1. _Temperance._--Eat not to dulness: drink not to elevation. 2. _Silence._--Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself: avoid trifling conversation. 3. _Order._--Let all your things have their places: let each part of your business have its time. 4. _Resolution._--Resolve to perform what you ought: perform, without fail, what you resolve. 5. _Frugality._--Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself; that is, waste nothing. 6. _Industry._--Lose no time: be always employed in something useful: cut off all unnecessary actions. 7. _Sincerity._--Use no hurtful deceit: think innocently and justly: and if you speak, speak accordingly. 8. _Justice._--Wrong none by doing injuries, or omitting the benefits that are your duty. 9. _Moderation._--Avoid extremes: forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve. 10. _Cleanliness._--Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, clothes, or habitation. 11. _Tranquility._--Be not disturbed at trifles, nor at accidents common or unavoidable. 10. To acquire a habit of practising these virtues, he determined to give a week's strict attention to each of them in succession. Thus, in the first week, he took care to avoid even the slightest offence against temperance, and strictly marked every fault in a little book he kept for that purpose. This book he continued to keep for a great number of years; till, in the pressure of public business, he was obliged to give it up entirely. 11. "It is well," he wrote in his old age, "my posterity should be informed that to this little artifice their ancestor owed the constant felicity of his life, down to his seventy-ninth year, in which this is written. What reverses may attend the remainder is in the hand of Providence: but if they arrive, the reflection on past happiness enjoyed ought to help his bearing them with more resignation." 12. "To _Temperance_ he ascribes his long continued health, and what is still left to him of a good constitution. To _Industry_ and _Frugality_, the early easiness of his circumstances, and acquisition of his fortune, with all that knowledge that enabled him to be an useful citizen, and obtained for him some degree of reputation among the learned. To _Sincerity_ and _Justice_, the confidence of his country, and the honorable employs it conferred upon him: and to the joint influence of the whole mass of the virtues, even in the imperfect state he was able to acquire them, all that evenness of temper and that cheerfulness in conversation, which makes his company still sought for, and agreeable even to his young acquaintance: I hope, therefore, that some of my descendants may follow the example, and reap the benefit."