonautics: "A stupor deep his cloudy temples bound, And when he waked he seemed as whirling round, Or in a feeble trance he speechless lay."