Warned by so distressful an experience, he would have no man seek henceforth to be foretold what shall befall him or his children; “evil he may be sure, which neither his foreknowing can prevent; and he the future evil shall, no less in apprehension than in substance, feel grievous to bear.” It has been asked what would become of men, were their future absolutely foreknown by them: would they not become in imagination, and therefore in reality, the passive slaves of an inevitable fate, with all hope extinguished, all fear intensified, awaiting in terror the foreseen evil, and looking with indifference on the promised good, darkened as it would be by the shadow of intervening calamities, and stripped of the bright colouring of hope? And yet, “With eager search to dart the soul, Curiously vain, from pole to pole, And from the planets’ wandering spheres To extort the number of our years, And whether all those years shall flow Serenely smooth, and free from woe, Or rude misfortune shall deform Our life with one continual storm; Or if the scene shall motley be Alternate joy and misery,— Is a desire which, more or less, All men feel, though few confess.” So at least affirms the author of the “Rosciad,”—who in another of his writings puts the query: “Tell me, philosopher, is it a crime To pry into the secret womb of time; Or, born in ignorance, must we despair To reach events, and read the future there?” Assuredly, says Cicero, the ignorance of evils to come is of more advantage than the knowledge of them: _certe ignoratio futurorum malorum utilior est quam scientia_. And Horace, in a celebrated passage: “Prudens futuri temporis exitum Caliginosâ nocte premit Deus: Ridetque, si mortalis ultra Fas trepidat.”... _Caliginosa nox_ forms a thick black curtain. “What hangs behind that curtain?—would’st thou learn? If thou art wise, thou would’st not.” A thoughtful mind, sententiously observes Miss Clarissa Harlowe, is not a blessing to be coveted, unless it has such a happy vivacity with it as her friend Miss Howe’s: a vivacity which enables one to enjoy the present, without being anxious about the future. It is, according to Goldsmith, the happy confidence in bright illusions that gives life its true relish, and keeps up our spirits amidst every distress and disappointment. “How much less would be done, if a man knew how little he can do! How wretched a creature would he be, if he saw the end as well as the beginning of his projects! He would have nothing left but to sit down in torpid despair, and exchange enjoyment for actual calamity.” The warrior in Mr. Roscoe’s tragedy argues judiciously when he says, “What is’t to me, that I should vex my soul In dim forebodings of what is to be? It is enough I know, and ache to know, What on this bridge of time I have to do, Not overlook the abysm till my head fail.”