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Title: The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes, Volume 02

Author: Samuel Johnson

Release date: September 6, 2013 [eBook #43656]

Language: English

Credits: E-text prepared by Jonathan Ingram, David Garcia, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team


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Oxford English Classics.

DR. JOHNSON'S WORKS.
THE RAMBLER.
VOL. I.

Talboys and Wheeler, Printers, Oxford.


THE WORKS OF SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D.
IN NINE VOLUMES.

VOLUME THE SECOND.

[Illustration: DOMINUS ILLUMINATIO MEA]








Oxford:
Published by Talboys and Wheeler;
and W. Pickering, London.
MDCCCXXV.




PREFATORY NOTICE


An attentive consideration of the period at which any work of moral
instruction has appeared, and of the admonitions appropriate to the state
of those times, is highly necessary for a correct estimate of the merits
of the writer. For to quote the judicious remarks of one of our earlier
Essayists[1], "there is a sort of craft attending vice and absurdity;
and when hunted out of society in one shape, they seldom want address
to reinsinuate themselves in another: hence the modes of licence vary
almost as often as those of dress, and consequently require continual
observation to detect and explode them anew." The days in which the
Rambler first undertook to reprove and admonish his country, may be
said to have well required a moralist of their own. For the modes of
fashionable life, and the marked distinction between the capital and
the country, which drew forth the satire, and presented scope for the
admonitions of the Spectator and the Tatler, were then fast giving place
to other follies, and to characters that had not hitherto subsisted. The
crowd of writers[2], whatever might be their individual merit, who offered
their labours to the public, between the close of the Spectator and the
appearance of the Rambler, had contributed, in a most decided manner,
towards the diffusion of a taste for literary information. It was no
longer a coterie of wits at Button's, or at Will's, who, engrossing all
acquaintance with Belles Lettres, pronounced with a haughty and exclusive
spirit on every production for the stage or the closet; but it was a
reading public to whom writers now began to make appeal for censure
or applause. That education which the present day beholds so widely
spread had then commenced its progress; and perhaps it is not too bold
to say, that Johnson almost foresaw the course that it would run. He saw
a public already prepared for weightier discussions than could have been
understood the century before. In addition to a more general education,
the improved intercourse between the remotest parts of the country and
the metropolis made all acquainted with the dissipation and manners,
which, during the publication of the Spectator, were hardly known beyond
the circle where they existed. The pages of that incomparable production
were therefore perused by general readers, as well for the gratification
of curiosity, as for the improvement of morals. The passing news of the
day, the tattle of the auction or the Mall, the amusing extravagances of
dress, and the idle fopperies of fashion, topics that excited merriment
rather than detestation, were those most judiciously selected to allure
a nation to read. Addison and Steele therefore in their age acted wisely;
their cotemporaries would have been driven[3] "by the sternness of the
Rambler's philosophy to more cheerful and airy companions." The pages
of the Tatler were enlivened by foreign and domestic politics, by the
current scandal of the town, and by easy critiques on the last new play;
by advertisements of "orangerie for beaux[4]," and by prescriptions for
the cure of love-sickness or the spleen. The Guardian uttered forth his
moral lessons from the wide and voracious mouth of an imaginary lion,
whose roarings were to have influence[5] "for the purifying of behaviour
and the bettering of manners." But for Johnson was reserved a different
task, and one for which his powers and the natural bent of his mind
were peculiarly fitted. He disdained, as derogatory from the dignity of
a teacher, to thus humour trifling minds, and to barter by idle conceits
for the reception of his precepts. His aim was not to amuse but to
instruct, not to ridicule the frivolities of fashion, but to lash the
enormities of guilt. He resolved to write a book in which nothing should
be flattered that men had agreed to flatter, and in which no tenderness
should be shown to public prejudice or to private folly[6]. In pursuance
of this deep and solemn purpose we accordingly find him imploring
assistance in his labours from that "Giver of all good things, without
whose help all labour is ineffectual, and without whose grace all wisdom
is folly[7]."

The Rambler was published on Tuesday March 20, 1749-50, and appeared
without intermission every Tuesday and Saturday until March 14, 1752,
on which day it closed[8]. The Author was not exhausted nor weary; his
latter pages do not fall off; perhaps, without partiality, we may say,
that he evidently gathered strength as he proceeded in his work. But
prepared as the age had been by preceding writers, it was not enlightened
to an extent adequate to the universal reception of truths so abstract
and so spoken out[9]; it could not comprehend within its reach of sight
such bold and broad sketches of human nature. In the sententious and
didactic papers of the Rambler, where truth appears "towering and
majestic, unassisted and alone[10]," lighter readers missed with regret
the sportive variety of his predecessors. We can adduce perhaps no
stronger proof of Johnson's elevation above his times, than the fact
that the meagre, common-place, and jejune paper of Richardson, was the
only one that obtained an immediate popularity[11]. The sale of the Rambler
seldom exceeded five hundred; while it is on record that twenty thousand
Spectators were sometimes sold in a day[12]. But Johnson wrote not for
his own generation alone, but for posterity, and posterity will pay him
his meed of immortality.

The Rambler, with some trivial exceptions, is the work of a single
and unaided author, who composed it during his performance of a task
which had fatigued "united academies and long successions of learned
compilers[13]." He wrote, as he pathetically describes himself, "under the
pressure of disease, obstructed by constitutional indolence, and when
much of his time was spent in provision for the day that was passing
over him[14]." The only contributions in aid of his work, all of which
he acknowledges in his concluding Rambler, were the following papers.

In Number 10, the four billets were written by Miss Mulso, daughter
of Thomas Mulso, Esq. who came of an ancient family at Twywell,
Northamptonshire. She is better known to the public as Mrs. Chapone. The
above articles are said to have been her first literary productions[15].

For Number 30. Dr. Johnson was indebted to Miss Catherine Talbot, only
daughter of the Rev. Edward Talbot, Archdeacon of Berks, and Preacher at
the Rolls. She was provided for, by the liberal bequest of Archbishop
Secker, with whom she had chiefly resided; and her composition in
the Rambler, like all her other works, breathes a spirit of piety
characteristic of her exemplary patron and protector.

Numbers 44 and 100 were contributed by Mrs. Elizabeth Carter, the justly
celebrated translator of Epictetus, whose eminence in literature was
only surpassed by her amiable deportment in the milder duties of domestic
life[16]. Richardson, the author of Clarissa, Pamela, &c. wrote Number 97,
to which allusion has already been made. The second letter, signed Amicus,
in Number 107, was from an unknown correspondent.

The rest of the Rambler was produced by one mind, whose resources were
developed, but not exhausted, by the work. To give a history of its
progress; to record the praises with which it was at once greeted by the
philosophic reader[17]; the empty clamour which the light, the ignorant,
and envious raised against it; the editions through which it has passed;
the countries through which it has been circulated, and the effects which
it has produced on our national style, would be among the most interesting
of researches, but the detail would be incompatible with the limits of
a Preface. Every little particular connected with it has been again
and again canvassed with that admiration or hostility which only great
works can call forth. The very title has afforded ground for censure,
for licentious imitation[18], and for acrimonious abuse. "The Rambler,"
says the sprightly Lady Montague, "is certainly a strong misnomer[19]:
he always plods in the beaten road of his predecessors, following the
Spectator (with the same pace a pack-horse would do a hunter) in the
style that is proper to lengthen a paper." A formal refutation of so
flippant a charge would equal in ludicrous absurdity the attack itself.
The passage is merely quoted in evidence of the literature of the
times. For if so lively and acute a writer could so far overlook the
design and plan of the Rambler, what could be expected from his less
cultivated readers? The Italians have rendered it by Il Genio errante,
and most unhappily by Il Vagabondo.[20] Its adoption was an instance of
our Author's lofty contempt of the class who could not understand his
meaning. "I sat down at night," he observed to Sir Joshua Reynolds, "upon
my bed side, and resolved that I would not sleep till I had fixed its
title. The Rambler seemed the best that occurred, and I took it." He was
then in no trifling mode of mind. He felt himself "a solitary wanderer in
the wild of life, without any direction or fixed point of view; a gloomy
gazer on a world to which he bore little relation.[21]" This description
of himself he gave under the oppressive remembrance of a particular
privation: but he long before most deeply felt the "bitterness of being."
He felt his own misery, and, thoroughly convinced that man was miserable,
he boldly announced his conviction.

A belief has circulated, almost as widely as Johnson's writings,
of his hurried and slovenly manner of composition. He has been
represented by Boswell himself, as sending his papers to the press,
and never afterwards even perusing them. With regard to the Rambler,
this opinion is directly opposed to fact. The labour which he bestowed
on its revision, betokened the most anxious zeal for its utility.[22]
He almost _re-wrote_ it. A comparison of the original folio Rambler,
with the copies now in circulation, would prove the nearly literal
accuracy of this assertion. Mr. Chalmers, in his British Essayists,
and Dr. Drake in his Essays on the Rambler, have given specimens.[23]
It may perhaps be equally satisfactory to state that the alterations
exceeded six thousand. Wherever Johnson laboured, amendment and excellence
must have ensued. And on the Rambler no labour was misapplied; for its
usefulness is universal. There is scarcely a situation in life for the
regulation of which some right rule may not thence be drawn. It does
not glitter to the vulgar eye, but it is a deep mine, where, if we must
labour, yet our labours are rewarded with the richest ore.

A varied knowledge of character is the first requisite for a teacher
of moral prudence.[24] This was among Johnson's most early attainments,
for his was not that mere "lip-wisdom which wants experience.[25]" He
was not the recluse scholar, unacquainted with the world and its ways,
but he could from actual survey describe, with equal fidelity, those who
sparkled in the highest order of society, and those who struggled with
distress in the lower walks of life. His study was peculiarly man: and
his comprehensive and generalizing mind led him to analyze the primary
elements of human nature, rather than nicely to pourtray the shades of
mixed character.

Mrs. Piozzi's assignments have perhaps little better foundation in fact
than the sage conjectures of the Rumford club,[26] who fondly imagined
themselves to be the only _Ridicules_ in the world. "Not only every man,"
observes the Rambler, "has in the mighty mass of the world great numbers
in the same condition with himself, to whom his mistakes and miscarriages,
escapes and expedients, would be of immediate and apparent use; but
there is such an uniformity in the state of man, considered apart from
adventitious and separable decorations and disguises, that there is
scarce any possibility of good or ill but is common to human kind."

Whether his view of our condition on earth was too gloomy or not, may
be agitated as a question without any impeachment of his sincere desire
to correct our faults, and to soothe our sorrows. For although other
philosophers have deplored human weaknesses and errors, and other
satirists have derided human follies, yet few have sympathized with
the wretched and the guilty with the same warm-hearted benevolence as
Johnson. He was indeed himself, as he has described another,

  Officious, innocent, sincere,
  Of every friendless name the friend.[27]

His own temperament was morbidly melancholy, but his writings contain
the best antidotes against that pitiable affection. He ridicules it when
indulged on occasion of each chance and trivial annoyance; he scorns
it as "hypocrisy of misery," when assumed by those little-minded beings
who complain for the luxury of pity: and he proposes the most salutary
remedies for it, when a real and deeply-seated malady, in active and in
honorable enterprise.[28] Above all he ever presses upon his readers,
from a view of the transitory nature of mortal enjoyment, the wisdom of
resting their hopes on the fixed prospects of futurity.

Rousseau has been termed "the apostle of affliction." But his
conviction of the emptiness of honours and of fame, and his contempt
of the accidental distinctions of riches and of rank, led him to place
all man's possible enjoyment, and to look for the only solace of his
inevitable wretchedness, in the instant indulgence of appetite; while
his genius unhappily enabled him to throw a seductive halo around the
merest gratifications of sense.

  Here the self-torturing sophist, wild Rousseau,
  The apostle of affliction, he who threw
  Enchantment over passion, and from woe
  Wrung overwhelming eloquence, first drew
  The breath that made him wretched; yet he knew
  How to make madness beautiful, and cast
  O'er erring deeds and words a heavenly hue
  Of words, like sunbeams, dazzling as they past
  The eyes which o'er them shed tears feelingly and fast.

                                    _Childe Harold, Canto 3, Stanza 77._

This description was drawn by a bard who, not prejudiced against the
lover of the New Heloise, still keenly saw the practical effects which his
philosophy wrought in the mass of society, and how it tended to debase our
moral and intellectual natures.[29] Byron well knew, and needed not to be
told, that Rousseau's sentimentality was but a highly polished instinct;
though, like the scornful and unpitying Democritus,[30] he would bitterly
smile amidst the tombs, where man's pride and pleasures were alike laid
desolate. But Johnson sought to alleviate the woes over which he wept;
and no one ever sunk in sensuality from a despondency produced by his
lamentations over human misery. In none of his varied writings has he
lured others from the paths of virtue, or smoothed the road of perdition,
or covered with flowers the thorns of guilt, or taught temptation sweeter
notes, softer blandishments, or stronger allurements.[31] He never
smiles, like Boileau, at vice, as if half pleased with the ludicrous
images it impresses on his fancy; nor, with Swift, does he mangle human
nature, and then scowl with a tyrant's exultation on the wounds he has
inflicted.[32] He bemoans our miseries with the tender pity of a Cowper,
who, in warning us of life's grovelling pursuits and empty joys, seeks,
by withdrawing us from their delusive dominion, to prepare us for
"another and a better world."

       *       *       *       *       *

[Footnote 1: The Champion by Fielding. 1741. 12mo. vol. i. p. 258.]

[Footnote 2: Dr. Drake, in his Essays on the Rambler, &c. enumerates
eighty-two periodical papers published during that period. For the
comparative state of female literature, see Dr. Johnson himself, in
Rambler 173.]

[Footnote 3: Rambler, Number 208.]

[Footnote 4: Tatler, Number 94.]

[Footnote 5: Guardian, Numbers 98. 114. 124. 140.]

[Footnote 6: Chalmers' Preface to the Idler; British Essayists, vol.
xxxiii.]

[Footnote 7: Prayer on the Rambler.]

[Footnote 8: See Boswell's Life of Dr. Johnson, vol. i. and Chalmers'
Preface to Rambler.]

[Footnote 9: Precepts of morality, besides the natural corruption of our
tempers, are abstracted from ideas of sense.--ADDISON.]

[Footnote 10:  Rambler, Number 96.]

[Footnote 11: This fact was communicated, on the authority of Mr. Payne,
(the original publisher of the Rambler,) by Mr. Nichols to Mr. Chalmers.

See Dr. Drake's Literary Life of Dr. Johnson in his Essays on the Rambler,
&c.

His Rambler, which is almost all essence of thought, unalloyed by those
baser ingredients which so commonly add to the quantity without adding to
the worth of human compositions, experienced at first a general coldness,
discouragement, and even censure and ridicule. Censura Literaria,
vol. viii. p. 361, first edition.]

[Footnote 12: Addisoniana, 12mo. vol. ii. p. 52.]

[Footnote 13: Plan of an English Dictionary.]

[Footnote 14: Preface to the English Dictionary.]

[Footnote 15: Chalmers' Prefaces to Rambler and Adventurer.]

[Footnote 16: Boswell, vol. i. iii. and iv.]

[Footnote 17: Student, vol. ii. number entitled Clio. 1750. Gentleman's
Magazine of the day. Mrs. Barbauld's Correspondence of Richardson. Dr.
Young was among the first and warmest admirers of the Rambler. See
Boswell, vol. i.]

[Footnote 18: We allude to the infamous Rambler's Magazine, which, little
to the credit of the morality of the times, has lately been allowed to
spread anew its pestilential influence.]

[Footnote 19: Works, 8vo. vol. iv. p. 259. See also the Edinburgh Review
for July, 1803.]

[Footnote 20: Boswell's Life, vol. iii. and Chalmers on Rambler. Essayists,
vol. xix. See also Idler, No. 1. at the commencement.]

[Footnote 21: In a letter to Mr. Thomas Warton, speaking of the death of
Dodsley's wife, and in allusion to the loss of his own, he concludes
with a quotation where pathos and resignation are blended,

  [Greek: Oimoi; ti d' oimoi? Thnêta gar peponthamen]. BOSWELL, vol. i.]

[Footnote 22: Chalmers, as above, and Dr. Drake.]

[Footnote 23: Mr. Chalmers gives No. 180. of the Rambler, and Dr. Drake
some paragraphs from No. 185.]

[Footnote 24: This opinion is maintained in the Rambler, No. 129. and in
Boswell's Life, vol. iii.]

[Footnote 25: Sidney.]

[Footnote 26: See her Anecdotes and Rambler, 188. note.]

[Footnote 27: Stanzas on the death of Mr. Levet.]

[Footnote 28: See his many letters on the subject to Mr. Boswell,
who had the misfortune to be hypochondriacal. See also Rambler,
186. Introduction.]

[Footnote 29: Rousseau's utter sensuality is ever a theme for Mary
Woolstonecraft's declamation in her Rights of Woman.--_Fas est et ab
hoste doceri._]

[Footnote 30: Salvator Rosa has made Democritus among the tombs the
subject of one of his solemn and heart-striking pictures. For an eloquent
description of it, see Lady Morgan's Life and Times of _Il famoso pittore
di cose morale_, vol. ii.]

[Footnote 31: Rambler, No. 77.]

[Footnote 32: _Ita feri ut se sentiat emori._]




CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME.


 NUMB.                                                              PAGE

    1. Difficulty of the first address.
       Practice of the epick poets.
       Convenience of periodical performances.                         1
    2. The necessity and danger of looking into futurity.
       Writers naturally sanguine.
       Their hopes liable to disappointment.                           6
    3. An allegory on criticism.                                      11
    4. The modern form of romances preferable to the ancient.
       The necessity of characters morally good.                      15
    5. A meditation on the Spring.                                    20
    6. Happiness not local.                                           25
    7. Retirement natural to a great mind. Its religious use.         30
    8. The thoughts to be brought under regulation; as they
       respect the past, present, and future.                         35
    9. The fondness of every man for his profession.
       The gradual improvement of manufactures.                       40
   10. Four billets, with their answers.
       Remarks on masquerades.                                        44
   11. The folly of anger. The misery of a peevish old age.           50
   12. The history of a young woman that came to London for
       a service.                                                     55
   13. The duty of secrecy.
       The invalidity of all excuses for betraying secrets.           61
   14. The difference between an author's writings and his
       conversation.                                                  66
   15. The folly of cards.
       A letter from a lady that has lost her money.                  72
   16. The dangers and miseries of a literary eminence.               78
   17. The frequent contemplation of death necessary to moderate
       the passions.                                                  83
   18. The unhappiness of marriage caused by irregular motives
       of choice.                                                     87
   19. The danger of ranging from one study to another.
       The importance of the early choice of a profession.            93
   20. The folly and inconvenience of affectation.                    99
   21. The anxieties of literature not less than those of
       publick stations. The inequality of authors' writings.        104
   22. An allegory on wit and learning.                              109
   23. The contrariety of criticism. The vanity of objection.
       An author obliged to depend upon his own judgment.            113
   24. The necessity of attending to the duties of common life.
       The natural character not to be forsaken.                     117
   25. Rashness preferable to cowardice.
       Enterprize not to be repressed.                               122
   26. The mischief of extravagance, and misery of dependence.       127
   27. An author's treatment from six patrons.                       132
   28. The various arts of self-delusion.                            136
   29. The folly of anticipating misfortunes.                        142
   30. The observance of Sunday recommended; an allegory.            146
   31. The defence of a known mistake highly culpable.               150
   32. The vanity of stoicism. The necessity of patience.            156
   33. An allegorical history of Rest and Labour.                    161
   34. The uneasiness and disgust of female cowardice.               165
   35. A marriage of prudence without affection.                     171
   36. The reasons why pastorals delight.                            176
   37. The true principles of pastoral poetry.                       180
   38. The advantages of mediocrity; an eastern fable.               185
   39. The unhappiness of women whether single or married.           190
   40. The difficulty of giving advice without offending.            194
   41. The advantages of memory.                                     199
   42. The misery of a modish lady in solitude.                      204
   43. The inconveniences of precipitation and confidence.           208
   44. Religion and Superstition; a vision.                          213
   45. The causes of disagreement in marriage.                       218
   46. The mischiefs of rural faction.                               222
   47. The proper means of regulating sorrow.                        227
   48. The miseries of an infirm constitution.                       231
   49. A disquisition upon the value of fame.                        235
   50. A virtuous old age always reverenced.                         240
   51. The employments of a housewife in the country.                244
   52. The contemplation of the calamities of others,
       a remedy for grief.                                           250
   53. The folly and misery of a spendthrift.                        254
   54. A death-bed the true school of wisdom.
       The effects of death upon the survivors.                      258
   55. The gay widow's impatience of the growth of her daughter.
       The history of Miss May-pole.                                 263
   56. The necessity of complaisance.
       The Rambler's grief for offending his correspondents.         268
   57. Sententious rules of frugality.                               273
   58. The desire of wealth moderated by philosophy.                 277
   59. An account of Suspirius, the human screech-owl.               281
   60. The dignity and usefulness of biography.                      285
   61. A Londoner's visit to the country.                            290
   62. A young lady's impatience to see London.                      295
   63. Inconstancy not always a weakness.                            300
   64. The requisites to true friendship.                            304
   65. Obidah and the hermit; an eastern story.                      309
   66. Passion not to be eradicated.
       The views of women ill directed.                              313
   67. The garden of Hope; a dream.                                  317
   68. Every man chiefly happy or miserable at home.
       The opinion of servants not to be despised.                   322
   69. The miseries and prejudice of old age.                        326
   70. Different men virtuous in different degrees.
       The vicious not always abandoned.                             330
   71. No man believes that his own life will be short.              334
   72. The necessity of good humour.                                 338
   73. The lingering expectation of an heir.                         342
   74. Peevishness equally wretched and offensive.
       The character of Tetrica.                                     347
   75. The world never known but by a change of fortune.
       The history of Melissa.                                       352
   76. The arts by which bad men are reconciled to themselves.       357
   77. The learned seldom despised but when they deserve
       contempt.                                                     361
   78. The power of novelty.
       Mortality too familiar to raise apprehensions.                366
   79. A suspicious man justly suspected.                            370
   80. Variety necessary to happiness; a winter scene.               375
   81. The great rule of action. Debts of justice to be
       distinguished from debts of charity.                          369
   82. The virtuoso's account of his rarities.                       383
   83. The virtuoso's curiosity justified.                           388
   84. A young lady's impatience of controul.                        393
   85. The mischiefs of total idleness.                              398
   86. The danger of succeeding a great author: an introduction
       to a criticism on Milton's versification.                     402
   87. The reasons why advice is generally ineffectual.              408
   88. A criticism on Milton's versification.
       Elisions dangerous in English poetry.                         412
   89. The luxury of vain imagination.                               417
   90. The pauses in English poetry adjusted.                        421
   91. The conduct of Patronage; an allegory.                        426
   92. The accommodation of sound to the sense, often chimerical.    431
   93. The prejudices and caprices of criticism.                     438
   94. An inquiry how far Milton has accommodated the sound to
       the sense.                                                    442
   95. The history of Pertinax the sceptick.                         449
   96. Truth, Falsehood, and Fiction; an allegory.                   453
   97. Advice to unmarried ladies.                                   458
   98. The necessity of cultivating politeness.                      464
   99. The pleasures of private friendship.
       The necessity of similar dispositions.                        468
  100. Modish pleasures.                                             472
  101. A proper audience necessary to a wit.                         476
  102. The voyage of life.                                           481
  103. The prevalence of curiosity. The character of Nugaculus.      486
  104. The original of flattery. The meanness of venal praise.       491
  105. The universal register; a dream.                              495




THE RAMBLER.




No. 1. TUESDAY, MARCH 20, 1749-50.


  _Cur tamen hoc potius libeat decurrere campo,_
  _Per quem magnus equos Auruncæ flexit alumnus,_
  _Si vacat, et placidi rationem admittitis, edam._
                                                        JUV. Sat. i. 19.

  Why to expatiate in this beaten field,
  Why arms, oft us'd in vain, I mean to wield;
  If time permit, and candour will attend,
  Some satisfaction this essay may lend.
                                                             ELPHINSTON.


The difficulty of the first address on any new occasion, is felt by every
man in his transactions with the world, and confessed by the settled
and regular forms of salutation which necessity has introduced into
all languages. Judgment was wearied with the perplexity of being forced
upon choice, where there was no motive to preference; and it was found
convenient that some easy method of introduction should be established,
which, if it wanted the allurement of novelty, might enjoy the security
of prescription.

Perhaps few authors have presented themselves before the publick,
without wishing that such ceremonial modes of entrance had been anciently
established, as might have freed them from those dangers which the desire
of pleasing is certain to produce, and precluded the vain expedients
of softening censure by apologies, or rousing attention by abruptness.

The epick writers have found the proemial part of the poem such an
addition to their undertaking, that they have almost unanimously adopted
the first lines of Homer, and the reader needs only be informed of the
subject, to know in what manner the poem will begin.

But this solemn repetition is hitherto the peculiar distinction of
heroick poetry; it has never been legally extended to the lower orders
of literature, but seems to be considered as an hereditary privilege,
to be enjoyed only by those who claim it from their alliance to the
genius of Homer.

The rules which the injudicious use of this prerogative suggested to
Horace, may indeed be applied to the direction of candidates for inferior
fame; it may be proper for all to remember, that they ought not to raise
expectation which it is not in their power to satisfy, and that it is
more pleasing to see smoke brightening into flame, than flame sinking
into smoke.

This precept has been long received, both from regard to the authority
of Horace, and its conformity to the general opinion of the world; yet
there have been always some, that thought it no deviation from modesty
to recommend their own labours, and imagined themselves entitled by
indisputable merit to an exemption from general restraints, and to
elevations not allowed in common life. They perhaps believed, that when,
like Thucydides, they bequeathed to mankind [Greek: ktêma es aei], _an
estate for ever_, it was an additional favour to inform them of its value.

It may, indeed, be no less dangerous to claim, on certain occasions,
too little than too much. There is something captivating in spirit and
intrepidity, to which we often yield, as to a resistless power; nor
can he reasonably expect the confidence of others, who too apparently
distrusts himself.

Plutarch, in his enumeration of the various occasions on which a man may
without just offence proclaim his own excellencies, has omitted the case
of an author entering the world; unless it may be comprehended under
his general position, that a man may lawfully praise himself for those
qualities which cannot be known but from his own mouth; as when he is
among strangers, and can have no opportunity of an actual exertion of his
powers. That the case of an author is parallel will scarcely be granted,
because he necessarily discovers the degree of his merit to his judges
when he appears at his trial. But it should be remembered, that unless
his judges are inclined to favour him, they will hardly be persuaded to
hear the cause.

In love, the state which fills the heart with a degree of solicitude
next that of an author, it has been held a maxim, that success is most
easily obtained by indirect and unperceived approaches; he who too soon
professes himself a lover, raises obstacles to his own wishes, and those
whom disappointments have taught experience, endeavour to conceal their
passion till they believe their mistress wishes for the discovery. The
same method, if it were practicable to writers, would save many complaints
of the severity of the age, and the caprices of criticism. If a man could
glide imperceptibly into the favour of the publick, and only proclaim his
pretensions to literary honours when he is sure of not being rejected,
he might commence author with better hopes, as his failings might escape
contempt, though he shall never attain much regard.

But since the world supposes every man that writes ambitious of applause,
as some ladies have taught themselves to believe that every man intends
love, who expresses civility, the miscarriage of any endeavour in learning
raises an unbounded contempt, indulged by most minds, without scruple,
as an honest triumph over unjust claims and exorbitant expectations. The
artifices of those who put themselves in this hazardous state, have
therefore been multiplied in proportion to their fear as well as their
ambition; and are to be looked upon with more indulgence, as they are
incited at once by the two great movers of the human mind--the desire
of good, and the fear of evil. For who can wonder that, allured on one
side, and frightened on the other, some should endeavour to gain favour
by bribing the judge with an appearance of respect which they do not
feel, to excite compassion by confessing weakness of which they are
not convinced; and others to attract regard by a show of openness and
magnanimity, by a daring profession of their own deserts, and a publick
challenge of honours and rewards?

The ostentatious and haughty display of themselves has been the usual
refuge of diurnal writers, in vindication of whose practice it may be
said, that what it wants in prudence is supplied by sincerity, and who
at least may plead, that if their boasts deceive any into the perusal
of their performances, they defraud them of but little time.

  _----Quid enim? Concurritur--horæ_
  _Momento cita mors venit, aut victoria læta._
                                                    HOR. lib. i. Sat. 7.

  The battle join, and in a moment's flight,
  Death, or a joyful conquest, ends the fight.
                                                                FRANCIS.

The question concerning the merit of the day is soon decided, and we
are not condemned to toil through half a folio, to be convinced that
the writer has broke his promise.

It is one among many reasons for which I purpose to endeavour the
entertainment of my countrymen by a short essay on Tuesday and Saturday,
that I hope not much to tire those whom I shall not happen to please; and
if I am not commended for the beauty of my works, to be at least pardoned
for their brevity. But whether my expectations are most fixed on pardon
or praise, I think it not necessary to discover; for having accurately
weighed the reasons for arrogance and submission, I find them so nearly
equiponderant, that my impatience to try the event of my first performance
will not suffer me to attend any longer the trepidations of the balance.

There are, indeed, many conveniencies almost peculiar to this method
of publication, which may naturally flatter the author, whether he be
confident or timorous. The man to whom the extent of his knowledge, or
the sprightliness of his imagination, has, in his own opinion, already
secured the praises of the world, willingly takes that way of displaying
his abilities which will soonest give him an opportunity of hearing the
voice of fame; it heightens his alacrity to think in how many places he
shall hear what he is now writing, read with ecstasies to-morrow. He will
often please himself with reflecting, that the author of a large treatise
must proceed with anxiety, lest, before the completion of his work, the
attention of the publick may have changed its object; but that he who
is confined to no single topick may follow the national taste through
all its variations, and catch the _aura popularis_, the gale of favour,
from what point soever it shall blow.

Nor is the prospect less likely to ease the doubts of the cautious, and
the terrours of the fearful; for to such the shortness of every single
paper is a powerful encouragement. He that questions his abilities to
arrange the dissimilar parts of an extensive plan, or fears to be lost
in a complicated system, may yet hope to adjust a few pages without
perplexity; and if, when he turns over the repositories of his memory,
he finds his collection too small for a volume, he may yet have enough to
furnish out an essay. He that would fear to lay out too much time upon
an experiment of which he knows not the event, persuades himself that
a few days will show him what he is to expect from his learning and his
genius. If he thinks his own judgment not sufficiently enlightened, he
may, by attending the remarks which every paper will produce, rectify his
opinions. If he should with too little premeditation encumber himself by
an unwieldy subject, he can quit it without confessing his ignorance,
and pass to other topicks less dangerous, or more tractable. And if
he finds, with all his industry, and all his artifices, that he cannot
deserve regard, or cannot attain it, he may let the design fall at once,
and, without injury to others or himself, retire to amusements of greater
pleasure, or to studies of better prospect.




No. 2. SATURDAY, MARCH 24, 1749-50.


  _Stare loco nescit, pereunt vestigia mille_
  _Ante fugam, absentemque ferit gratis ungula campum._
                                                                STATIUS.

  Th' impatient courser pants in every vein,
  And pawing seems to beat the distant plain;
  Hills, vales, and floods appear already crost,
  And ere he starts, a thousand steps are lost.
                                                                   POPE.


That the mind of man is never satisfied with the objects immediately
before it, but is always breaking away from the present moment, and
losing itself in schemes of future felicity; and that we forget the
proper use of the time, now in our power, to provide for the enjoyment
of that which, perhaps, may never be granted us, has been frequently
remarked; and as this practice is a commodious subject of raillery to
the gay, and of declamation to the serious, it has been ridiculed with
all the pleasantry of wit, and exaggerated with all the amplifications
of rhetorick. Every instance, by which its absurdity might appear most
flagrant, has been studiously collected; it has been marked with every
epithet of contempt, and all the tropes and figures have been called
forth against it.

Censure is willingly indulged, because it always implies some superiority:
men please themselves with imagining that they have made a deeper search,
or wider survey, than others, and detected faults and follies, which
escape vulgar observation. And the pleasure of wantoning in common
topicks is so tempting to a writer, that he cannot easily resign it;
a train of sentiments generally received enables him to shine without
labour, and to conquer without a contest. It is so easy to laugh at the
folly of him who lives only in idea, refuses immediate ease for distant
pleasures, and, instead of enjoying the blessings of life, lets life
glide away in preparations to enjoy them; it affords such opportunities
of triumphant exultation, to exemplify the uncertainty of the human state,
to rouse mortals from their dream, and inform them of the silent celerity
of time, that we may believe authors willing rather to transmit than
examine so advantageous a principle, and more inclined to pursue a track
so smooth and so flowery, than attentively to consider whether it leads
to truth.

This quality of looking-forward into futurity seems the unavoidable
condition of a being, whose motions are gradual, and whose life is
progressive: as his powers are limited, he must use means for the
attainment of his ends, and intend first what he performs last; as by
continual advances from his first stage of existence, he is perpetually
varying the horizon of his prospects, he must always discover new motives
of action, new excitements of fear, and allurements of desire.

The end therefore which at present calls forth our efforts, will be found,
when it is once gained, to be only one of the means to some remoter
end. The natural flights of the human mind are not from pleasure to
pleasure, but from hope to hope.

He that directs his steps to a certain point, must frequently turn
his eyes to that place which he strives to reach; he that undergoes the
fatigue of labour, must solace his weariness with the contemplation of its
reward. In agriculture, one of the most simple and necessary employments,
no man turns up the ground but because he thinks of the harvest, that
harvest which blights may intercept, which inundations may sweep away,
or which death or calamity may hinder him from reaping.

Yet, as few maxims are widely received or long retained but for some
conformity with truth and nature, it must be confessed, that this caution
against keeping our view too intent upon remote advantages is not without
its propriety or usefulness, though it may have been recited with too
much levity, or enforced with too little distinction; for, not to speak
of that vehemence of desire which presses through right and wrong to its
gratification, or that anxious inquietude which is justly chargeable
with distrust of heaven, subjects too solemn for my present purpose;
it frequently happens that by indulging early the raptures of success,
we forget the measures necessary to secure it, and suffer the imagination
to riot in the fruition of some possible good, till the time of obtaining
it has slipped away.

There would, however, be few enterprises of great labour or hazard
undertaken, if we had not the power of magnifying the advantages which
we persuade ourselves to expect from them. When the knight of La Mancha
gravely recounts to his companion the adventures by which he is to
signalize himself in such a manner that he shall be summoned to the
support of empires, solicited to accept the heiress of the crown which
he has preserved, have honours and riches to scatter about him, and an
island to bestow on his worthy squire, very few readers, amidst their
mirth or pity, can deny that they have admitted visions of the same
kind; though they have not, perhaps, expected events equally strange,
or by means equally inadequate. When we pity him, we reflect on our own
disappointments; and when we laugh, our hearts inform us that he is
not more ridiculous than ourselves, except that he tells what we have
only thought.

The understanding of a man naturally sanguine, may, indeed, be easily
vitiated by luxurious indulgence of hope, however necessary to the
production of every thing great or excellent, as some plants are
destroyed by too open exposure to that sun which gives life and beauty
to the vegetable world.

Perhaps no class of the human species requires more to be cautioned
against this anticipation of happiness, than those that aspire to the
name of authors. A man of lively fancy no sooner finds a hint moving
in his mind, than he makes momentaneous excursions to the press, and
to the world, and, with a little encouragement from flattery, pushes
forward into future ages, and prognosticates the honours to be paid him,
when envy is extinct, and faction forgotten, and those, whom partiality
now suffers to obscure him, shall have given way to the triflers of as
short duration as themselves.

Those who have proceeded so far as to appeal to the tribunal of succeeding
times are not likely to be cured of their infatuation, but all endeavours
ought to be used for the prevention of a disease, for which, when it has
attained its height, perhaps no remedy will be found in the gardens of
philosophy, however she may boast her physick of the mind, her catharticks
of vice, or lenitives of passion.

I shall, therefore, while I am yet but lightly touched with the symptoms
of the writer's malady, endeavour to fortify myself against the infection,
not without some weak hope, that my preservatives may extend their
virtues to others, whose employment exposes them to the same danger:

  _Laudis amore tumes? Sunt certa piacula, quæ te_
  _Ter pure lecto poterunt recreare libello._
                                                      HOR. Ep. i. v. 36.

  Is fame your passion? Wisdom's powerful charm,
  If thrice read over, shall its force disarm.
                                                                FRANCIS.

It is the sage advice of Epictetus, that a man should accustom himself
often to think of what is most shocking and terrible, that by such
reflections he may be preserved from too ardent wishes for seeming good,
and from too much dejection in real evil.

There is nothing more dreadful to an author than neglect, compared with
which reproach, hatred, and opposition, are names of happiness; yet this
worst, this meanest fate, every one who dares to write has reason to fear.

  _I nunc, et versus tecum meditare canoros._
                                                    HOR. lib. ii. v. 76.

  Go now, and meditate thy tuneful lays.
                                                             ELPHINSTON.

It may not be unfit for him who makes a new entrance into the lettered
world, so far to suspect his own powers, as to believe that he possibly
may deserve neglect; that nature may not have qualified him much
to enlarge or embellish knowledge, nor sent him forth entitled by
indisputable superiority to regulate the conduct of the rest of mankind
that, though the world must be granted to be yet in ignorance, he is not
destined to dispel the cloud, nor to shine out as one of the luminaries
of life. For this suspicion, every catalogue of a library will furnish
sufficient reason; as he will find it crowded with names of men, who,
though now forgotten, were once no less enterprising or confident than
himself, equally pleased with their own productions, equally caressed by
their patrons, and flattered by their friends.

But though it should happen that an author is capable of excelling, yet
his merit may pass without notice, huddled in the variety of things, and
thrown into the general miscellany of life. He that endeavours after fame
by writing, solicits the regard of a multitude fluctuating in pleasures,
or immersed in business, without time for intellectual amusements; he
appeals to judges prepossessed by passions, or corrupted by prejudices,
which preclude their approbation of any new performance. Some are
too indolent to read any thing, till its reputation is established;
others too envious to promote that fame which gives them pain by its
increase. What is new is opposed, because most are unwilling to be
taught; and what is known is rejected, because it is not sufficiently
considered that men more frequently require to be reminded than informed.
The learned are afraid to declare their opinion early, lest they should
put their reputation in hazard; the ignorant always imagine themselves
giving some proof of delicacy, when they refuse to be pleased: and he
that finds his way to reputation through all these obstructions, must
acknowledge that he is indebted to other causes besides his industry,
his learning, or his wit.




No. 3. TUESDAY, MARCH 27, 1750.


  VIRTUS, _repulsæ nescia sordidæ,_
  _Intaminatis fulget honoribus,_
    _Nec sumit aut pouit secures_
      _Arbitrio popularis auræ._
                                              HOR. lib. iii. Od. II. 18.

  Undisappointed in designs,
  With native honours virtue shines;
  Nor takes up pow'r, nor lays it down,
  As giddy rabbles smile or frown.
                                                             ELPHINSTON.


The task of an author is, either to teach what is not known, or to
recommend known truths by his manner of adorning them; either to let
new light in upon the mind, and open new scenes to the prospect, or
to vary the dress and situation of common objects, so as to give them
fresh grace and more powerful attractions, to spread such flowers over
the regions through which the intellect has already made its progress,
as may tempt it to return, and take a second view of things hastily
passed over, or negligently regarded.

Either of these labours is very difficult, because, that they may not
be fruitless, men must not only be persuaded of their errours, but
reconciled to their guide; they must not only confess their ignorance,
but, what is still less pleasing, must allow that he from whom they are
to learn is more knowing than themselves.

It might be imagined that such an employment was in itself sufficiently
irksome and hazardous; that none would be found so malevolent as wantonly
to add weight to the stone of Sisyphus; and that few endeavours would be
used to obstruct those advances to reputation, which must be made at such
an expense of time and thought, with so great hazard in the miscarriage,
and with so little advantage from the success.

Yet there is a certain race of men, that either imagine it their duty,
or make it their amusement, to hinder the reception of every work of
learning or genius, who stand as sentinels in the avenues of fame, and
value themselves upon giving Ignorance and Envy the first notice of
a prey.

To these men, who distinguish themselves by the appellation of Criticks,
it is necessary for a new author to find some means of recommendation.
It is probable, that the most malignant of these persecutors might be
somewhat softened, and prevailed on, for a short time, to remit their
fury. Having for this purpose considered many expedients, I find in the
records of ancient times, that Argus was lulled by musick, and Cerberus
quieted with a sop; and am, therefore, inclined to believe that modern
criticks, who, if they have not the eyes, have the watchfulness of Argus,
and can bark as loud as Cerberus, though, perhaps, they cannot bite with
equal force, might be subdued by methods of the same kind. I have heard
how some have been pacified with claret and a supper, and others laid
asleep by the soft notes of flattery.

Though the nature of my undertaking gives me sufficient reason to dread
the united attacks of this virulent generation, yet I have not hitherto
persuaded myself to take any measures for flight or treaty. For I am in
doubt whether they can act against me by lawful authority, and suspect
that they have presumed upon a forged commission, styled themselves the
ministers of Criticism, without any authentick evidence of delegation, and
uttered their own determinations as the decrees of a higher judicature.

Criticism, from whom they derive their claim to decide the fate of
writers, was the eldest daughter of Labour and of Truth: she was at
her birth committed to the care of Justice, and brought up by her
in the palace of Wisdom. Being soon distinguished by the celestials,
for her uncommon qualities, she was appointed the governess of Fancy,
and empowered to beat time to the chorus of the Muses, when they sung
before the throne of Jupiter.

When the Muses condescended to visit this lower world, they came
accompanied by Criticism, to whom, upon her descent from her native
regions, Justice gave a sceptre, to be carried aloft in her right hand,
one end of which was tinctured with ambrosia, and inwreathed with
a golden foliage of amaranths and bays; the other end was encircled
with cypress and poppies, and dipped in the waters of oblivion. In her
left hand she bore an unextinguishable torch, manufactured by Labour,
and lighted by Truth, of which it was the particular quality immediately
to shew every thing in its true form, however it might be disguised to
common eyes. Whatever Art could complicate, or Folly could confound, was,
upon the first gleam of the torch of Truth, exhibited in its distinct
parts and original simplicity; it darted through the labyrinths of
sophistry, and shewed at once all the absurdities to which they served
for refuge; it pierced through the robes, which Rhetoric often sold to
Falsehood, and detected the disproportion of parts, which artificial
veils had been contrived to cover.

Thus furnished for the execution of her office, Criticism came down to
survey the performances of those who professed themselves the votaries
of the Muses. Whatever was brought before her, she beheld by the steady
light of the torch of Truth, and when her examination had convinced her
that the laws of just writing had been observed, she touched it with
the amaranthine end of the sceptre, and consigned it over to immortality.

But it more frequently happened, that in the works, which required
her inspection, there was some imposture attempted; that false colours
were laboriously laid; that some secret inequality was found between
the words and sentiments, or some dissimilitude of the ideas and the
original objects; that incongruities were linked together, or that
some parts were of no use but to enlarge the appearance of the whole,
without contributing to its beauty, solidity, or usefulness.

Wherever such discoveries were made, and they were made whenever these
faults were committed, Criticism refused the touch which conferred the
sanction of immortality, and, when the errours were frequent and gross,
reversed the sceptre, and let drops of lethe distil from the poppies
and cypress, a fatal mildew, which immediately began to waste the work
away, till it was at last totally destroyed.

There were some compositions brought to the test, in which, when the
strongest light was thrown upon them, their beauties and faults appeared
so equally mingled, that Criticism stood with her sceptre poised in her
hand, in doubt whether to shed lethe, or ambrosia, upon them. These at
last increased to so great a number, that she was weary of attending
such doubtful claims, and, for fear of using improperly the sceptre of
Justice, referred the cause to be considered by Time.

The proceedings of Time, though very dilatory, were, some few caprices
excepted, conformable to Justice: and many who thought themselves secure
by a short forbearance, have sunk under his scythe, as they were posting
down with their volumes in triumph to futurity. It was observable that
some were destroyed by little and little, and others crushed for ever
by a single blow.

Criticism having long kept her eye fixed steadily upon Time, was at last
so well satisfied with his conduct, that she withdrew from the earth
with her patroness Astrea, and left Prejudice and False Taste to ravage
at large as the associates of Fraud and Mischief; contenting herself
thenceforth to shed her influence from afar upon some select minds,
fitted for its reception by learning and by virtue.

Before her departure she broke her sceptre, of which the shivers, that
formed the ambrosial end, were caught up by Flattery, and those that had
been infected with the waters of lethe were, with equal haste, seized
by Malevolence. The followers of Flattery, to whom she distributed
her part of the sceptre, neither had nor desired light, but touched
indiscriminately whatever Power or Interest happened to exhibit. The
companions of Malevolence were supplied by the Furies with a torch,
which had this quality peculiar to infernal lustre, that its light fell
only upon faults.

  No light, but rather darkness visible
  Serv'd only to discover sights of woe.
                                                                 MILTON.

With these fragments of authority, the slaves of Flattery and Malevolence
marched out, at the command of their mistresses, to confer immortality,
or condemn to oblivion. But the sceptre had now lost its power;
and Time passes his sentence at leisure, without any regard to their
determinations.




No. 4. SATURDAY, MARCH 31, 1750.


  _Simul et jucunda et idonea dicere vitæ._
                                                         HOR. A. P. 334.

  And join both profit and delight in one.
                                                                 CREECH.


The works of fiction, with which the present generation seems more
particularly delighted, are such as exhibit life in its true state,
diversified only by accidents that daily happen in the world, and
influenced by passions and qualities which are really to be found in
conversing with mankind.

This kind of writing may be termed not improperly the comedy of romance,
and is to be conducted nearly by the rules of comick poetry. Its province
is to bring about natural events by easy means, and to keep up curiosity
without the help of wonder: it is therefore precluded from the machines
and expedients of the heroic romance, and can neither employ giants
to snatch away a lady from the nuptial rites, nor knights to bring her
back from captivity; it can neither bewilder its personages in deserts,
nor lodge them in imaginary castles.

I remember a remark made by Scaliger upon Pontanus, that all his writings
are filled with the same images; and that if you take from him his
lilies and his roses, his satyrs and his dryads, he will have nothing
left that can be called poetry. In like manner almost all the fictions
of the last age will vanish, if you deprive them of a hermit and a wood,
a battle and a shipwreck.

Why this wild strain of imagination found reception so long in polite
and learned ages, it is not easy to conceive; but we cannot wonder that
while readers could be procured, the authors were willing to continue it;
for when a man had by practice gained some fluency of language, he had
no further care than to retire to his closet, let loose his invention,
and heat his mind with incredibilities; a book was thus produced without
fear of criticism, without the toil of study, without knowledge of nature,
or acquaintance with life.

The task of our present writers is very different; it requires, together
with that learning which is to be gained from books, that experience which
can never be attained by solitary diligence, but must arise from general
converse and accurate observation of the living world. Their performances
have, as Horace expresses it, _plus oneris quantum veniæ minus_, little
indulgence, and therefore more difficulty. They are engaged in portraits
of which every one knows the original, and can detect any deviation
from exactness of resemblance. Other writings are safe, except from the
malice of learning, but these are in danger from every common reader;
as the slipper ill executed was censured by a shoemaker who happened to
stop in his way at the Venus of Apelles.

But the fear of not being approved as just copiers of human manners,
is not the most important concern that an author of this sort ought
to have before him. These books are written chiefly to the young, the
ignorant, and the idle, to whom they serve as lectures of conduct, and
introductions into life. They are the entertainment of minds unfurnished
with ideas, and therefore easily susceptible of impressions; not fixed
by principles, and therefore easily following the current of fancy; not
informed by experience, and consequently open to every false suggestion
and partial account.

That the highest degree of reverence should be paid to youth, and that
nothing indecent should be suffered to approach their eyes or ears,
are precepts extorted by sense and virtue from an ancient writer, by
no means eminent for chastity of thought. The same kind, though not
the same degree, of caution, is required in every thing which is laid
before them, to secure them from unjust prejudices, perverse opinions,
and incongruous combinations of images.

In the romances formerly written, every transaction and sentiment was so
remote from all that passes among men, that the reader was in very little
danger of making any applications to himself; the virtues and crimes
were equally beyond his sphere of activity; and he amused himself with
heroes and with traitors, deliverers and persecutors, as with beings of
another species, whose actions were regulated upon motives of their own,
and who had neither faults nor excellencies in common with himself.

But when an adventurer is levelled with the rest of the world, and acts
in such scenes of the universal drama, as may be the lot of any other man;
young spectators fix their eyes upon him with closer attention, and hope,
by observing his behaviour and success, to regulate their own practices,
when they shall be engaged in the like part.

For this reason these familiar histories may perhaps be made of greater
use than the solemnities of professed morality, and convey the knowledge
of vice and virtue with more efficacy than axioms and definitions. But if
the power of example is so great as to take possession of the memory by a
kind of violence, and produce effects almost without the intervention of
the will, care ought to be taken, that, when the choice is unrestrained,
the best examples only should be exhibited; and that which is likely
to operate so strongly, should not be mischievous or uncertain in its
effects.

The chief advantage which these fictions have over real life is, that
their authors are at liberty, though not to invent, yet to select objects,
and to cull from the mass of mankind, those individuals upon which the
attention ought most to be employed; as a diamond, though it cannot be
made, may be polished by art, and placed in such a situation, as to
display that lustre which before was buried among common stones.

It is justly considered as the greatest excellency of art, to imitate
nature; but it is necessary to distinguish those parts of nature,
which are most proper for imitation: greater care is still required in
representing life, which is so often discoloured by passion, or deformed
by wickedness. If the world be promiscuously described, I cannot see
of what use it can be to read the account; or why it may not be as safe
to turn the eye immediately upon mankind as upon a mirrour which shews
all that presents itself without discrimination.

It is therefore not a sufficient vindication of a character, that it is
drawn as it appears; for many characters ought never to be drawn: nor
of a narrative, that the train of events is agreeable to observation and
experience; for that observation which is called knowledge of the world,
will be found much more frequently to make men cunning than good. The
purpose of these writings is surely not only to shew mankind, but to
provide that they may be seen hereafter with less hazard; to teach the
means of avoiding the snares which are laid by Treachery for Innocence,
without infusing any wish for that superiority with which the betrayer
flatters his vanity; to give the power of counteracting fraud, without
the temptation to practise it; to initiate youth by mock encounters in
the art of necessary defence, and to increase prudence without impairing
virtue.

Many writers, for the sake of following nature, so mingle good and bad
qualities in their principal personages, that they are both equally
conspicuous; and as we accompany them through their adventures with
delight, and are led by degrees to interest ourselves in their favour,
we lose the abhorrence of their faults, because they do not hinder our
pleasure, or, perhaps, regard them with some kindness, for being united
with so much merit.

There have been men indeed splendidly wicked, whose endowments threw a
brightness on their crimes, and whom scarce any villany made perfectly
detestable, because they never could be wholly divested of their
excellencies; but such have been in all ages the great corrupters of
the world, and their resemblance ought no more to be preserved, than
the art of murdering without pain.

Some have advanced, without due attention to the consequences of
this notion, that certain virtues have their correspondent faults,
and therefore that to exhibit either apart is to deviate from
probability. Thus men are observed by Swift to be "grateful in the same
degree as they are resentful." This principle, with others of the same
kind, supposes man to act from a brute impulse, and pursue a certain
degree of inclination, without any choice of the object; for, otherwise,
though it should be allowed that gratitude and resentment arise from
the same constitution of the passions, it follows not that they will be
equally indulged when reason is consulted; yet, unless that consequence
be admitted, this sagacious maxim becomes an empty sound, without any
relation to practice or to life.

Nor is it evident, that even the first motions to these effects are
always in the same proportion. For pride, which produces quickness of
resentment, will obstruct gratitude, by unwillingness to admit that
inferiority which obligation implies; and it is very unlikely that he
who cannot think he receives a favour, will acknowledge or repay it.
It is of the utmost importance to mankind, that positions of this tendency
should be laid open and confuted; for while men consider good and evil
as springing from the same root, they will spare the one for the sake of
the other, and in judging, if not of others at least of themselves, will
be apt to estimate their virtues by their vices. To this fatal errour all
those will contribute, who confound the colours of right and wrong, and,
instead of helping to settle their boundaries, mix them with so much art,
that no common mind is able to disunite them.

In narratives where historical veracity has no place, I cannot discover
why there should not be exhibited the most perfect idea of virtue; of
virtue not angelical, nor above probability, for what we cannot credit,
we shall never imitate, but the highest and purest that humanity can
reach, which, exercised in such trials as the various revolutions of
things shall bring upon it, may, by conquering some calamities, and
enduring others, teach us what we may hope, and what we can perform. Vice,
for vice is necessary to be shewn, should always disgust; nor should
the graces of gaiety, or the dignity of courage, be so united with it,
as to reconcile it to the mind. Wherever it appears, it should raise
hatred by the malignity of its practices, and contempt by the meanness
of its stratagems: for while it is supported by either parts or spirit,
it will be seldom heartily abhorred. The Roman tyrant was content to
be hated, if he was but feared; and there are thousands of the readers
of romances willing to be thought wicked, if they may be allowed to
be wits. It is therefore to be steadily inculcated, that virtue is the
highest proof of understanding, and the only solid basis of greatness;
and that vice is the natural consequence of narrow thoughts; that it
begins in mistake, and ends in ignominy[33].

[Footnote 33: This excellent paper was occasioned by the popularity of
Roderick Random, and Tom Jones, which appeared about this time, and have
been the models of that species of romance, now known by the more common
name of _Novel_.--C.]




No. 5. TUESDAY, APRIL 3, 1750.


  _Et nunc omnis ager, nunc omnis parturit arbos:_
  _Nunc frondent silvæ: nunc formosissimus annus._
                                                   VIRG. Ec. iii. v. 56.

  Now ev'ry field, now ev'ry tree is green;
  Now genial Nature's fairest face is seen.
                                                             ELPHINSTON.


Every man is sufficiently discontented with some circumstances of his
present state, to suffer his imagination to range more or less in quest
of future happiness, and to fix upon some point of time, in which, by
the removal of the inconvenience which now perplexes him, or acquisition
of the advantage which he at present wants, he shall find the condition
of his life very much improved.

When this time, which is too often expected with great impatience,
at last arrives, it generally comes without the blessing for which it
was desired; but we solace ourselves with some new prospect, and press
forward again with equal eagerness.

It is lucky for a man, in whom this temper prevails, when he turns his
hopes upon things wholly out of his own power; since he forbears then
to precipitate his affairs, for the sake of the great event that is to
complete his felicity, and waits for the blissful hour with less neglect
of the measures necessary to be taken in the mean time.

I have long known a person of this temper, who indulged his dream of
happiness with less hurt to himself than such chimerical wishes commonly
produce, and adjusted his scheme with such address, that his hopes were
in full bloom three parts of the year, and in the other part never
wholly blasted. Many, perhaps, would be desirous of learning by what
means he procured to himself such a cheap and lasting satisfaction. It
was gained by a constant practice of referring the removal of all his
uneasiness to the coming of the next spring; if his health was impaired,
the spring would restore it; if what he wanted was at a high price,
it would fall its value in the spring.

The spring indeed did often come without any of these effects, but he
was always certain that the next would be more propitious; nor was ever
convinced, that the present spring would fail him before the middle of
summer; for he always talked of the spring as coming till it was past,
and when it was once past, every one agreed with him that it was coming.

By long converse with this man, I am, perhaps, brought to feel immoderate
pleasure in the contemplation of this delightful season; but I have
the satisfaction of finding many whom it can be no shame to resemble,
infected with the same enthusiasm; for there is, I believe, scarce any
poet of eminence, who has not left some testimony of his fondness for the
flowers, the zephyrs, and the warblers of the spring. Nor has the most
luxuriant imagination been able to describe the serenity and happiness
of the golden age, otherwise than by giving a perpetual spring, as the
highest reward of uncorrupted innocence.

There is, indeed, something inexpressibly pleasing in the annual
renovation of the world, and the new display of the treasures of
nature. The cold and darkness of winter, with the naked deformity of
every object on which we turn our eyes, make us rejoice at the succeeding
season, as well for what we have escaped as for what we may enjoy;
and every budding flower, which a warm situation brings early to our
view, is considered by us as a messenger to notify the approach of more
joyous days.

The spring affords to a mind, so free from the disturbance of cares or
passions as to be vacant to calm amusements, almost every thing that
our present state makes us capable of enjoying. The variegated verdure
of the fields and woods, the succession of grateful odours, the voice
of pleasure pouring out its notes on every side, with the gladness
apparently conceived by every animal, from the growth of his food, and
the clemency of the weather, throw over the whole earth an air of gaiety,
significantly expressed by the smile of nature.

Yet there are men to whom these scenes are able to give no delight,
and who hurry away from all the varieties of rural beauty, to lose their
hours and divert their thoughts by cards or assemblies, a tavern dinner,
or the prattle of the day.

It may be laid down as a position which will seldom deceive, that when
a man cannot bear his own company, there is something wrong. He must
fly from himself, either because he feels a tediousness in life from the
equipoise of an empty mind, which, having no tendency to one motion more
than another, but as it is impelled by some external power, must always
have recourse to foreign objects; or he must be afraid of the intrusion
of some unpleasing ideas, and perhaps is struggling to escape from the
remembrance of a loss, the fear of a calamity, or some other thought of
greater horrour.

Those whom sorrow incapacitates to enjoy the pleasures of contemplation,
may properly apply to such diversions, provided they are innocent, as
lay strong hold on the attention; and those, whom fear of any future
affliction chains down to misery, must endeavour to obviate the danger.

My considerations shall, on this occasion, be turned on such as
are burthensome to themselves merely because they want subjects for
reflection, and to whom the volume of nature is thrown open without
affording them pleasure or instruction, because they never learned to
read the characters.

A French author has advanced this seeming paradox, that _very few men
know how to take a walk_; and, indeed, it is true, that few know how to
take a walk with a prospect of any other pleasure, than the same company
would have afforded them at home.

There are animals that borrow their colour from the neighbouring body,
and consequently vary their hue as they happen to change their place.
In like manner it ought to be the endeavour of every man to derive his
reflections from the objects about him; for it is to no purpose that
he alters his position, if his attention continues fixed to the same
point. The mind should be kept open to the access of every new idea,
and so far disengaged from the predominance of particular thoughts,
as easily to accommodate itself to occasional entertainment.

A man that has formed this habit of turning every new object to his
entertainment, finds in the productions of nature an inexhaustible stock
of materials upon which he can employ himself, without any temptations to
envy or malevolence; faults, perhaps, seldom totally avoided by those,
whose judgment is much exercised upon the works of art. He has always
a certain prospect of discovering new reasons for adoring the sovereign
Author of the universe, and probable hopes of making some discovery of
benefit to others, or of profit to himself. There is no doubt but many
vegetables and animals have qualities that might be of great use, to the
knowledge of which there is not required much force of penetration, or
fatigue of study, but only frequent experiments, and close attention.
What is said by the chemists of their darling mercury, is, perhaps,
true of every body through the whole creation, that if a thousand lives
should be spent upon it, all its properties would not be found out.

Mankind must necessarily be diversified by various tastes, since life
affords and requires such multiplicity of employments, and a nation of
naturalists is neither to be hoped, nor desired; but it is surely not
improper to point out a fresh amusement to those who languish in health,
and repine in plenty, for want of some source of diversion that may
be less easily exhausted, and to inform the multitudes of both sexes,
who are burdened with every new day, that there are many shows which
they have not seen.

He that enlarges his curiosity after the works of nature, demonstrably
multiplies the inlets to happiness; and, therefore, the younger part
of my readers, to whom I dedicate this vernal speculation, must excuse
me for calling upon them, to make use at once of the spring of the year,
and the spring of life; to acquire, while their minds may be yet impressed
with new images, a love of innocent pleasures, and an ardour for useful
knowledge; and to remember, that a blighted spring makes a barren year,
and that the vernal flowers, however beautiful and gay, are only intended
by nature as preparatives to autumnal fruits.




No. 6. SATURDAY, APRIL 7, 1750.


  _Strenua nos exercet inertia, navibus atque_
  _Quadrigis petimus bene vicere: quod petis, hic est;_
  _Est Ulubris, animus si te non deficit æquus._
                                                    HOR. Ep. xi. lib. i.

  Active in indolence, abroad we roam
  In quest of happiness which dwells at home:
  With vain pursuits fatigu'd, at length you'll find,
  No place excludes it from an equal mind.
                                                             ELPHINSTON.


That man should never suffer his happiness to depend upon external
circumstances, is one of the chief precepts of the Stoical philosophy; a
precept, indeed, which that lofty sect has extended beyond the condition
of human life, and in which some of them seem to have comprised an
utter exclusion of all corporal pain and pleasure from the regard or
attention of a wise man.

Such _sapientia insaniens_, as Horace calls the doctrine of another sect,
such extravagance of philosophy, can want neither authority nor argument
for its confutation; it is overthrown by the experience of every hour,
and the powers of nature rise up against it. But we may very properly
inquire, how near to this exalted state it is in our power to approach,
how far we can exempt ourselves from outward influences, and secure to
our minds a state of tranquillity: for, though the boast of absolute
independence is ridiculous and vain, yet a mean flexibility to every
impulse, and a patient submission to the tyranny of casual troubles,
is below the dignity of that mind, which, however depraved or weakened,
boasts its derivation from a celestial original, and hopes for an union
with infinite goodness, and unvariable felicity.

  _Ni vitiis pejora fovens_
    _Proprium deserat ortum._

  Unless the soul, to vice a thrall,
  Desert her own original.

The necessity of erecting ourselves to some degree of intellectual
dignity, and of preserving resources of pleasure, which may not be
wholly at the mercy of accident, is never more apparent than when we turn
our eyes upon those whom fortune has let loose to their own conduct;
who, not being chained down by their condition to a regular and stated
allotment of their hours, are obliged to find themselves business or
diversion, and having nothing within that can entertain or employ them,
are compelled to try all the arts of destroying time.

The numberless expedients practised by this class of mortals to alleviate
the burthen of life, are not less shameful, nor, perhaps, much less
pitiable, than those to which a trader on the edge of bankruptcy
is reduced. I have seen melancholy overspread a whole family at the
disappointment of a party for cards; and when, after the proposal of a
thousand schemes, and the dispatch of the footman upon a hundred messages,
they have submitted, with gloomy resignation, to the misfortune of passing
one evening in conversation with each other; on a sudden, such are the
revolutions of the world, an unexpected visitor has brought them relief,
acceptable as provision to a starving city, and enabled them to hold
out till the next day.

The general remedy of those, who are uneasy without knowing the cause,
is change of place; they are willing to imagine that their pain is
the consequence of some local inconvenience, and endeavour to fly
from it, as children from their shadows; always hoping for some more
satisfactory delight from every new scene, and always returning home
with disappointment and complaints.

Who can look upon this kind of infatuation, without reflecting on those
that suffer under the dreadful symptom of canine madness, termed by
physicians the _dread of water_? These miserable wretches, unable to
drink, though burning with thirst, are sometimes known to try various
contortions, or inclinations of the body, flattering themselves that
they can swallow in one posture that liquor which they find in another
to repel their lips.

Yet such folly is not peculiar to the thoughtless or ignorant, but
sometimes seizes those minds which seem most exempted from it, by the
variety of attainments, quickness of penetration, or severity of judgment;
and, indeed, the pride of wit and knowledge is often mortified by
finding that they confer no security against the common errours, which
mislead the weakest and meanest of mankind.

These reflections arose in my mind upon the remembrance of a passage
in Cowley's preface to his poems, where, however exalted by genius,
and enlarged by study, he informs us of a scheme of happiness to which
the imagination of a girl upon the loss of her first lover could have
scarcely given way; but which he seems to have indulged, till he had
totally forgotten its absurdity, and would probably have put in execution,
had he been hindered only by his reason.

"My desire," says he, "has been for some years past, though the execution
has been accidentally diverted, and does still vehemently continue, to
retire myself to some of our American plantations, not to seek for gold,
or enrich myself with the traffick of those parts, which is the end of
most men that travel thither; but to forsake this world for ever, with all
the vanities and vexations of it, and to bury myself there in some obscure
retreat, but not without the consolation of letters and philosophy."

Such was the chimerical provision which Cowley had made in his own mind,
for the quiet of his remaining life, and which he seems to recommend
to posterity, since there is no other reason for disclosing it. Surely
no stronger instance can be given of a persuasion that content was
the inhabitant of particular regions, and that a man might set sail
with a fair wind, and leave behind him all his cares, incumbrances,
and calamities.

If he travelled so far with no other purpose than to _bury himself
in some obscure retreat_, he might have found, in his own country,
innumerable coverts sufficiently dark to have concealed the genius of
Cowley; for whatever might be his opinion of the importunity with which
he might be summoned back into publick life, a short experience would
have convinced him, that privation is easier than acquisition, and that
it would require little continuance to free himself from the intrusion
of the world. There is pride enough in the human heart to prevent much
desire of acquaintance with a man, by whom we are sure to be neglected,
however his reputation for science or virtue may excite our curiosity
or esteem; so that the lover of retirement needs not be afraid lest the
respect of strangers should overwhelm him with visits. Even those to whom
he has formerly been known, will very patiently support his absence when
they have tried a little to live without him, and found new diversions
for those moments which his company contributed to exhilarate.

It was, perhaps, ordained by Providence, to hinder us from tyrannizing
over one another, that no individual should be of such importance, as to
cause, by his retirement or death, any chasm in the world. And Cowley had
conversed to little purpose with mankind, if he had never remarked, how
soon the useful friend, the gay companion, and the favoured lover, when
once they are removed from before the sight, give way to the succession
of new objects.

The privacy, therefore, of his hermitage might have been safe enough
from violation, though he had chosen it within the limits of his native
island; he might have found here preservatives against the _vanities_
and _vexations_ of the world, not less efficacious than those which
the woods or fields of America could afford him: but having once his
mind imbittered with disgust, he conceived it impossible to be far
enough from the cause of his uneasiness; and was posting away with the
expedition of a coward, who, for want of venturing to look behind him,
thinks the enemy perpetually at his heels.

When he was interrupted by company, or fatigued with business, he
so strongly imaged to himself the happiness of leisure and retreat,
that he determined to enjoy them for the future without interruption,
and to exclude for ever all that could deprive him of his darling
satisfactions. He forgot, in the vehemence of desire, that solitude and
quiet owe their pleasures to those miseries, which he was so studious
to obviate: for such are the vicissitudes of the world, through all
its parts, that day and night, labour and rest, hurry and retirement,
endear each other; such are the changes that keep the mind in action;
we desire, we pursue, we obtain, we are satiated; we desire something
else, and begin a new pursuit.

If he had proceeded in his project, and fixed his habitation in the most
delightful part of the new world, it may be doubted, whether his distance
from the _vanities_ of life, would have enabled him to keep away the
_vexations_. It is common for a man, who feels pain, to fancy that he
could bear it better in any other part. Cowley having known the troubles
and perplexities of a particular condition, readily persuaded himself
that nothing worse was to be found, and that every alteration would bring
some improvement: he never suspected that the cause of his unhappiness
was within, that his own passions were not sufficiently regulated, and
that he was harassed by his own impatience, which could never be without
something to awaken it, would accompany him over the sea, and find its
way to his American elysium. He would, upon the trial, have been soon
convinced, that the fountain of content must spring up in the mind: and
that he who has so little knowledge of human nature, as to seek happiness
by changing any thing but his own dispositions, will waste his life in
fruitless efforts, and multiply the griefs which he purposes to remove[34].

[Footnote 34: See Dr. Johnson's Life of Cowley.]




No. 7. TUESDAY, APRIL 10, 1750.


  _O qui perpetuâ mundum ratione gubernas,_
  _Terrarum coelique sator!----_
  _Disjice terrenæ nebulas et pondera molis,_
  _Atque tuo splendore mica! Tu namque serenum,_
  _Tu requies tranquilla piis. Te cernere, finis,_
  _Principium, vector, dux, semila, terminus idem._
                                            BOETHIUS, lib. iii. Metr. 9.

  O Thou, whose pow'r o'er moving worlds presides,
  Whose voice created, and whose wisdom guides,
  On darkling man in pure effulgence shine,
  And cheer the clouded mind with light divine.
  'Tis thine alone to calm the pious breast
  With silent confidence and holy rest:
  From thee, great God, we spring, to thee we tend,
  Path, motive, guide, original, and end.
                                                                JOHNSON.


The love of Retirement has, in all ages, adhered closely to those minds,
which have been most enlarged by knowledge, or elevated by genius. Those
who have enjoyed every thing generally supposed to confer happiness,
have been forced to seek it in the shades of privacy. Though they
possessed both power and riches, and were, therefore, surrounded by men
who considered it as their chief interest to remove from them every thing
that might offend their ease, or interrupt their pleasure, they have soon
felt the languors of satiety, and found themselves unable to pursue the
race of life without frequent respirations of intermediate solitude.

To produce this disposition, nothing appears requisite but a quick
sensibility, and active imagination; for, though not devoted to virtue,
or science, the man, whose faculties enable him to make ready comparisons
of the present with the past, will find such a constant recurrence of the
same pleasures and troubles, the same expectations and disappointments,
that he will gladly snatch an hour of retreat, to let his thoughts
expatiate at large, and seek for that variety in his own ideas, which
the objects of sense cannot afford him.

Nor will greatness, or abundance, exempt him from the importunities of
this desire, since, if he is born to think, he cannot restrain himself
from a thousand inquiries and speculations, which he must pursue by his
own reason, and which the splendour of his condition can only hinder:
for those who are most exalted above dependance or controul, are yet
condemned to pay so large a tribute of their time to custom, ceremony,
and popularity, that, according to the Greek proverb, no man in the
house is more a slave than the master.

When a king asked Euclid, the mathematician, whether he could not
explain his art to him in a more compendious manner? he was answered,
that there was no royal way to geometry. Other things may be seized by
might, or purchased with money, but knowledge is to be gained only by
study, and study to be prosecuted only in retirement.

These are some of the motives which have had power to sequester kings and
heroes from the crowds that soothed them with flatteries, or inspirited
them with acclamations; but their efficacy seems confined to the higher
mind, and to operate little upon the common classes of mankind, to whose
conceptions the present assemblage of things is adequate, and who seldom
range beyond those entertainments and vexations, which solicit their
attention by pressing on their senses.

But there is an universal reason for some stated intervals of solitude,
which the institutions of the church call upon me now especially to
mention; a reason which extends as wide as moral duty, or the hopes of
divine favour in a future state; and which ought to influence all ranks
of life, and all degrees of intellect; since none can imagine themselves
not comprehended in its obligation, but such as determine to set their
Maker at defiance by obstinate wickedness, or whose enthusiastick security
of his approbation places them above external ordinances, and all human
means of improvement.

The great task of him who conducts his life by the precepts of religion,
is to make the future predominate over the present, to impress upon his
mind so strong a sense of the importance of obedience to the divine will,
of the value of the reward promised to virtue, and the terrours of the
punishment denounced against crimes, as may overbear all the temptations
which temporal hope or fear can bring in his way, and enable him to
bid equal defiance to joy and sorrow, to turn away at one time from
the allurements of ambition, and push forward at another against the
threats of calamity.

It is not without reason that the apostle represents our passage through
this stage of our existence by images drawn from the alarms and solicitude
of a military life; for we are placed in such a state, that almost every
thing about us conspires against our chief interest. We are in danger
from whatever can get possession of our thoughts; all that can excite
in us either pain or pleasure, has a tendency to obstruct the way that
leads to happiness, and either to turn us aside, or retard our progress.

Our senses, our appetites, and our passions, are our lawful and faithful
guides, in most things that relate solely to this life; and, therefore,
by the hourly necessity of consulting them, we gradually sink into an
implicit submission, and habitual confidence. Every act of compliance
with their motions facilitates a second compliance, every new step
towards depravity is made with less reluctance than the former, and thus
the descent to life merely sensual is perpetually accelerated.

The senses have not only that advantage over conscience, which things
necessary must always have over things chosen, but they have likewise a
kind of prescription in their favour. We feared pain much earlier than
we apprehended guilt, and were delighted with the sensations of pleasure,
before we had capacities to be charmed with the beauty of rectitude. To
this power, thus early established, and incessantly increasing, it
must be remembered that almost every man has, in some part of his life,
added new strength by a voluntary or negligent subjection of himself;
for who is there that has not instigated his appetites by indulgence,
or suffered them, by an unresisting neutrality, to enlarge their
dominion, and multiply their demands?

From the necessity of dispossessing the sensitive faculties of the
influence which they must naturally gain by this pre-occupation of
the soul, arises that conflict between opposite desires in the first
endeavours after a religious life; which, however enthusiastically it may
have been described, or however contemptuously ridiculed, will naturally
be felt in some degree, though varied without end, by different tempers
of mind, and innumerable circumstances of health or condition, greater
or less fervour, more or fewer temptations to relapse.

From the perpetual necessity of consulting the animal faculties, in our
provision for the present life, arises the difficulty of withstanding
their impulses, even in cases where they ought to be of no weight; for
the motions of sense are instantaneous, its objects strike unsought,
we are accustomed to follow its directions, and therefore often submit
to the sentence without examining the authority of the judge.

Thus it appears, upon a philosophical estimate, that, supposing the mind,
at any certain time, in an equipois between the pleasures of this life,
and the hopes of futurity, present objects falling more frequently
into the scale, would in time preponderate, and that our regard for an
invisible state would grow every moment weaker, till at last it would
lose all its activity, and become absolutely without effect.

To prevent this dreadful event, the balance is put into our own hands,
and we have power to transfer the weight to either side. The motives to
a life of holiness are infinite, not less than the favour or anger of
Omnipotence, not less than eternity of happiness or misery. But these can
only influence our conduct as they gain our attention, which the business
or diversions of the world are always calling off by contrary attractions.

The great art therefore of piety, and the end for which all the rites
of religion seem to be instituted, is the perpetual renovation of
the motives to virtue, by a voluntary employment of our mind in the
contemplation of its excellence, its importance, and its necessity, which,
in proportion as they are more frequently and more willingly revolved,
gain a more forcible and permanent influence, till in time they become
the reigning ideas, the standing principles of action, and the test by
which every thing proposed to the judgment is rejected or approved.

To facilitate this change of our affections, it is necessary that we
weaken the temptations of the world, by retiring at certain seasons from
it; for its influence, arising only from its presence, is much lessened
when it becomes the object of solitary meditation. A constant residence
amidst noise and pleasure, inevitably obliterates the impressions of
piety, and a frequent abstraction of ourselves into a state, where this
life, like the next, operates only upon the reason, will reinstate
religion in its just authority, even without those irradiations from
above, the hope of which I have no intention to withdraw from the sincere
and the diligent.

This is that conquest of the world and of ourselves, which has been
always considered as the perfection of human nature; and this is only
to be obtained by fervent prayer, steady resolutions, and frequent
retirement from folly and vanity, from the cares of avarice, and the
joys of intemperance, from the lulling sounds of deceitful flattery,
and the tempting sight of prosperous wickedness.




No. 8. SATURDAY, APRIL 14, 1750.


  _----Patitur poenas peccandi sola voluntas;_
  _Nam scelus intra se tacitum qui cogitat ullum,_
  _Facti crimen habet._
                                                    JUV. Sat. xiii. 208.

  For he that but conceives a crime in thought,
  Contracts the danger of an actual fault.
                                                                 CREECH.


If the most active and industrious of mankind was able, at the close of
life, to recollect distinctly his past moments, and distribute them in a
regular account, according to the manner in which they have been spent,
it is scarcely to be imagined how few would be marked out to the mind,
by any permanent or visible effects, how small a proportion his real
action would bear to his seeming possibilities of action, how many chasms
he would find of wide and continued vacuity, and how many interstitial
spaces unfilled, even in the most tumultuous hurries of business, and
the most eager vehemence of pursuit.

It is said by modern philosophers, that not only the great globes
of matter are thinly scattered through the universe, but the hardest
bodies are so porous, that, if all matter were compressed to perfect
solidity, it might be contained in a cube of a few feet. In like manner,
if all the employments of life were crowded into the time which it really
occupied, perhaps a few weeks, days, or hours, would be sufficient for its
accomplishment, so far as the mind was engaged in the performance. For
such is the inequality of our corporeal to our intellectual faculties,
that we contrive in minutes what we execute in years, and the soul often
stands an idle spectator of the labour of the hands, and expedition of
the feet.

For this reason the ancient generals often found themselves at leisure to
pursue the study of philosophy in the camp; and Lucan, with historical
veracity, makes Cæsar relate of himself, that he noted the revolutions
of the stars in the midst of preparations for battle.

  _----Media inter proelia semper_
  _Stellarum, coelique plagis, superisque vacavi._
                                                       LUCAN, l. x. 186.

  Amid the storms of war, with curious eyes
  I trace the planets and survey the skies.

That the soul always exerts her peculiar powers, with greater or less
force, is very probable, though the common occasions of our present
condition require but a small part of that incessant cogitation; and by
the natural frame of our bodies, and general combination of the world,
we are so frequently condemned to inactivity, that as though all our
time we are thinking, so for a great part of our time we can only think.

Lest a power so restless should be either unprofitably or hurtfully
employed, and the superfluities of intellect run to waste, it is no vain
speculation to consider how we may govern our thoughts, restrain them
from irregular motions, or confine them from boundless dissipation.

How the understanding is best conducted to the knowledge of science,
by what steps it is to be led forwards in its pursuit, how it is to be
cured of its defects, and habituated to new studies, has been the inquiry
of many acute and learned men, whose observations I shall not either
adopt or censure: my purpose being to consider the moral discipline of
the mind, and to promote the increase of virtue rather than of learning.

This inquiry seems to have been neglected for want of remembering, that
all action has its origin in the mind, and that therefore to suffer
the thoughts to be vitiated, is to poison the fountains of morality;
irregular desires will produce licentious practices; what men allow
themselves to wish they will soon believe, and will be at last incited
to execute what they please themselves with contriving.

For this reason the casuists of the Roman church, who gain, by confession,
great opportunities of knowing human nature, have generally determined
that what it is a crime to do, it is a crime to think[35]. Since by
revolving with pleasure the facility, safety, or advantage of a wicked
deed, a man soon begins to find his constancy relax, and his detestation
soften; the happiness of success glittering before him, withdraws his
attention from the atrociousness of the guilt, and acts are at last
confidently perpetrated, of which the first conception only crept into
the mind, disguised in pleasing complications, and permitted rather
than invited.

No man has ever been drawn to crimes by love or jealousy, envy or
hatred, but he can tell how easily he might at first have repelled the
temptation, how readily his mind would have obeyed a call to any other
object, and how weak his passion has been after some casual avocation,
till he has recalled it again to his heart, and revived the viper by
too warm a fondness.

Such, therefore, is the importance of keeping reason a constant guard
over imagination, that we have otherwise no security for our own virtue,
but may corrupt our hearts in the most recluse solitude, with more
pernicious and tyrannical appetites and wishes than the commerce of the
world will generally produce; for we are easily shocked by crimes which
appear at once in their full magnitude; but the gradual growth of our
own wickedness, endeared by interest, and palliated by all the artifices
of self-deceit, gives us time to form distinctions in our own favour,
and reason by degrees submits to absurdity, as the eye is in time
accommodated to darkness.

In this disease of the soul, it is of the utmost importance to apply
remedies at the beginning; and therefore I shall endeavour to shew what
thoughts are to be rejected or improved, as they regard the past, present,
or future; in hopes that some may be awakened to caution and vigilance,
who, perhaps, indulge themselves in dangerous dreams, so much the more
dangerous, because, being yet only dreams, they are concluded innocent.

The recollection of the past is only useful by way of provision for the
future; and, therefore, in reviewing all occurrences that fall under a
religious consideration, it is proper that a man stop at the first
thoughts, to remark how he was led thither, and why he continues the
reflection. If he is dwelling with delight upon a stratagem of successful
fraud, a night of licentious riot, or an intrigue of guilty pleasure,
let him summon off his imagination as from an unlawful pursuit, expel
those passages from his remembrance, of which, though he cannot seriously
approve them, the pleasure overpowers the guilt, and refer them to
a future hour, when they may be considered with greater safety. Such
an hour will certainly come; for the impressions of past pleasure are
always lessening, but the sense of guilt, which respects futurity,
continues the same.

The serious and impartial retrospect of our conduct, is indisputably
necessary to the confirmation or recovery of virtue, and is, therefore,
recommended under the name of self-examination, by divines, as the first
act previous to repentance. It is, indeed, of so great use, that without
it we should always be to begin life, be seduced for ever by the same
allurements, and misled by the same fallacies. But in order that we
may not lose the advantage of our experience, we must endeavour to see
every thing in its proper form, and excite in ourselves those sentiments,
which the great Author of nature has decreed the concomitants or followers
of good and bad actions.

  [Greek: Mêd' hypnon malakoisin ep' ommasi prosdexasthai,
  Prin tôn hêmerinôn ergôn tris hekaston epelthein;
  Pêi parebên? ti d' erexa? ti moi deon ouk etelesthê?
  Arxamenos d' apo prôtou epexithi; kai metepeita,
  Deila men ekprêxas, epiplêsseo, chrêsta de, terpou.]

    Let not sleep (says Pythagoras) fall upon thy eyes till thou
    hast thrice reviewed the transactions of the past day. Where have
    I turned aside from rectitude? What have I been doing? What have
    I left undone, which I ought to have done? Begin thus from the
    first act, and proceed; and in conclusion, at the ill which thou
    hast done be troubled, and rejoice for the good.

Our thoughts on present things being determined by the objects before us,
fall not under those indulgences or excursions, which I am now considering.
But I cannot forbear, under this head, to caution pious and tender minds,
that are disturbed by the irruptions of wicked imaginations, against too
great dejection, and too anxious alarms; for thoughts are only criminal,
when they are first chosen, and then voluntarily continued.

  Evil into the mind of God or man
  May come and go, so unapprov'd, and leave
  No spot or stain behind.
                                                                 MILTON.

In futurity chiefly are the snares lodged, by which the imagination
is entangled. Futurity is the proper abode of hope and fear, with all
their train and progeny of subordinate apprehensions and desires. In
futurity, events and chances are yet floating at large, without apparent
connexion with their causes, and we therefore easily indulge the liberty
of gratifying ourselves with a pleasing choice. To pick and cull among
possible advantages is, as the civil law terms it, _in vacuum venire_,
to take what belongs to nobody; but it has this hazard in it, that we
shall be unwilling to quit what we have seized, though an owner should be
found. It is easy to think on that which may be gained, till at last we
resolve to gain it, and to image the happiness of particular conditions,
till we can be easy in no other. We ought, at least, to let our desires
fix upon nothing in another's power for the sake of our quiet, or in
another's possession for the sake of our innocence. When a man finds
himself led, though by a train of honest sentiments, to wish for that to
which he has no right, he should start back as from a pitfall covered
with flowers. He that fancies he should benefit the publick more in a
great station than the man that fills it, will in time imagine it an
act of virtue to supplant him; and as opposition readily kindles into
hatred, his eagerness to do that good, to which he is not called, will
betray him to crimes, which in his original scheme were never proposed.

He therefore that would govern his actions by the laws of virtue, must
regulate his thoughts by those of reason; he must keep guilt from the
recesses of his heart, and remember that the pleasures of fancy, and
the emotions of desire, are more dangerous as they are more hidden,
since they escape the awe of observation, and operate equally in every
situation, without the concurrence of external opportunities.

[Footnote 35: This was determined before their time. See Matt. ch. v.
ver. 28.--C.]




No. 9. TUESDAY, APRIL 17, 1750.


  _Quod sis esse velis, nihilque malis._
                                            MART. lib. x. Ep. xlvii. 12.

  Choose what you are; no other state prefer.
                                                             ELPHINSTON.


It is justly remarked by Horace, that howsoever every man may complain
occasionally of the hardships of his condition, he is seldom willing
to change it for any other on the same level: for whether it be that
he, who follows an employment, made choice of it at first on account
of its suitableness to his inclination; or that when accident, or the
determination of others, have placed him in a particular station, he,
by endeavouring to reconcile himself to it, gets the custom of viewing
it only on the fairest side; or whether every man thinks that class to
which he belongs the most illustrious, merely because he has honoured
it with his name; it is certain that, whatever be the reason, most men
have a very strong and active prejudice in favour of their own vocation,
always working upon their minds, and influencing their behaviour.

This partiality is sufficiently visible in every rank of the human
species; but it exerts itself more frequently and with greater force
among those who have never learned to conceal their sentiments for reasons
of policy, or to model their expressions by the laws of politeness; and
therefore the chief contests of wit among artificers and handicraftsmen
arise from a mutual endeavour to exalt one trade by depreciating another.

From the same principles are derived many consolations to alleviate the
inconveniences to which every calling is peculiarly exposed. A blacksmith
was lately pleasing himself at his anvil, with observing that, though
his trade was hot and sooty, laborious and unhealthy, yet he had the
honour of living by his hammer, he got his bread like a man, and if his
son should rise in the world, and keep his coach, nobody could reproach
him that his father was a tailor.

A man, truly zealous for his fraternity, is never so irresistibly
flattered, as when some rival calling is mentioned with contempt. Upon
this principle a linen-draper boasted that he had got a new customer,
whom he could safely trust, for he could have no doubt of his honesty,
since it was known, from unquestionable authority, that he was now filing
a bill in chancery to delay payment for the clothes which he had worn
the last seven years; and he himself had heard him declare, in a public
coffee-house, that he looked upon the whole generation of woollen-drapers
to be such despicable wretches, that no gentleman ought to pay them.

It has been observed that physicians and lawyers are no friends to
religion; and many conjectures have been formed to discover the reason
of such a combination between men who agree in nothing else, and who
seem less to be affected, in their own provinces, by religious opinions,
than any other part of the community. The truth is, very few of them
have thought about religion; but they have all seen a parson; seen him
in a habit different from their own, and therefore declared war against
him. A young student from the inns of court, who has often attacked the
curate of his father's parish with such arguments as his acquaintances
could furnish, and returned to town without success, is now gone down
with a resolution to destroy him; for he has learned at last how to
manage a prig, and if he pretends to hold him again to syllogism, he
has a catch in reserve, which neither logick nor metaphysicks can resist:

  I laugh to think how your unshaken Cato
  Will look aghast, when unforeseen destruction
  Pours in upon him thus.
                                                   CATO, Act. ii. Sc. 6.

The malignity of soldiers and sailors against each other has been
often experienced at the cost of their country; and, perhaps, no orders
of men have an enmity of more acrimony, or longer continuance. When,
upon our late successes at sea, some new regulations were concerted
for establishing the rank of the naval commanders, a captain of foot
very acutely remarked, that nothing was more absurd than to give any
honorary rewards to seamen, "for honour," says he, "ought only to be
won by bravery, and all the world knows that in a sea-fight there is no
danger, and therefore no evidence of courage."

But although this general desire of aggrandizing themselves, by raising
their profession, betrays men to a thousand ridiculous and mischievous
acts of supplantation and detraction, yet as almost all passions have
their good as well as bad effects, it likewise excites ingenuity, and
sometimes raises an honest and useful emulation of diligence. It may be
observed in general, that no trade had ever reached the excellence to
which it is now improved, had its professors looked upon it with the eyes
of indifferent spectators; the advances, from the first rude essays,
must have been made by men who valued themselves for performances,
for which scarce any other would be persuaded to esteem them.

It is pleasing to contemplate a manufacture rising gradually from its
first mean state by the successive labours of innumerable minds; to
consider the first hollow trunk of an oak, in which, perhaps, the shepherd
could scarce venture to cross a brook swelled with a shower, enlarged
at last into a ship of war, attacking fortresses, terrifying nations,
setting storms and billows at defiance, and visiting the remotest parts of
the globe. And it might contribute to dispose us to a kinder regard for
the labours of one another, if we were to consider from what unpromising
beginnings the most useful productions of art have probably arisen. Who,
when he saw the first sand or ashes, by a casual intenseness of heat,
melted into a metalline form, rugged with excrescences, and clouded
with impurities, would have imagined, that in this shapeless lump lay
concealed so many conveniences of life, as would in time constitute a
great part of the happiness of the world? Yet by some such fortuitous
liquefaction was mankind taught to procure a body at once in a high
degree solid and transparent, which might admit the light of the sun,
and exclude the violence of the wind; which might extend the sight of
the philosopher to new ranges of existence, and charm him at one time
with the unbounded extent of the material creation, and at another
with the endless subordination of animal life; and, what is yet of
more importance, might supply the decays of nature, and succour old age
with subsidiary sight. Thus was the first artificer in glass employed,
though without his own knowledge or expectation. He was facilitating
and prolonging the enjoyment of light, enlarging the avenues of science,
and conferring the highest and most lasting pleasures; he was enabling
the student to contemplate nature, and the beauty to behold herself.

This passion for the honour of a profession, like that for the grandeur
of our own country, is to be regulated, not extinguished. Every man,
from the highest to the lowest station, ought to warm his heart, and
animate his endeavours with the hopes of being useful to the world, by
advancing the art which it is his lot to exercise, and for that end he
must necessarily consider the whole extent of its application, and the
whole weight of its importance. But let him not too readily imagine that
another is ill employed, because, for want of fuller knowledge of his
business, he is not able to comprehend its dignity. Every man ought to
endeavour at eminence, not by pulling others down, but by raising himself,
and enjoy the pleasure of his own superiority, whether imaginary or real,
without interrupting others in the same felicity. The philosopher may
very justly be delighted with the extent of his views, and the artificer
with the readiness of his hands; but let the one remember, that, without
mechanical performances, refined speculation is an empty dream, and the
other, that, without theoretical reasoning, dexterity is little more
than a brute instinct.




No. 10. SATURDAY, APRIL 21, 1750.


  _Posthabui tamen illorum mea seria ludo._
                                                      VIRG. Ec. vii. 17.

  For trifling sports I quitted grave affairs.


The number of correspondents which increases every day upon me, shews
that my paper is at least distinguished from the common productions of
the press. It is no less a proof of eminence to have many enemies than
many friends, and I look upon every letter, whether it contains encomiums
or reproaches, as an equal attestation of rising credit. The only pain,
which I can feel from my correspondence, is the fear of disgusting those,
whose letters I shall neglect; and therefore I take this opportunity of
reminding them, that in disapproving their attempts, whenever it may
happen, I only return the treatment which I often receive. Besides,
many particular motives influence a writer, known only to himself,
or his private friends; and it may be justly concluded, that not all
letters which are postponed are rejected, nor all that are rejected,
critically condemned.

Having thus eased my heart of the only apprehension that sat heavy on
it, I can please myself with the candour of Benevolus, who encourages me
to proceed, without sinking under the anger of Flirtilla, who quarrels
with me for being old and ugly, and for wanting both activity of body,
and sprightliness of mind; feeds her monkey with my lucubrations,
and refuses any reconciliation till I have appeared in vindication
of masquerades. That she may not however imagine me without support,
and left to rest wholly upon my own fortitude, I shall now publish some
letters which I have received from men as well dressed, and as handsome,
as her favourite; and others from ladies, whom I sincerely believe as
young, as rich, as gay, as pretty, as fashionable, and as often toasted
and treated as herself.

    "A set of candid readers send their respects to the Rambler,
    and acknowledge his merit in so well beginning a work that may
    be of publick benefit. But, superior as his genius is to the
    impertinences of a trifling age, they cannot help a wish that he
    would condescend to the weakness of minds softened by perpetual
    amusements, and now and then throw in, like his predecessors,
    some papers of a gay and humorous turn. Too fair a field now
    lies open, with too plentiful a harvest of follies! let the
    cheerful Thalia put in her sickle, and, singing at her work,
    deck her hair with red and blue."

    "A lady sends her compliments to the Rambler, and desires to know
    by what other name she may direct to him; what are his set of
    friends, his amusements; what his way of thinking, with regard
    to the living world, and its ways; in short, whether he is a
    person now alive, and in town? If he be, she will do herself
    the honour to write to him pretty often, and hopes, from time
    to time, to be the better for his advice and animadversions;
    for his animadversions on her neighbours at least. But, if he
    is a mere essayist, and troubles not himself with the manners
    of the age, she is sorry to tell him, that even the genius and
    correctness of an Addison will not secure him from neglect."

No man is so much abstracted from common life, as not to feel a particular
pleasure from the regard of the female world; the candid writers of the
first billet will not be offended, that my haste to satisfy a lady has
hurried their address too soon out of my mind, and that I refer them
for a reply to some future paper, in order to tell this curious inquirer
after my other name, the answer of a philosopher to a man, who meeting
him in the street, desired to see what he carried under his cloak;
_I carry it there_, says he, _that you may not see it_. But, though she
is never to know my name, she may often see my face; for I am of her
opinion, that a diurnal writer ought to view the world, and that he who
neglects his contemporaries, may be, with justice, neglected by them.

    "Lady Racket sends compliments to the Rambler, and lets him know
    she shall have cards at her house, every Sunday, the remainder of
    the season, where he will be sure of meeting all the good company
    in town. By this means she hopes to see his papers interspersed
    with living characters. She longs to see the torch of truth
    produced at an assembly, and to admire the charming lustre it
    will throw on the jewels, complexions, and behaviour of every
    dear creature there."

It is a rule with me to receive every offer with the same civility as
it is made; and, therefore, though lady Racket may have had some reason
to guess, that I seldom frequent card-tables on Sundays, I shall not
insist upon an exception, which may to her appear of so little force.
My business has been to view, as opportunity was offered, every place
in which mankind was to be seen; but at card-tables, however brilliant,
I have always thought my visit lost, for I could know nothing of the
company, but their clothes and their faces. I saw their looks clouded
at the beginning of every game with an uniform solicitude, now and then
in its progress varied with a short triumph, at one time wrinkled with
cunning, at another deadened with despondency, or by accident flushed with
rage at the unskilful or unlucky play of a partner. From such assemblies,
in whatever humour I happened to enter them, I was quickly forced to
retire; they were too trifling for me, when I was grave, and too dull,
when I was cheerful.

Yet I cannot but value myself upon this token of regard from a lady who
is not afraid to stand before the torch of truth. Let her not, however,
consult her curiosity more than her prudence; but reflect a moment on
the fate of Semele, who might have lived the favourite of Jupiter,
if she could have been content without his thunder. It is dangerous
for mortal beauty, or terrestrial virtue, to be examined by too strong
a light. The torch of truth shews much that we cannot, and all that we
would not see. In a face dimpled with smiles, it has often discovered
malevolence and envy, and detected under jewels and brocade, the frightful
forms of poverty and distress. A fine hand of cards have changed before
it into a thousand spectres of sickness, misery, and vexation; and
immense sums of money, while the winner counted them with transport,
have at the first glimpse of this unwelcome lustre vanished from before
him. If her ladyship therefore designs to continue her assembly, I would
advise her to shun such dangerous experiments, to satisfy herself with
common appearances, and to light up her apartments rather with myrtle,
than the torch of truth.

    "A modest young man sends his service to the author of the
    Rambler, and will be very willing to assist him in his work,
    but is sadly afraid of being discouraged by having his first
    essay rejected, a disgrace he has woefully experienced in every
    offer he had made of it to every new writer of every new paper;
    but he comforts himself by thinking, without vanity, that
    this has been from a peculiar favour of the muses, who saved
    his performance from being buried in trash, and reserved it to
    appear with lustre in the Rambler."

I am equally a friend to modesty and enterprize; and therefore shall
think it an honour to correspond with a young man who possesses both in
so eminent a degree. Youth is, indeed, the time in which these qualities
ought chiefly to be found; modesty suits well with inexperience, and
enterprize with health and vigour, and an extensive prospect of life.
One of my predecessors has justly observed, that, though modesty has
an amiable and winning appearance, it ought not to hinder the exertion of
the active powers, but that a man should shew under his blushes a latent
resolution. This point of perfection, nice as it is, my correspondent
seems to have attained. That he is modest, his own declaration may evince;
and, I think, the _latent resolution_ may be discovered in his letter
by an acute observer. I will advise him, since he so well deserves my
precepts, not to be discouraged though the Rambler should prove equally
envious, or tasteless, with the rest of this fraternity. If his paper is
refused, the presses of England are open, let him try the judgment of
the publick. If, as it has sometimes happened in general combinations
against merit, he cannot persuade the world to buy his works, he may
present them to his friends; and if his friends are seized with the
epidemical infatuation, and cannot find his genius, or will not confess
it, let him then refer his cause to posterity, and reserve his labours
for a wiser age.

Thus have I dispatched some of my correspondents in the usual manner with
fair words, and general civility. But to Flirtilla, the gay Flirtilla,
what shall I reply? Unable as I am to fly, at her command, over land
and seas, or to supply her from week to week with the fashions of
Paris, or the intrigues of Madrid, I am yet not willing to incur her
further displeasure, and would save my papers from her monkey on any
reasonable terms. By what propitiation, therefore, may I atone for my
former gravity, and open, without trembling, the future letters of
this sprightly persecutor? To write in defence of masquerades is no
easy task; yet something difficult and daring may well be required,
as the price of so important an approbation. I therefore consulted,
in this great emergency, a man of high reputation in gay life, who
having added to his other accomplishments, no mean proficiency, in the
minute philosophy, after the fifth perusal of her letter, broke out with
rapture into these words: "And can you, Mr. Rambler, stand out against
this charming creature? Let her know, at least, that from this moment
Nigrinus devotes his life and his labours to her service. Is there any
stubborn prejudice of education, that stands between thee and the most
amiable of mankind? Behold, Flirtilla, at thy feet, a man grown gray in
the study of those noble arts by which right and wrong may be confounded;
by which reason may be blinded, when we have a mind to escape from her
inspection; and caprice and appetite instated in uncontrouled command,
and boundless dominion! Such a casuist may surely engage, with certainty
of success, in vindication of an entertainment, which in an instant
gives confidence to the timorous, and kindles ardour in the cold; an
entertainment where the vigilance of jealousy has so often been eluded,
and the virgin is set free from the necessity of languishing in silence;
where all the outworks of chastity are at once demolished; where the
heart is laid open without a blush; where bashfulness may survive virtue,
and no wish is crushed under the frown of modesty. Far weaker influence
than Flirtilla's might gain over an advocate for such amusements. It
was declared by Pompey, that if the commonwealth was violated, he
could stamp with his foot, and raise an army out of the ground; if the
rights of pleasure are again invaded, let but Flirtilla crack her fan,
neither pens, nor swords, shall be wanting at the summons; the wit and
the colonel shall march out at her command, and neither law nor reason
shall stand before us[36]."

[Footnote 36: The four billets in this paper were written by Miss Mulso,
afterwards Mrs. Chapone, who survived this work more than half a century,
and died Dec. 25, 1801.]




No. 11. TUESDAY, APRIL 24, 1750.


  _Non Dindymene, non adytis quatit_
  _Mentem sacerdotum incota Pythius,_
  _Non Liber æque, non acuta_
  _Sic geminant Corybantes æra,_
  _Tristes ut inæ.--_
                                                HOR. lib. i. Ode xvi. 5.

  Yet O! remember, nor the god of wine,
  Nor Pythian Phoebus from his inmost shrine,
  Nor Dindymene, nor her priests possest,
  Can with their sounding cymbals shake the breast,
  Like furious anger.
                                                                FRANCIS.


The maxim which Periander of Corinth, one of the seven sages of Greece,
left as a memorial of his knowledge and benevolence, was [Greek: cholou
kratei], _Be master of thy anger_. He considered anger as the great
disturber of human life, the chief enemy both of publick happiness and
private tranquillity, and thought that he could not lay on posterity
a stronger obligation to reverence his memory, than by leaving them a
salutary caution against this outrageous passion.

To what latitude Periander might extend the word, the brevity of his
precept will scarce allow us to conjecture. From anger, in its full
import, protracted into malevolence, and exerted in revenge, arise,
indeed, many of the evils to which the life of man is exposed. By
anger operating upon power are produced the subversion of cities,
the desolation of countries, the massacre of nations, and all those
dreadful and astonishing calamities which fill the histories of the
world, and which could not be read at any distant point of time, when
the passions stand neutral, and every motive and principle is left to
its natural force, without some doubt of the truth of the relation, did
we not see the same causes still tending to the same effects, and only
acting with less vigour for want of the same concurrent opportunities.

But this gigantick and enormous species of anger falls not properly
under the animadversion of a writer, whose chief end is the regulation
of common life, and whose precepts are to recommend themselves by their
general use. Nor is this essay intended to expose the tragical or fatal
effects even of private malignity. The anger which I propose now for
my subject, is such as makes those who indulge it more troublesome
than formidable, and ranks them rather with hornets and wasps, than
with basilisks and lions. I have, therefore, prefixed a motto, which
characterizes this passion, not so much by the mischief that it causes,
as by the noise that it utters.

There is in the world a certain class of mortals, known, and contentedly
known, by the appellation of _passionate men_, who imagine themselves
entitled by that distinction to be provoked on every slight occasion,
and to vent their rage in vehement and fierce vociferations, in furious
menaces and licentious reproaches. Their rage, indeed, for the most
part, fumes away in outcries of injury, and protestations of vengeance,
and seldom proceeds to actual violence, unless a drawer or linkboy falls
in their way; but they interrupt the quiet of those that happen to be
within the reach of their clamours, obstruct the course of conversation,
and disturb the enjoyment of society.

Men of this kind are sometimes not without understanding or virtue,
and are, therefore, not always treated with the severity which their
neglect of the ease of all about them might justly provoke; they have
obtained a kind of prescription for their folly, and are considered by
their companions as under a predominant influence that leaves them not
masters of their conduct or language, as acting without consciousness, and
rushing into mischief with a mist before their eyes; they are therefore
pitied rather than censured, and their sallies are passed over as the
involuntary blows of a man agitated by the spasms of a convulsion.

It is surely not to be observed without indignation, that men may be
found of minds mean enough to be satisfied with this treatment; wretches
who are proud to obtain the privilege of madmen, and can, without shame,
and without regret, consider themselves as receiving hourly pardons from
their companions, and giving them continual opportunities of exercising
their patience, and boasting their clemency.

Pride is undoubtedly the original of anger; but pride, like every
other passion, if it once breaks loose from reason, counteracts its own
purposes. A passionate man, upon the review of his day, will have very
few gratifications to offer to his pride, when he has considered how his
outrages were caused, why they were borne, and in what they are likely
to end at last.

Those sudden bursts of rage generally break out upon small occasions; for
life, unhappy as it is, cannot supply great evils as frequently as the
man of fire thinks it fit to be enraged; therefore the first reflection
upon his violence must shew him that he is mean enough to be driven from
his post by every petty incident, that he is the mere slave of casualty,
and that his reason and virtue are in the power of the wind.

One motive there is of these loud extravagancies, which a man is careful
to conceal from others, and does not always discover to himself. He that
finds his knowledge narrow, and his arguments weak, and by consequence
his suffrage not much regarded, is sometimes in hope of gaining that
attention by his clamours which he cannot otherwise obtain, and is
pleased with remembering that at least he made himself heard, that he
had the power to interrupt those whom he could not confute, and suspend
the decision which he could not guide.

Of this kind is the fury to which many men give way among their servants
and domesticks; they feel their own ignorance, they see their own
insignificance; and therefore they endeavour, by their fury, to fright
away contempt from before them, when they know it must follow them
behind; and think themselves eminently masters, when they see one folly
tamely complied with, only lest refusal or delay should provoke them to
a greater.

These temptations cannot but be owned to have some force. It is so
little pleasing to any man to see himself wholly overlooked in the mass
of things, that he may be allowed to try a few expedients for procuring
some kind of supplemental dignity, and use some endeavour to add weight,
by the violence of his temper, to the lightness of his other powers. But
this has now been long practised, and found, upon the most exact estimate,
not to produce advantages equal to its inconveniences; for it appears not
that a man can by uproar, tumult, and bluster, alter any one's opinion of
his understanding, or gain influence, except over those whom fortune or
nature have made his dependants. He may, by a steady perseverance in his
ferocity, fright his children, and harass his servants, but the rest of
the world will look on and laugh; and he will have the comfort at last of
thinking, that he lives only to raise contempt and hatred, emotions to
which wisdom and virtue would be always unwilling to give occasion. He
has contrived only to make those fear him, whom every reasonable being
is endeavouring to endear by kindness; and must content himself with
the pleasure of a triumph, obtained by trampling on those who could
not resist. He must perceive that the apprehension which his presence
causes is not the awe of his virtue, but the dread of his brutality,
and that he has given up the felicity of being loved, without gaining
the honour of being reverenced.

But this is not the only ill consequence of the frequent indulgence of
this blustering passion, which a man, by often calling to his assistance
will teach, in a short time, to intrude before the summons, to rush
upon him with resistless violence, and without any previous notice of
its approach. He will find himself liable to be inflamed at the first
touch of provocation, and unable to retain his resentment till he has
a full conviction of the offence, to proportion his anger to the cause,
or to regulate it by prudence or by duty. When a man has once suffered
his mind to be thus vitiated, he becomes one of the most hateful and
unhappy beings. He can give no security to himself that he shall not,
at the next interview, alienate by some sudden transport his dearest
friend; or break out, upon some slight contradiction, into such terms
of rudeness as can never be perfectly forgotten. Whoever converses with
him, lives with the suspicion and solicitude of a man that plays with
a tame tiger, always under a necessity of watching the moment in which
the capricious savage shall begin to growl.

It is told by Prior, in a panegyrick on the earl of Dorset, that his
servants used to put themselves in his way when he was angry, because
he was sure to recompense them for any indignities which he made them
suffer. This is the round of a passionate man's life; he contracts debts
when he is furious, which his virtue, if he has virtue, obliges him to
discharge at the return of reason. He spends his time in outrage and
acknowledgment, injury and reparation. Or, if there be any who hardens
himself in oppression, and justifies the wrong, because he has done it,
his insensibility can make small part of his praise, or his happiness; he
only adds deliberate to hasty folly, aggravates petulance by contumacy,
and destroys the only plea that he can offer for the tenderness and
patience of mankind.

Yet, even this degree of depravity we may be content to pity, because it
seldom wants a punishment equal to its guilt. Nothing is more despicable
or more miserable than the old age of a passionate man. When the vigour
of youth fails him, and his amusements pall with frequent repetition,
his occasional rage sinks by decay of strength into peevishness; that
peevishness, for want of novelty and variety, becomes habitual; the
world falls off from around him, and he is left, as Homer expresses it,
[Greek: phthinythôn philon kêr], to devour his own heart in solitude
and contempt.




No. 12. SATURDAY, APRIL 28, 1750.


  _----Miserum parva stipe focilat, ut pudibundos_
  _Exercere sales inter convivia possit.----_
  _----Tu mitis, et acri_
  _Asperitate carens, positoque per omnia fastu,_
  _Inter ut æquales unus numeraris amicos,_
  _Obsequiumque doces, et amorem quæris amando._
                                                   Lucanus _ad_ Pisonem.

  Unlike the ribald whose licentious jest
  Pollutes his banquet, and insults his guest;
  From wealth and grandeur easy to descend,
  Thou joy'st to lose the master in the friend:
  We round thy board the cheerful menials see,
  Gay with the smile of bland equality;
  No social care the gracious lord disdains;
  Love prompts to love, and rev'rence rev'rence gains.


TO THE RAMBLER.

SIR,

As you seem to have devoted your labours to virtue, I cannot forbear to
inform you of one species of cruelty with which the life of a man of
letters perhaps does not often make him acquainted; and which, as it
seems to produce no other advantage to those that practise it than a
short gratification of thoughtless vanity, may become less common when
it has been once exposed in its various forms, and its full magnitude.

I am the daughter of a country gentleman, whose family is numerous,
and whose estate, not at first sufficient to supply us with affluence,
has been lately so much impaired by an unsuccessful law-suit, that all
the younger children are obliged to try such means as their education
affords them, for procuring the necessaries of life. Distress and
curiosity concurred to bring me to London, where I was received by a
relation with the coldness which misfortune generally finds. A week,
a long week, I lived with my cousin, before the most vigilant inquiry
could procure us the least hopes of a place, in which time I was much
better qualified to bear all the vexations of servitude. The first two
days she was content to pity me, and only wished I had not been quite so
well bred; but people must comply with their circumstances. This lenity,
however, was soon at an end; and, for the remaining part of the week,
I heard every hour of the pride of my family, the obstinacy of my father,
and of people better born than myself that were common servants.

At last, on Saturday noon, she told me, with very visible satisfaction,
that Mrs. Bombasine, the great silk-mercer's lady, wanted a maid, and a
fine place it would be, for there would be nothing to do but to clean
my mistress's room, get up her linen, dress the young ladies, wait at
tea in the morning, take care of a little miss just come from nurse,
and then sit down to my needle. But madam was a woman of great spirit,
and would not be contradicted, and therefore I should take care, for
good places were not easily to be got.

With these cautions I waited on madam Bombasine, of whom the first
sight gave me no ravishing ideas. She was two yards round the waist,
her voice was at once loud and squeaking, and her face brought to my
mind the picture of the full moon. Are you the young woman, says she,
that are come to offer yourself? It is strange when people of substance
want a servant, how soon it is the town-talk. But they know they shall
have a belly-full that live with me. Not like people at the other end of
the town, we dine at one o'clock. But I never take any body without a
character; what friends do you come of? I then told her that my father
was a gentleman, and that we had been unfortunate.--A great misfortune
indeed, to come to me, and have three meals a-day!--So your father was a
gentleman, and you are a gentlewoman I suppose--such gentlewomen!--Madam,
I did not mean to claim any exemptions, I only answered your inquiry--Such
gentlewomen! people should set their children to good trades, and keep
them off the parish. Pray go to the other end of the town, there are
gentlewomen, if they would pay their debts: I am sure we have lost enough
by gentlewomen. Upon this, her broad face grew broader with triumph, and
I was afraid she would have taken me for the pleasure of continuing
her insult; but happily the next word was, Pray, Mrs. gentlewoman,
troop down stairs.--You may believe I obeyed her.

I returned and met with a better reception from my cousin than I expected;
for while I was out, she had heard that Mrs. Standish, whose husband had
lately been raised from a clerk in an office, to be commissioner of the
excise, had taken a fine house, and wanted a maid.

To Mrs. Standish I went, and, after having waited six hours, was at
last admitted to the top of the stairs, when she came out of her room,
with two of her company. There was a smell of punch. So, young woman,
you want a place; whence do you come?--From the country, madam.--Yes,
they all come out of the country. And what brought you to town, a
bastard? Where do you lodge? At the Seven-Dials? What, you never heard
of the Foundling-house! Upon this, they all laughed so obtreperously,
that I took the opportunity of sneaking off in the tumult.

I then heard of a place at an elderly lady's. She was at cards; but in
two hours, I was told, she would speak to me. She asked me if I could
keep an account, and ordered me to write. I wrote two lines out of some
book that lay by her. She wondered what people meant, to breed up poor
girls to write at that rate. I suppose, Mrs. Flirt, if I was to see your
work, it would be fine stuff!--You may walk. I will not have love-letters
written from my house to every young fellow in the street.

Two days after, I went on the same pursuit to Lady Lofty, dressed as I
was directed, in what little ornaments I had, because she had lately got
a place at court. Upon the first sight of me, she turns to the woman that
shewed me in, Is this the lady that wants a place? Pray what place would
you have, miss? a maid of honour's place? Servants now-a-days!--Madam,
I heard you wanted--Wanted what? Somebody finer than myself? A pretty
servant indeed--I should be afraid to speak to her--I suppose, Mrs. Minx,
these fine hands cannot bear wetting--A servant indeed! Pray move off--I
am resolved to be the head person in this house--You are ready dressed,
the taverns will be open.

I went to inquire for the next place in a clean linen gown, and heard
the servant tell his lady, there was a young woman, but he saw she would
not do. I was brought up, however. Are you the trollop that has the
impudence to come for my place? What, you have hired that nasty gown, and
are come to steal a better!--Madam, I have another, but being obliged to
walk--Then these are your manners, with your blushes, and your courtesies,
to come to me in your worst gown. Madam, give me leave to wait upon you
in my other. Wait on me, you saucy slut! Then you are sure of coming--I
could not let such a drab come near me--Here, you girl, that came up
with her, have you touched her? If you have, wash your hands before you
dress me--Such trollops! Get you down. What, whimpering? Pray walk.

I went away with tears; for my cousin had lost all patience. However,
she told me, that having a respect for my relations, she was willing to
keep me out of the street, and would let me have another week.

The first day of this week I saw two places. At one I was asked where I
had lived? And upon my answer, was told by the lady, that people should
qualify themselves in ordinary places, for she should never have done
if she was to follow girls about. At the other house I was a smirking
hussy, and that sweet, face I might make money of--For her part, it was
a rule with her never to take any creature that thought herself handsome.

The three next days were spent in Lady Bluff's entry, where I waited six
hours every day for the pleasure of seeing the servants peep at me, and
go away laughing.--Madam will stretch her small shanks in the entry; she
will know the house again.--At sunset the two first days I was told,
that my lady would see me to-morrow, and on the third, that her woman
staid.

My week was now near its end, and I had no hopes of a place. My relation,
who always laid upon me the blame of every miscarriage, told me that I
must learn to humble myself, and that all great ladies had particular
ways; that if I went on in that manner, she could not tell who would
keep me; she had known many that had refused places, sell their clothes,
and beg in the streets.

It was to no purpose that the refusal was declared by me to be never
on my side; I was reasoning against interest, and against stupidity;
and therefore I comforted myself with the hope of succeeding better in
my next attempt, and went to Mrs. Courtly, a very fine lady, who had
routs at her house, and saw the best company in town.

I had not waited two hours before I was called up, and found Mr. Courtly
and his lady at piquet, in the height of good humour. This I looked
on as a favourable sign, and stood at the lower end of the room, in
expectation of the common questions. At last Mr. Courtly called out,
after a whisper, Stand facing the light, that one may see you. I changed
my place, and blushed. They frequently turned their eyes upon me, and
seemed to discover many subjects of merriment; for at every look they
whispered, and laughed with the most violent agitations of delight. At
last Mr. Courtly cried out, Is that colour your own, child? Yes, says
the lady, if she has not robbed the kitchen hearth. This was so happy
a conceit, that it renewed the storm of laughter, and they threw down
their cards in hopes of better sport. The lady then called me to her,
and began with an affected gravity to inquire what I could do? But first
turn about, and let us see your fine shape: Well, what are you fit for,
Mrs. Mum? You would find your tongue, I suppose, in the kitchen. No, no,
says Mr. Courtly, the girl's a good girl yet, but I am afraid a brisk
young fellow with fine tags on his shoulder----Come, child, hold up your
head; what? you have stole nothing.--Not yet, says the lady, but she
hopes to steal your heart quickly.--Here was a laugh of happiness and
triumph, prolonged by the confusion which I could no longer repress.
At last the lady recollected herself; Stole! no--but if I had her, I
should watch her: for that downcast eye--Why cannot you look people in
the face? Steal! says her husband, she would steal nothing but, perhaps,
a few ribands before they were left off by her lady. Sir, answered I,
why should you, by supposing me a thief, insult one from whom you have
received no injury? Insult! says the lady; are you come here to be
a servant, you saucy baggage, and talk of insulting? What will this
world come to, if a gentleman may not jest with a servant! Well, such
servants! pray be gone, and see when you will have the honour to be so
insulted again. Servants insulted!--a fine time.--Insulted! Get down
stairs, you slut, or the footman shall insult you.

The last day of the last week was now coming, and my kind cousin talked
of sending me down in the waggon to preserve me from bad courses. But
in the morning she came and told me that she had one trial more for me;
Euphemia wanted a maid, and perhaps I might do for her; for, like me,
she must fall her crest, being forced to lay down her chariot upon the
loss of half her fortune by bad securities, and with her way of giving
her money to every body that pretended to want it, she could have little
beforehand; therefore I might serve her; for, with all her fine sense,
she must not pretend to be nice.

I went immediately, and met at the door a young gentlewoman, who told me
she had herself been hired that morning, but that she was ordered to bring
any that offered up stairs. I was accordingly introduced to Euphemia,
who, when I came in, laid down her book, and told me, that she sent for
me not to gratify an idle curiosity, but lest my disappointment might
be made still more grating by incivility; that she was in pain to deny
any thing, much more what was no favour; that she saw nothing in my
appearance which did not make her wish for my company; but that another,
whose claims might perhaps be equal, had come before me. The thought
of being so near to such a place, and missing it, brought tears into
my eyes, and my sobs hindered me from returning my acknowledgments.
She rose up confused, and supposing by my concern that I was distressed,
placed me by her, and made me tell her my story: which when she had
heard, she put two guineas in my hand, ordering me to lodge near her,
and make use of her table till she could provide for me. I am now under
her protection, and know not how to shew my gratitude better than by
giving this account to the Rambler.

                                                                 ZOSIMA.




No. 13. TUESDAY, MAY 1, 1750.


  _Commissumque teges et vino tortus et irâ._
                                             HOR. lib. i. Ep. xviii. 38.

  And let not wine or anger wrest
  Th' intrusted secret from your breast.
                                                                FRANCIS.


It is related by Quintus Curtius, that the Persians always conceived
an invincible contempt of a man who had violated the laws of secrecy;
for they thought, that, however he might be deficient in the qualities
requisite to actual excellence, the negative virtues at least were in
his power, and though he perhaps could not speak well if he was to try,
it was still easy for him not to speak.

In forming this opinion of the easiness of secrecy, they seem to have
considered it as opposed, not to treachery, but loquacity, and to have
conceived the man whom they thus censured, not frighted by menaces to
reveal, or bribed by promises to betray, but incited by the mere pleasure
of talking, or some other motive equally trifling, to lay open his heart
without reflection, and to let whatever he knew slip from him, only for
want of power to retain it. Whether, by their settled and avowed scorn
of thoughtless talkers, the Persians were able to diffuse to any great
extent the virtue of taciturnity, we are hindered by the distance of
those times from being able to discover, there being very few memoirs
remaining of the court of Persepolis, nor any distinct accounts handed
down to us of their office-clerks, their ladies of the bedchamber,
their attorneys, their chambermaids, or their footmen.

In these latter ages, though the old animosity against a prattler is still
retained, it appears wholly to have lost its effect upon the conduct of
mankind, for secrets are so seldom kept, that it may with some reason be
doubted whether the ancients were not mistaken, in their first postulate,
whether the quality of retention be so generally bestowed, and whether a
secret has not some subtle volatility, by which it escapes imperceptibly
at the smallest vent; or some power of fermentation, by which it expands
itself so as to burst the heart that will not give it way.

Those that study either the body or the mind of a man, very often find the
most specious and pleasing theory falling under the weight of contrary
experience; and instead of gratifying their vanity by inferring effects
from causes, they are always reduced at last to conjecture causes from
effects. That it is easy to be secret, the speculatist can demonstrate
in his retreat, and therefore thinks himself justified in placing
confidence; the man of the world knows, that, whether difficult or not,
it is uncommon, and therefore finds himself rather inclined to search
after the reason of this universal failure in one of the most important
duties of society.

The vanity of being known to be trusted with a secret is generally
one of the chief motives to disclose it; for, however absurd it may be
thought to boast an honour by an act which shews that it was conferred
without merit, yet most men seem rather inclined to confess the want
of virtue than of importance, and more willingly shew their influence,
though at the expense of their probity, than glide through life with no
other pleasure than the private consciousness of fidelity; which, while
it is preserved, must be without praise, except from the single person
who tries and knows it.

There are many ways of telling a secret, by which a man exempts himself
from the reproaches of his conscience, and gratifies his pride, without
suffering himself to believe that he impairs his virtue. He tells the
private affairs of his patron, or his friend, only to those from whom he
would not conceal his own; he tells them to those, who have no temptation
to betray the trust, or with a denunciation of a certain forfeiture of
his friendship, if he discovers that they become publick.

Secrets are very frequently told in the first ardour of kindness, or of
love, for the sake of proving, by so important a sacrifice, sincerity
or tenderness; but with this motive, though it be strong in itself,
vanity concurs, since every man desires to be most esteemed by those whom
he loves, or with whom he converses, with whom he passes his hours of
pleasure, and to whom he retires from business and from care.

When the discovery of secrets is under consideration, there is always a
distinction carefully to be made between our own and those of another;
those of which we are fully masters, as they affect only our own interest,
and those which are reposited with us in trust, and involve the happiness
or convenience of such as we have no right to expose to hazard. To tell
our own secrets is generally folly, but that folly is without guilt;
to communicate those with which we are intrusted is always treachery,
and treachery for the most part combined with folly.

There have, indeed, been some enthusiastick and irrational zealots for
friendship, who have maintained, and perhaps believed, that one friend
has a right to all that is in possession of another; and that therefore
it is a violation of kindness to exempt any secret from this boundless
confidence. Accordingly a late female minister of state[37] has been
shameless enough to inform the world, that she used, when she wanted
to extract any thing from her sovereign, to remind her of Montaigne's
reasoning, who has determined, that to tell a secret to a friend is
no breach of fidelity, because the number of persons trusted is not
multiplied, a man and his friend being virtually the same.

That such a fallacy could be imposed upon any human understanding,
or that an author could have advanced a position so remote from truth
and reason, any otherwise than as a declaimer, to shew to what extent he
could stretch his imagination, and with what strength he could press his
principle, would scarcely have been credible, had not this lady kindly
shewn us how far weakness may be deluded, or indolence amused. But since
it appears, that even this sophistry has been able, with the help of
a strong desire, to repose in quiet upon the understanding of another,
to mislead honest intentions, and an understanding not contemptible[38],
it may not be superfluous to remark, that those things which are common
among friends are only such as either possesses in his own right, and
can alienate or destroy without injury to any other person. Without this
limitation confidence must run on without end, the second person may tell
the secret to the third, upon the same principle as he received it from
the first, and a third may hand it forward to a fourth, till at last it
is told in the round of friendship to them from whom it was the first
intention to conceal it.

The confidence which Caius has of the faithfulness of Titius is nothing
more than an opinion which himself cannot know to be true, and which
Claudius, who first tells his secret to Caius, may know to be false;
and therefore the trust is transferred by Caius, if he reveal what has
been told him, to one from whom the person originally concerned would
have withheld it: and whatever may be the event, Caius has hazarded
the happiness of his friend, without necessity and without permission,
and has put that trust in the hand of fortune, which was given only to
virtue.

All the arguments upon which a man who is telling the private affairs of
another may ground his confidence of security, he must upon reflection
know to be uncertain, because he finds them without effect upon
himself. When he is imagining that Titius will be cautious, from a regard
to his interest, his reputation, or his duty, he ought to reflect that
he is himself at that instant acting in opposition to all these reasons,
and revealing what interest, reputation, and duty, direct him to conceal.

Every one feels that in his own case he should consider the man incapable
of trust, who believed himself at liberty to tell whatever he knew to
the first whom he should conclude deserving of his confidence; therefore
Caius, in admitting Titius to the affairs imparted only to himself,
must know that he violates his faith, since he acts contrary to the
intention of Claudius, to whom that faith was given. For promises of
friendship are, like all others, useless and vain, unless they are made
in some known sense, adjusted and acknowledged by both parties.

I am not ignorant that many questions may be started relating to the duty
of secrecy, where the affairs are of publick concern; where subsequent
reasons may arise to alter the appearance and nature of the trust;
that the manner in which the secret was told may change the degree of
obligation, and that the principles upon which a man is chosen for a
confidant may not always equally constrain him. But these scruples, if
not too intricate, are of too extensive consideration for my present
purpose, nor are they such as generally occur in common life; and
though casuistical knowledge be useful in proper hands, yet it ought
by no means to be carelessly exposed, since most will use it rather to
lull than to awaken their own consciences; and the threads of reasoning,
on which truth is suspended, are frequently drawn to such subtility, that
common eyes cannot perceive, and common sensibility cannot feel them.

The whole doctrine, as well as practice of secrecy, is so perplexing
and dangerous, that next to him who is compelled to trust, I think him
unhappy who is chosen to be trusted; for he is often involved in scruples
without the liberty of calling in the help of any other understanding;
he is frequently drawn into guilt, under the appearance of friendship and
honesty; and sometimes subjected to suspicion by the treachery of others,
who are engaged without his knowledge in the same schemes; for he that
has one confidant has generally more, and when he is at last betrayed,
is in doubt on whom he shall fix the crime.

The rules therefore that I shall propose concerning secrecy, and from
which I think it not safe to deviate, without long and exact deliberation,
are--Never to solicit the knowledge of a secret. Not willingly, nor
without many limitations, to accept such confidence when it is offered.
When a secret is once admitted, to consider the trust as of a very high
nature, important as society, and sacred as truth, and therefore not
to be violated for any incidental convenience, or slight appearance of
contrary fitness.

[Footnote 37: Sarah Duchess of Marlborough.--C.]

[Footnote 38: That of Queen Anne.]




No. 14. SATURDAY, MAY 5, 1750.


  _----Nil fuit unquam_
  _Sic impar sibi----_
                                              HOR. lib. i. Sat. iii. 18.

  Sure such a various creature ne'er was known.
                                                                FRANCIS.


Among the many inconsistencies which folly produces, or infirmity suffers,
in the human mind, there has often been observed a manifest and striking
contrariety between the life of an author and his writings; and Milton,
in a letter to a learned stranger, by whom he had been visited, with
great reason congratulates himself upon the consciousness of being found
equal to his own character, and having preserved, in a private and
familiar interview, that reputation which his works had procured him.

Those whom the appearance of virtue, or the evidence of genius, have
tempted to a nearer knowledge of the writer in whose performances they
may be found, have indeed had frequent reason to repent their curiosity;
the bubble that sparkled before them has become common water at the
touch; the phantom of perfection has vanished when they wished to press
it to their bosom. They have lost the pleasure of imagining how far
humanity may be exalted, and, perhaps, felt themselves less inclined
to toil up the steeps of virtue, when they observe those who seem best
able to point the way, loitering below, as either afraid of the labour,
or doubtful of the reward.

It has been long the custom of the oriental monarchs to hide themselves
in gardens and palaces, to avoid the conversation of mankind, and to be
known to their subjects only by their edicts. The same policy is no less
necessary to him that writes, than to him that governs; for men would
not more patiently submit to be taught, than commanded, by one known to
have the same follies and weaknesses with themselves. A sudden intruder
into the closet of an author would perhaps feel equal indignation with
the officer, who having long solicited admission into the presence of
Sardanapalus, saw him not consulting upon laws, inquiring into grievances,
or modelling armies, but employed in feminine amusements, and directing
the ladies in their work.

It is not difficult to conceive, however, that for many reasons a man
writes much better than he lives. For without entering into refined
speculations, it may be shewn much easier to design than to perform.
A man proposes his schemes of life in a state of abstraction and
disengagement, exempt from the enticements of hope, the solicitations
of affection, the importunities of appetite, or the depressions of fear,
and is in the same state with him that teaches upon land the art of
navigation, to whom the sea is always smooth, and the wind always
prosperous.

The mathematicians are well acquainted with the difference between pure
science, which has to do only with ideas, and the application of its
laws to the use of life, in which they are constrained to submit to the
imperfection of matter and the influence of accidents. Thus, in moral
discussions, it is to be remembered that many impediments obstruct our
practice, which very easily give way to theory. The speculatist is only
in danger of erroneous reasoning; but the man involved in life, has his
own passions, and those of others, to encounter, and is embarrassed
with a thousand inconveniencies, which confound him with variety of
impulse, and either perplex or obstruct his way. He is forced to act
without deliberation, and obliged to choose before he can examine: he
is surprised by sudden alterations of the state of things, and changes
his measures according to superficial appearances; he is led by others,
either because he is indolent, or because he is timorous; he is sometimes
afraid to know what is right, and sometimes finds friends or enemies
diligent to deceive him.

We are, therefore, not to wonder that most fail, amidst tumult, and
snares, and danger, in the observance of those precepts, which they lay
down in solitude, safety, and tranquillity, with a mind unbiassed, and
with liberty unobstructed. It is the condition of our present state to see
more than we can attain; the exactest vigilance and caution can never
maintain a single day of unmingled innocence, much less can the utmost
efforts of incorporated mind reach the summit of speculative virtue.

It is, however, necessary for the idea of perfection to be proposed,
that we may have some object to which our endeavours are to be directed;
and he that is most deficient in the duties of life, makes some atonement
for his faults, if he warns others against his own failings, and hinders,
by the salubrity of his admonitions, the contagion of his example.

Nothing is more unjust, however common, than to charge with hypocrisy
him that expresses zeal for those virtues which he neglects to practise;
since he may be sincerely convinced of the advantages of conquering
his passions, without having yet obtained the victory, as a man may be
confident of the advantages of a voyage, or a journey, without having
courage or industry to undertake it, and may honestly recommend to others,
those attempts which he neglects himself.

The interest which the corrupt part of mankind have in hardening
themselves against every motive to amendment, has disposed them
to give to these contradictions, when they can be produced against
the cause of virtue, that weight which they will not allow them in
any other case. They see men act in opposition to their interest,
without supposing, that they do not know it; those who give way to the
sudden violence of passion, and forsake the most important pursuits
for petty pleasures, sire not supposed to have changed their opinions,
or to approve their own conduct. In moral or religious questions alone,
they determine the sentiments by the actions, and charge every man with
endeavouring to impose upon the world, whose writings are not confirmed
by his life. They never consider that themselves neglect or practise
something every day inconsistently with their own settled judgment,
nor discover that the conduct of the advocates for virtue can little
increase, or lessen, the obligations of their dictates; argument is to
be invalidated only by argument, and is in itself of the same force,
whether or not it convinces him by whom it is proposed.

Yet since this prejudice, however unreasonable, is always likely to
have some prevalence, it is the duty of every man to take care lest
he should hinder the efficacy of his own instructions. When he desires
to gain the belief of others, he should shew that he believes himself;
and when he teaches the fitness of virtue by his reasonings, he should,
by his example, prove its possibility: Thus much at least may be required
of him, that he shall not act worse than others because he writes better,
nor imagine that, by the merit of his genius, he may claim indulgence
beyond mortals of the lower classes, and be excused for want of prudence,
or neglect of virtue.

Bacon, in his History of the Winds, after having offered something to
the imagination as desirable, often proposes lower advantages in its
place to the reason as attainable. The same method may be sometimes
pursued in moral endeavours, which this philosopher has observed in
natural inquiries; having first set positive and absolute excellence
before us, we may be pardoned though we sink down to humbler virtue,
trying, however, to keep our point always in view, and struggling not
to lose ground, though we cannot gain it.

It is recorded of Sir Mathew Hale, that he, for a long time, concealed the
consecration of himself to the stricter duties of religion, lest by some
flagitious and shameful action, he should bring piety into disgrace. For
the same reason it may be prudent for a writer, who apprehends that he
shall not enforce his own maxims by his domestick character, to conceal
his name, that he may not injure them.

There are, indeed, a great number whose curiosity to gain a more familiar
knowledge of successful writers, is not so much prompted by an opinion
of their power to improve as to delight, and who expect from them not
arguments against vice, or dissertations on temperance or justice; but
flights of wit, and sallies of pleasantry, or, at least, acute remarks,
nice distinctions, justness of sentiment, and elegance of diction.

This expectation is, indeed, specious and probable, and yet, such is
the fate of all human hopes, that it is very often frustrated, and those
who raise admiration by their books, disgust by their company. A man of
letters for the most part spends in the privacies of study, that season
of life in which the manners are to be softened into ease, and polished
into elegance; and, when he has gained knowledge enough to be respected,
has neglected the minuter acts by which he might have pleased. When he
enters life, if his temper be soft and timorous, he is diffident and
bashful, from the knowledge of his defects; or if he was born with spirit
and resolution, he is ferocious and arrogant, from the consciousness of
his merit; he is either dissipated by the awe of company, and unable
to recollect his reading, and arrange his arguments; or he is hot and
dogmatical, quick in opposition, and tenacious in defence, disabled by
his own violence, and confused by his haste to triumph.

The graces of writing and conversation are of different kinds, and though
he who excels in one might have been, with opportunities and application,
equally successful in the other, yet as many please by extemporary talk,
though utterly unacquainted with the more accurate method, and more
laboured beauties, which composition requires; so it is very possible
that men, wholly accustomed to works of study, may be without that
readiness of conception, and affluence of language, always necessary to
colloquial entertainment. They may want address to watch the hints which
conversation offers for the display of their particular attainments,
or they may be so much unfurnished with matter on common subjects, that
discourse not professedly literary, glides over them as heterogeneous
bodies, without admitting their conceptions to mix in the circulation.

A transition from an author's book to his conversation, is too often
like an entrance into a large city, after a distant prospect. Remotely,
we see nothing but spires of temples and turrets of palaces, and imagine
it the residence of splendour, grandeur and magnificence; but, when
we have passed the gates, we find it perplexed with narrow passages,
disgraced with despicable cottages, embarrassed with obstructions,
and clouded with smoke.




No. 15. TUESDAY, MAY 8, 1750.


  _Et quando uberior vitiorum copia? quando_
  _Major avaritiæ patuit sinus? Alea quando_
  _Hos animos?_
                                                        JUV. Sat. i. 87.

  What age so large a crop of vices bore,
  Or when was avarice extended more?
  When were the dice with more profusion thrown?
                                                                 DRYDEN.


There is no grievance, publick or private, of which, since I took upon
me the office of a periodical monitor, I have received so many, or so
earnest complaints, as of the predominance of play; of a fatal passion
for cards and dice, which seems to have overturned, not only the ambition
of excellence, but the desire of pleasure; to have extinguished the
flames of the lover, as well as of the patriot; and threatens, in its
further progress, to destroy all distinctions, both of rank and sex,
to crush all emulation but that of fraud, to corrupt all those classes
of our people, whose ancestors have, by their virtue, their industry,
or their parsimony, given them the power of living in extravagance,
idleness, and vice, and to leave them without knowledge, but of the
modish games, and without wishes, but for lucky hands.

I have found by long experience, that there are few enterprises so
hopeless as contests with the fashion, in which the opponents are not
only made confident by their numbers, and strong by their union, but
are hardened by contempt of their antagonist, whom they always look
upon as a wretch of low notions, contracted views, mean conversation,
and narrow fortune, who envies the elevations which he cannot reach, who
would gladly imbitter the happiness which his inelegance or indigence
deny him to partake, and who has no other end in his advice than to
revenge his own mortification by hindering those whom their birth and
taste have set above him, from the enjoyment of their superiority, and
bringing them down to a level with himself.

Though I have never found myself much affected by this formidable
censure, which I have incurred often enough to be acquainted with its
full force, yet I shall, in some measure, obviate it on this occasion,
by offering very little in my own name, either of argument or entreaty,
since those who suffer by this general infatuation may be supposed best
able to relate its effects.

       *       *       *       *       *

SIR,

There seems to be so little knowledge left in the world, and so little
of that reflection practised, by which knowledge is to be gained, that
I am in doubt, whether I shall be understood, when I complain of want
of opportunity for thinking; or whether a condemnation, which at present
seems irreversible, to perpetual ignorance, will raise any compassion,
either in you, or your readers: yet I will venture to lay my state before
you, because I believe it is natural, to most minds, to take some pleasure
in complaining of evils, of which they have no reason to be ashamed.

I am the daughter of a man of great fortune, whose diffidence of mankind,
and, perhaps, the pleasure of continual accumulation, incline him to
reside upon his own estate, and to educate his children in his own house,
where I was bred, if not with the most brilliant examples of virtue
before my eyes, at least remote enough from any incitements to vice; and
wanting neither leisure nor books, nor the acquaintance of some persons
of learning in the neighbourhood, I endeavoured to acquire such knowledge
as might most recommend me to esteem, and thought myself able to support
a conversation upon most of the subjects, which my sex and condition made
it proper for me to understand.

I had, besides my knowledge, as my mamma and my maid told me, a very fine
face, and elegant shape, and with all these advantages had been seventeen
months the reigning toast for twelve miles round, and never came to the
monthly assembly, but I heard the old ladies that sat by wishing that
_it might end well_, and their daughters criticising my air, my features,
or my dress.

You know, Mr. Rambler, that ambition is natural to youth, and curiosity
to understanding, and therefore will hear, without wonder, that I was
desirous to extend my victories over those who might give more honour to
the conqueror; and that I found in a country life a continual repetition
of the same pleasures, which was not sufficient to fill up the mind for
the present, or raise any expectations of the future; and I will confess
to you, that I was impatient for a sight of the town, and filled my
thoughts with the discoveries which I should make, the triumphs that I
should obtain, and the praises that I should receive.

At last the time came. My aunt, whose husband has a seat in parliament,
and a place at court, buried her only child, and sent for me to supply
the loss. The hope that I should so far insinuate myself into their
favour, as to obtain a considerable augmentation of my fortune, procured
me every convenience for my departure, with great expedition; and I
could not, amidst all my transports, forbear some indignation to see with
what readiness the natural guardians of my virtue sold me to a state,
which they thought more hazardous than it really was, as soon as a new
accession of fortune glittered in their eyes.

Three days I was upon the road, and on the fourth morning my heart danced
at the sight of London. I was set down at my aunt's, and entered upon
the scene of action. I expected now, from the age and experience of my
aunt, some prudential lessons; but, after the first civilities and first
tears were over, was told what pity it was to have kept so fine a girl so
long in the country; for the people who did not begin young, seldom dealt
their cards handsomely, or played them tolerably.

Young persons are commonly inclined to slight the remarks and counsels
of their elders. I smiled, perhaps, with too much contempt, and was upon
the point of telling her that my time had not been passed in such trivial
attainments. But I soon found that things are to be estimated, not by the
importance of their effects, but the frequency of their use.

A few days after, my aunt gave me notice, that some company, which she had
been six weeks in collecting, was to meet that evening, and she expected
a finer assembly than had been seen all the winter. She expressed this
in the jargon of a gamester, and, when I asked an explication of her
terms of art, wondered where I had lived. I had already found my aunt
so incapable of any rational conclusion, and so ignorant of every thing,
whether great or little, that I had lost all regard to her opinion,
and dressed myself with great expectations of an opportunity to display
my charms among rivals, whose competition would not dishonour me. The
company came in, and after the cursory compliments of salutation, alike
easy to the lowest and the highest understanding, what was the result?
The cards were broke open, the parties were formed, the whole night
passed in a game, upon which the young and old were equally employed; nor
was I able to attract an eye, or gain an ear; but being compelled to play
without skill, I perpetually embarrassed my partner, and soon perceived
the contempt of the whole table gathering upon me.

I cannot but suspect, Sir, that this odious fashion is produced by a
conspiracy of the old, the ugly, and the ignorant, against the young
and beautiful, the witty and the gay, as a contrivance to level all
distinctions of nature and art, to confound the world in a chaos of
folly, to take from those who could outshine them all the advantages
of mind and body, to withhold youth from its natural pleasures, deprive
wit of its influence, and beauty of its charms, to fix those hearts upon
money, to which love has hitherto been entitled, to sink life into a
tedious uniformity, and to allow it no other hopes or fears, but those
of robbing, and being robbed.

Be pleased, Sir, to inform those of my sex who have minds capable of
nobler sentiments, that, if they will unite in vindication of their
pleasures and their prerogatives, they may fix a time, at which cards
shall cease to be in fashion, or be left only to those who have neither
beauty to be loved, nor spirit to be feared; neither knowledge to teach,
nor modesty to learn; and who, having passed their youth in vice, are
justly condemned to spend their age in folly[39].

I am, Sir, &c.

                                                                 CLEORA.

       *       *       *       *       *

SIR,

Vexation will burst my heart, if I do not give it vent. As you publish a
paper, I insist upon it that you insert this in your next, as ever you
hope for the kindness and encouragement of any woman of taste, spirit,
and virtue. I would have it published to the world, how deserving wives
are used by imperious coxcombs, that henceforth no woman may marry who
has not the patience of Grizzel. Nay, if even Grizzel had been married to
a gamester, her temper would never have held out. A wretch that loses his
good-humour and humanity along with his money, and will not allow enough
from his own extravagances to support a woman of fashion in the necessary
amusements of life!--Why does not he employ his wise head to make a figure
in parliament, raise an estate, and get a title? That would be fitter for
the master of a family, than rattling a noisy dice-box; and then he might
indulge his wife in a few slight expenses and elegant diversions.

What if I was unfortunate at Brag!--should he not have stayed to see
how luck would turn another time? Instead of that, what does he do, but
picks a quarrel, upbraids me with loss of beauty, abuses my acquaintance,
ridicules my play, and insults my understanding; says, forsooth, that
women have not heads enough to play with any thing but dolls, and that
they should be employed in things proportionable to their understanding,
keep at home, and mind family affairs.

I do stay at home, Sir, and all the world knows I am at home every Sunday.
I have had six routs this winter, and sent out ten packs of cards in
invitations to private parties. As for management, I am sure he cannot
call me extravagant, or say I do not mind my family. The children are out
at nurse in villages as cheap as any two little brats can be kept, nor
have I ever seen them since; so he has no trouble about them. The servants
live at board wages. My own dinners come from the Thatched House; and I
have never paid a penny for any thing I have bought since I was married.
As for play, I do think I may, indeed, indulge in that, now I am my own
mistress. Papa made me drudge at wist till I was tired of it; and, far
from wanting a head, Mr. Hoyle, when he had not given me above forty
lessons, said I was one of his best scholars. I thought then with myself,
that, if once I was at liberty, I would leave play, and take to reading
romances, things so forbidden at our house, and so railed at, that it was
impossible not to fancy them very charming. Most unfortunately, to save
me from absolute undutifulness, just as I was married, came dear Brag
into fashion, and ever since it has been the joy of my life; so easy, so
cheerful and careless, so void of thought, and so genteel! Who can help
loving it? Yet the perfidious thing has used me very ill of late, and
to-morrow I should have changed it for Faro. But, oh! this detestable
to-morrow, a thing always expected, and never found.--Within these few
hours must I be dragged into the country. The wretch, Sir, left me in a
fit, which his threatenings had occasioned, and unmercifully ordered a
post-chaise. Stay I cannot, for money I have none, and credit I cannot
get.----But I will make the monkey play with me at picquet upon the road
for all I want. I am almost sure to beat him, and his debts of honour I
know he will pay. Then who can tell but I may still come back and conquer
Lady Packer? Sir, you need not print this last scheme, and, upon second
thoughts, you may.--Oh, distraction! the post-chaise is at the door. Sir,
publish what you will, only let it be printed without a name.

[Footnote 39: A youth of frolicks, an old age of cards. POPE.]




No. 16. SATURDAY, MAY 12, 1750.


  _----Torrens dicendi copia multis,_
  _Et sua mortifera est facundia----_
                                                        JUV. Sat. x. 10.

  Some who the depths of eloquence have found,
  In that unnavigable stream were drown'd.
                                                                 DRYDEN.


SIR,

I am the modest young man whom you favoured with your advice, in a
late paper; and, as I am very far from suspecting that you foresaw the
numberless inconveniencies which I have, by following it, brought upon
myself, I will lay my condition open before you, for you seem bound
to extricate me from the perplexities in which your counsel, however
innocent in the intention, has contributed to involve me.

You told me, as you thought, to my comfort, that a writer might easily
find means of introducing his genius to the world, for the _presses of
England were open_. This I have now fatally experienced; the press is,
indeed, open.

  _----Facilis descensus Averni,_
  _Noctes atque dies patet atri janua Ditis._
                                                 VIRG. Æn. lib. vi. 126.

  The gates of hell are open night and day;
  Smooth the descent, and easy is the way.
                                                                 DRYDEN.

The means of doing hurt to ourselves are always at hand. I immediately
sent to a printer, and contracted with him for an impression of several
thousands of my pamphlet. While it was at the press, I was seldom absent
from the printing-house, and continually urged the workmen to haste, by
solicitations, promises, and rewards. From the day all other pleasures
were excluded, by the delightful employment of correcting the sheets; and
from the night, sleep generally was banished, by anticipations of the
happiness which every hour was bringing nearer. At last the time of
publication approached, and my heart beat with the raptures of an author.
I was above all little precautions, and, in defiance of envy or of
criticism, set my name upon the title, without sufficiently considering,
that what has once passed the press is irrevocable, and that though the
printing-house may properly be compared to the infernal regions, for the
facility of its entrance, and the difficulty with which authors return
from it; yet there is this difference, that a great genius can never
return to his former state, by a happy draught of the waters of oblivion.

I am now, Mr. Rambler, known to be an author, and am condemned,
irreversibly condemned, to all the miseries of high reputation. The first
morning after publication my friends assembled about me; I presented
each, as is usual, with a copy of my book. They looked into the first
pages, but were hindered, by their admiration, from reading further. The
first pages are, indeed, very elaborate. Some passages they particularly
dwelt upon, as more eminently beautiful than the rest; and some delicate
strokes, and secret elegancies, I pointed out to them, which had escaped
their observation. I then begged of them to forbear their compliments,
and invited them, I could do no less, to dine with me at a tavern.
After dinner, the book was resumed; but their praises very often so much
over-powered my modesty, that I was forced to put about the glass, and
had often no means of repressing the clamours of their admiration, but by
thundering to the drawer for another bottle.

Next morning another set of my acquaintance congratulated me upon my
performance, with such importunity of praise, that I was again forced
to obviate their civilities by a treat. On the third day, I had yet a
greater number of applauders to put to silence in the same manner; and,
on the fourth, those whom I had entertained the first day came again,
having, in the perusal of the remaining part of the book, discovered so
many forcible sentences and masterly touches, that it was impossible for
me to bear the repetition of their commendations. I therefore persuaded
them once more to adjourn to the tavern, and choose some other subject,
on which I might share in their conversation. But it was not in their
power to withhold their attention from my performance, which had so
entirely taken possession of their minds, that no entreaties of mine
could change their topick, and I was obliged to stifle, with claret, that
praise which neither my modesty could hinder, nor my uneasiness repress.

The whole week was thus spent in a kind of literary revel, and I have now
found that nothing is so expensive as great abilities, unless there is
joined with them an insatiable eagerness of praise; for to escape from
the pain of hearing myself exalted above the greatest names, dead and
living, of the learned world, it has already cost me two hogsheads of
port, fifteen gallons of arrack, ten dozen of claret, and five and forty
bottles of champagne.

I was resolved to stay at home no longer, and therefore rose early and
went to the coffee-house; but found that I had now made myself too
eminent for happiness, and that I was no longer to enjoy the pleasure
of mixing, upon equal terms, with the rest of the world. As soon as I
enter the room, I see part of the company raging with envy, which they
endeavour to conceal, sometimes with the appearance of laughter, and
sometimes with that of contempt; but the disguise is such, that I can
discover the secret rancour of their hearts, and as envy is deservedly
its own punishment, I frequently indulge myself in tormenting them with
my presence.

But though there may be some slight satisfaction received from the
mortification of my enemies, yet my benevolence will not suffer me to
take any pleasure in the terrours of my friends. I have been cautious,
since the appearance of my work, not to give myself more premeditated
airs of superiority, than the most rigid humility might allow. It is,
indeed, not impossible that I may sometimes have laid down my opinion,
in a manner that shewed a consciousness of my ability to maintain it, or
interrupted the conversation, when I saw its tendency, without suffering
the speaker to waste his time in explaining his sentiments; and, indeed,
I did indulge myself for two days in a custom of drumming with my
fingers, when the company began to lose themselves in absurdities, or
to encroach upon subjects which I knew them unqualified to discuss. But
I generally acted with great appearance of respect, even to those whose
stupidity I pitied in my heart. Yet, notwithstanding this exemplary
moderation, so universal is the dread of uncommon powers, and such the
unwillingness of mankind to be made wiser, that I have now for some days
found myself shunned by all my acquaintance. If I knock at a door, nobody
is at home; if I enter a coffee-house, I have the box to myself. I live
in the town like a lion in his desert, or an eagle on his rock, too great
for friendship or society, and condemned to solitude by unhappy elevation
and dreaded ascendency.

Nor is my character only formidable to others, but burdensome to myself.
I naturally love to talk without much thinking, to scatter my merriment
at random, and to relax my thoughts with ludicrous remarks and fanciful
images; but such is now the importance of my opinion, that I am afraid to
offer it, lest, by being established too hastily into a maxim, it should
be the occasion of errour to half the nation; and such is the expectation
with which I am attended, when I am going to speak, that I frequently
pause to reflect whether what I am about to utter is worthy of myself.

This, Sir, is sufficiently miserable; but there are still greater
calamities behind. You must have read in Pope and Swift how men of parts
have had their closets rifled, and their cabinets broke open, at the
instigation of piratical booksellers, for the profit of their works; and
it is apparent that there are many prints now sold in the shops, of men
whom you cannot suspect of sitting for that purpose, and whose likenesses
must have been certainly stolen when their names made their faces
vendible. These considerations at first put me on my guard, and I have,
indeed, found sufficient reason for my caution, for I have discovered
many people examining my countenance, with a curiosity that shewed their
intention to draw it; I immediately left the house, but find the same
behaviour in another.

Others may be persecuted, but I am haunted; I have good reason to believe
that eleven painters are now dogging me, for they know that he who can get
my face first will make his fortune. I often change my wig, and wear my
hat over my eyes, by which I hope somewhat to confound them; for you know
it is not fair to sell my face, without admitting me to share the profit.

I am, however, not so much in pain for my face as for my papers, which I
dare neither carry with me nor leave behind. I have, indeed, taken some
measures for their preservation, having put them in an iron chest, and
fixed a padlock upon my closet. I change my lodgings five times a week,
and always remove at the dead of night.

Thus I live, in consequence of having given too great proofs of a
predominant genius, in the solitude of a hermit, with the anxiety of
a miser, and the caution of an outlaw; afraid to shew my face lest it
should be copied; afraid to speak, lest I should injure my character;
and to write, lest my correspondents should publish my letters; always
uneasy lest my servants should steal my papers for the sake of money, or
my friends for that of the publick. This it is to soar above the rest of
mankind; and this representation I lay before you, that I may be informed
how to divest myself of the laurels which are so cumbersome to the
wearer, and descend to the enjoyment of that quiet, from which I find a
writer of the first class so fatally debarred.

                                                               MISELLUS.




No. 17. TUESDAY, MAY 15, 1750.


  _----Me non oracula certum,_
  _Sed mors certa facit._
                                                    LUCAN, lib. ix. 582.

  Let those weak minds, who live in doubt and fear,
  To juggling priests for oracles repair;
  One certain hour of death to each decreed,
  My fixt, my certain soul from doubt has freed.
                                                                   ROWE.


It is recorded of some eastern monarch, that he kept an officer in
his house, whose employment it was to remind him of his mortality,
by calling out every morning, at a stated hour, _Remember, prince, that
thou shalt die!_ And the contemplation of the frailness and uncertainty
of our present state appeared of so much importance to Solon of Athens,
that he left this precept to future ages; _Keep thine eye fixed upon
the end of life._

A frequent and attentive prospect of that moment, which must put a
period to all our schemes, and deprive us of all our acquisitions, is
indeed of the utmost efficacy to the just and rational regulation of
our lives; nor would ever any thing wicked, or often any thing absurd,
be undertaken or prosecuted by him who should begin every day with a
serious reflection that he is born to die.

The disturbers of our happiness, in this world, are our desires, our
griefs, and our fears; and to all these, the consideration of mortality
is a certain and adequate remedy. Think, says Epictetus, frequently on
poverty, banishment, and death, and thou wilt then never indulge violent
desires, or give up thy heart to mean sentiments, [Greek: ouden oudepote
tapeinon enthumêsê, oute agan epithumêseis tinos].

That the maxim of Epictetus is founded on just observation will easily
be granted, when we reflect, how that vehemence of eagerness after
the common objects of pursuit is kindled in our minds. We represent
to ourselves the pleasures of some future possession, and suffer our
thoughts to dwell attentively upon it, till it has wholly engrossed
the imagination, and permits us not to conceive any happiness but
its attainment, or any misery but its loss; every other satisfaction
which the bounty of Providence has scattered over life is neglected as
inconsiderable, in comparison of the great object which we have placed
before us, and is thrown from us as incumbering our activity, or trampled
under foot as standing in our way.

Every man has experienced how much of this ardour has been remitted, when
a sharp or tedious sickness has set death before his eyes. The extensive
influence of greatness, the glitter of wealth, the praises of admirers,
and the attendance of supplicants, have appeared vain and empty things,
when the last hour seemed to be approaching: and the same appearance they
would always have, if the same thought was always predominant. We should
then find the absurdity of stretching out our arms incessantly to grasp
that which we cannot keep, and wearing out our lives in endeavours to
add new turrets to the fabrick of ambition, when the foundation itself
is shaking, and the ground on which it stands is mouldering away.

All envy is proportionate to desire; we are uneasy at the attainments
of another, according as we think our own happiness would be advanced by
the addition of that which he withholds from us; and therefore whatever
depresses immoderate wishes, will, at the same time, set the heart
free from the corrosion of envy, and exempt us from that vice which is,
above most others, tormenting to ourselves, hateful to the world, and
productive of mean artifices, and sordid projects. He that considers
how soon he must close his life, will find nothing of so much importance
as to close it well; and will, therefore, look with indifference upon
whatever is useless to that purpose. Whoever reflects frequently upon the
uncertainty of his own duration, will find out, that the state of others
is not more permanent, and that what can confer nothing on himself very
desirable, cannot so much improve the condition of a rival, as to make
him much superior to those from whom he has carried the prize--a prize
too mean to deserve a very obstinate opposition.

Even grief, that passion to which the virtuous and tender mind is
particularly subject, will be obviated or alleviated by the same
thoughts. It will be obviated, if all the blessings of our condition are
enjoyed with a constant sense of this uncertain tenure. If we remember,
that whatever we possess is to be in our hands but a very little time,
and that the little which our most lively hopes can promise us may be
made less by ten thousand accidents; we shall not much repine at a loss,
of which we cannot estimate the value, but of which, though we are not
able to tell the least amount, we know, with sufficient certainty, the
greatest; and are convinced that the greatest is not much to be regretted.

But, if any passion has so much usurped our understanding, as not to
suffer us to enjoy advantages with the moderation prescribed by reason, it
is not too late to apply this remedy, when we find ourselves sinking under
sorrow, and inclined to pine for that which is irrecoverably vanished. We
may then usefully revolve the uncertainty of our own condition, and the
folly of lamenting that from which, if it had stayed a little longer,
we should ourselves have been taken away.

With regard to the sharpest and most melting sorrow, that which arises
from the loss of those whom we have loved with tenderness, it may be
observed, that friendship between mortals can be contracted on no other
terms, than that one must some time mourn for the other's death: and this
grief will always yield to the survivor one consolation proportionate
to his affliction; for the pain, whatever it be, that he himself feels,
his friend has escaped.

Nor is fear, the most overbearing and resistless of all our passions,
less to be temperated by this universal medicine of the mind. The
frequent contemplation of death, as it shews the vanity of all human
good, discovers likewise the lightness of all terrestrial evil, which
certainly can last no longer than the subject upon which it acts; and
according to the old observation, must be shorter, as it is more
violent. The most cruel calamity which misfortune can produce, must,
by the necessity of nature, be quickly an at end. The soul cannot long
be held in prison, but will fly away, and leave a lifeless body to
human malice.

  _----Ridetque sui ludibria trunci._

  And soaring mocks the broken frame below.

The utmost that we can threaten to one another is that death, which,
indeed, we may precipitate, but cannot retard, and from which, therefore,
it cannot become a wise man to buy a reprieve at the expense of virtue,
since he knows not how small a portion of time he can purchase, but
knows, that whether short or long, it will be made less valuable by the
remembrance of the price at which it has been obtained. He is sure that
he destroys his happiness, but is not sure that he lengthens his life.

The known shortness of life, as it ought to moderate our passions, may
likewise, with equal propriety, contract our designs. There is not time
for the most forcible genius, and most active industry, to extend its
effects beyond a certain sphere. To project the conquest of the world,
is the madness of mighty princes; to hope for excellence in every
science, has been the folly of literary heroes; and both have found at
last, that they have panted for a height of eminence denied to humanity,
and have lost many opportunities of making themselves useful and happy,
by a vain ambition of obtaining a species of honour, which the eternal
laws of Providence have placed beyond the reach of man.

The miscarriages of the great designs of princes are recorded in the
histories of the world, but are of little use to the bulk of mankind,
who seem very little interested in admonitions against errours which they
cannot commit. But the fate of learned ambition is a proper subject for
every scholar to consider; for who has not had occasion to regret the
dissipation of great abilities in a boundless multiplicity of pursuits,
to lament the sudden desertion of excellent designs, upon the offer of
some other subject made inviting by its novelty, and to observe the
inaccuracy and deficiencies of works left unfinished by too great an
extension of the plan?

It is always pleasing to observe, how much more our minds can conceive,
than our bodies can perform; yet it is our duty, while we continue in
this complicated state, to regulate one part of our composition by some
regard to the other. We are not to indulge our corporeal appetites with
pleasures that impair our intellectual vigour, nor gratify our minds with
schemes which we know our lives must fail in attempting to execute. The
uncertainty of our duration ought at once to set bounds to our designs,
and add incitements to our industry; and when we find ourselves inclined
either to immensity in our schemes, or sluggishness in our endeavours,
we may either check, or animate, ourselves, by recollecting, with the
father of physick, _that art is long, and life is short_.




No. 18. SATURDAY, MAY 19, 1750.


    _Illic matre carentibus,_
  _Privignis mulier temperat innocens,_
  _Nec dotata regit virum_
  _Conjux, nec nitido fidit adultero:_
    _Dos est magna parentium_
  _Virtus, et metuens alterius viri_
  _Certo foedere castitas._
                                            HOR. lib. iii. Ode xxiv. 17.

    Not there the guiltless step-dame knows
  The baleful draught for orphans to compose;
    No wife high portion'd rules her spouse,
  Or trusts her essenc'd lover's faithless vows:
    The lovers there for dow'ry claim
  The father's virtue, and the spotless fame,
    Which dares not break the nuptial tie.
                                                                FRANCIS.


There is no observation more frequently made by such as employ themselves
in surveying the conduct of mankind, than that marriage, though the
dictate of nature, and the institution of Providence, is yet very often
the cause of misery, and that those who enter into that state can seldom
forbear to express their repentance, and their envy of those whom either
chance or caution hath withheld from it.

This general unhappiness has given occasion to many sage maxims among
the serious, and smart remarks among the gay; the moralist and the
writer of epigrams have equally shewn their abilities upon it; some have
lamented, and some have ridiculed it; but as the faculty of writing has
been chiefly a masculine endowment, the reproach of making the world
miserable has been always thrown upon the women, and the grave and the
merry have equally thought themselves at liberty to conclude either
with declamatory complaints, or satirical censures, of female folly or
fickleness, ambition or cruelty, extravagance or lust.

Led by such a number of examples, and incited by my share in the common
interest, I sometimes venture to consider this universal grievance,
having endeavoured to divest my heart of all partiality, and place
myself as a kind of neutral being between the sexes, whose clamours
being equally vented on both sides with all the vehemence of distress,
all the apparent confidence of justice, and all the indignation of
injured virtue, seem entitled to equal regard. The men have, indeed,
by their superiority of writing, been able to collect the evidence
of many ages, and raise prejudices in their favour by the venerable
testimonies of philosophers, historians, and poets; but the pleas of the
ladies appeal to passions of more forcible operation than the reverence
of antiquity. If they have not so great names on their side, they have
stronger arguments: it is to little purpose that Socrates, or Euripides,
are produced against the sighs of softness, and the tears of beauty. The
most frigid and inexorable judge would at least stand suspended between
equal powers, as Lucan was perplexed in the determination of the cause,
where the deities were on one side, and Cato on the other.

But I, who have long studied the severest and most abstracted philosophy,
have now, in the cool maturity of life, arrived at such command over
my passions, that I can hear the vociferations of either sex without
catching any of the fire from those that utter them. For I have found,
by long experience, that a man will sometimes rage at his wife, when
in reality his mistress has offended him; and a lady complain of the
cruelty of her husband, when she has no other enemy than bad cards.
I do not suffer myself to be any longer imposed upon by oaths on one
side, or fits on the other; nor when the husband hastens to the tavern,
and the lady retires to her closet, am I always confident that they
are driven by their miseries; since I have sometimes reason to believe,
that they purpose not so much to soothe their sorrows, as to animate their
fury. But how little credit soever may be given to particular accusations,
the general accumulation of the charge shews, with too much evidence, that
married persons are not very often advanced in felicity; and, therefore,
it may be proper to examine at what avenues so many evils have made
their way into the world. With this purpose, I have reviewed the lives
of my friends, who have been least successful in connubial contracts,
and attentively considered by what motives they were incited to marry,
and by what principles they regulated their choice.

One of the first of my acquaintances that resolved to quit the unsettled
thoughtless condition of a bachelor, was Prudentius, a man of slow parts,
but not without knowledge or judgment in things which he had leisure
to consider gradually before he determined them. Whenever we met at a
tavern, it was his province to settle the scheme of our entertainment,
contract with the cook, and inform us when we had called for wine to the
sum originally proposed. This grave considerer found, by deep meditation,
that a man was no loser by marrying early, even though he contented
himself with a less fortune; for estimating the exact worth of annuities,
he found that considering the constant diminution of the value of life,
with the probable fall of the interest of money, it was not worse to
have ten thousand pounds at the age of two and twenty years, than a much
larger fortune at thirty; for many opportunities, says he, occur of
improving money, which if a man misses, he may not afterwards recover.

Full of these reflections, he threw his eyes about him, not in search
of beauty or elegance, dignity or understanding, but of a woman with ten
thousand pounds. Such a woman, in a wealthy part of the kingdom, it was
not very difficult to find; and by artful management with her father,
whose ambition was to make his daughter a gentlewoman, my friend got
her, as he boasted to us in confidence two days after his marriage,
for a settlement of seventy-three pounds a year less than her fortune
might have claimed, and less than he would himself have given, if the
fools had been but wise enough to delay the bargain.

Thus, at once delighted with the superiority of his parts and the
augmentation of his fortune, he carried Furia to his own house, in which
he never afterwards enjoyed one hour of happiness. For Furia was a wretch
of mean intellects, violent passions, a strong voice, and low education,
without any sense of happiness but that which consisted in eating and
counting money. Furia was a scold. They agreed in the desire of wealth,
but with this difference, that Prudentius was for growing rich by gain,
Furia by parsimony. Prudentius would venture his money with chances
very much in his favour; but Furia very wisely observing, that what
they had was, while they had it, _their own_, thought all traffick
too great a hazard, and was for putting it out at low interest,
upon good security. Prudentius ventured, however, to insure a ship
at a very unreasonable price, but happening to lose his money, was
so tormented with the clamours of his wife, that he never durst try
a second experiment. He has now grovelled seven and forty years under
Furia's direction, who never once mentioned him, since his bad luck,
by any other name than that of _the insurer_.

The next that married from our society was Florentius. He happened to
see Zephyretta in a chariot at a horse-race, danced with her at night,
was confirmed in his first ardour, waited on her next morning, and
declared himself her lover. Florentius had not knowledge enough of
the world, to distinguish between the flutter of coquetry, and the
sprightliness of wit, or between the smile of allurement, and that of
cheerfulness. He was soon awaked from his rapture, by conviction that
his pleasure was but the pleasure of a day. Zephyretta had in four and
twenty hours spent her stock of repartee, gone round the circle of her
airs, and had nothing remaining for him but childish insipidity, or for
herself, but the practice of the same artifices upon new men.

Melissus was a man of parts, capable of enjoying and of improving life.
He had passed through the various scenes of gaiety with that indifference
and possession of himself, natural to men who have something higher
and nobler in their prospect. Retiring to spend the summer in a village
little frequented, he happened to lodge in the same house with Ianthe, and
was unavoidably drawn to some acquaintance, which her wit and politeness
soon invited him to improve. Having no opportunity of any other company,
they were always together; and as they owed their pleasures to each
other, they began to forget that any pleasure was enjoyed before their
meeting. Melissus, from being delighted with her company, quickly began to
be uneasy in her absence, and being sufficiently convinced of the force
of her understanding, and finding, as he imagined, such a conformity of
temper as declared them formed for each other, addressed her as a lover,
after no very long courtship obtained her for his wife, and brought her
next winter to town in triumph.

Now began their infelicity. Melissus had only seen her in one scene,
where there was no variety of objects, to produce the proper excitements
to contrary desires. They had both loved solitude and reflection, where
there was nothing but solitude and reflection to be loved; but when
they came into publick life, Ianthe discovered those passions which
accident rather than hypocrisy had hitherto concealed. She was, indeed,
not without the power of thinking, but was wholly without the exertion
of that power when either gaiety or splendour played on her imagination.
She was expensive in her diversions, vehement in her passions, insatiate
of pleasure, however dangerous to her reputation, and eager of applause,
by whomsoever it might be given. This was the wife which Melissus the
philosopher found in his retirement, and from whom he expected an
associate in his studies, and an assistant to his virtues.

Prosapius, upon the death of his younger brother, that the family
might not be extinct, married his housekeeper, and has ever since been
complaining to his friends that mean notions are instilled into his
children, that he is ashamed to sit at his own table, and that his house
is uneasy to him for want of suitable companions.

Avaro, master of a very large estate, took a woman of bad reputation,
recommended to him by a rich uncle, who made that marriage the condition
on which he should be his heir. Avaro now wonders to perceive his own
fortune, his wife's and his uncle's, insufficient to give him that
happiness which is to be found only with a woman of virtue.

I intend to treat in more papers on this important article of life,
and shall, therefore, make no reflection upon these histories, except
that all whom I have mentioned failed to obtain happiness, for want of
considering that marriage is the strictest tie of perpetual friendship;
that there can be no friendship without confidence, and no confidence
without integrity; and that he must expect to be wretched, who pays to
beauty, riches, or politeness, that regard which only virtue and piety
can claim.




No. 19. TUESDAY, MAY 22, 1750.


  _Dum modo causidicum, dum te modo rhetora fingis,_
    _Et non decernis, Taure, quid esse velis,_
  _Peleos et Priami transit, vel Nestoris, ætas;_
    _Et fuerat serum jam tibi desinere.----_
  _Eia age, rumpe moras: quo te sperabimus usque?_
    _Dum, quid sis, dubitas, jam potes esse nihil._
                                                  MART. lib. ii. Ep. 64.

  To rhetorick now, and now to law inclin'd,
  Uncertain where to fix thy changing mind;
  Old Priam's age or Nestor's may be out,
  And thou, O Taures! still go on in doubt.
  Come then, how long such wavering shall we see?
  Thou may'st doubt on: thou now canst nothing be.
                                                               F. LEWIS.


It is never without very melancholy reflections, that we can observe
the misconduct, or miscarriage, of those men, who seem, by the force of
understanding, or extent of knowledge, exempted from the general frailties
of human nature, and privileged from the common infelicities of life.
Though the world is crowded with scenes of calamity, we look upon the
general mass of wretchedness with very little regard, and fix our eyes
upon the state of particular persons, whom the eminence of their qualities
marks out from the multitude; as in reading an account of a battle, we
seldom reflect on the vulgar heaps of slaughter, but follow the hero
with our whole attention, through all the varieties of his fortune,
without a thought of the thousands that are falling round him.

With the same kind of anxious veneration I have for many years been making
observations on the life of Polyphilus, a man whom all his acquaintances
have, from his first appearance in the world, feared for the quickness
of his discernment, and admired for the multiplicity of his attainments,
but whose progress in life, and usefulness to mankind, has been hindered
by the superfluity of his knowledge, and the celerity of his mind.

Polyphilus was remarkable, at the school, for surpassing all his
companions, without any visible application, and at the university was
distinguished equally for his successful progress as well through the
thorny mazes of science, as the flowery path of politer literature,
without any strict confinement to hours of study, or remarkable
forbearance of the common amusements of young men.

When Polyphilus was at the age in which men usually choose their
profession, and prepare to enter into a publick character, every
academical eye was fixed upon him; all were curious to inquire what
this universal genius would fix upon for the employment of his life;
and no doubt was made but that he would leave all his contemporaries
behind him, and mount to the highest honours of that class in which
he should inlist himself, without those delays and pauses which must be
endured by meaner abilities.

Polyphilus, though by no means insolent or assuming, had been sufficiently
encouraged, by uninterrupted success, to place great confidence in his own
parts; and was not below his companions in the indulgence of his hopes,
and expectations of the astonishment with which the world would be struck,
when first his lustre should break out upon it; nor could he forbear
(for whom does not constant flattery intoxicate?) to join sometimes in
the mirth of his friends, at the sudden disappearance of those, who,
having shone a while, and drawn the eyes of the publick upon their
feeble radiance, were now doomed to fade away before him.

It is natural for a man to catch advantageous notions of the condition
which those with whom he converses are striving to attain. Polyphilus,
in a ramble to London, fell accidentally among the physicians, and
was so much pleased with the prospect of turning philosophy to profit,
and so highly delighted with a new theory of fevers which darted into
his imagination, and which, after having considered it a few hours,
he found himself able to maintain against all the advocates for the
ancient system, that he resolved to apply himself to anatomy, botany,
and chemistry, and to leave no part unconquered, either of the animal,
mineral, or vegetable kingdoms.

He therefore read authors, constructed systems, and tried experiments;
but, unhappily, as he was going to see a new plant in flower at Chelsea,
he met, in crossing Westminster to take water, the chancellor's coach;
he had the curiosity to follow him into the hall, where a remarkable
cause happened to be tried, and found himself able to produce so many
arguments, which the lawyers had omitted on both sides, that he determined
to quit physic for a profession in which he found it would be so easy to
excel, and which promised higher honours, and larger profits, without
melancholy attendance upon misery, mean submission to peevishness,
and continual interruption of rest and pleasure.

He immediately took chambers in the Temple, bought a common-place book,
and confined himself for some months to the perusal of the statutes,
year-books, pleadings, and reports; he was a constant hearer of the
courts, and began to put cases with reasonable accuracy. But he soon
discovered, by considering the fortune of lawyers, that preferment was
not to be got by acuteness, learning, and eloquence. He was perplexed by
the absurdities of attorneys, and misrepresentations made by his clients
of their own causes, by the useless anxiety of one, and the incessant
importunity of another; he began to repent of having devoted himself to a
study, which was so narrow in its comprehension that it could never carry
his name to any other country, and thought it unworthy of a man of parts
to sell his life only for money. The barrenness of his fellow-students
forced him generally into other company at his hours of entertainment,
and among the varieties of conversation through which his curiosity was
daily wandering, he, by chance, mingled at a tavern with some intelligent
officers of the army. A man of letters was easily dazzled with the
gaiety of their appearance, and softened into kindness by the politeness
of their address; he, therefore, cultivated this new acquaintance, and
when he saw how readily they found in every place admission and regard,
and how familiarly they mingled with every rank and order of men, he
began to feel his heart beat for military honours, and wondered how the
prejudices of the university should make him so long insensible of that
ambition, which has fired so many hearts in every age, and negligent
of that calling, which is, above all others, universally and invariably
illustrious, and which gives, even to the exterior appearance of its
professors, a dignity and freedom unknown to the rest of mankind.

These favourable impressions were made still deeper by his conversation
with ladies, whose regard for soldiers he could not observe, without
wishing himself one of that happy fraternity, to which the female
world seem to have devoted their charms and their kindness. The love of
knowledge, which was still his predominant inclination, was gratified
by the recital of adventures, and accounts of foreign countries; and
therefore he concluded that there was no way of life in which all his
views could so completely concentre as in that of a soldier. In the art of
war he thought it not difficult to excel, having observed his new friends
not very much versed in the principles of tacticks or fortification;
he therefore studied all the military writers both ancient and modern,
and, in a short time, could tell how to have gained every remarkable
battle that has been lost from the beginning of the world. He often
shewed at table how Alexander should have been checked in his conquests,
what was the fatal errour at Pharsalia, how Charles of Sweden might
have escaped his ruin at Pultowa, and Marlborough might have been made
to repent his temerity at Blenheim. He entrenched armies upon paper so
that no superiority of numbers could force them, and modelled in clay
many impregnable fortresses, on which all the present arts of attack
would be exhausted without effect.

Polyphilus, in a short time, obtained a commission; but before he could
rub off the solemnity of a scholar, and gain the true air of military
vivacity, a war was declared, and forces sent to the continent. Here
Polyphilus unhappily found that study alone would not make a soldier; for
being much accustomed to think, he let the sense of danger sink into
his mind, and felt at the approach of any action, that terrour which
a sentence of death would have brought upon him. He saw that, instead
of conquering their fears, the endeavour of his gay friends was only
to escape them; but his philosophy chained his mind to its object,
and rather loaded him with shackles than furnished him with arms. He,
however, suppressed his misery in silence, and passed through the campaign
with honour, but found himself utterly unable to support another.

He then had recourse again to his books, and continued to range from one
study to another. As I usually visit him once a month, and am admitted
to him without previous notice, I have found him within this last half
year, decyphering the Chinese language, making a farce, collecting a
vocabulary of the obsolete terms of the English law, writing an inquiry
concerning the ancient Corinthian brass, and forming a new scheme of
the variations of the needle.

Thus is this powerful genius, which might have extended the sphere of
any science, or benefited the world in any profession, dissipated in a
boundless variety, without profit to others or himself! He makes sudden
irruptions into the regions of knowledge, and sees all obstacles give
way before him; but he never stays long enough to complete his conquest,
to establish laws, or bring away the spoils.

Such is often the folly of men, whom nature has enabled to obtain skill
and knowledge, on terms so easy, that they have no sense of the value
of the acquisition; they are qualified to make such speedy progress in
learning, that they think themselves at liberty to loiter in the way,
and by turning aside after every new object, lose the race, like Atalanta,
to slower competitors, who press diligently forward, and whose force is
directed to a single point.

I have often thought those happy that have been fixed, from the first
dawn of thought, in a determination to some state of life, by the choice
of one whose authority may caprice, and whose influence may prejudice them
in favour of his opinion. The general precept of consulting the genius
is of little use, unless we are told how the genius can be known. If
it is to be discovered only by experiment, life will be lost before the
resolution can be fixed; if any other indications are to be found, they
may, perhaps, be very early discerned. At least, if to miscarry in an
attempt be a proof of having mistaken the direction of the genius, men
appear not less frequently deceived with regard to themselves than to
others; and therefore no one has much reason to complain that his life
was planned out by his friends, or to be confident that he should have
had either more honour or happiness, by being abandoned to the chance
of his own fancy.

It was said of the learned bishop Sanderson, that when he was preparing
his lectures, he hesitated so much, and rejected so often, that, at the
time of reading, he was often forced to produce, not what was best, but
what happened to be at hand. This will be the state of every man, who,
in the choice of his employment, balances all the arguments on every side;
the complication is so intricate, the motives and objections so numerous,
there is so much play for the imagination, and so much remains in the
power of others, that reason is forced at last to rest in neutrality,
the decision devolves into the hands of chance, and after a great part
of life spent in inquiries which can never be resolved, the rest must
often pass in repenting the unnecessary delay, and can be useful to few
other purposes than to warn others against the same folly, and to shew,
that of two states of life equally consistent with religion and virtue,
he who chooses earliest chooses best.




No. 20. SATURDAY, MAY 26, 1750.


  _Ad populum phaleras. Ego te intus, et in cute novi._
                                                  PERSIUS, Sat. iii. 30.

  Such pageantry be to the people shown;
  There boast thy horse's trappings and thy own;
  I know thee to thy bottom, from within
  Thy shallow centre, to thy utmost skin.
                                                                 DRYDEN.


Among the numerous stratagems, by which pride endeavours to recommend
folly to regard, there is scarcely one that meets with less success
than affectation, or a perpetual disguise of the real character, by
fictitious appearances; whether it be, that every man hates falsehood,
from the natural congruity of truth to his faculties of reason, or that
every man is jealous of the honour of his understanding, and thinks
his discernment consequently called in question, whenever any thing is
exhibited under a borrowed form.

This aversion from all kinds of disguise, whatever be its cause, is
universally diffused, and incessantly in action; nor is it necessary,
that to exasperate detestation, or excite contempt, any interest should
be invaded, or any competition attempted; it is sufficient, that there
is an intention to deceive, an intention which every heart swells to
oppose, and every tongue is busy to detect.

This reflection was awakened in my mind by a very common practice among
my correspondents, of writing under characters which they cannot support,
which are of no use to the explanation or enforcement of that which they
describe or recommend; and which, therefore, since they assume them only
for the sake of displaying their abilities, I will advise them for the
future to forbear, as laborious without advantage.

It is almost a general ambition of those who favour me with their advice
for the regulation of my conduct, or their contribution for the assistance
of my understanding, to affect the style and the names of ladies. And
I cannot always withhold some expression of anger, like Sir Hugh in
the comedy, when I happen to find that a woman has a beard. I must
therefore warn the gentle Phyllis, that she send me no more letters
from the Horse Guards; and require of Belinda, that she be content to
resign her pretentions to female elegance, till she has lived three weeks
without hearing the politicks of Batson's coffee-house. I must indulge
myself in the liberty of observation, that there were some allusions in
Chloris's production, sufficient to shew that Bracton and Plowden are
her favourite authors; and that Euphelia has not been long enough at
home, to wear out all the traces of phraseology, which she learned in
the expedition to Carthagena.

Among all my female friends, there was none who gave me more trouble to
decypher her true character, than Penthesilea, whose letter lay upon my
desk three days before I could fix upon the real writer. There was a
confusion of images, and medley of barbarity, which held me long in
suspense; till by perseverance I disentangled the perplexity, and found
that Penthesilea is the son of a wealthy stock-jobber, who spends his
morning under his father's eye in Change-Alley, dines at a tavern in
Covent-Garden, passes his evening in the play-house, and part of the
night at a gaming-table, and having learned the dialects of these
various regions, has mingled them all in a studied composition.

When Lee was once told by a critick, that it was very easy to write like
a madman, he answered, that it was difficult to write like a madman, but
easy enough to write like a fool; and I hope to be excused by my kind
contributors, if, in imitation of this great author, I presume to remind
them, that it is much easier not to write like a man, than to write like
a woman.

I have, indeed, some ingenious well-wishers, who, without departing from
their sex, have found very wonderful appellations. A very smart letter
has been sent me from a puny ensign, signed Ajax Telamonius; another, in
recommendation of a new treatise upon cards, from a gamester, who calls
himself Sesostris: and another upon the improvements of the fishery,
from Dioclesian: but as these seem only to have picked up their
appellations by chance, without endeavouring at any particular
imposture, their improprieties are rather instances of blunder than of
affectation, and are, therefore, not equally fitted to inflame the
hostile passions; for it is not folly but pride, not errour but deceit,
which the world means to persecute, when it raises the full cry of
nature to hunt down affectation.

The hatred which dissimulation always draws upon itself, is so great,
that if I did not know how much cunning differs from wisdom, I should
wonder that any men have so little knowledge of their own interest, as
to aspire to wear a mask for life; to try to impose upon the world a
character, to which they feel themselves void of any just claim; and
to hazard their quiet, their fame and even their profit, by exposing
themselves to the danger of that reproach, malevolence, and neglect,
which such a discovery as they have always to fear will certainly bring
upon them.

It might be imagined, that the pleasure of reputation should consist in
the satisfaction of having our opinion of our merit confirmed by the
suffrage of the publick; and that, to be extolled for a quality, which
a man knows himself to want, should give him no other happiness than
to be mistaken for the owner of an estate, over which he chances to
be travelling. But he who subsists upon affectation, knows nothing of
this delicacy; like a desperate adventurer in commerce, he takes up
reputation upon trust, mortgages possessions which he never had, and
enjoys, to the fatal hour of bankruptcy, though with a thousand terrours
and anxieties, the unnecessary splendour of borrowed riches.

Affectation is to be always distinguished from hypocrisy, as being the
art of counterfeiting those qualities which we might, with innocence and
safety, be known, to want. Thus the man who to carry on any fraud, or to
conceal any crime, pretends to rigours of devotion, and exactness of life,
is guilty of hypocrisy; and his guilt is greater, as the end, for which
he puts on the false appearance, is more pernicious. But he that,
with an awkward address, and unpleasing countenance, boasts of the
conquests made by him among the ladies, and counts over the thousands
which he might have possessed if he would have submitted to the yoke
of matrimony, is chargeable only with affectation. Hypocrisy is the
necessary burthen of villany, affectation part of the chosen trappings
of folly; the one completes a villain, the other only finishes a fop.
Contempt is the proper punishment of affectation, and detestation the
just consequence of hypocrisy.

With the hypocrite it is not at present my intention to expostulate,
though even he might be taught the excellency of virtue, by the necessity
of seeming to be virtuous; but the man of affectation may, perhaps,
be reclaimed, by finding how little he is likely to gain by perpetual
constraint, and incessant vigilance, and how much more securely he
might make his way to esteem, by cultivating real, than displaying
counterfeit qualities.

Every thing future is to be estimated, by a wise man, in proportion
to the probability of attaining it and its value, when attained; and
neither of these considerations will much contribute to the encouragement
of affectation. For, if the pinnacles of fame be at best slippery,
how unsteady must his footing be who stands upon pinnacles without
foundation! If praise be made by the inconstancy and maliciousness of
those who must confer it, a blessing which no man can promise himself
from the most conspicuous merit and vigorous industry, how faint must
be the hope of gaining it, when the uncertainty is multiplied by the
weakness of the pretensions! He that pursues fame with just claims,
trusts his happiness to the winds; but he that endeavours after it by
false merit, has to fear, not only the violence of the storm, but the
leaks of his vessel. Though he should happen to keep above water for a
time, by the help of a soft breeze, and a calm sea, at the first gust
he must inevitably founder, with this melancholy reflection, that, if he
would have been content with his natural station, he might have escaped
his calamity. Affectation may possibly succeed for a time, and a man may,
by great attention, persuade others, that he really has the qualities
which he presumes to boast; but the hour will come when he should exert
them, and then whatever he enjoyed in praise, he must suffer in reproach.

Applause and admiration are by no means to be counted among the
necessaries of life, and therefore any indirect arts to obtain them
have very little claim to pardon or compassion. There is scarcely any
man without some valuable or improveable qualities, by which he might
always secure himself from contempt. And perhaps exemption from ignominy
is the most eligible reputation, as freedom from pain is, among some
philosophers, the definition of happiness.

If we therefore compare the value of the praise obtained by fictitious
excellence, even while the cheat is yet undiscovered, with that kindness
which every man may suit by his virtue, and that esteem to which most
men may rise by common understanding steadily and honestly applied, we
shall find that when from the adscititious happiness all the deductions
are made by fear and casualty, there will remain nothing equiponderant to
the security of truth. The state of the possessor of humble virtues, to
the affecter of great excellencies, is that of a small cottage of stone,
to the palace raised with ice by the empress of Russia; it was for a
time splendid and luminous, but the first sunshine melted it to nothing.




No. 21. TUESDAY, MAY 29, 1750.


  _Terra salutares herbas, eademque nocentes,_
  _Nutrit; et urticæ proxima sæpe rosa est._
                                                    OVID, Rem. Amor. 45.

  Our bane and physick the same earth bestows,
  And near the noisome nettle blooms the rose.


Every man is prompted by the love of himself to imagine, that he
possesses some qualities, superior, either in kind or in degree, to
those which he sees allotted to the rest of the world; and, whatever
apparent disadvantages he may suffer in the comparison with others,
he has some invisible distinctions, some latent reserve of excellence,
which he throws into the balance, and by which he generally fancies
that it is turned in his favour.

The studious and speculative part of mankind always seem to consider
their fraternity as placed in a state of opposition to those who are
engaged in the tumult of publick business; and have pleased themselves,
from age to age, with celebrating the felicity of their own condition,
and with recounting the perplexity of politicks, the dangers of greatness,
the anxieties of ambition, and the miseries of riches.

Among the numerous topicks of declamation, that their industry has
discovered on this subject, there is none which they press with greater
efforts, or on which they have more copiously laid out their reason
and their imagination, than the instability of high stations, and the
uncertainty with which the profits and honours are possessed, that must
be acquired with so much hazard, vigilance, and labour.

This they appear to consider as an irrefragable argument against the
choice of the statesman and the warriour; and swell with confidence of
victory, thus furnished by the muses with the arms which never can be
blunted, and which no art or strength of their adversaries can elude
or resist.

It was well known by experience to the nations which employed elephants
in war, that though by the terrour of their bulk, and the violence of
their impression, they often threw the enemy into disorder, yet there was
always danger in the use of them, very nearly equivalent to the advantage;
for if their first charge could be supported, they were easily driven
back upon their confederates; they then broke through the troops behind
them, and made no less havock in the precipitation of their retreat,
than in the fury of their onset.

I know not whether those who have so vehemently urged the inconveniencies
and danger of an active life, have not made use of arguments that may
be retorted with equal force upon themselves; and whether the happiness
of a candidate for literary fame be not subject to the same uncertainty
with that of him who governs provinces, commands armies, presides in
the senate, or dictates in the cabinet.

That eminence of learning is not to be gained without labour, at least
equal to that which any other kind of greatness can require, will
be allowed by those who wish to elevate the character of a scholar;
since they cannot but know, that every human acquisition is valuable in
proportion to the difficulty employed in its attainment. And that those
who have gained the esteem and veneration of the world, by their knowledge
or their genius, are by no means exempt from the solicitude which any
other kind of dignity produces, may be conjectured from the innumerable
artifices which they make use of to degrade a superior, to repress a
rival, or obstruct a follower; artifices so gross and mean, as to prove
evidently how much a man may excel in learning, without being either more
wise or more virtuous than those whose ignorance he pities or despises.

Nothing therefore remains, by which the student can gratify his desire
of appearing to have built his happiness on a more firm basis than his
antagonist, except the certainty with which his honours are enjoyed.
The garlands gained by the heroes of literature must be gathered from
summits equally difficult to climb with those that bear the civick or
triumphal wreaths, they must be worn with equal envy, and guarded with
equal care from those hands that are always employed in efforts to tear
them away; the only remaining hope is, that their verdure is more lasting,
and that they are less likely to fade by time, or less obnoxious to the
blasts of accident.

Even this hope will receive very little encouragement from the examination
of the history of learning, or observation of the fate of scholars in
the present age. If we look back into past times, we find innumerable
names of authors once in high reputation, read perhaps by the beautiful,
quoted by the witty, and commented on by the grave; but of whom we now
know only that they once existed. If we consider the distribution of
literary fame in our own time, we shall find it a possession of very
uncertain tenure; sometimes bestowed by a sudden caprice of the publick,
and again transferred to a new favourite, for no other reason than that
he is new; sometimes refused to long labour and eminent desert, and
sometimes granted to very slight pretensions; lost sometimes by security
and negligence, and sometimes by too diligent endeavours to retain it.

A successful author is equally in danger of the diminution of his fame,
whether he continues or ceases to write. The regard of the publick
is not to be kept but by tribute, and the remembrance of past service
will quickly languish, unless successive performances frequently revive
it. Yet in every new attempt there is new hazard, and there are few who
do not at some unlucky time, injure their own characters by attempting
to enlarge them.

There are many possible causes of that inequality which we may so
frequently observe in the performances of the same man, from the influence
of which no ability or industry is sufficiently secured, and which have
so often sullied the splendour of genius, that the wit, as well as the
conqueror, may be properly cautioned not to indulge his pride with too
early triumphs, but to defer to the end of life his estimate of happiness.

  _------Ultima semper_
  _Expectanda dies homini, dicique beatus_
  _Ante obitum nemo supremaque funera debet._
                                                    OVID, Met. iii. 135.

  But no frail man, however great or high,
  Can be concluded blest before he die.
                                                                ADDISON.

Among the motives that urge an author to undertakings by which his
reputation is impaired, one of the most frequent must be mentioned
with tenderness, because it is not to be counted among his follies,
but his miseries. It very often happens that the works of learning
or of wit are performed at the direction of those by whom they are
to be rewarded; the writer has not always the choice of his subject,
but is compelled to accept any task which is thrown before him without
much consideration of his own convenience, and without time to prepare
himself by previous studies.

Miscarriages of this kind are likewise frequently the consequence of
that acquaintance with the great, which is generally considered as
one of the chief privileges of literature and genius. A man who has
once learned to think himself exalted by familiarity with those whom
nothing but their birth, or their fortunes, or such stations as are
seldom gained by moral excellence, set above him, will not be long
without submitting his understanding to their conduct; he will suffer
them to prescribe the course of his studies, and employ him for their
own purposes either of diversion or interest, His desire of pleasing
those whose favour he has weakly made necessary to himself, will not
suffer him always to consider how little he is qualified for the work
imposed. Either his vanity will tempt him to conceal his deficiencies,
or that cowardice, which always encroaches fast upon such as spend their
lives in the company of persons higher than themselves, will not leave
him resolution to assert the liberty of choice.

But, though we suppose that a man by his fortune can avoid the necessity
of dependance, and by his spirit can repel the usurpations of patronage,
yet he may easily, by writing long, happen to write ill. There is
a general succession of events in which contraries are produced by
periodical vicissitudes; labour and care are rewarded with success,
success produces confidence, confidence relaxes industry, and negligence
ruins that reputation which accuracy had raised.

He that happens not to be lulled by praise into supineness, may be
animated by it to undertakings above his strength, or incited to fancy
himself alike qualified for every kind of composition, and able to
comply with the publick taste through all its variations. By some
opinion like this, many men have been engaged, at an advanced age, in
attempts which they had not time to complete, and after a few weak
efforts, sunk into the grave with vexation to see the rising generation
gain ground upon them. From these failures the highest genius is not
exempt; that judgment which appears so penetrating, when it is employed
upon the works of others, very often fails where interest or passion can
exert their power. We are blinded in examining our own labours by
innumerable prejudices. Our juvenile compositions please us, because
they bring to our minds the remembrance of youth; our later performances
we are ready to esteem, because we are unwilling to think that we have
made no improvement; what flows easily from the pen charms us, because
we read with pleasure that which flatters our opinion of our own powers;
what was composed with great struggles of the mind we do not easily
reject, because we cannot bear that so much labour should be fruitless.
But the reader has none of these prepossessions, and wonders that the
author is so unlike himself, without considering that the same soil
will, with different culture, afford different products.




No. 22. SATURDAY, JUNE 2, 1750.


  _----Ego nec studium sine divite venû,_
  _Nec rude quid prosit video ingenium; alterius sic_
  _Altera poscit opem res, et conjurat amice._
                                                    HOR. Ars. Poet. 409.

  Without a genius learning soars in vain;
  And without learning genius sinks again;
  Their force united crowns the sprightly reign.
                                                             ELPHINSTON.


Wit and Learning were the children of Apollo, by different mothers; Wit
was the offspring of Euphrosyne, and resembled her in cheerfulness and
vivacity; Learning was born of Sophia, and retained her seriousness and
caution. As their mothers were rivals, they were bred up by them from
their birth in habitual opposition, and all means were so incessantly
employed to impress upon them a hatred and contempt of each other, that
though Apollo, who foresaw the ill effects of their discord, endeavoured
to soften them, by dividing his regard equally between them, yet his
impartiality and kindness were without effect; the maternal animosity
was deeply rooted, having been intermingled with their first ideas, and
was confirmed every hour, as fresh opportunities occurred of exerting
it. No sooner were they of age to be received into the apartments of
the other celestials, than Wit began to entertain Venus at her toilet,
by aping the solemnity of Learning, and Learning to divert Minerva at
her loom, by exposing the blunders and ignorance of Wit.

Thus they grew up, with malice perpetually increasing, by the
encouragement which each received from those whom their mothers had
persuaded to patronize and support them; and longed to be admitted to
the table of Jupiter, not so much for the hope of gaining honour, as of
excluding a rival from all pretensions to regard, and of putting an
everlasting stop to the progress of that influence which either believed
the other to have obtained by mean arts and false appearances.

At last the day came, when they were both, with the usual solemnities,
received into the class of superior deities, and allowed to take nectar
from the hand of Hebe. But from that hour Concord lost her authority at
the table of Jupiter. The rivals, animated by their new dignity, and
incited by the alternate applauses of the associate powers, harassed
each other by incessant contests, with such a regular vicissitude of
victory, that neither was depressed.

It was observable, that, at the beginning of every debate, the
advantage was on the side of Wit; and that, at the first sallies,
the whole assembly sparkled, according to Homer's expression, with
unextinguishable merriment. But Learning would reserve her strength till
the burst of applause was over, and the languor with which the violence
of joy is always succeeded, began to promise more calm and patient
attention. She then attempted her defence, and, by comparing one part
of her antagonist's objections with another, commonly made him confute
himself; or, by shewing how small a part of the question he had taken
into his view, proved that his opinion could have no weight. The audience
began gradually to lay aside their prepossessions, and rose, at last,
with great veneration for Learning, but with greater kindness for Wit.


Their conduct was, whenever they desired to recommend themselves to
distinction, entirely opposite. Wit was daring and adventurous; Learning
cautious and deliberate. Wit thought nothing reproachful but dulness;
Learning was afraid of no imputation but that of errour. Wit answered
before he understood, lest his quickness of apprehension should be
questioned; Learning paused, where there was no difficulty, lest any
insidious sophism should lie undiscovered. Wit perplexed every debate
by rapidity and confusion; Learning tired the hearers with endless
distinctions, and prolonged the dispute without advantage, by proving
that which never was denied. Wit, in hopes of shining, would venture
to produce what he had not considered, and often succeeded beyond his
own expectation, by following the train of a lucky thought; learning would
reject every new notion, for fear of being entangled in consequences
which she could not foresee, and was often hindered, by her caution,
from pressing her advantages, and subduing her opponent.

Both had prejudices, which, in some degree, hindered their progress
towards perfection, and left them open to attacks. Novelty was the
darling of wit, and antiquity of learning. To wit, all that was new was
specious; to learning, whatever was ancient was venerable. Wit, however,
seldom failed to divert those whom he could not convince, and to
convince was not often his ambition; learning always supported her
opinion with so many collateral truths, that, when the cause was decided
against her, her arguments were remembered with admiration.

Nothing was more common, on either side, than to quit their proper
characters, and to hope for a complete conquest by the use of the
weapons which had been employed against them. Wit would sometimes
labour a syllogism, and learning distort her features with a jest; but
they always suffered by the experiment, and betrayed themselves to
confutation or contempt. The seriousness of wit was without dignity,
and the merriment of learning without vivacity.


Their contests, by long continuance, grew at last important, and the
divinities broke into parties. Wit was taken into protection of the
laughter-loving Venus, had a retinue allowed him of smiles and jests, and
was often permitted to dance among the graces. Learning still continued
the favourite of Minerva, and seldom went out of her palace without
a train of the severer virtues, chastity, temperance, fortitude, and
labour. Wit, cohabiting with malice, had a son named satire, who followed
him, carrying a quiver filled with poisoned arrows, which, where they
once drew blood, could by no skill ever be extracted. These arrows he
frequently shot at learning, when she was most earnestly or usefully
employed, engaged in abstruse inquiries, or giving instructions to her
followers. Minerva, therefore, deputed criticism to her aid, who generally
broke the point of satire's arrows, turned them aside, or retorted them
on himself.

Jupiter was at last angry that the peace of the heavenly regions should
be in perpetual danger of violation, and resolved to dismiss these
troublesome antagonists to the lower world. Hither, therefore, they came,
and carried on their ancient quarrel among mortals, nor was either long
without zealous votaries. Wit, by his gaiety, captivated the young;
and learning, by her authority, influenced the old. Their power quickly
appeared by very eminent effects; theatres were built for the reception
of wit, and colleges endowed for the residence of learning. Each party
endeavoured to outvie the other in cost and magnificence, and to propagate
an opinion, that it was necessary, from the first entrance into life,
to enlist in one of the factions; and that none could hope for the regard
of either divinity, who had once entered the temple of the rival power.

There were, indeed, a class of mortals, by whom wit and learning
were equally disregarded: these were the devotees of Plutus, the god
of riches; among these it seldom happened that the gaiety of wit could
raise a smile, or the eloquence of learning procure attention. In revenge
of this contempt they agreed to incite their followers against them;
but the forces that were sent on those expeditions frequently betrayed
their trust; and, in contempt of the orders which they had received,
flattered the rich in publick, while they scorned them in their hearts;
and when, by this treachery, they had obtained the favour of Plutus,
affected to look with an air of superiority on those who still remained
in the service of wit and learning.

Disgusted with these desertions, the two rivals, at the same time,
petitioned Jupiter for readmission to their native habitations. Jupiter
thundered on the right hand, and they prepared to obey the happy
summons. Wit readily spread his wings and soared aloft, but not being
able to see far, was bewildered in the pathless immensity of the ethereal
spaces. Learning, who knew the way, shook her pinions; but for want of
natural vigour could only take short flights: so, after many efforts,
they both sunk again to the ground, and learned, from their mutual
distress, the necessity of union. They therefore joined their hands,
and renewed their flight: Learning was borne up by the vigour of Wit,
and Wit guided by the perspicacity of Learning. They soon reached the
dwellings of Jupiter, and were so endeared to each other, that they lived
afterwards in perpetual concord. Wit persuaded Learning to converse with
the Graces, and Learning engaged Wit in the service of the Virtues. They
were now the favourites of all the powers of heaven, and gladdened every
banquet by their presence. They soon after married, at the command of
Jupiter, and had a numerous progeny of Arts and Sciences.




No. 23. TUESDAY, JUNE 5, 1750.


  _Tres mihi convivæ prope dissentire videntur;_
  _Poscentur vario multum diversa palato._
                                               HOR. lib. ii. Ep. ii. 61.

  Three guests I have, dissenting at my feast,
  Requiring each to gratify his taste
  With different food.
                                                                FRANCIS.


That every man should regulate his actions by his own conscience, without
any regard to the opinions of the rest of the world, is one of the first
precepts of moral prudence; justified not only by the suffrage of reason,
which declares that none of the gifts of heaven are to lie useless, but
by the voice likewise of experience, which will soon inform us that,
if we make the praise or blame of others the rule of our conduct, we
shall be distracted by a boundless variety of irreconcileable judgments,
be held in perpetual suspense between contrary impulses, and consult
for ever without determination.

I know not whether, for the same reason, it is not necessary for an
author to place some confidence in his own skill, and to satisfy himself
in the knowledge that he has not deviated from the established laws of
composition, without submitting his works to frequent examinations
before he gives them to the publick, or endeavouring to secure success
by a solicitous conformity to advice and criticism.

It is, indeed, quickly discoverable, that consultation and compliance
can conduce little to the perfection of any literary performance;
for whoever is so doubtful of his own abilities as to encourage the
remarks of others, will find himself every day embarrassed with new
difficulties, and will harass his mind, in vain, with the hopeless
labour of uniting heterogeneous ideas, digesting independent hints, and
collecting into one point the several rays of borrowed light, emitted
often with contrary directions.

Of all authors, those who retail their labours in periodical sheets
would be most unhappy, if they were much to regard the censures or the
admonitions of their readers; for, as their works are not sent into the
world at once, but by small parts in gradual succession, it is always
imagined, by those who think themselves qualified to give instructions,
that they may yet redeem their former failings by hearkening to better
judges, and supply the deficiencies of their plan, by the help of the
criticisms which are so liberally afforded.

I have had occasion to observe, sometimes with vexation, and sometimes
with merriment, the different temper with which the same man reads a
printed and manuscript performance. When a book is once in the hands
of the publick, it is considered as permanent and unalterable; and the
reader, if he be free from personal prejudices, takes it up with no
other intention than of pleasing or instructing himself: he accommodates
his mind to the author's design; and, having no interest in refusing the
amusement that is offered him, never interrupts his own tranquillity by
studied cavils, or destroys his satisfaction in that which is already
well, by an anxious inquiry how it might be better; but is often
contented without pleasure, and pleased without perfection.

But if the same man be called to consider the merit of a production yet
unpublished, he brings an imagination heated with objections to passages
which he has yet never heard; he invokes all the powers of criticism,
and stores his memory with Taste and Grace, Purity and Delicacy, Manners
and Unities, sounds which, having been once uttered by those that
understood them, have been since reechoed without meaning, and kept up
to the disturbance of the world, by a constant repercussion from one
coxcomb to another. He considers himself as obliged to shew, by some
proof of his abilities, that he is not consulted to no purpose, and
therefore watches every opening for objection, and looks round for every
opportunity to propose some specious alteration. Such opportunities a
very small degree of sagacity will enable him to find; for, in every
work of imagination, the disposition of parts, the insertion of
incidents, and use of decorations, may be varied a thousand ways with
equal propríety; and as in things nearly equal, that will always seem
best to every man which he himself produces; the critick, whose business
is only to propose, without the care of execution, can never want
the satisfaction of believing that he has suggested very important
improvements, nor the power of enforcing his advice by arguments, which,
as they appear convincing to himself, either his kindness or his vanity
will press obstinately and importunately, without suspicion that he may
possibly judge too hastily in favour of his own advice, or inquiry
whether the advantage of the new scheme be proportionate to the labour.

It is observed by the younger Pliny, that an orator ought not so much to
select the strongest arguments which his cause admits, as to employ all
which his imagination can afford: for, in pleading, those reasons are of
most value, which will most affect the judges; and the judges, says he,
will be always most touched with that which they had before conceived.
Every man who is called to give his opinion of a performance, decides
upon the same principle; he first suffers himself to form expectations,
and then is angry at his disappointment. He lets his imagination rove at
large, and wonders that another, equally unconfined in the boundless
ocean of possibility, takes a different course.

But, though the rule of Pliny be judiciously laid down, it is not
applicable to the writer's cause, because there always lies an appeal
from domestick criticism to a higher judicature, and the publick, which
is never corrupted, nor often deceived, is to pass the last sentence
upon literary claims.

Of the great force of preconceived opinions I had many proofs, when
I first entered upon this weekly labour. My readers having, from the
performances of my predecessors, established an idea of unconnected
essays, to which they believed all future authors under a necessity of
conforming, were impatient of the least deviation from their system, and
numerous remonstrances were accordingly made by each, as he found his
favourite subject omitted or delayed. Some were angry that the Rambler
did not, like the Spectator, introduce himself to the acquaintance of
the publick, by an account of his own birth and studies, an enumeration
of his adventures, and a description of his physiognomy. Others soon
began to remark that he was a solemn, serious, dictatorial writer,
without sprightliness or gaiety, and called out with vehemence for mirth
and humour. Another admonished him to have a special eye upon the
various clubs of this great city, and informed him that much of the
Spectator's vivacity was laid out upon such assemblies. He has been
censured for not imitating the politeness of his predecessors, having
hitherto neglected to take the ladies under his protection, and give
them rules for the just opposition of colours, and the proper dimensions
of ruffles and pinners. He has been required by one to fix a particular
censure upon those matrons who play at cards with spectacles: and
another is very much offended whenever he meets with a speculation in
which naked precepts are comprised without the illustration of examples
and characters.

I make not the least question that all these monitors intend the
promotion of my design, and the instruction of my readers; but they
do not know, or do not reflect, that an author has a rule of choice
peculiar to himself; and selects those subjects which he is best
qualified to treat, by the course of his studies, or the accidents of
his life; that some topicks of amusement have been already treated with
too much success to invite a competition; and that he who endeavours
to gain many readers must try various arts of invitation, essay every
avenue of pleasure, and make frequent changes in his methods of
approach.

I cannot but consider myself, amidst this tumult of criticism, as a
ship in a poetical tempest, impelled at the same time by opposite
winds, and dashed by the waves from every quarter, but held upright
by the contrariety of the assailants, and secured in some measure
by multiplicity of distress. Had the opinion of my censurers been
unanimous, it might perhaps have overset my resolution; but since I find
them at variance with each other, I can, without scruple, neglect them,
and endeavour to gain the favour of the publick by following the
direction of my own reason, and indulging the sallies of my own
imagination.





No. 24. SATURDAY, JUNE 9, 1750.


  _Nemo in sese tentat descendere._
                                                   PERSIUS, Sat. iv. 23.

  None, none descends into himself.
                                                                 DRYDEN.


Among the precepts, or aphorisms, admitted by general consent, and
inculcated by frequent repetition, there is none more famous among the
masters of ancient wisdom, than that compendious lesson, [Greek: Gnôthi
seauton], _Be acquainted with thyself_; ascribed by some to an oracle,
and by others to Chilo of Lacedæmon.

This is, indeed, a dictate, which, in the whole extent of its meaning,
may be said to comprise all the speculation requisite to a moral agent.
For what more can be necessary to the regulation of life, than the
knowledge of our original, our end, our duties, and our relation to
other beings?

It is however very improbable that the first author, whoever he was,
intended to be understood in this unlimited and complicated sense; for
of the inquiries, which in so large an acceptation it would seem to
recommend, some are too extensive for the powers of man, and some
require light from above, which was not yet indulged to the heathen
world.

We might have had more satisfaction concerning the original import of
this celebrated sentence, if history had informed us, whether it was
uttered as a general instruction to mankind, or as a particular caution
to some private inquirer; whether it was applied to some single
occasion, or laid down as the universal rule of life.

There will occur, upon the slightest consideration, many possible
circumstances, in which this monition might very properly be inforced:
for every errour in human conduct must arise from ignorance in
ourselves, either perpetual or temporary; and happen either because we
do not know what is best and fittest, or because our knowledge is at the
time of action not present to the mind.

When a man employs himself upon remote and unnecessary subjects, and
wastes his life upon questions which cannot be resolved, and of which
the solution would conduce very little to the advancement of happiness;
when he lavishes his hours in calculating the weight of the terraqueous
globe, or in adjusting successive systems of worlds beyond the reach of
the telescope; he may be very properly recalled from his excursions by
this precept, and reminded, that there is a nearer being with which it
is his duty to be more acquainted; and from which his attention has
hitherto been withheld by studies to which he has no other motive than
vanity or curiosity.

The great praise of Socrates is, that he drew the wits of Greece, by his
instruction and example, from the vain pursuit of natural philosophy to
moral inquiries, and turned their thoughts from stars and tides, and
matter and motion, upon the various modes of virtue, and relations of
life. All his lectures were but commentaries upon this saying; if we
suppose the knowledge of ourselves recommended by Chilo, in opposition
to other inquiries less suitable to the state of man.

The great fault of men of learning is still, that they offend against
this rule, and appear willing to study any thing rather than themselves;
for which reason they are often despised by those with whom they imagine
themselves above comparison; despised, as useless to common purposes, as
unable to conduct the most trivial affairs, and unqualified to perform
those offices by which the concatenation of society is preserved, and
mutual tenderness excited and maintained.

Gelidus is a man of great penetration and deep researches. Having a mind
naturally formed for the abstruser sciences, he can comprehend intricate
combinations without confusion, and being of a temper naturally cool and
equal, he is seldom interrupted by his passions in the pursuit of the
longest chain of unexpected consequences. He has, therefore, a long
time indulged hopes, that the solution of some problems, by which the
professors of science have been hitherto baffled, is reserved for his
genius and industry. He spends his time in the highest room of his
house, into which none of his family are suffered to enter; and when
he comes down to his dinner or his rest, he walks about like a stranger
that is there only for a day, without any tokens of regard or tenderness.
He has totally divested himself of all human sensations; he has neither
eye for beauty, nor ear for complaint; he neither rejoices at the good
fortune of his nearest friend, nor mourns for any publick or private
calamity. Having once received a letter, and given it his servant to
read, he was informed, that it was written by his brother, who, being
shipwrecked, had swum naked to land, and was destitute of necessaries
in a foreign country. Naked and destitute! says Gelidus, reach down the
last volume of meteorological observations, extract an exact account of
the wind, and note it carefully in the diary of the weather.

The family of Gelidus once broke into his study, to shew him that a town
at a small distance was on fire; and in a few moments a servant came to
tell him, that the flame had caught so many houses on both sides, that
the inhabitants were confounded, and began to think of rather escaping
with their lives, than saving their dwellings. What you tell me, says
Gelidus, is very probable, for fire naturally acts in a circle.

Thus lives this great philosopher, insensible to every spectacle of
distress, and unmoved by the loudest call of social nature, for want of
considering that men are designed for the succour and comfort of each
other; that though there are hours which may be laudably spent upon
knowledge not immediately useful, yet the first attention is due to
practical virtue; and that he may be justly driven out from the commerce
of mankind, who has so far abstracted himself from the species, as to
partake neither of the joys nor griefs of others, but neglects the
endearments of his wife and the caresses of his children, to count the
drops of rain, note the changes of the wind, and calculate the eclipses
of the moons of Jupiter.

I shall reserve to some future paper the religious and important meaning
of this epitome of wisdom, and only remark, that it may be applied to
the gay and light, as well as to the grave and solemn parts of life;
and that not only the philosopher may forfeit his pretences to real
learning, but the wit and beauty may miscarry in their schemes, by the
want of this universal requisite, the knowledge of themselves.

It is surely for no other reason, that we see such numbers resolutely
struggling against nature, and contending for that which they never can
attain, endeavouring to unite contradictions, and determined to excel
in characters inconsistent with each other; that stock-jobbers affect
dress, gaiety, and elegance, and mathematicians labour to be wits; that
the soldier teazes his acquaintance with questions in theology, and the
academick hopes to divert the ladies by a recital of his gallantries.
That absurdity of pride could proceed only from ignorance of themselves,
by which Garth attempted criticism, and Congreve waved his title to
dramatick reputation, and desired to be considered only as a gentleman.

Euphues, with great parts, and extensive knowledge, has a clouded
aspect, and ungracious form; yet it has been his ambition, from his
first entrance into life, to distinguish himself by particularities in
his dress, to outvie beaux in embroidery, to import new trimmings, and
to be foremost in the fashion. Euphues has turned on his exterior
appearance, that attention which would always have produced esteem, had
it been fixed upon his mind; and though his virtues and abilities have
preserved him from the contempt which he has so diligently solicited, he
has, at least, raised one impediment to his reputation; since all can
judge of his dress, but few of his understanding; and many who discern
that he is a fop, are unwilling to believe that he can be wise.

There is one instance in which the ladies are particularly unwilling to
observe the rule of Chilo. They are desirous to hide from themselves
the advances of age, and endeavour too frequently to supply the
sprightliness and bloom of youth by artificial beauty and forced
vivacity. They hope to inflame the heart by glances which have lost
their fire, or melt it by languor which is no longer delicate; they play
over the airs which pleased at a time when they were expected only to
please, and forget that airs in time ought to give place to virtues.
They continue to trifle, because they could once trifle agreeably, till
those who shared their early pleasures are withdrawn to more serious
engagements; and are scarcely awakened from their dream of perpetual
youth, but by the scorn of those whom they endeavoured to rival[40].

[Footnote 40: It is said by Mrs. Piozzi, that by Gelidus, in this paper,
the author intended to represent Mr. Coulson, the gentleman under whose
care Mr. Garrick was placed when he entered at Lincoln's Inn. But the
character which Davies gives of him in his Life of Garrick, undoubtedly
inspected by Dr. Johnson, renders this conjecture improbable.]




No. 25. TUESDAY, JUNE 12, 1750.


  _Possunt, quia posse videntur._
                                                     VIRGIL, Æn. v. 231.

  For they can conquer who believe they can.
                                                                 DRYDEN.


There are some vices and errours which, though often fatal to those in
whom they are found, have yet, by the universal consent of mankind, been
considered as intitled to some degree of respect, or have, at least,
been exempted from contemptuous infamy, and condemned by the severest
moralists with pity rather than detestation.

A constant and invariable example of this general partiality will be
found in the different regard which has always been shewn to rashness
and cowardice, two vices, of which, though they may be conceived equally
distant from the middle point, where true fortitude is placed, and may
equally injure any publick or private interest, yet the one is never
mentioned without some kind of veneration, and the other always
considered as a topick of unlimited and licentious censure, on which all
the virulence of reproach may be lawfully exerted.

The same distinction is made, by the common suffrage, between profusion
and avarice, and, perhaps, between many other opposite vices; and, as
I have found reason to pay great regard to the voice of the people, in
cases where knowledge has been forced upon them by experience, without
long deductions or deep researches, I am inclined to believe that this
distribution of respect is not without some agreement with the nature
of things; and that in the faults, which are thus invested with
extraordinary privileges, there are generally some latent principles of
merit, some possibilities of future virtue, which may, by degrees, break
from obstruction, and by time and opportunity be brought into act.

It may be laid down as an axiom, that it is more easy to take away
superfluities than to supply defects; and, therefore, he that is
culpable, because he has passed the middle point of virtue, is always
accounted a fairer object of hope, than he who fails by falling short.
The one has all that perfection requires, and more, but the excess may
be easily retrenched; the other wants the qualities requisite to
excellence, and who can tell how he shall obtain them? We are certain
that the horse may be taught to keep pace with his fellows, whose fault
is that he leaves them behind. We know that a few strokes of the axe
will lop a cedar; but what arts of cultivation can elevate a shrub?

To walk with circumspection and steadiness in the right path, at an
equal distance between the extremes of errour, ought to be the constant
endeavour of every reasonable being; nor can I think those teachers of
moral wisdom much to be honoured as benefactors to mankind, who are
always enlarging upon the difficulty of our duties, and providing rather
excuses for vice, than incentives to virtue.

But, since to most it will happen often, and to all sometimes, that
there will be a deviation towards one side or the other, we ought always
to employ our vigilance, with most attention, on that enemy from which
there is the greatest danger, and to stray, if we must stray, towards
those parts from whence we may quickly and easily return.

Among other opposite qualities of the mind, which may become dangerous,
though in different degrees, I have often had occasion to consider the
contrary effects of presumption and despondency; of heady confidence,
which promises victory without contest, and heartless pusillanimity,
which shrinks back from the thought of great undertakings, confounds
difficulty with impossibility, and considers all advancement towards any
new attainment as irreversibly prohibited.

Presumption will be easily corrected. Every experiment will teach
caution, and miscarriages will hourly show, that attempts are not always
rewarded with success. The most precipitate ardour will, in time, be
taught the necessity of methodical gradation and preparatory measures;
and the most daring confidence be convinced, that neither merit nor
abilities can command events.

It is the advantage of vehemence and activity, that they are always
hastening to their own reformation; because they incite us to try
whether our expectations are well grounded, and, therefore, detect the
deceits which they are apt to occasion. But timidity is a disease of
the mind more obstinate and fatal; for a man once persuaded that any
impediment is insuperable, has given it, with respect to himself, that
strength and weight which it had not before. He can scarcely strive with
vigour and perseverance, when he has no hope of gaining the victory; and
since he never will try his strength, can never discover the
unreasonableness of his fears.

There is often to be found in men devoted to literature a kind of
intellectual cowardice, which, whoever converses much among them, may
observe frequently to depress the alacrity of enterprise, and, by
consequence, to retard the improvement of science. They have annexed to
every species of knowledge some chimerical character of terrour and
inhibition, which they transmit, without much reflection, from one to
another; they first fright themselves, and then propagate the panick to
their scholars and acquaintance. One study is inconsistent with a lively
imagination, another with a solid judgment: one is improper in the early
parts of life, another requires so much time, that it is not to be
attempted at an advanced age; one is dry and contracts the sentiments,
another is diffuse and overburdens the memory; one is insufferable to
taste and delicacy, and another wears out life in the study of words,
and is useless to a wise man, who desires only the knowledge of things.

But of all the bugbears by which the _Infantes barbati_, boys both young
and old, have been hitherto frighted from digressing into new tracts of
learning, none has been more mischievously efficacious than an opinion
that every kind of knowledge requires a peculiar genius, or mental
constitution, framed for the reception of some ideas, and the exclusion
of others; and that to him whose genius is not adapted to the study
which he prosecutes, all labour shall be vain and fruitless, vain as an
endeavour to mingle oil and water, or, in the language of chemistry, to
amalgamate bodies of heterogeneous principles.

This opinion we may reasonably suspect to have been propagated, by
vanity, beyond the truth. It is natural for those who have raised a
reputation by any science, to exalt themselves as endowed by heaven
with peculiar powers, or marked out by an extraordinary designation
for their profession; and to fright competitors away by representing
the difficulties with which they must contend, and the necessity of
qualities which are supposed to be not generally conferred, and which
no man can know, but by experience, whether he enjoys.

To this discouragement it may be possibly answered, that since a genius,
whatever it be, is like fire in the flint, only to be produced by
collison with a proper subject, it is the business of every man to try
whether his faculties may not happily co-operate with his desires; and
since they whose proficiency he admires, knew their own force only by
the event, he needs but engage in the same undertaking with equal
spirit, and may reasonably hope for equal success.

There is another species of false intelligence, given by those who
profess to shew the way to the summit of knowledge, of equal tendency
to depress the mind with false distrust of itself, and weaken it by
needless solicitude and dejection. When a scholar whom they desire to
animate, consults them at his entrance on some new study, it is common
to make flattering representations of its pleasantness and facility.
Thus they generally attain one of two ends almost equally desirable;
they either incite his industry by elevating his hopes, or produce a
high opinion of their own abilities, since they are supposed to relate
only what they have found, and to have proceeded with no less ease than
they promise to their followers.

The student, inflamed by this encouragement, sets forward in the new
path, and proceeds a few steps with great alacrity, but he soon finds
asperities and intricacies of which he has not been forewarned, and
imagining that none ever were so entangled or fatigued before him, sinks
suddenly into despair, and desists as from an expedition in which fate
opposes him. Thus his terrours are multiplied by his hopes, and he is
defeated without resistance, because he had no expectation of an enemy.

Of these treacherous instructors, the one destroys industry, by
declaring that industry is vain, the other by representing it as
needless; the one cuts away the root of hope, the other raises it only
to be blasted: the one confines his pupil to the shore, by telling him
that his wreck is certain, the other sends him to sea, without preparing
him for tempests.

False hopes and false terrours are equally to be avoided. Every man who
proposes to grow eminent by learning, should carry in his mind, at once,
the difficulty of excellence, and the force of industry; and remember
that fame is not conferred but as the recompence of labour, and that
labour vigorously continued, has not often failed of its reward.




No. 26. SATURDAY, JUNE 14, 1750.


  _Ingentes dominos, et clara nomina famæ,_
    _Illustrique graves nobilitate domos_
  _Derita, et longe cautus fuge; contrahe vela,_
    _Et te littoribus cymba propinqua vehat._
                                                                 SENECA.

  Each mighty lord, big with a pompous name,
  And each high house of fortune and of fame,
  With caution fly; contract thy ample sails,
  And near the shore improve the gentle gales.
                                                             ELPHINSTON.


MR. RAMBLER,

It is usual for men, engaged in the same pursuits, to be inquisitive
after the conduct and fortune of each other; and, therefore, I suppose
it will not be unpleasing to you, to read an account of the various
changes which have happened in part of a life devoted to literature. My
narrative will not exhibit any great variety of events, or extraordinary
revolutions; but may, perhaps, be not less useful, because I shall
relate nothing which is not likely to happen to a thousand others.

I was born heir to a very small fortune, and left by my father, whom I
cannot remember, to the care of an uncle. He having no children, always
treated me as his son, and finding in me those qualities which old men
easily discover in sprightly children, when they happen to love them,
declared that a genius like mine should never be lost for want of
cultivation. He therefore placed me, for the usual time, at a great
school, and then sent me to the university, with a larger allowance
than my own patrimony would have afforded, that I might not keep mean
company, but learn to become my dignity when I should be made lord
chancellor, which he often lamented, that the increase of his
infirmities was very likely to preclude him from seeing.

This exuberance of money displayed itself in gaiety of appearance, and
wantonness of expense, and introduced me to the acquaintance of those
whom the same superfluity of fortune betrayed to the same licence and
ostentation: young heirs, who pleased themselves with a remark very
frequent in their mouths, that though they were sent by their fathers
to the university, they were not under the necessity of living by their
learning.

Among men of this class I easily obtained the reputation of a great
genius, and was persuaded, that with such liveliness of imagination, and
delicacy of sentiment, I should never be able to submit to the drudgery
of the law. I therefore gave myself wholly to the more airy and elegant
parts of learning, and was often so much elated with my superiority to
the youths with whom I conversed, that I began to listen, with great
attention, to those that recommended to me a wider and more conspicuous
theatre; and was particularly touched with an observation made by one of
my friends; That it was not by lingering in the university that Prior
became ambassador, or Addison secretary of state.

This desire was hourly increased by the solicitation of my companions,
who removing one by one to London, as the caprice of their relations
allowed them, or the legal dismission from the hands of their guardians
put it in their power, never failed to send an account of the beauty and
felicity of the new world, and to remonstrate how much was lost by every
hour's continuance in a place of retirement and constraint.

My uncle in the mean time frequently harassed me with monitory letters,
which I sometimes neglected to open for a week after I received them,
generally read in a tavern, with such comments as might shew how much I
was superior to instruction or advice. I could not but wonder how a man
confined to the country, and unacquainted with the present system of
things, should imagine himself qualified to instruct a rising genius,
born to give laws to the age, refine its taste, and multiply its
pleasures.

The postman, however, still continued to bring me new remonstrances; for
my uncle was very little depressed by the ridicule and reproach which he
never heard. But men of parts have quick resentments; it was impossible
to bear his usurpations for ever; and I resolved, once for all, to make
him an example to those who imagine themselves wise because they are
old, and to teach young men, who are too tame under representation, in
what manner grey-bearded insolence ought to be treated. I therefore one
evening took my pen in hand, and after having animated myself with a
catch, wrote a general answer to all his precepts with such vivacity
of turn, such elegance of irony, and such asperity of sarcasm, that
I convulsed a large company with universal laughter, disturbed the
neighbourhood with vociferations of applause, and five days afterwards
was answered, that I must be content to live on my own estate.

This contraction of my income gave me no disturbance; for a genius like
mine was out of the reach of want. I had friends that would be proud to
open their purses at my call, and prospects of such advancement as would
soon reconcile my uncle, whom, upon mature deliberation, I resolved to
receive into favour without insisting on any acknowledgment of his
offence, when the splendour of my condition should induce him to wish
for my countenance. I therefore went up to London, before I had shewn
the alteration of my condition by any abatement of my way of living,
and was received by all my academical acquaintance with triumph and
congratulation. I was immediately introduced among the wits and men of
spirit; and in a short time had divested myself of all my scholar's
gravity, and obtained the reputation of a pretty fellow.

You will easily believe that I had no great knowledge of the world; yet
I had been hindered, by the general disinclination every man feels to
confess poverty, from telling to any one the resolution of my uncle, and
for some time subsisted upon the stock of money which I had brought with
me, and contributed my share as before to all our entertainments. But my
pocket was soon emptied, and I was obliged to ask my friends for a small
sum. This was a favour, which we had often reciprocally received from
one another; they supposed my wants only accidental, and therefore
willingly supplied them. In a short time I found a necessity of asking
again, and was again treated with the same civility; but the third time
they began to wonder what that old rogue my uncle could mean by sending
a gentleman to town without money; and when they gave me what I asked
for, advised me to stipulate for more regular remittances.

This somewhat disturbed my dream of constant affluence; but I was three
days after completely awaked; for entering the tavern where they met
every evening, I found the waiters remitted their complaisance, and,
instead of contending to light me up stairs, suffered me to wait for
some minutes by the bar. When I came to my company, I found them
unusually grave and formal, and one of them took the hint to turn the
conversation upon the misconduct of young men, and enlarged upon the
folly of frequenting the company of men of fortune, without being able
to support the expense, an observation which the rest contributed either
to enforce by repetition, or to illustrate by examples. Only one of them
tried to divert the discourse, and endeavoured to direct my attention to
remote questions, and common topicks.

A man guilty of poverty easily believes himself suspected. I went,
however, next morning to breakfast with him who appeared ignorant of the
drift of the conversation, and by a series of inquiries, drawing still
nearer to the point, prevailed on him, not, perhaps, much against his
will, to inform me that Mr. _Dash_, whose father was a wealthy attorney
near my native place, had, the morning before, received an account of my
uncle's resentment, and communicated his intelligence with the utmost
industry of groveling insolence.

It was now no longer practicable to consort with my former friends,
unless I would be content to be used as an inferior guest, who was to
pay for his wine by mirth and flattery; a character which, if I could
not escape it, I resolved to endure only among those who had never known
me in the pride of plenty. I changed my lodgings, and frequented the
coffee-houses in a different region of the town; where I was very
quickly distinguished by several young gentlemen of high birth, and
large estates, and began again to amuse my imagination with hopes of
preferment, though not quite so confidently as when I had less
experience.

The first great conquest which this new scene enabled me to gain over
myself was, when I submitted to confess to a party, who invited me to
an expensive diversion, that my revenues were not equal to such golden
pleasures; they would not suffer me, however, to stay behind, and with
great reluctance I yielded to be treated. I took that opportunity of
recommending myself to some office or employment, which they unanimously
promised to procure me by their joint interest.

I had now entered into a state of dependence, and had hopes, or fears,
from almost every man I saw. If it be unhappy to have one patron, what
is his misery who has many? I was obliged to comply with a thousand
caprices, to concur in a thousand follies, and to countenance a thousand
errours. I endured innumerable mortifications, if not from cruelty, at
least from negligence, which will creep in upon the kindest and most
delicate minds, when they converse without the mutual awe of equal
condition. I found the spirit and vigour of liberty every moment sinking
in me, and a servile fear of displeasing stealing by degrees upon all
my behaviour, till no word, or look, or action, was my own. As the
solicitude to please increased, the power of pleasing grew less, and
I was always clouded with diffidence where it was most my interest and
wish to shine.

My patrons, considering me as belonging to the community, and,
therefore, not the charge of any particular person, made no scruple of
neglecting any opportunity of promoting me, which every one thought more
properly the business of another. An account of my expectations and
disappointments, and the succeeding vicissitudes of my life I shall give
you in my following letter, which will be, I hope, of use to shew how ill
he forms his schemes, who expects happiness without freedom.

I am, &c.




No. 27. TUESDAY, JUNE 19, 1750.


  _----Pauperiem veritus potiore metallis_
  _Libertate caret.----_
                                                 HOR. lib. i. Ep. x. 39.

  So he, who poverty with horror views,
  Who sells his freedom in exchange for gold,
  (Freedom for mines of wealth too cheaply sold)
  Shall make eternal servitude his fate,
  And feel a haughty master's galling weight.
                                                                FRANCIS.


MR. RAMBLER,

As it is natural for every man to think himself of importance, your
knowledge of the world will incline you to forgive me, if I imagine your
curiosity so much excited by the former part of my narration, as to
make you desire that I should proceed without any unnecessary arts of
connexion. I shall, therefore, not keep you longer in such suspense,
as perhaps my performance may not compensate.

In the gay company with which I was now united, I found those
allurements and delights, which the friendship of young men always
affords; there was that openness which naturally produced confidence,
that affability which, in some measure, softened dependance, and that
ardour of profession which incited hope. When our hearts were dilated
with merriment, promises were poured out with unlimited profusion, and
life and fortune were but a scanty sacrifice to friendship; but when the
hour came, at which any effort was to be made, I had generally the
vexation to find that my interest weighed nothing against the slightest
amusement, and that every petty avocation was found a sufficient plea
for continuing me in uncertainty and want.

Their kindness was indeed sincere; when they promised, they had no
intention to deceive; but the same juvenile warmth which kindled their
benevolence, gave force in the same proportion to every other passion,
and I was forgotten as soon as any new pleasures seized on their
attention.

Vagario told me one evening, that all my perplexities should be soon at
an end, and desired me, from that instant, to throw upon him all care of
my fortune, for a post of considerable value was that day become vacant,
and he knew his interest sufficient to procure it in the morning. He
desired me to call on him early, that he might be dressed soon enough to
wait on the minister before any other application should be made. I came
as he appointed, with all the flame of gratitude, and was told by his
servant, that having found at his lodgings, when he came home, an
acquaintance who was going to travel, he had been persuaded to accompany
him to Dover, and that they had taken post-horses two hours before day.

I was once very near to preferment, by the kindness of Charinus, who, at
my request, went to beg a place, which he thought me likely to fill with
great reputation, and in which I should have many opportunities of
promoting his interest in return; and he pleased himself with imagining
the mutual benefits that we should confer, and the advances that we
should make by our united strength. Away therefore he went, equally warm
with friendship and ambition, and left me to prepare acknowledgments
against his return. At length he came back, and told me that he had met
in his way a party going to breakfast in the country, that the ladies
importuned him too much to be refused, and that having passed the
morning with them, he was come back to dress himself for a ball, to
which he was invited for the evening.

I have suffered several disappointments from tailors and periwig-makers,
who, by neglecting to perform their work, withheld my patrons from court;
and once failed of an establishment for life by the delay of a servant,
sent to a neighbouring shop to replenish a snuff-box.

At last I thought my solicitude at an end, for an office fell into the
gift of Hippodamus's father, who being then in the country, could not
very speedily fill it, and whose fondness would not have suffered him to
refuse his son a less reasonable request. Hippodamus therefore set
forward with great expedition, and I expected every hour an account of
his success. A long time I waited without any intelligence, but at last
received a letter from Newmarket, by which I was informed that the races
were begun, and I knew the vehemence of his passions too well to imagine
that he could refuse himself his favourite amusement.

You will not wonder that I was at last weary of the patronage of young
men, especially as I found them not generally to promise much greater
fidelity as they advanced in life; for I observed that what they gained
in steadiness they lost in benevolence, and grew colder to my interest
as they became more diligent to promote their own. I was convinced that
their liberality was only profuseness, that as chance directed, they
were equally generous to vice and virtue, that they were warm but
because they were thoughtless, and counted the support of a friend only
amongst other gratifications of passion.

My resolution was now to ingratiate myself with men whose reputation was
established, whose high stations enabled them to prefer me, and whose
age exempted them from sudden changes of inclination. I was considered
as a man of parts, and therefore easily found admission to the table of
Hilarius, the celebrated orator, renowned equally for the extent of his
knowledge, the elegance of his diction, and the acuteness of his wit.
Hilarius received me with an appearance of great satisfaction, produced
to me all his friends, and directed to me that part of his discourse in
which he most endeavoured to display his imagination. I had now learned
my own interest enough to supply him opportunities for smart remarks and
gay sallies, which I never failed to echo and applaud. Thus I was gaining
every hour on his affections, till unfortunately, when the assembly was
more splendid than usual, his desire of admiration prompted him to turn
his raillery upon me. I bore it for some time with great submission,
and success encouraged him to redouble his attacks; at last my vanity
prevailed over my prudence, I retorted his irony with such spirit, that
Hilarius, unaccustomed to resistance, was disconcerted, and soon found
means of convincing me that his purpose was not to encourage a rival,
but to foster a parasite.

I was then taken into the familiarity of Argutio, a nobleman eminent
for judgment and criticism. He had contributed to my reputation by the
praises which he had often bestowed upon my writings, in which he owned
that there were proofs of a genius that might rise to high degrees of
excellence, when time, or information, had reduced its exuberance. He
therefore required me to consult him before the publication of any new
performance, and commonly proposed innumerable alterations, without
sufficient attention to the general design, or regard to my form of
style, and mode of imagination. But these corrections he never failed
to press as indispensably necessary, and thought the least delay of
compliance an act of rebellion. The pride of an author made this
treatment insufferable, and I thought any tyranny easier to be borne
than that which took from me the use of my understanding.

My next patron was Eutyches, the statesman, who was wholly engaged in
public affairs, and seemed to have no ambition but to be powerful and
rich, I found his favour more permanent than that of the others; for
there was a certain price at which it might be bought; he allowed
nothing to humour, or to affection, but was always ready to pay
liberally for the service that he required. His demands were, indeed,
very often such as virtue could not easily consent to gratify; but
virtue is not to be consulted when men are to raise their fortunes by
the favour of the great. His measures were censured; I wrote in his
defence, and was recompensed with a place, of which the profits were
never received by me without the pangs of remembering that they were the
reward of wickedness--a reward which nothing but that necessity which
the consumption of my little estate in these wild pursuits had brought
upon me, hindered me from throwing back in the face of my corrupter.

At this time my uncle died without a will, and I became heir to a small
fortune. I had resolution to throw off the splendour which reproached
me to myself, and retire to an humbler state, in which I am now
endeavouring to recover the dignity of virtue, and hope to make some
reparation for my crime and follies, by informing others, who may be
led after the same pageants, that they are about to engage in a course
of life, in which they are to purchase, by a thousand miseries, the
privilege of repentance.

I am, &c.

                                                                EUBULUS.




No. 28. SATURDAY, JUNE 23, 1750.


  _Illi mors gravis incubat,_
  _Qui, notus nimis omnibus,_
  _Ignotus moritur sibi._
                                                SENECÆ, Thyest. ii. 401.

    To him, alas! to him, I fear,
  The face of death will terrible appear,
  Who in his life, flattering his senseless pride,
  By being known to all the world beside,
  Does not himself, when he is dying, know,
  Nor what he is, nor whither he's to go.
                                                                 COWLEY.


I have shewn, in a late essay, to what errours men are hourly betrayed
by a mistaken opinion of their own powers, and a negligent inspection of
their own character. But as I then confined my observations to common
occurrences and familiar scenes, I think it proper to inquire, how far a
nearer acquaintance with ourselves is necessary to our preservation from
crimes as well as follies, and how much the attentive study of our own
minds may contribute to secure to us the approbation of that Being, to
whom we are accountable for our thoughts and our actions, and whose
favour must finally constitute our total happiness.

If it be reasonable to estimate the difficulty of any enterprise by
frequent miscarriages, it may justly be concluded that it is not easy
for a man to know himself; for wheresoever we turn our view, we shall
find almost all with whom we converse so nearly as to judge of their
sentiments, indulging more favourable conceptions of their own virtue
than they have been able to impress upon others, and congratulating
themselves upon degrees of excellence, which their fondest admirers
cannot allow them to have attained.

Those representations of imaginary virtue are generally considered as
arts of hypocrisy, and as snares laid for confidence and praise. But I
believe the suspicion often unjust; those who thus propagate their own
reputation, only extend the fraud by which they have been themselves
deceived; for this failing is incident to numbers, who seem to live
without designs, competitions, or pursuits; it appears on occasions
which promise no accession of honour or of profit, and to persons from
whom very little is to be hoped or feared. It is, indeed, not easy to
tell how far we may be blinded by the love of ourselves, when we reflect
how much a secondary passion can cloud our judgment, and how few faults
a man, in the first raptures of love, can discover in the person or
conduct of his mistress.

To lay open all the sources from which errour flows in upon him who
contemplates his own character, would require more exact knowledge of
the human heart, than, perhaps, the most acute and laborious observers
have acquired. And since falsehood may be diversified without end, it is
not unlikely that every man admits an imposture in some respect peculiar
to himself, as his views have been accidentally directed, or his ideas
particularly combined.

Some fallacies, however, there are, more frequently insidious, which it
may, perhaps, not be useless to detect; because, though they are gross,
they may be fatal, and because nothing but attention is necessary to
defeat them.

One sophism by which men persuade themselves that they have those
virtues which they really want, is formed by the substitution of single
acts for habits. A miser who once relieved a friend from the danger of a
prison, suffers his imagination to dwell for ever upon his own heroic
generosity; he yields his heart up to indignation at those who are blind
to merit, or insensible to misery, and who can please themselves with
the enjoyment of that wealth, which they never permit others to partake.
From any censures of the world, or reproaches of his conscience, he has
an appeal to action and to knowledge: and though his whole life is a
course of rapacity and avarice, he concludes himself to be tender and
liberal, because he has once performed an act of liberality and
tenderness.

As a glass which magnifies objects by the approach of one end to the
eye, lessens them by the application of the other, so vices are
extenuated by the inversion of that fallacy, by which virtues are
augmented. Those faults which we cannot conceal from our own notice, are
considered, however frequent, not as habitual corruptions, or settled
practices, but as casual failures, and single lapses. A man who has from
year to year set his country to sale, either for the gratification of
his ambition or resentment, confesses that the heat of party now and
then betrays the severest virtue to measures that cannot be seriously
defended. He that spends his days and nights in riot and debauchery,
owns that his passions oftentimes overpower his resolutions. But each
comforts himself that his faults are not without precedent, for the best
and the wisest men have given way to the violence of sudden temptations.

There are men who always confound the praise of goodness with the
practice, and who believe themselves mild and moderate, charitable and
faithful, because they have exerted their eloquence in commendation of
mildness, fidelity, and other virtues. This is an errour almost universal
among those that converse much with dependants, with such whose fear or
interest disposes them to a seeming reverence for any declamation,
however enthusiastic, and submission to any boast, however arrogant.
Having none to recall their attention to their lives, they rate
themselves by the goodness of their opinions, and forget how much more
easily men may shew their virtue in their talk than in their actions.

The tribe is likewise very numerous of those who regulate their lives,
not by the standard of religion, but the measure of other men's virtue;
who lull their own remorse with the remembrance of crimes more atrocious
than their own, and seem to believe that they are not bad while another
can be found worse[41].

For escaping these and thousand other deceits, many expedients have been
proposed. Some have recommended the frequent consultation of a wise
friend, admitted to intimacy, and encouraged to sincerity. But this
appears a remedy by no means adapted to general use: for in order to
secure the virtue of one, it pre-supposes more virtue in two than will
generally be found. In the first, such a desire of rectitude and
amendment, as may incline him to hear his own accusation from the mouth
of him whom he esteems, and by whom, therefore, he will always hope that
his faults are not discovered; and in the second, such zeal and honesty,
as will make him content for his friend's advantage to loose his
kindness.

A long life may be passed without finding a friend in whose understanding
and virtue we can equally confide, and whose opinion we can value at
once for its justness and sincerity. A weak man, however honest, is
not qualified to judge. A man of the world, however penetrating, is not
fit to counsel. Friends are often chosen for similitude of manners, and
therefore each palliates the other's failings, because they are his own.
Friends are tender, and unwilling to give pain, or they are interested,
and fearful to offend.

These objections have inclined others to advise, that he who would know
himself, should consult his enemies, remember the reproaches that are
vented to his face, and listen for the censures that are uttered in
private. For his great business is to know his faults, and those
malignity will discover, and resentment will reveal. But this precept
may be often frustrated; for it seldom happens that rivals or opponents
are suffered to come near enough to know our conduct with so much
exactness as that conscience should allow and reflect the accusation.
The charge of an enemy is often totally false, and commonly so mingled
with falsehood, that the mind takes advantage from the failure of one
part to discredit the rest, and never suffers any disturbance afterward
from such partial reports.

Yet it seems that enemies have been always found by experience the most
faithful monitors; for adversity has ever been considered as the state
in which a man most easily becomes acquainted with himself, and this
effect it must produce by withdrawing flatterers, whose business it
is to hide our weaknesses from us, or by giving loose to malice, and
licence to reproach; or at least by cutting off those pleasures which
called us away from meditation on our own conduct, and repressing that
pride which too easily persuades us that we merit whatever we enjoy.

Part of these benefits it is in every man's power to procure to himself,
by assigning proper portions of his life to the examination of the rest,
and by putting himself frequently in such a situation, by retirement and
abstraction, as may weaken the influence of external objects. By this
practice he may obtain the solitude of adversity without its melancholy,
its instructions without its censures, and its sensibility without its
perturbations.

The necessity of setting the world at a distance from us, when we are
to take a survey of ourselves, has sent many from high stations to the
severities of a monastic life; and, indeed, every man deeply engaged in
business, if all regard to another state be not extinguished, must have
the conviction, though perhaps, not the resolution of Valdesso, who,
when he solicited Charles the Fifth to dismiss him, being asked, whether
he retired upon disgust, answered that he laid down his commission for
no other reason but because _there ought to be some time for sober
reflection between the life of a soldier and his death_.

There are few conditions which do not entangle us with sublunary hopes
and fears, from which it is necessary to be at intervals disencumbered,
that we may place ourselves in his presence who views effects in their
causes, and actions in their motives; that we may, as Chillingworth
expresses it, consider things as if there were no other beings in the
world but God and ourselves; or, to use language yet more awful, _may
commune with our own hearts, and be still_.

Death, says Seneca, falls heavy upon him who is too much known to
others, and too little to himself; and Pontanus, a man celebrated among
the early restorers of literature, thought the study of our own hearts
of so much importance, that he has recommended it from his tomb. _Sum_
Joannes Jovianus Pontanus, _quem amaverunt bonæ musæ, suspexerunt viri
probi, honestaverunt reges domini; jam scis qui sim, vel qui potius
fuerim; ego vero te, hospes, noscere in tenebris nequeo, sed teipsum
ut noscas rogo_. "I am Pontanus, beloved by the powers of literature,
admired by men of worth, and dignified by the monarchs of the world.
Thou knowest now who I am, or more properly who I was. For thee,
stranger, I who am in darkness cannot know thee, but I intreat thee
to know thyself."

I hope every reader of this paper will consider himself as engaged to
the observation of a precept, which the wisdom and virtue of all ages
have concurred to enforce: a precept, dictated by philosophers,
inculcated by poets, and ratified by saints.

[Footnote 41: But they measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing
themselves among themselves, are not wise. 2 Cor. x. 12.]




No. 29. TUESDAY, JUNE 26, 1750.


  _Prudens futuri temporis exitum_
  _Caliginosa nocte premit Deus;_
    _Ridetque, si mortalis ultra_
    _Fas trepidat----_
                                            HOR. lib. iii. Od. xxix. 29.

  But God has wisely hid from human sight
    The dark decrees of human fate,
  And sown their seeds in depth of night;
  He laughs at all the giddy turns of state,
  When mortals search too soon, and fear too late.
                                                                 DRYDEN.


There is nothing recommended with greater frequency among the gayer
poets of antiquity, than the secure possession of the present hour, and
the dismission of all the cares which intrude upon our quiet, or hinder,
by importunate perturbations, the enjoyment of those delights which our
condition happens to set before us.

The ancient poets are, indeed, by no means unexceptionable teachers of
morality; their precepts are to be always considered as the sallies of
a genius, intent rather upon giving pleasure than instruction, eager to
take every advantage of insinuation, and, provided the passions can be
engaged on its side, very little solicitous about the suffrage of
reason.

The darkness and uncertainty through which the heathens were compelled
to wander in the pursuit of happiness, may, indeed, be alleged as an
excuse for many of their seducing invitations to immediate enjoyment,
which the moderns, by whom they have been imitated, have not to plead.
It is no wonder that such as had no promise of another state should
eagerly turn their thoughts upon the improvement of that which was
before them; but surely those who are acquainted with the hopes and
fears of eternity, might think it necessary to put some restraint upon
their imagination, and reflect that by echoing the songs of the ancient
bacchanals, and transmitting the maxims of past debauchery, they not
only prove that they want invention, but virtue, and submit to the
servility of imitation only to copy that of which the writer, if he was
to live now, would often be ashamed.

Yet as the errours and follies of a great genius are seldom without some
radiations of understanding, by which meaner minds may be enlightened,
the incitements to pleasure are, in those authors, generally mingled
with such reflections upon life, as well deserve to be considered
distinctly from the purposes for which they are produced, and to be
treasured up as the settled conclusions of extensive observation, acute
sagacity, and mature experience.

It is not without true judgment, that on these occasions they often
warn their readers against inquiries into futurity, and solicitude
about events which lie hid in causes yet unactive, and which time has
not brought forward into the view of reason. An idle and thoughtless
resignation to chance, without any struggle against calamity, or
endeavour after advantage, is indeed below the dignity of a reasonable
being, in whose power Providence has put a great part even of his
present happiness; but it shews an equal ignorance of our proper sphere,
to harass our thoughts with conjectures about things not yet in being.
How can we regulate events, of which we yet know not whether they will
ever happen? And why should we think, with painful anxiety, about that
on which our thoughts can have no influence?

It is a maxim commonly received, that a wise man is never surprised;
and, perhaps, this exemption from astonishment may be imagined to
proceed from such a prospect into futurity, as gave previous intimation
of those evils which often fall unexpected upon others that have less
foresight. But the truth is, that things to come, except when they
approach very nearly, are equally hidden from men of all degrees of
understanding; and if a wise man is not amazed at sudden occurrences,
it is not that he has thought more, but less upon futurity. He never
considered things not yet existing as the proper objects of his
attention; he never indulged dreams till he was deceived by their
phantoms, nor ever realized nonentities to his mind. He is not surprized,
because he is not disappointed; and he escapes disappointment, because
he never forms any expectations.

The concern about things to come, that is so justly censured, is not
the result of those general reflections on the variableness of fortune,
the uncertainty of life, and the universal insecurity of all human
acquisitions, which must always be suggested by the view of the world;
but such a desponding anticipation of misfortune, as fixes the mind upon
scenes of gloom and melancholy, and makes fear predominate in every
imagination.

Anxiety of this kind is nearly of the same nature with jealousy in love,
and suspicion in the general commerce of life; a temper which keeps the
man always in alarms; disposes him to judge of every thing in a manner
that least favours his own quiet, fills him with perpetual stratagems
of counteraction, wears him out in schemes to obviate evils which never
threatened him, and at length, perhaps, contributes to the production of
those mischiefs of which it had raised such dreadful apprehensions.

It has been usual in all ages for moralists to repress the swellings of
vain hope, by representations of the innumerable casualties to which
life is subject, and by instances of the unexpected defeat of the wisest
schemes of policy, and sudden subversions of the highest eminences of
greatness. It has, perhaps, not been equally observed, that all these
examples afford the proper antidote to fear as well as to hope, and may
be applied with no less efficacy as consolations to the timorous, than
as restraints to the proud.

Evil is uncertain in the same degree as good, and for the reason that
we ought not to hope too securely, we ought not to fear with too much
dejection. The state of the world is continually changing, and none
can tell the result of the next vicissitude. Whatever is afloat in the
stream of time, may, when it is very near us, be driven away by an
accidental blast, which shall happen to cross the general course of the
current. The sudden accidents by which the powerful are depressed, may
fall upon those whose malice we fear; and the greatness by which we
expect to be overborne, may become another proof of the false flatteries
of fortune. Our enemies may become weak, or we grow strong before our
encounter, or we may advance against each other without ever meeting.
There are, indeed, natural evils which we can flatter ourselves with
no hopes of escaping, and with little of delaying; but of the ills
which are apprehended from human malignity, or the opposition of rival
interests, we may always alleviate the terrour by considering that our
persecutors are weak and ignorant, and mortal like ourselves.

The misfortunes which arise from the concurrence of unhappy incidents
should never be suffered to disturb us before they happen; because, if
the breast be once laid open to the dread of mere possibilities of
misery, life must be given a prey to dismal solicitude, and quiet must
be lost for ever.

It is remarked by old Cornaro, that it is absurd to be afraid of the
natural dissolution of the body, because it must certainly happen, and
can, by no caution or artifice, be avoided. Whether this sentiment be
entirely just, I shall not examine; but certainly if it be improper to
fear events which must happen, it is yet more evidently contrary to
right reason to fear those which may never happen, and which, if they
should come upon us, we cannot resist.

As we ought not to give way to fear, any more than indulgence to hope,
because the objects both of fear and hope are yet uncertain, so we ought
not to trust the representations of one more than of the other, because
they are both equally fallacious; as hope enlarges happiness, fear
aggravates calamity. It is generally allowed, that no man ever found the
happiness of possession proportionate to that expectation which incited
his desire, and invigorated his pursuit; nor has any man found the evils
of life so formidable in reality, as they were described to him by his
own imagination: every species of distress brings with it some peculiar
supports, some unforeseen means of resisting, or power of enduring.
Taylor justly blames some pious persons, who indulge their fancies too
much, set themselves, by the force of imagination, in the place of the
ancient martyrs and confessors, and question the validity of their own
faith, because they shrink at the thoughts of flames and tortures. It
is, says he, sufficient that you are able to encounter the temptations
which now assault you; when God sends trials, he may send strength.

All fear is in itself painful, and when it conduces not to safety is
painful without use. Every consideration therefore, by which groundless
terrours may be removed, adds something to human happiness. It is
likewise not unworthy of remark, that in proportion as our cares are
employed upon the future they are abstracted from the present, from the
only time which we can call our own, and of which if we neglect the
apparent duties, to make provision against visionary attacks, we shall
certainly counteract our own purpose; for he, doubtless, mistakes his
true interest, who thinks that he can increase his safety, when he
impairs his virtue.




No. 30. SATURDAY, JUNE 30, 1750.


  _----Vultus ubi tuus_
  _Affulsit, populo gratior it dies,_
  _Et soles metius nitent._
                                                 HOR. lib. iv. Ode v. 7.

  Whene'er thy countenance divine
  Th' attendant people cheers,
  The genial suns more radiant shine,
  The day more glad appears.
                                                             ELPHINSTON.


MR. RAMBLER,

There are few tasks more ungrateful than for persons of modesty to speak
their own praises. In some cases, however, this must be done for the
general good, and a generous spirit will on such occasions assert its
merit, and vindicate itself with becoming warmth.

My circumstances, Sir, are very hard and peculiar. Could the world be
brought to treat me as I deserve, it would be a publick benefit. This
makes me apply to you, that my case being fairly stated in a paper so
generally esteemed, I may suffer no longer from ignorant and childish
prejudices.

My elder brother was a Jew; a very respectable person, but somewhat
austere in his manner: highly and deservedly valued by his near
relations and intimates, but utterly unfit for mixing in a large
society, or gaining a general acquaintance among mankind. In a venerable
old age he retired from the world, and I in the bloom of youth came
into it, succeeding him in all his dignities, and formed, as I might
reasonably flatter myself, to be the object of universal love and
esteem. Joy and gladness were born with me; cheerfulness, good-humour,
and benevolence, always attended and endeared my infancy. That time is
long past. So long, that idle imaginations are apt to fancy me wrinkled,
old, and disagreeable; but, unless my looking-glass deceives me, I have
not yet lost one charm, one beauty of my earliest years. However, thus
far is too certain, I am to every body just what they choose to think
me, so that to very few I appear in my right shape; and though naturally
I am the friend of human kind, to few, very few comparatively, am I
useful or agreeable.

This is the more grievous, as it is utterly impossible for me to avoid
being in all sorts of places and companies; and I am therefore liable to
meet with perpetual affronts and injuries. Though I have as natural an
antipathy to cards and dice, as some people have to a cat, many and many
an assembly am I forced to endure; and though rest and composure are my
peculiar joy, am worn out and harassed to death with journeys by men and
women of quality, who never take one but when I can be of the party.
Some, on a contrary extreme, will never receive me but in bed, where
they spend at least half of the time I have to stay with them; and others
are so monstrously ill-bred as to take physick on purpose when they have
reason to expect me. Those who keep upon terms of more politeness with
me, are generally so cold and constrained in their behaviour, that I
cannot but perceive myself an unwelcome guest; and even among persons
deserving of esteem, and who certainly have a value for me, it is too
evident that generally whenever I come I throw a dulness over the whole
company, that I am entertained with a formal stiff civility, and that
they are glad when I am fairly gone.

How bitter must this kind of reception be to one formed to inspire
delight, admiration, and love! To one capable of answering and rewarding
the greatest warmth and delicacy of sentiments!

I was bred up among a set of excellent people, who affectionately loved
me, and treated me with the utmost honour and respect. It would be
tedious to relate the variety of my adventures, and strange vicissitudes
of my fortune in many different countries. Here in England there was a
time when I lived according to my heart's desire. Whenever I appeared,
public assemblies appointed for my reception were crowded with persons
of quality and fashion, early drest as for a court, to pay me their
devoirs. Cheerful hospitality every where crowned my board, and I was
looked upon in every country parish as a kind of social bond between the
'squire, the parson, and the tenants. The laborious poor every where
blest my appearance: they do so still, and keep their best clothes to do
me honour; though as much as I delight in the honest country folks, they
do now and then throw a pot of ale at my head, and sometimes an unlucky
boy will drive his cricket-ball full in my face.

Even in these my best days there were persons who thought me too demure
and grave. I must forsooth by all means be instructed by foreign
masters, and taught to dance and play. This method of education was so
contrary to my genius, formed for much nobler entertainments, that it
did not succeed at all.

I fell next into the hands of a very different set. They were so
excessively scandalized at the gaiety of my appearance, as not only to
despoil me of the foreign fopperies, the paint and the patches that I
had been tricked out with by my last misjudging tutors, but they robbed
me of every innocent ornament I had from my infancy been used to gather
in the fields and gardens; nay, they blacked my face, and covered me all
over with a habit of mourning, and that too very coarse and awkward.
I was now obliged to spend my whole life in hearing sermons; nor
permitted so much as to smile upon any occasion.

In this melancholy disguise I became a perfect bugbear to all children,
and young folks. Wherever I came there was a general hush, and immediate
stop to all pleasantness of look or discourse; and not being permitted
to talk with them in my own language at that time, they took such a
disgust to me in those tedious hours of yawning, that having transmitted
it to their children, I cannot now be heard, though it is long since
I have recovered my natural form, and pleasing tone of voice. Would they
but receive my visits kindly, and listen to what I could tell them--let
me say it without vanity--how charming a companion should I be! to every
one could I talk on the subjects most interesting and most pleasing.
With the great and ambitious, I would discourse of honours and
advancements, of distinctions to which the whole world should be
witness, of unenvied dignities and durable preferments. To the rich
I would tell of inexhaustible treasures, and the sure method to attain
them. I would teach them to put out their money on the best interest,
and instruct the lovers of pleasure how to secure and improve it to
the highest degree. The beauty should learn of me how to preserve an
everlasting bloom. To the afflicted I would administer comfort, and
relaxation to the busy.

As I dare promise myself you will attest the truth of all I have
advanced, there is no doubt but many will be desirous of improving their
acquaintance with me; and that I may not be thought too difficult, I will
tell you, in short, how I wish to be received.

You must know I equally hate lazy idleness and hurry. I would every
where be welcomed at a tolerable early hour with decent good-humour
and gratitude. I must be attended in the great halls, peculiarly
appropriated to me, with respect; but I do not insist upon finery:
propriety of appearance, and perfect neatness, is all I require. I must
at dinner be treated with a temperate, but cheerful social meal; both
the neighbours and the poor should be the better for me. Some time
I must have tête-à-tête with my kind entertainers, and the rest of
my visit should be spent in pleasant walks and airings among sets of
agreeable people, in such discourse as I shall naturally dictate, or
in reading some few selected out of those numberless books that are
dedicated to me, and go by my name. A name that, alas! as the world
stands at present, makes them oftener thrown aside than taken up. As
these conversations and books should be both well chosen, to give some
advice on that head may possibly furnish you with a future paper, and
any thing you shall offer on my behalf will be of great service to,

Good Mr. RAMBLER,

Your faithful Friend and Servant,

                                                             SUNDAY[42].

[Footnote 42: This paper was written by Miss Catherine Talbot. See the
Preface.]




No. 31. TUESDAY, JULY 3, 1750.


  _Non ego mendosos ausim defendere mores;_
    _Falsaque pro vitiis arma movere meis._
                                                    OVID, Am. ii, iv. 1.

  Corrupted manners I shall ne'er defend;
  Nor, falsely witty, for my faults contend.
                                                             ELPHINSTON.


Though the fallibility of man's reason, and the narrowness of his
knowledge, are very liberally confessed, yet the conduct of those who
so willingly admit the weakness of human nature, seems to discover that
this acknowledgment is not altogether sincere; at least, that most make
it with a tacit reserve in favour of themselves, and that with whatever
ease they give up the claim of their neighbours, they are desirous of
being thought exempt from faults in their own conduct, and from errour
in their opinions.

The certain and obstinate opposition, which we may observe made to
confutation however clear, and to reproof however tender, is an undoubted
argument, that some dormant privilege is thought to be attacked; for
as no man can lose what he neither possesses, nor imagines himself
to possess, or be defrauded of that to which he has no right, it is
reasonable to suppose that those who break out into fury at the softest
contradiction, or the slightest censure, since they apparently conclude
themselves injured, must fancy some ancient immunity violated, or some
natural prerogative invaded. To be mistake, if they thought themselves
liable to mistake, could not be considered either as shameful, or
wonderful, and they would not receive with so much emotion intelligence
which only informed them of what they knew before, nor struggle with such
earnestness against an attack that deprived them of nothing to which they
held themselves entitled.

It is related of one of the philosophers, that when an account was
brought him of his son's death, he received it only with this reflection,
_I knew that my son was mortal_. He that is convinced of an errour, if he
had the same knowledge of his own weakness, would, instead of straining
for artifices, and brooding malignity, only regard such oversights as the
appendages of humanity, and pacify himself with considering that he had
always known man to be a fallible being.

If it be true that most of our passions are excited by the novelty of
objects, there is little reason for doubting, that to be considered as
subject to fallacies of ratiocination, or imperfection of knowledge, is
to a great part of mankind entirely new; for it is impossible to fall
into any company where there is not some regular and established
subordination, without finding rage and vehemence produced only by
difference of sentiments about things in which neither of the disputants
have any other interest, than what proceeds from their mutual
unwillingness to give way to any opinion that may bring upon them the
disgrace of being wrong.

I have heard of one that, having advanced some erroneous doctrines in
philosophy, refused to see the experiments by which they were confuted:
and the observation of every day will give new proofs with how much
industry subterfuges and evations are sought to decline the pressure of
resistless arguments, how often the state of the question is altered,
how often the antagonist is wilfully misrepresented, and in how much
perplexity the clearest positions are involved by those whom they happen
to oppose.

Of all mortals none seem to have been more infected with this species
of vanity, than the race of writers, whose reputation arising solely
from their understanding, gives them a very delicate sensibility of any
violence attempted on their literary honour. It is not unpleasing to
remark with what solicitude men of acknowledged abilities will endeavour
to palliate absurdities and reconcile contradictions, only to obviate
criticisms to which all human performances must ever be exposed, and from
which they can never suffer, but when they teach the world, by a vain and
ridiculous impatience, to think them of importance.

Dryden, whose warmth of fancy, and haste of composition, very frequently
hurried him into inaccuracies, heard himself sometimes exposed to
ridicule for having said in one of his tragedies,

  "I follow Fate, which does too fast pursue."

That no man could at once follow and be followed was, it may be thought,
too plain to be long disputed; and the truth is, that Dryden was
apparently betrayed into the blunder by the double meaning of the word
Fate, to which in the former part of the verse he had annexed the idea
of Fortune, and in the latter that of Death; so that the sense only was,
_though pursued by_ Death, _I will not resign myself to despair, but will
follow_ Fortune, _and do and suffer what is appointed_. This, however,
was not completely expressed, and Dryden being determined not to give
way to his criticks, never confessed that he had been surprised by an
ambiguity; but finding luckily in Virgil an account of a man moving in
a circle, with this expression, _Et se sequiturque fugitque_, "Here,"
says he, "is the passage in imitation of which I wrote the line that my
criticks were pleased to condemn as nonsense; not but I may sometimes
write nonsense, though they have not the fortune to find it."

Every one sees the folly of such mean doublings to escape the pursuit of
criticism; nor is there a single reader of this poet, who would not have
paid him greater veneration, had he shown consciousness enough of his own
superiority to set such cavils at defiance, and owned that he sometimes
slipped into errours by the tumult of his imagination, and the multitude
of his ideas.

It is happy when this temper discovers itself only in little things,
which may be right or wrong without any influence on the virtue or
happiness of mankind. We may, with very little inquietude, see a man
persist in a project which he has found to be impracticable, live in an
inconvenient house because it was contrived by himself, or wear a coat
of a particular cut, in hopes by perseverance to bring it into fashion.
These are indeed follies, but they are only follies, and, however wild
or ridiculous, can very little affect others.

But such pride, once indulged, too frequently operates upon more
important objects, and inclines men not only to vindicate their errours,
but their vices; to persist in practices which their own hearts condemn,
only lest they should seem to feel reproaches, or be made wiser by the
advice of others; or to search for sophisms tending to the confusion of
all principles, and the evacuation of all duties, that they may not appear
to act what they are not able to defend.

Let every man, who finds vanity so far predominant, as to betray him to
the danger of this last degree of corruption, pause a moment to consider
what will be the consequences of the plea which he is about to offer
for a practice to which he knows himself not led at first by reason,
but impelled by the violence of desire, surprised by the suddenness
of passion, or seduced by the soft approaches of temptation, and by
imperceptible gradations of guilt. Let him consider what he is going to
commit, by forcing his understanding to patronise those appetites, which
it is its chief business to hinder and reform.

The cause of virtue requires so little art to defend it, and good and
evil, when they have been once shewn, are so easily distinguished, that
such apologists seldom gain proselytes to their party, nor have their
fallacies power to deceive any but those whose desires have clouded their
discernment. All that the best faculties thus employed can perform is,
to persuade the hearers that the man is hopeless whom they only thought
vicious, that corruption has passed from his manners to his principles,
that all endeavours for his recovery are without prospect of success, and
that nothing remains but to avoid him as infectious, or hunt him down as
destructive.

But if it be supposed that he may impose on his audience by partial
representations of consequences, intricate deductions of remote causes,
or perplexed combinations of ideas, which having various relations appear
different as viewed on different sides; that he may sometimes puzzle the
weak and well-meaning, and now and then seduce, by the admiration of
his abilities, a young mind still fluctuating in unsettled notions, and
neither fortified by instruction nor enlightened by experience; yet what
must be the event of such a triumph! A man cannot spend all this life in
frolick: age, or disease, or solitude, will bring some hours of serious
consideration, and it will then afford no comfort to think, that he has
extended the dominion of vice, that he has loaded himself with the crimes
of others, and can never know the extent of his own wickedness, or make
reparation for the mischief that he has caused. There is not, perhaps,
in all the stores of ideal anguish, a thought more painful, than the
consciousness of having propagated corruption by vitiating principles, of
having not only drawn others from the paths of virtue, but blocked up the
way by which they should return, of having blinded them to every beauty
but the paint of pleasure, and deafened them to every call but the
alluring voice of the syrens of destruction.

There is yet another danger in this practice: men who cannot deceive
others, are very often successful in deceiving themselves; they weave
their sophistry till their own reason is entangled, and repeat their
positions till they are credited by themselves; by often contending,
they grow sincere in the cause; and by long wishing for demonstrative
arguments, they at last bring themselves to fancy that they have found
them. They are then at the uttermost verge of wickedness, and may die
without having that light rekindled in their minds, which their own pride
and contumacy have extinguished.

The men who can be charged with fewest failings, either with respect to
abilities or virtue, are generally most ready to allow them; for, not
to dwell on things of solemn and awful consideration, the humility of
confessors, the tears of saints, and the dying terrours of persons
eminent for piety and innocence, it is well known that Cæsar wrote an
account of the errours committed by him in his wars of Gaul, and that
Hippocrates, whose name is perhaps in rational estimation greater than
Cæsar's, warned posterity against a mistake into which he had fallen.
_So much_, says Celsus, _does the open and artless confession of an errour
become a man conscious that he has enough remaining to support his
character_.

As all errour is meanness, it is incumbent on every man who consults his
own dignity, to retract it as soon as he discovers it, without fearing
any censure so much as that of his own mind. As justice requires that all
injuries should be repaired, it is the duty of him who has seduced others
by bad practices or false notions, to endeavour that such as have adopted
his errours should know his retraction, and that those who have learned
vice by his example, should by his example be taught amendment.




No. 32. SATURDAY, JULY 7, 1750.


  [Greek: Hossa te daimoniêsi tychais brotoi alge' echousin,
  Hon an moiran echês, praôs phere, mêd' aganaktei;
  Iasthai de prepei, kathoson dynê.]
                                                        PYTH. Aur. Carm.

  Of all the woes that load the mortal state,
  Whate'er thy portion, mildly meet thy fate;
  But ease it as thou canst.----
                                                             ELPHINSTON.


So large a part of human life passes in a state contrary to our natural
desires, that one of the principal topicks of moral instruction is the
art of bearing calamities. And such is the certainty of evil, that it
is the duty of every man to furnish his mind with those principles that
may enable him to act under it with decency and propriety.

The sect of ancient philosophers, that boasted to have carried this
necessary science to the highest perfection, were the stoicks, or
scholars of Zeno, whose wild enthusiastick virtue pretended to an
exemption from the sensibilities of unenlightened mortals, and who
proclaimed themselves exalted, by the doctrines of their sect, above
the reach of those miseries which embitter life to the rest of the
world. They therefore removed pain, poverty, loss of friends, exile,
and violent death, from the catalogue of evils; and passed, in their
haughty style, a kind of irreversible decree, by which they forbad them
to be counted any longer among the objects of terrour or anxiety, or to
give any disturbance to the tranquillity of a wise man.

This edict was, I think, not universally observed; for though one of the
more resolute, when he was tortured by a violent disease, cried out,
that let pain harass him to its utmost power, it should never force him
to consider it as other than indifferent and neutral; yet all had not
stubbornness to hold out against their senses: for a weaker pupil of Zeno
is recorded to have confessed in the anguish of the gout, that _he now
found pain to be an evil_.

It may however be questioned, whether these philosophers can be very
properly numbered among the teachers of patience; for if pain be not
an evil, there seems no instruction requisite how it may be borne;
and therefore, when they endeavour to arm their followers with
arguments against it, they may be thought to have given up their first
position. But such inconsistencies are to be expected from the greatest
understandings, when they endeavour to grow eminent by singularity, and
employ their strength in establishing opinions opposite to nature.

The controversy about the reality of external evils is now at an end.
That life has many miseries, and that those miseries are, sometimes
at least, equal to all the powers of fortitude, is now universally
confessed; and therefore it is useful to consider not only how we
may escape them, but by what means those which either the accidents
of affairs, or the infirmities of nature, must bring upon us, may be
mitigated and lightened, and how we may make those hours less wretched,
which the condition of our present existence will not allow to be very
happy.

The cure for the greatest part of human miseries is not radical, but
palliative. Infelicity is involved in corporeal nature, and interwoven
with our being; all attempts therefore to decline it wholly are useless
and vain: the armies of pain send their arrows against us on every
side, the choice is only between those which are more or less sharp,
or tinged with poison of greater or less malignity; and the strongest
armour which reason can supply, will only blunt their points, but
cannot repel them.

The great remedy which heaven has put in our hands is patience, by which,
though we cannot lessen the torments of the body, we can in a great
measure preserve the peace of the mind, and shall suffer only the
natural and genuine force of an evil, without heightening its acrimony,
or prolonging its effects.

There is indeed nothing more unsuitable to the nature of man in any
calamity than rage and turbulence, which, without examining whether they
are not sometimes impious, are at least always offensive, and incline
others rather to hate and despise than to pity and assist us. If what
we suffer has been brought upon us by ourselves, it is observed by an
ancient poet, that patience is eminently our duty, since no one should
be angry at feeling that which he has deserved.

  _Leniter ex merito quicquid patiare ferendum est._

  Let pain deserv'd without complaint be borne.

And surely, if we are conscious that we have not contributed to our
own sufferings, if punishment falls upon innocence, or disappointment
happens to industry and prudence, patience, whether more necessary or
not, is much easier, since our pain is then without aggravation, and we
have not the bitterness of remorse to add to the asperity of misfortune.

In those evils which are allotted to us by Providence, such as deformity,
privation of any of the senses, or old age, it is always to be
remembered, that impatience can have no present effect, but to deprive
us of the consolations which our condition admits, by driving away from
us those by whose conversation or advice we might be amused or helped;
and that with regard to futurity it is yet less to be justified, since,
without lessening the pain, it cuts off the hope of that reward which
he, by whom it is inflicted, will confer upon them that bear it well.

In all evils which admit a remedy, impatience is to be avoided, because
it wastes that time and attention in complaints, that, if properly
applied, might remove the cause. Turenne, among the acknowledgments which
he used to pay in conversation to the memory of those by whom he had been
instructed in the art of war, mentioned one with honour, who taught him
not to spend his time in regretting any mistake which he had made, but to
set himself immediately and vigorously to repair it.

Patience and submission are very carefully to be distinguished from
cowardice and indolence. We are not to repine, but we may lawfully
struggle; for the calamities of life, like the necessities of nature,
are calls to labour and exercises of diligence. When we feel any
pressure of distress, we are not to conclude that we can only obey the
will of heaven by languishing under it, any more than when we perceive
the pain of thirst, we are to imagine that water is prohibited. Of
misfortune it never can be certainly known whether, as proceeding from
the hand of God, it is an act of favour or of punishment: but since
all the ordinary dispensations of Providence are to be interpreted
according to the general analogy of things, we may conclude that we
have a right to remove one inconvenience as well as another; that we
are only to take care lest we purchase ease with guilt; and that our
Maker's purpose, whether of reward or severity, will be answered by the
labours which he lays us under the necessity of performing.

This duty is not more difficult in any state than in diseases intensely
painful, which may indeed suffer such exacerbations as seem to strain
the powers of life to their utmost stretch, and leave very little of
the attention vacant to precept or reproof. In this state the nature
of man requires some indulgence, and every extravagance but impiety
may be easily forgiven him. Yet, lest we should think ourselves too
soon entitled to the mournful privileges of irresistible misery, it
is proper to reflect, that the utmost anguish which human wit can
contrive, or human malice can inflict, has been borne with constancy;
and that if the pains of disease be, as I believe they are, sometimes
greater than those of artificial torture, they are therefore in their
own nature shorter: the vital frame is quickly broken, the union
between soul and body is for a time suspended by insensibility, and we
soon cease to feel our maladies when they once become too violent to be
borne. I think there is some reason for questioning whether the body
and mind are not so proportioned, that the one can bear all that can
be inflicted on the other, whether virtue cannot stand its ground as
long as life, and whether a soul well principled will not be separated
sooner than subdued.

In calamities which operate chiefly on our passions, such as diminution
of fortune, loss of friends, or declension of character, the chief
danger of impatience is upon the first attack, and many expedients
have been contrived, by which the blow may be broken. Of these the
most general precept is, not to take pleasure in any thing, of which
it is not in our power to secure the possession to ourselves. This
counsel, when we consider the enjoyment of any terrestrial advantage
as opposite to a constant and habitual solicitude for future felicity,
is undoubtedly just, and delivered by that authority which cannot be
disputed, but in any other sense, is it not like advice, not to walk
lest we should stumble, or not to see least our eyes should light
upon deformity? It seems to me reasonable to enjoy blessings with
confidence, as well as to resign them with submission, and to hope
for the continuance of good which we possess without insolence or
voluptuousness, as for the restitution of that which we lose without
despondency or murmurs.

The chief security against the fruitless anguish of impatience, must
arise from frequent reflection on the wisdom and goodness of the God
of nature, in whose hands are riches and poverty, honour and disgrace,
pleasure and pain, and life and death. A settled conviction of the
tendency of every thing to our good, and of the possibility of turning
miseries into happiness, by receiving them rightly, will incline us to
_bless the name of the_ LORD, _whether he gives or takes away_.




No. 33. TUESDAY, JULY 10, 1750.


  _Quod caret alterna requie, durabile non est._
                                                    OVID, Epist. iv. 89.

  Alternate rest and labour long endure.


In the early ages of the world, as is well known to those who are versed
in ancient traditions, when innocence was yet untainted, and simplicity
unadulterated, mankind was happy in the enjoyment of continual pleasure,
and constant plenty, under the protection of Rest; a gentle divinity,
who required of her worshippers neither altars nor sacrifices, and whose
rites were only performed by prostrations upon turfs of flowers in shades
of jasmine and myrtle, or by dances on the banks of rivers flowing with
milk and nectar.

Under this easy government the first generations breathed the fragrance
of perpetual spring, ate the fruits, which, without culture, fell ripe
into their hands, and slept under bowers arched by nature, with the
birds singing over their heads, and the beasts sporting about them. But
by degrees they began to lose their original integrity; each, though
there was more than enough for all, was desirous of appropriating part
to himself. Then entered Violence and Fraud, and Theft and Rapine. Soon
after Pride and Envy broke into the world, and brought with them a new
standard of wealth; for men, who, till then, thought themselves rich
when they wanted nothing, now rated their demands, not by the calls of
nature, but by the plenty of others; and began to consider themselves as
poor, when they beheld their own possessions exceeded by those of their
neighbours. Now only one could be happy, because only one could have
most, and that one was always in danger, lest the same arts by which he
had supplanted others should be practised upon himself.

Amidst the prevalence of this corruption, the state of the earth was
changed; the year was divided into seasons; part of the ground became
barren, and the rest yielded only berries, acorns, and herbs. The summer
and autumn indeed furnished a coarse and inelegant sufficiency, but
winter was without any relief: Famine, with a thousand diseases which
the inclemency of the air invited into the upper regions, made havock
among men, and there appeared to be danger lest they should be destroyed
before they were reformed.

To oppose the devastations of Famine, who scattered the ground every
where with carcases, Labour came down upon earth. Labour was the son
of Necessity, the nurseling of Hope, and the pupil of Art; he had the
strength of his mother, the spirit of his nurse, and the dexterity of
his governess. His face was wrinkled with the wind, and swarthy with the
sun; he had the implements of husbandry in one hand, with which he turned
up the earth; in the other he had the tools of architecture, and raised
walls and towers at his pleasure. He called out with a rough voice,
"Mortals! see here the power to whom you are consigned, and from whom you
are to hope for all your pleasures, and all your safety. You have long
languished under the dominion of Rest, an impotent and deceitful goddess,
who can neither protect nor relieve you, but resigns you to the first
attacks of either Famine or Disease, and suffers her shades to be invaded
by every enemy, and destroyed by every accident.

"Awake therefore to the call of Labour. I will teach you to remedy the
sterility of the earth, and the severity of the sky; I will compel summer
to find provisions for the winter; I will force the waters to give you
their fish, the air its fowls, and the forest its beasts; I will teach
you to pierce the bowels of the earth, and bring out from the caverns
of the mountains metals which shall give strength to your hands, and
security to your bodies, by which you may be covered from the assaults
of the fiercest beast, and with which you shall fell the oak, and divide
rocks, and subject all nature to your use and pleasure."

Encouraged by this magnificent invitation, the inhabitants of the globe
considered Labour as their only friend, and hasted to his command. He led
them out to the fields and mountains, and shewed them how to open mines,
to level hills, to drain marshes, and change the course of rivers. The
face of things was immediately transformed; the land was covered with
towns and villages, encompassed with fields of corn, and plantations of
fruit-trees; and nothing was seen but heaps of grain, and baskets of
fruit, full tables, and crowded store-houses.

Thus Labour and his followers added every hour new acquisitions to their
conquests, and saw Famine gradually dispossessed of his dominions; till
at last, amidst their jollity and triumphs, they were depressed and
amazed by the approach of Lassitude, who was known by her sunk eyes and
dejected countenance. She came forward trembling and groaning: at every
groan the hearts of all those that beheld her lost their courage, their
nerves slackened, their hands shook, and the instruments of labour fell
from their grasp.

Shocked with this horrid phantom, they reflected with regret on their easy
compliance with the solicitations of Labour, and began to wish again for
the golden hours which they remembered to have passed under the reign
of Rest, whom they resolved again to visit, and to whom they intended to
dedicate the remaining part of their lives. Rest had not left the world;
they quickly found her, and to atone for their former desertion, invited
her to the enjoyment of those acquisitions which Labour had procured them.

Rest therefore took leave of the groves and valleys, which she had
hitherto inhabited, and entered into palaces, reposed herself in
alcoves, and slumbered away the winter upon beds of down, and the summer
in artificial grottoes with cascades playing before her. There was
indeed always something wanting to complete her felicity, and she could
never lull her returning fugitives to that serenity which they knew
before their engagements with Labour: nor was her dominion entirely
without controul, for she was obliged to share it with Luxury, though
she always looked upon her as a false friend, by whom her influence was
in reality destroyed, while it seemed to be promoted.

The two soft associates, however, reigned for some time without visible
disagreement, till at last Luxury betrayed her charge, and let in Disease
to seize upon her worshippers. Rest then flew away, and left the place to
the usurpers; who employed all their arts to fortify themselves in their
possession, and to strengthen the interest of each other.

Rest had not always the same enemy: in some places she escaped the
incursions of Disease; but had her residence invaded by a more slow and
subtle intruder, for very frequently, when every thing was composed and
quiet, when there was neither pain within, nor danger without, when every
flower was in bloom, and every gale freighted with perfumes, Satiety
would enter with a languishing and repining look, and throw herself upon
the couch placed and adorned for the accommodation of Rest. No sooner was
she seated than a general gloom spread itself on every side, the groves
immediately lost their verdure, and their inhabitants desisted from
their melody, the breeze sunk in sighs, and the flowers contracted their
leaves, and shut up their odours. Nothing was seen on every side but
multitudes wandering about they knew not whether, in quest they knew not
of what; no voice was heard but of complaints that mentioned no pain, and
murmurs that could tell of no misfortune.

Rest had now lost her authority. Her followers again began to treat her
with contempt; some of them united themselves more closely to Luxury, who
promised by her arts to drive Satiety away; and others, that were more
wise, or had more fortitude, went back again to Labour, by whom they were
indeed protected from Satiety, but delivered up in time to Lassitude, and
forced by her to the bowers of Rest.

Thus Rest and Labour equally perceived their reign of short duration and
uncertain tenure, and their empire liable to inroads from those who were
alike enemies to both. They each found their subjects unfaithful, and
ready to desert them upon every opportunity. Labour saw the riches which
he had given always carried away as an offering to Rest, and Rest found
her votaries in every exigence flying from her to beg help of Labour.
They, therefore, at last determined upon an interview, in which they
agreed to divide the world between them, and govern it alternately
allotting the dominion of the day to one, and that of the night to the
other, and promised to guard the frontiers of each other, so that,
whenever hostilities were attempted, Satiety should be intercepted by
Labour, and Lassitude expelled by Rest. Thus the ancient quarrel was
appeased, and as hatred is often succeeded by its contrary, Rest
afterwards became pregnant by Labour, and was delivered of Health, a
benevolent goddess, who consolidated the union of her parents, and
contributed to the regular vicissitudes of their reign, by dispensing
her gifts to those only who shared their lives in just proportions
between Rest and Labour.




No. 34. SATURDAY, JULY 14, 1750.


  _----Non sine vano_
  _Aurarum et silvæ metu._
                                              HOR. lib. i. Ode xxiii. 3.

  Alarm'd with ev'ry rising gale,
  In ev'ry wood, in ev'ry vale.
                                                             ELPHINSTON.


I have been censured for having hitherto dedicated so few of my
speculations to the ladies; and indeed the moralist, whose instructions
are accommodated only to one half of the human species, must be
confessed not sufficiently to have extended his views. Yet it is to
be considered, that masculine duties afford more room for counsels
and observations, as they are less uniform, and connected with things
more subject to vicissitude and accident; we therefore find that in
philosophical discourses which teach by precept, or historical narratives
that instruct by example, the peculiar virtues or faults of women
fill but a small part; perhaps generally too small, for so much of our
domestick happiness is in their hands, and their influence is so great
upon our earliest years, that the universal interest of the world
requires them to be well instructed in their province; nor can it be
thought proper that the qualities by which so much pain or pleasure
may be given, should be left to the direction of chance.

I have, therefore, willingly given a place in my paper to a letter,
which perhaps may not be wholly useless to them whose chief ambition
is to please, as it shews how certainly the end is missed by absurd and
injudicious endeavours at distinction.


TO THE RAMBLER.

SIR,

I am a young gentleman at my own disposal, with a considerable estate;
and having passed through the common forms of education, spent some time
in foreign countries, and made myself distinguished since my return in
the politest company, I am now arrived at that part of life in which
every man is expected to settle, and provide for the continuation of his
lineage. I withstood for some time the solicitations and remonstrances
of my aunts and uncles, but at last was persuaded to visit Anthea, an
heiress, whose land lies contiguous to mine, and whose birth and beauty
are without objection. Our friends declared that we were born for each
other; all those on both sides who had no interest in hindering our
union, contributed to promote it, and were conspiring to hurry us into
matrimony, before we had an opportunity of knowing one another. I was,
however, too old to be given away without my own consent; and having
happened to pick up an opinion, which to many of my relations seemed
extremely odd, that a man might be unhappy with a large estate,
determined to obtain a nearer knowledge of the person with whom I was
to pass the remainder of my time. To protract the courtship was by no
means difficult, for Anthea had a wonderful facility of evading questions
which I seldom repeated, and of barring approaches which I had no great
eagerness to press.

Thus the time passed away in visits and civilities without any ardent
professions of love, or formal offers of settlements. I often attended
her to publick places, in which, as is well known, all behaviour is so
much regulated by custom, that very little insight can be gained into a
private character, and therefore I was not yet able to inform myself of
her humour and inclinations.

At last I ventured to propose to her to make one of a small party,
and spend a day in viewing a seat and gardens a few miles distant;
and having, upon her compliance, collected the rest of the company, I
brought, at the hour, a coach which I had borrowed from an acquaintance,
having delayed to buy one myself, till I should have an opportunity of
taking the lady's opinion for whose use it was intended. Anthea came
down, but as she was going to step into the coach, started back with
great appearance of terrour, and told us that she durst not enter, for
the shocking colour of the lining had so much the air of the mourning
coach in which she followed her aunt's funeral three years before, that
she should never have her poor dear aunt out of her head.

I knew that it was not for lovers to argue with their mistresses; I
therefore sent back the coach and got another more gay. Into this we all
entered; the coachman began to drive, and we were amusing ourselves with
the expectation of what we should see, when, upon a small inclination of
the carriage, Anthea screamed out, that we were overthrown. We were
obliged to fix all our attention upon her, which she took care to keep
up by renewing her outcries, at every corner where we had occasion to
turn; at intervals she entertained us with fretful complaints of the
uneasiness of the coach, and obliged me to call several times on the
coachman to take care and drive without jolting. The poor fellow
endeavoured to please us, and therefore moved very slowly, till Anthea
found out that this pace would only keep us longer on the stones, and
desired that I would order him to make more speed. He whipped his
horses, the coach jolted again, and Anthea very complaisantly told us
how much she repented that she made one of our company.

At last we got into the smooth road, and began to think our difficulties
at an end, when, on a sudden, Anthea saw a brook before us, which she
could not venture to pass. We were, therefore, obliged to alight, that
we might walk over the bridge; but when we came to it we found it so
narrow, that Anthea durst not set her foot upon it, and was content,
after long consultation, to call the coach back, and with innumerable
precautions, terrours, and lamentations, crossed the brook.

It was necessary after this delay to amend our pace, and directions were
accordingly given to the coachman, when Anthea informed us, that it was
common for the axle to catch fire with a quick motion, and begged of me
to look out every minute, lest we should all be consumed. I was forced
to obey, and give her from time to time the most solemn declarations
that all was safe, and that I hoped we should reach the place without
losing our lives either by fire or water.

Thus we passed on, over ways soft and hard, with more or less speed,
but always with new vicissitudes of anxiety. If the ground was hard,
we were jolted; if soft, we were sinking. If we went fast, we should be
overturned; if slowly, we should never reach the place. At length she saw
something which she called a cloud, and began to consider that at that
time of the year it frequently thundered. This seemed to be the capital
terrour, for after that the coach was suffered to move on; and no danger
was thought too dreadful to be encountered, provided she could get into
a house before the thunder.

Thus our whole conversation passed in dangers, and cares, and fears, and
consolations, and stories of ladies dragged in the mire, forced to spend
all the night on the heath, drowned in rivers, or burnt with lightning;
and no sooner had a hair-breadth escape set us free from one calamity,
but we were threatened with another.

At length we reached the house where we intended to regale ourselves,
and I proposed to Anthea the choice of a great number of dishes, which
the place, being well provided for entertainment, happened to afford.
She made some objection to every thing that was offered; one thing she
hated at that time of the year, another she could not bear since she had
seen it spoiled at lady Feedwell's table, another she was sure they
could not dress at this house, and another she could not touch without
French sauce. At last she fixed her mind upon salmon, but there was no
salmon in the house. It was however procured with great expedition, and
when it came to the table she found that her fright had taken away her
stomach, which indeed she thought no great loss, for she could never
believe that any thing at an inn could be cleanly got.

Dinner was now over, and the company proposed, for I was now past the
condition of making overtures, that we should pursue our original design
of visiting the gardens. Anthea declared that she could not imagine what
pleasure we expected from the sight of a few green trees and a little
gravel, and two or three pits of clear water: that for her part she
hated walking till the cool of the evening, and thought it very likely
to rain; and again wished that she had stayed at home. We then reconciled
ourselves to our disappointment, and began to talk on common subjects,
when Anthea told us, that since we came to see gardens, she would not
hinder our satisfaction. We all rose, and walked through the enclosures
for some time, with no other trouble than the necessity of watching lest
a frog should hop across the way, which Anthea told us would certainly
kill her if she should happen to see him.

Frogs, as it fell out, there where none; but when we were within a
furlong of the gardens, Anthea saw some sheep, and heard the wether
clink his bell, which she was certain was not hung upon him for nothing,
and therefore no assurances nor intreaties should prevail upon her to
go a step further; she was sorry to disappoint the company, but her life
was dearer to her than ceremony.

We came back to the inn, and Anthea now discovered that there was no
time to be lost in returning, for the night would come upon us, and
a thousand misfortunes might happen in the dark. The horses were
immediately harnessed, and Anthea having wondered what could seduce her
to stay so long, was eager to set out. But we had now a new scene of
terrour, every man we saw was a robber, and we were ordered sometimes to
drive hard, lest a traveller whom we saw behind should overtake us; and
sometimes to stop, lest we should come up to him who was passing before
us. She alarmed many an honest man, by begging him to spare her life as
he passed by the coach, and drew me into fifteen quarrels with persons
who increased her fright, by kindly stopping to inquire whether they
could assist us. At last we came home, and she told her company next
day what a pleasant ride she had been taking.

I suppose, Sir, I need not inquire of you what deductions may be made from
this narrative, nor what happiness can arise from the society of that
woman who mistakes cowardice for elegance, and imagines all delicacy to
consist in refusing to be pleased.

I am, &c.




No. 35. TUESDAY, JULY 17, 1750.


  _----Non pronuba Juno,_
  _Non Hymenæus adest, non illi Gratia lecto._
                                                     OVID, Met. vi. 428.

  Without connubial Juno's aid they wed;
  Nor Hymen nor the Graces bless the bed.
                                                             ELPHINSTON.


TO THE RAMBLER.

SIR,

As you have hitherto delayed the performance of the promise, by which
you gave us reason to hope for another paper upon matrimony, I imagine
you desirous of collecting more materials than your own experience, or
observation, can supply; and I shall therefore lay candidly before you
an account of my own entrance into the conjugal state.

I was about eight-and-twenty years old, when, having tried the diversions
of the town till I began to be weary, and being awakened into attention
to more serious business, by the failure of an attorney to whom I had
implicitly trusted the conduct of my fortune, I resolved to take my
estate into my own care, and methodise my whole life according to the
strictest rules of economical prudence.

In pursuance of this scheme, I took leave of my acquaintance, who
dismissed me with numberless jests upon my new system; having first
endeavoured to divert me from a design so little worthy of a man of wit,
by ridiculous accounts of the ignorance and rusticity into which many
had sunk in their retirement, after having distinguished themselves in
taverns and playhouses, and given hopes of rising to uncommon eminence
among the gay part of mankind.

When I came first into the country, which, by a neglect not uncommon
among young heirs, I had never seen since the death of my father, I
found every thing in such confusion, that being utterly without practice
in business, I had great difficulties to encounter in disentangling the
perplexity of my circumstances; they however gave way to diligent
application; and I perceived that the advantage of keeping my own
accounts would very much overbalance the time which they could require.

I had now visited my tenants, surveyed my land, and repaired the old
house, which, for some years, had been running to decay. These proofs of
pecuniary wisdom began to recommend me as a sober, judicious, thriving
gentleman, to all my graver neighbours of the country, who never failed
to celebrate my management in opposition to Triftless and Latterwit,
two smart fellows, who had estates in the same part of the kingdom,
which they visited now and then in a frolick, to take up their rents
beforehand, debauch a milk-maid, make a feast for the village, and tell
stories of their own intrigues, and then rode post back to town to spend
their money.

It was doubtful, however, for some time, whether I should be able to
hold my resolution; but a short perseverance removed all suspicions.
I rose every day in reputation, by the decency of my conversation, and
the regularity of my conduct, and was mentioned with great regard at the
assizes, as a man very fit to be put in commission for the peace.

During the confusion of my affairs, and the daily necessity of visiting
farms, adjusting contracts, letting leases, and superintending repairs,
I found very little vacuity in my life, and therefore had not many
thoughts of marriage; but, in a little while, the tumult of business
subsided, and the exact method which I had established enabled me to
dispatch my accounts with great facility. I had, therefore, now upon my
hands, the task of finding means to spend my time, without falling back
into the poor amusements which I had hitherto indulged, or changing them
for the sports of the field, which I saw pursued with so much eagerness
by the gentlemen of the country, that they were indeed the only
pleasures in which I could promise myself any partaker.


The inconvenience of this situation naturally disposed me to wish for
a companion, and the known value of my estate, with my reputation for
frugality and prudence, easily gained me admission into every family;
for I soon found that no inquiry was made after any other virtue, nor
any testimonial necessary, but of my freedom from incumbrances, and
my care of what they termed the _main chance_. I saw, not without
indignation, the eagerness with which the daughters, wherever I came,
were set out to show; nor could I consider them in a state much
different from prostitution, when I found them ordered to play their
airs before me, and to exhibit, by some seeming chance, specimens of
their musick, their work, or their housewifery. No sooner was I placed
at table, than the young lady was called upon to pay me some civility or
other; nor could I find means of escaping, from either father or mother,
some account of their daughter's excellencies, with a declaration that
they were now leaving the world, and had no business on this side the
grave, but to see their children happily disposed of; that she whom I
had been pleased to compliment at table was indeed the chief pleasure of
their age; so good, so dutiful, so great a relief to her mamma in the
care of the house, and so much her papa's favourite for her cheerfulness
and wit, that it would be with the last reluctance that they should
part; but to a worthy gentleman in the neighbourhood, whom they might
often visit, they would not so far consult their own gratification, as
to refuse her; and their tenderness should be shown in her fortune,
whenever a suitable settlement was proposed.

As I knew these overtures not to proceed from any preference of me
before another equally rich, I could not but look with pity on young
persons condemned to be set to auction, and made cheap by injudicious
commendations; for how could they know themselves offered and rejected
a hundred times, without some loss of that soft elevation, and maiden
dignity, so necessary to the completion of female excellence?

I shall not trouble you with a history of the stratagems practised upon
my judgment, or the allurements tried upon my heart, which, if you have,
in any part of your life, been acquainted with rural politicks, you will
easily conceive. Their arts have no great variety, they think nothing
worth their care but money, and supposing its influence the same upon
all the world, seldom endeavour to deceive by any other means than false
computations.

I will not deny that, by hearing myself loudly commended for my
discretion, I began to set some value upon my character, and was
unwilling to lose my credit by marrying for love. I therefore resolved
to know the fortune of the lady whom I should address, before I inquired
after her wit, delicacy, or beauty.

This determination led to Mitissa, the daughter of Chrysophilus, whose
person was at least without deformity, and whose manners were free
from reproach, as she had been bred up at a distance from all common
temptations. To Mitissa therefore I obtained leave from her parents
to pay my court, and was referred by her again to her father, whose
direction she was resolved to follow. The question then was, only, what
should be settled? The old gentleman made an enormous demand, with which
I refused to comply. Mitissa was ordered to exert her power; she told me,
that if I could refuse her papa, I had no love for her; that she was an
unhappy creature, and that I was a perfidious man; then she burst into
tears, and fell into fits. All this, as I was no passionate lover, had
little effect. She next refused to see me, and because I thought myself
obliged to write in terms of distress, they had once hopes of starving
me into measures; but finding me inflexible, the father complied with my
proposal, and told me he liked me the more for being so good at a bargain.

I was now married to Mitissa, and was to experience the happiness of a
match made without passion. Mitissa soon discovered that she was equally
prudent with myself, and had taken a husband only to be at her own
command, and to have a chariot at her own call. She brought with her
an old maid recommended by her mother, who taught her all the arts of
domestick management, and was, on every occasion, her chief agent and
directress. They soon invented one reason or other to quarrel with all
my servants, and either prevailed on me to turn them away, or treated
them so ill that they left me of themselves, and always supplied their
places with some brought from my wife's relations. Thus they established
a family, over which I had no authority, and which was in a perpetual
conspiracy against me; for Mitissa considered herself as having a
separate interest, and thought nothing her own, but what she laid up
without my knowledge. For this reason she brought me false accounts of
the expenses of the house, joined with my tenants in complaints of hard
times, and by means of a steward of her own, took rewards for soliciting
abatements of the rent. Her great hope is to outlive me, that she may
enjoy what she has thus accumulated, and therefore she is always
contriving some improvements of her jointure land, and once tried to
procure an injunction to hinder me from felling timber upon it for
repairs. Her father and mother assist her in her projects, and are
frequently hinting that she is ill used, and reproaching me with the
presents that other ladies receive from their husbands.

Such, Sir, was my situation for seven years, till at last my patience
was exhausted, and having one day invited her father to my house, I laid
the state of my affairs before him, detected my wife in several of her
frauds, turned out her steward, charged a constable with her maid, took
my business in my own hands, reduced her to a settled allowance, and now
write this account to warn others against marrying those whom they have
no reason to esteem.

I am, &c.




No. 36. SATURDAY, JULY 21, 1750.


  [Greek: ----Ham' eponto nomêes,
  Terpomenoi syrinxi; dolon d' outi pronoêsan.]
                                                  HOMER, II. xviii. 525.

  ----Piping on their reeds the shepherds go,
  Nor fear an ambush, nor suspect a foe.
                                                                   POPE.


There is scarcely any species of poetry that has allured more readers,
or excited more writers, than the pastoral. It is generally pleasing,
because it entertains the mind with representations of scenes familiar
to almost every imagination, and of which all can equally judge whether
they are well described. It exhibits a life, to which we have been
always accustomed to associate peace, and leisure, and innocence: and
therefore we readily set open the heart for the admission of its images,
which contribute to drive away cares and perturbations, and suffer
ourselves, without resistance, to be transported to Elysian regions,
where we are to meet with nothing but joy, and plenty, and contentment;
where every gale whispers pleasure, and every shade promises repose.

It has been maintained by some, who love to talk of what they do not
know, that pastoral is the most ancient poetry; and, indeed, since it
is probable that poetry is nearly of the same antiquity with rational
nature, and since the life of the first men was certainly rural, we
may reasonably conjecture, that, as their ideas would necessarily be
borrowed from those objects with which they are acquainted, their
composures, being filled chiefly with such thoughts on the visible
creation as must occur to the first observers, were pastoral hymns, like
those which Milton introduces the original pair singing, in the day of
innocence, to the praise of their Maker.


For the same reason that pastoral poetry was the first employment of the
human imagination, it is generally the first literary amusement of our
minds. We have seen fields, and meadows, and groves, from the time that
our eyes opened upon life; and are pleased with birds, and brooks, and
breezes, much earlier than we engage among the actions and passions of
mankind. We are therefore delighted with rural pictures, because we know
the original at an age when our curiosity can be very little awakened
by descriptions of courts which we never beheld, or representations of
passions which we never felt.

The satisfaction received from this kind of writing not only begins early,
but lasts long; we do not, as we advance into the intellectual world,
throw it away among other childish amusements and pastimes, but willingly
return to it in any hour of indolence and relaxation. The images of true
pastoral have always the power of exciting delight; because the works of
nature, from which they are drawn, have always the same order and beauty,
and continue to force themselves upon our thoughts, being at once obvious
to the most careless regard, and more than adequate to the strongest
reason, and severest contemplation. Our inclination to stillness and
tranquillity is seldom much lessened by long knowledge of the busy and
tumultuary part of the world. In childhood we turn our thoughts to the
country, as to the region of pleasure; we recur to it in old age as a
port of rest, and perhaps with that secondary and adventitious gladness,
which every man feels on reviewing those places, or recollecting those
occurrences, that contributed to his youthful enjoyments, and bring
him back to the prime of life, when the world was gay with the bloom of
novelty, when mirth wantoned at his side, and hope sparkled before him.

The sense of this universal pleasure has invited _numbers without number_
to try their skill in pastoral performances, in which they have generally
succeeded after the manner of other imitators, transmitting the same
images in the same combination from one to another, till he that reads
the title of a poem, may guess at the whole series of the composition;
nor will a man, after the perusal of thousands of these performances,
find his knowledge enlarged with a single view of nature not produced
before, or his imagination amused with any new application of those
views to moral purposes.

The range of pastoral is indeed narrow, for though nature itself,
philosophically considered, be inexhaustible, yet its general effects
on the eye and on the ear are uniform, and incapable of much variety of
description. Poetry cannot dwell upon the minuter distinctions, by which
one species differs from another, without departing from that simplicity
of grandeur which fills the imagination; nor dissect the latent qualities
of things, without losing its general power of gratifying every mind, by
recalling its conceptions. However, as each age makes some discoveries,
and those discoveries are by degrees generally known, as new plants or
modes of culture are introduced, and by little and little become common,
pastoral might receive, from time to time, small augmentations, and
exhibit once in a century a scene somewhat varied.

But pastoral subjects have been often, like others, taken into the hands
of those that were not qualified to adorn them, men to whom the face of
nature was so little known, that they have drawn it only after their own
imagination, and changed or distorted her features, that their portraits
might appear something more than servile copies from their predecessors.

Not only the images of rural life, but the occasions on which they can be
properly produced, are few and general. The state of a man confined to
the employments and pleasures of the country, is so little diversified,
and exposed to so few of those accidents which produce perplexities,
terrours, and surprises, in more complicated transactions, that he can be
shewn but seldom in such circumstances as attract curiosity. His ambition
is without policy, and his love without intrigue. He has no complaints to
make of his rival, but that he is richer than himself; nor any disasters
to lament, but a cruel mistress, or a bad harvest.

The conviction of the necessity of some new source of pleasure induced
Sannazarius to remove the scene from the fields to the sea, to substitute
fishermen for shepherds, and derive his sentiments from the piscatory
life; for which he has been censured by succeeding criticks, because
the sea is an object of terrour, and by no means proper to amuse the
mind, and lay the passions asleep. Against this objection he might be
defended by the established maxim, that the poet has a right to select
his images, and is no more obliged to shew the sea in a storm, than the
land under an inundation; but may display all the pleasures, and conceal
the dangers of the water, as he may lay his shepherd under a shady beech,
without giving him an ague, or letting a wild beast loose upon him.

There are, however, two defects in the piscatory eclogue, which perhaps
cannot be supplied. The sea, though in hot countries it is considered by
those who live, like Sannazarius, upon the coast, as a place of pleasure
and diversion, has notwithstanding much less variety than the land, and
therefore will be sooner exhausted by a descriptive writer. When he has
once shewn the sun rising or setting upon it, curled its waters with the
vernal breeze, rolled the waves in gentle succession to the shore, and
enumerated the fish sporting on the shallows, he has nothing remaining
but what is common to all other poetry, the complaint of a nymph for a
drowned lover, or the indignation of a fisher that his oysters are
refused, and Mycon's accepted.

Another obstacle to the general reception of this kind of poetry, is the
ignorance of maritime pleasures, in which the greater part of mankind
must always live. To all the inland inhabitants of every region, the
sea is only known as an immense diffusion of waters, over which men pass
from one country to another, and in which life is frequently lost. They
have, therefore, no opportunity of tracing, in their own thoughts, the
descriptions of winding shores and calm bays, nor can look on the poem
in which they are mentioned, with other sensations than on a sea chart,
or the metrical geography of Dionysius.

This defect Sannazarius was hindered from perceiving, by writing in
a learned language to readers generally acquainted with the works of
nature; but if he had made his attempt in any vulgar tongue, he would
soon have discovered how vainly he had endeavoured to make that loved,
which was not understood.

I am afraid it will not be found easy to improve the pastorals of
antiquity, by any great additions or diversifications. Our descriptions
may indeed differ from those of Virgil, as an English from an Italian
summer, and, in some respects, as modern from ancient life; but as
nature is in both countries nearly the same, and as poetry has to do
rather with the passions of men, which are uniform, than their customs,
which are changeable, the varieties, which time or place can furnish,
will be inconsiderable; and I shall endeavour to shew, in the next
paper, how little the latter ages have contributed to the improvement
of the rustick muse.





No. 37. TUESDAY, JULY 24, 1750.


  _Canto quæ solitus, si quando armenta vocabat,_
  _Amphion Dircæus._
                                                       VIRG. Ec. ii. 23.

  Such strains I sing as once Amphion play'd,
  When list'ning flocks the powerful call obey'd.
                                                             ELPHINSTON.


In writing or judging of pastoral poetry, neither the authors nor criticks
of latter times seem to have paid sufficient regard to the originals
left us by antiquity, but have entangled themselves with unnecessary
difficulties, by advancing principles, which, having no foundation
in the nature of things, are wholly to be rejected from a species of
composition, in which, above all others, mere nature is to be regarded.

It is therefore necessary to inquire after some more distinct and exact
idea of this kind of writing. This may, I think, be easily found in the
pastorals of Virgil, from whose opinion it will not appear very safe to
depart, if we consider that every advantage of nature, and of fortune,
concurred to complete his productions; that he was born with great
accuracy and severity of judgment, enlightened with all the learning of
one of the brightest ages, and embellished with the elegance of the Roman
court; that he employed his powers rather in improving, than inventing,
and therefore must have endeavoured to recompense the want of novelty by
exactness; that taking Theocritus for his original, he found pastoral
far advanced towards perfection, and that having so great a rival,
he must have proceeded with uncommon caution.

If we search the writings of Virgil for the true definition of a pastoral,
it will be found _a poem in which any action or passion is represented by
its effects upon a country life_. Whatsoever therefore may, according to
the common course of things, happen in the country, may afford a subject
for a pastoral poet.

In this definition, it will immediately occur to those who are versed
in the writings of the modern criticks, that there is no mention of the
golden age. I cannot indeed easily discover why it is thought necessary
to refer descriptions of a rural state to remote times, nor can I
perceive that any writer has consistently preserved the Arcadian manners
and sentiments. The only reason, that I have read, on which this rule
has been founded, is, that, according to the customs of modern life, it
is improbable that shepherds should be capable of harmonious numbers,
or delicate sentiments; and therefore the reader must exalt his ideas
of the pastoral character, by carrying his thoughts back to the age in
which the care of herds and flocks was the employment of the wisest and
greatest men.

These reasoners seem to have been led into their hypothesis, by
considering pastoral, not in general, as a representation of rural
nature, and consequently as exhibiting the ideas and sentiments of those,
whoever they are, to whom the country affords pleasure or employment, but
simply as a dialogue, or narrative of men actually tending sheep, and
busied in the lowest and most laborious office; from whence they very
readily concluded, since characters must necessarily be preserved, that
either the sentiments must sink to the level of the speakers, or the
speakers must be raised to the height of the sentiments.

In consequence of these original errours, a thousand precepts have been
given, which have only contributed to perplex and confound. Some have
thought it necessary that the imaginary manners of the golden age should
be universally preserved, and have therefore believed, that nothing more
could be admitted in pastoral, than lilies and roses, and rocks and
streams, among which are heard the gentle whispers of chaste fondness,
or the soft complaints of amorous impatience. In pastoral, as in other
writings, chastity of sentiment ought doubtless to be observed, and
purity of manners to be represented; not because the poet is confined to
the images of the golden age, but because, having the subject in his own
choice, he ought always to consult the interest of virtue.

These advocates for the golden age lay down other principles, not very
consistent with their general plan; for they tell us, that, to support
the character of the shepherd, it is proper that all refinement should
be avoided, and that some slight instances of ignorance should be
interspersed. Thus the shepherd in Virgil is supposed to have forgot
the name of Anaximander, and in Pope the term Zodiack is too hard for a
rustick apprehension. But if we place our shepherds in their primitive
condition, we may give them learning among their other qualifications;
and if we suffer them to allude at all to things of later existence,
which, perhaps, cannot with any great propriety be allowed, there can
be no danger of making them speak with too much accuracy, since they
conversed with divinities, and transmitted to succeeding ages the arts
of life.

Other writers, having the mean and despicable condition of a shepherd
always before them, conceive it necessary to degrade the language of
pastoral by obsolete terms and rustick words, which they very learnedly
call Dorick, without reflecting that they thus became authors of a
mangled dialect, which no human being ever could have spoken, that they
may as well refine the speech as the sentiments of their personages,
and that none of the inconsistencies which they endeavour to avoid,
is greater than that of joining elegance of thought with coarseness
of diction. Spenser begins one of his pastorals with studied barbarity:

         Diggon Davie, I bid her good-day:
         Or, Diggon her is, or I missay.
  _Dig._ Her was her while it was day-light,
         But now her is a most wretched wight.

What will the reader imagine to be the subject on which speakers like
these exercise their eloquence? Will he not be somewhat disappointed,
when he finds them met together to condemn the corruptions of the church
of Rome? Surely, at the same time that a shepherd learns theology, he
may gain some acquaintance with his native language.

Pastoral admits of all ranks of persons, because persons of all ranks
inhabit the country. It excludes not, therefore, on account of the
characters necessary to be introduced, any elevation or delicacy of
sentiment; those ideas only are improper, which, not owing their original
to rural objects, are not pastoral. Such is the exclamation in Virgil,

  _Nunc scio quid sit Amor, duris in cotibus illum_
  _Ismarus, aut Rhodope, aut extremi Garamantes,_
  _Nec generis nostri puerum, nee sanguinis edunt._
                                                    VIRG. Ecl. viii. 44.

  I know thee, Love, in deserts thou wert bred,
  And at the dugs of savage tygers fed;
  Alien of birth, usurper of the plains.
                                                                 DRYDEN.

which, Pope endeavouring to copy, was carried to still greater impropriety:

  I know thee, Love, wild as the raging main,
  More fierce than tygers on the Libyan plain;
  Thou wert from Ætna's burning entrails torn;
  Begot in tempests, and in thunders born!

Sentiments like these, as they have no ground in nature, are indeed of
little value in any poem; but in pastoral they are particularly liable
to censure, because it wants that exaltation above common life, which
in tragick or heroick writings often reconciles us to bold flights and
daring figures.

Pastoral being the _representation of an action or passion, by its
effects upon a country life_, has nothing peculiar but its confinement to
rural imagery, without which it ceases to be pastoral. This is its true
characteristick, and this it cannot lose by any dignity of sentiment,
or beauty of diction. The Pollio of Virgil, with all its elevation, is
a composition truly bucolick, though rejected by the criticks; for all
the images are either taken from the country, or from the religion of
the age common to all parts of the empire.

The Silenus is indeed of a more disputable kind, because, though the
scene lies in the country, the song being religious and historical, had
been no less adapted to any other audience or place. Neither can it well
be defended as a fiction; for the introduction of a god seems to imply
the golden age, and yet he alludes to many subsequent transactions,
and mentions Gallus, the poet's contemporary.

It seems necessary to the perfection of this poem, that the occasion which
is supposed to produce it, be at least not inconsistent with a country
life, or less likely to interest those who have retired into places of
solitude and quiet, than the more busy part of mankind. It is therefore
improper to give the title of a pastoral to verses, in which the
speakers, after the slight mention of their flocks, fall to complaints
of errours in the church, and corruptions in the government, or to
lamentations of the death of some illustrious person, whom, when once the
poet has called a shepherd, he has no longer any labour upon his hands,
but can make the clouds weep, and lilies wither, and the sheep hang their
heads, without art or learning, genius or study.

It is part of Claudian's character of his rustick, that he computes his
time not by the succession of consuls, but of harvests. Those who pass
their days in retreats distant from the theatres of business, are always
least likely to hurry their imagination with publick affairs.

The facility of treating actions or events in the pastoral style, has
incited many writers, from whom more judgment might have been expected,
to put the sorrow or the joy which the occasion required into the mouth
of Daphne or of Thyrsis; and as one absurdity must naturally be expected
to make way for another, they have written with an utter disregard
both of life and nature, and filled their productions with mythological
allusions, with incredible fictions, and with sentiments which neither
passion nor reason could have dictated, since the change which religion
has made in the whole system of the world.




No. 38. SATURDAY, JULY 28, 1750.


  _Auream quisquis mediocritatem_
  _Diligit, tutus caret obsoleti_
  _Sordibus tecti, caret invidendâ_
          _Sobrius aulâ._
                                                HOR. lib. i. Ode iv. 10.

  The man within the golden mean
  Who can his boldest wish contain,
  Securely views the ruin'd cell,
  Where sordid want and sorrow dwell;
  And in himself serenely great,
  Declines an envied room of state.
                                                                FRANCIS.


Among many parallels which men of imagination have drawn between the
natural and moral state of the world, it has been observed that happiness,
as well as virtue, consists in mediocrity; that to avoid every extreme
is necessary, even to him who has no other care than to pass through the
present state with ease and safety; and that the middle path is the road
of security, on either side of which are not only the pitfalls of vice,
but the precipices of ruin.


Thus the maxim of Cleobulus the Lindian, [Greek: metron ariston],
_Mediocrity is best_, has been long considered as an universal principle,
extended through the whole compass of life and nature. The experience
of every age seems to have given it new confirmation, and to shew that
nothing, however specious or alluring, is pursued with propriety, or
enjoyed with safety, beyond certain limits.

Even the gifts of nature, which may truly be considered as the most solid
and durable of all terrestrial advantages, are found, when they exceed
the middle point, to draw the possessor into many calamities, easily
avoided by others that have been less bountifully enriched or adorned. We
see every day women perish with infamy, by having been too willing to set
their beauty to shew; and others, though not with equal guilt or misery,
yet with very sharp remorse, languishing in decay, neglect, and obscurity,
for having rated their youthful charms at too high a price. And, indeed,
if the opinion of Bacon be thought to deserve much regard, very few
sighs would be vented for eminent and superlative elegance of form; "for
beautiful women," says he, "are seldom of any great accomplishments,
because they, for the most part, study behaviour rather than virtue."

Health and vigour, and a happy constitution of the corporeal frame,
are of absolute necessity to the enjoyment of the comforts, and to the
performance of the duties of life, and requisite in yet a greater measure
to the accomplishment of any thing illustrious or distinguished; yet even
these, if we can judge by their apparent consequences, are sometimes not
very beneficial to those on whom they are most liberally bestowed. They
that frequent the chambers of the sick will generally find the sharpest
pains, and most stubborn maladies, among them whom confidence of the
force of nature formerly betrayed to negligence and irregularity; and
that superfluity of strength, which was at once their boast and their
snare, has often, in the latter part of life, no other effect than that
it continues them long in impotence and anguish.

These gifts of nature are, however, always blessings in themselves, and
to be acknowledged with gratitude to him that gives them; since they
are, in their regular and legitimate effects, productive of happiness, and
prove pernicious only by voluntary corruption or idle negligence. And as
there is little danger of pursuing them with too much ardour or anxiety,
because no skill or diligence can hope to procure them, the uncertainty
of their influence upon our lives is mentioned, not to depreciate their
real value, but to repress the discontent and envy to which the want of
them often gives occasion in those who do not enough suspect their own
frailty, nor consider how much less is the calamity of not possessing
great powers, than of not using them aright.

Of all those things that make us superior to others, there is none so much
within the reach of our endeavours as riches, nor any thing more eagerly
or constantly desired. Poverty is an evil always in our view, an evil
complicated with so many circumstances of uneasiness and vexation, that
every man is studious to avoid it. Some degree of riches is therefore
required, that we may be exempt from the gripe of necessity; when this
purpose is once attained, we naturally wish for more, that the evil which
is regarded with so much horrour, may be yet at a greater distance from
us; as he that has once felt or dreaded the paw of a savage, will not
be at rest till they are parted by some barrier, which may take away all
possibility of a second attack.

To this point, if fear be not unreasonably indulged, Cleobulus would,
perhaps, not refuse to extend his mediocrity. But it almost always
happens, that the man who grows rich, changes his notions of poverty,
states his wants by some new measure, and from flying the enemy that
pursued him, bends his endeavours to overtake those whom he sees before
him. The power of gratifying his appetites increases their demands;
a thousand wishes crowd in upon him, importunate to be satisfied, and
vanity and ambition open prospects to desire, which still grow wider,
as they are more contemplated.

Thus in time want is enlarged without bounds; an eagerness for increase
of possessions deluges the soul, and we sink into the gulphs of
insatiability, only because we do not sufficiently consider, that all
real need is very soon supplied, and all real danger of its invasion
easily precluded; that the claims of vanity, being without limits, must
be denied at last; and that the pain of repressing them is less pungent
before they have been long accustomed to compliance.

Whosoever shall look heedfully upon those who are eminent for their
riches, will not think their condition such as that he should hazard his
quiet, and much less his virtue, to obtain it. For all that great wealth
generally gives above a moderate fortune, is more room for the freaks of
caprice, and more privilege for ignorance and vice, a quicker succession
of flatteries, and a large circle of voluptuousness.

There is one reason, seldom remarked, which makes riches less desirable.
Too much wealth is very frequently the occasion of poverty. He whom the
wantonness of abundance has once softened, easily sinks into neglect of
his affairs; and he that thinks he can afford to be negligent, is not
far from being poor. He will soon be involved in perplexities, which his
inexperience will render unsurmountable; he will fly for help to those
whose interest it is that he should be more distressed, and will be at
last torn to pieces by the vultures that always hover over fortunes in
decay.

When the plains of India were burnt up by a long continuance of drought,
Hamet and Raschid, two neighbouring shepherds, faint with thirst, stood
at the common boundary of their grounds, with their flocks and herds
panting round them, and in extremity of distress prayed for water. On a
sudden the air was becalmed, the birds ceased to chirp, and the flocks
to bleat. They turned their eyes every way, and saw a being of mighty
stature advancing through the valley, whom they knew upon his nearer
approach to be the Genius of Distribution. In one hand he held the sheaves
of plenty, and in the other the sabre of destruction. The shepherds stood
trembling, and would have retired before him; but he called to them with
a voice gentle as the breeze that plays in the evening among the spices
of Sabæa; "Fly not from your benefactor, children of the dust! I am come
to offer you gifts, which only your own folly can make vain. You here
pray for water, and water I will bestow; let me know with how much you
will be satisfied: speak not rashly; consider, that of whatever can be
enjoyed by the body, excess is no less dangerous than scarcity. When you
remember the pain of thirst, do not forget the danger of suffocation. Now,
Hamet, tell me your request."

"O Being, kind and beneficent," says Hamet, "let thine eye pardon my
confusion, I entreat a little brook, which in summer shall never be dry,
and in winter never overflow." "It is granted," replies the Genius; and
immediately he opened the ground with his sabre, and a fountain bubbling
up under their feet, scattered its rills over the meadows; the flowers
renewed their fragrance, the trees spread a greener foliage, and the
flocks and herds quenched their thirst.

Then turning to Raschid, the Genius invited him likewise to offer his
petition. "I request," says Raschid, "that thou wilt turn the Ganges
through my grounds, with all his waters, and all their inhabitants." Hamet
was struck with the greatness of his neighbour's sentiments, and secretly
repined in his heart, that he had not made the same petition before him;
when the Genius spoke, "Rash man, be not insatiable! remember, to thee
that is nothing which thou canst not use; and how are thy wants greater
than the wants of Hamet?" Raschid repeated his desire, and pleased himself
with the mean appearance that Hamet would make in the presence of the
proprietor of the Ganges. The Genius then retired towards the river, and
the two shepherds stood waiting the event. As Raschid was looking with
contempt upon his neighbour, on a sudden was heard the roar of torrents,
and they found by the mighty stream that the mounds of the Ganges were
broken. The flood rolled forward into the lands of Raschid, his plantations
were torn up, his flocks overwhelmed, he was swept away before it, and
a crocodile devoured him.




No. 39. TUESDAY, JULY 31, 1750.


  _Infelix----nulli bene nupta marito._
                                                  AUSONIUS, Ep. Her. 30.

  Unblest, still doom'd to wed with misery.


The condition of the female sex has been frequently the subject of
compassion to medical writers, because their constitution of body is
such, that every state of life brings its peculiar diseases: they are
placed, according to the proverb, between Scylla and Charybdis, with no
other choice than of dangers equally formidable; and whether they embrace
marriage, or determine upon a single life, are exposed, in consequence of
their choice, to sickness, misery, and death.

It were to be wished that so great a degree of natural infelicity might
not be increased by adventitious and artificial miseries; and that
beings, whose beauty we cannot behold without admiration, and whose
delicacy we cannot contemplate without tenderness, might be suffered to
enjoy every alleviation of their sorrows. But, however it has happened,
the custom of the world seems to have been formed in a kind of conspiracy
against them, though it does not appear but they had themselves an equal
share in its establishment; and prescriptions which, by whomsoever they
were begun, are now of long continuance, and by consequence of great
authority, seem to have almost excluded them from content, in whatsoever
condition they shall pass their lives.

If they refuse the society of men, and continue in that state which is
reasonably supposed to place happiness most in their own power, they
seldom give those that frequent their conversation any exalted notions
of the blessing of liberty; for whether it be that they are angry to
see with what inconsiderate eagerness other heedless females rush into
slavery, or with what absurd vanity the married ladies boast the change
of their condition, and condemn the heroines who endeavour to assert
the natural dignity of their sex; whether they are conscious that like
barren countries they are free, only because they were never thought to
deserve the trouble of a conquest, or imagine that their sincerity is
not always unsuspected, when they declare their contempt of men; it is
certain, that they generally appear to have some great and incessant
cause of uneasiness, and that many of them have at last been persuaded,
by powerful rhetoricians, to try the life which they had so long
contemned, and put on the bridal ornaments at a time when they least
became them.

What are the real causes of the impatience which the ladies discover in a
virgin state, I shall perhaps take some other occasion to examine. That
it is not to be envied for its happiness, appears from the solicitude
with which it is avoided; from the opinion universally prevalent among
the sex, that no woman continues long in it but because she is not
invited to forsake it; from the disposition always shewn to treat old
maids as the refuse of the world; and from the willingness with which it
is often quitted at last, by those whose experience has enabled them to
judge at leisure, and decide with authority.

Yet such is life, that whatever is proposed, it is much easier to find
reasons for rejecting than embracing. Marriage, though a certain security
from the reproach and solicitude of antiquated virginity, has yet, as it
is usually conducted, many disadvantages, that take away much from the
pleasure which society promises, and might afford, if pleasures and pains
were honestly shared, and mutual confidence inviolably preserved.

The miseries, indeed, which many ladies suffer under conjugal vexations,
are to be considered with great pity, because their husbands are often
not taken by them as objects of affection, but forced upon them by
authority and violence, or by persuasion and importunity, equally
resistless when urged by those whom they have been always accustomed to
reverence and obey; and it very seldom appears that those who are thus
despotick in the disposal of their children, pay any regard to their
domestick and personal felicity, or think it so much to be inquired
whether they will be happy, as whether they will be rich.

It may be urged, in extenuation of this crime, which parents, not in
any other respect to be numbered with robbers and assassins, frequently
commit, that, in their estimation, riches and happiness are equivalent
terms. They have passed their lives with no other wish than of adding
acre to acre, and filling one bag after another, and imagine the
advantage of a daughter sufficiently considered, when they have secured
her a large jointure, and given her reasonable expectations of living
in the midst of those pleasures with which she had seen her father and
mother solacing their age.

There is an oeconomical oracle received among the prudential part of the
world, which advises fathers _to marry their daughters, lest they should
marry themselves_; by which I suppose it is implied, that women left to
their own conduct generally unite themselves with such partners as can
contribute very little to their felicity. Who was the author of this
maxim, or with what intention it was originally uttered, I have not yet
discovered; but imagine that however solemnly it may be transmitted,
or however implicitly received, it can confer no authority which nature
has denied; it cannot license Titius to be unjust, lest Caia should be
imprudent; nor give right to imprison for life, lest liberty should be
ill employed.

That the ladies have sometimes incurred imputations which might naturally
produce edicts not much in their favour, must be confessed by their warmest
advocates; and I have indeed seldom observed that when the tenderness or
virtue of their parents has preserved them from forced marriage, and left
them at large to chuse their own path in the labyrinth of life, they
have made any great advantage of their liberty: they commonly take the
opportunity of independance to trifle away youth and lose their bloom in
a hurry of diversions, recurring in a succession too quick to leave room
for any settled reflection; they see the world without gaining experience,
and at last regulate their choice by motives trifling as those of a girl,
or mercenary as those of a miser.

Melanthea came to town upon the death of her father, with a very large
fortune, and with the reputation of a much larger; she was therefore
followed and caressed by many men of rank, and by some of understanding;
but having an insatiable desire of pleasure, she was not at leisure,
from the park, the gardens, the theatres, visits, assemblies, and
masquerades, to attend seriously to any proposal, but was still impatient
for a new flatterer, and neglected marriage as always in her power; till
in time her admirers fell away, wearied with expense, disgusted at her
folly, or offended by her inconstancy; she heard of concerts to which
she was not invited, and was more than once forced to sit still at an
assembly for want of a partner. In this distress, chance threw in her
way Philotryphus, a man vain, glittering, and thoughtless as herself, who
had spent a small fortune in equipage and dress, and was shining in the
last suit for which his tailor would give him credit. He had been long
endeavouring to retrieve his extravagance by marriage, and therefore soon
paid his court to Melanthea, who after some weeks of insensibility saw
him at a ball, and was wholly overcome by his performance in a minuet.
They married; but a man cannot always dance, and Philotryphus had no
other method of pleasing; however, as neither was in any great degree
vicious, they live together with no other unhappiness, than vacuity of
mind, and that tastelessness of life, which proceeds from a satiety of
juvenile pleasures, and an utter inability to fill their place by nobler
employments. As they have known the fashionable world at the same time,
they agree in their notions of all those subjects on which they ever
speak, and being able to add nothing to the ideas of each other, are
not much inclined to conversation, but very often join in one wish,
"That they could sleep more, and think less."

Argyris, after having refused a thousand offers, at last consented to
marry Cotylus, the younger brother of a duke, a man without elegance of
mien, beauty of person, or force of understanding; who, while he courted
her, could not always forbear allusions to her birth, and hints how
cheaply she would purchase an alliance to so illustrious a family. His
conduct from the hour of his marriage has been insufferably tyrannical,
nor has he any other regard to her than what arises from his desire that
her appearance may not disgrace him. Upon this principle, however, he
always orders that she should be gaily dressed, and splendidly attended;
and she has, among all her mortifications, the happiness to take place of
her eldest sister.




No. 40. SATURDAY, AUGUST 4, 1750.


  _----Nec dicet, cur ego amicum_
  _Offendam in nugis? Hæ nugæ seria ducent_
  _In mala derisum semel._
                                                    HOR. Ars. Poet. 450.

  Nor say, for trifles why should I displease
  The man I love? For trifles such as these
  To serious mischiefs lead the man I love,
  If once the flatterer's ridicule he prove.
                                                                FRANCIS.


It has been remarked, that authors are _genus irritabile_, a _generation
very easily put out of temper_, and that they seldom fail of giving
proofs of their irascibility upon the slightest attack of criticism, or
the most gentle or modest offer of advice and information.

Writers being best acquainted with one another, have represented this
character as prevailing among men of literature, which a more extensive
view of the world would have shewn them to be diffused through all human
nature, to mingle itself with every species of ambition and desire of
praise, and to discover its effects with greater or less restraint,
and under disguises more or less artful, in all places and all conditions.

The quarrels of writers, indeed, are more observed, because they
necessarily appeal to the decision of the publick. Their enmities are
incited by applauses from their parties, and prolonged by treacherous
encouragement for general diversion; and when the contest happens to
rise high between men of genius and learning, its memory is continued
for the same reason as its vehemence was at first promoted, because it
gratifies the malevolence or curiosity of readers, and relieves the
vacancies of life with amusement and laughter. The personal disputes,
therefore, of rivals in wit are sometimes transmitted to posterity, when
the grudges and heart-burnings of men less conspicuous, though carried
on with equal bitterness, and productive of greater evils, are exposed
to the knowledge of those only whom they nearly affect, and suffered to
pass off and be forgotten among common and casual transactions.

The resentment which the discovery of a fault or folly produces, must
bear a certain proportion to our pride, and will regularly be more
acrimonious as pride is more immediately the principle of action. In
whatever therefore we wish to imagine ourselves to excel, we shall
always be displeased to have our claims to reputation disputed; and more
displeased, if the accomplishment be such as can expect reputation only
for its reward. For this reason it is common to find men break out into
rage at any insinuations to the disadvantage of their wit, who have
borne with great patience reflections on their morals; and of women it
has been always known, that no censure wounds so deeply, or rankles so
long, as that which charges them with want of beauty.

As men frequently fill their imaginations with trifling pursuits, and
please themselves most with things of small importance, I have often
known very severe and lasting malevolence excited by unlucky censures,
which would have fallen without any effect, had they not happened to
wound a part remarkably tender. Gustulus, who valued himself upon the
nicety of his palate, disinherited his eldest son for telling him
that the wine, which he was then commending, was the same which he
had sent away the day before as not fit to be drunk. Proculus withdrew
his kindness from a nephew, whom he had always considered as the most
promising genius of the age, for happening to praise in his presence
the graceful horsemanship of Marius. And Fortunio, when he was privy
counsellor, procured a clerk to be dismissed from one of the publick
offices, in which he was eminent for his skill and assiduity, because
he had been heard to say that there was another man in the kingdom on
whose skill at billiards he would lay his money against Fortunio's.

Felicia and Floretta had been bred up in one house, and shared all the
pleasures and endearments of infancy together. They entered upon life at
the same time, and continued their confidence and friendship; consulted
each other in every change of their dress, and every admission of a new
lover; thought every diversion more entertaining whenever it happened
that both were present, and when separated justified the conduct, and
celebrated the excellencies, of one another. Such was their intimacy,
and such their fidelity; till a birth-night approached, when Floretta
took one morning an opportunity, as they were consulting upon new
clothes, to advise her friend not to dance at the ball, and informed her
that her performance the year before had not answered the expectation
which her other accomplishments had raised. Felicia commended her
sincerity, and thanked her for the caution; but told her that she danced
to please herself, and was in very little concern what the men might
take the liberty of saying, but that if her appearance gave her dear
Floretta any uneasiness, she would stay away. Floretta had now nothing
left but to make new protestations of sincerity and affection, with
which Felicia was so well satisfied, that they parted with more than
usual fondness. They still continued to visit, with this only difference,
that Felicia was more punctual than before, and often declared how
high a value she put upon sincerity, how much she thought that goodness
to be esteemed which would venture to admonish a friend of an errour,
and with what gratitude advice was to be received, even when it might
happen to proceed from mistake.

In a few months Felicia, with great seriousness, told Floretta, that
though her beauty was such as gave charms to whatever she did, and her
qualifications so extensive, that she could not fail of excellence in
any attempt, yet she thought herself obliged by the duties of friendship
to inform her, that if ever she betrayed want of judgment, it was by too
frequent compliance with solicitations to sing, for that her manner was
somewhat ungraceful, and her voice had no great compass. It is true, says
Floretta, when I sung three nights ago at lady Sprightly's, I was hoarse
with a cold; but I sing for my own satisfaction, and am not in the least
pain whether I am liked. However, my dear Felicia's kindness is not the
less, and I shall always think myself happy in so true a friend.

From this time they never saw each other without mutual professions
of esteem, and declarations of confidence, but went soon after into
the country to visit their relations. When they came back, they were
prevailed on, by the importunity of new acquaintance, to take lodgings in
different parts of the town, and had frequent occasion, when they met, to
bewail the distance at which they were placed, and the uncertainty which
each experienced of finding the other at home.

Thus are the fondest and firmest friendships dissolved, by such openness
and sincerity as interrupt our enjoyment of our own approbation, or
recal us to the remembrance of those failings which we are more willing
to indulge than to correct.

It is by no means necessary to imagine, that he who is offended at advice,
was ignorant of the fault, and resents the admonition as a false charge;
for perhaps it is most natural to be enraged, when there is the strongest
conviction of our own guilt. While we can easily defend our character,
we are no more disturbed at an accusation, than we are alarmed by an
enemy whom we are sure to conquer; and whose attack, therefore, will
bring us honour without danger. But when a man feels the reprehension of
a friend seconded by his own heart, he is easily heated into resentment
and revenge, either because he hoped that the fault of which he was
conscious had escaped the notice of others; or that his friend had looked
upon it with tenderness and extenuation, and excused it for the sake
of his other virtues; or had considered him as too wise to need advice,
or too delicate to be shocked with reproach: or, because we cannot feel
without pain those reflections roused which we have been endeavouring
to lay asleep; and when pain has produced anger, who would not willingly
believe, that it ought to be discharged on others, rather than on himself?

The resentment produced by sincerity, whatever be its immediate cause,
is so certain, and generally so keen, that very few have magnanimity
sufficient for the practice of a duty, which, above most others, exposes
its votaries to hardships and persecutions; yet friendship without it
is of very little value since the great use of so close an intimacy is,
that our virtues may be guarded and encouraged, and our vices repressed
in their first appearance by timely detection and salutary
remonstrances.

It is decreed by Providence, that nothing truly valuable shall be obtained
in our present state, but with difficulty and danger. He that hopes for
that advantage which is to be gained from unrestrained communication,
must sometimes hazard, by unpleasing truths, that friendship which he
aspires to merit. The chief rule to be observed in the exercise of this
dangerous office, is to preserve it pure from all mixture of interest
or vanity; to forbear admonition or reproof, when our consciences tell
us that they are incited, not by the hopes of reforming faults, but the
desire of shewing our discernment, or gratifying our own pride by the
mortification of another. It is not indeed certain, that the most refined
caution will find a proper time for bringing a man to the knowledge
of his own failings, or the most zealous benevolence reconcile him to
that judgment, by which they are detected; but he who endeavours only
the happiness of him whom he reproves, will always have either the
satisfaction of obtaining or deserving kindness; if he succeeds, he
benefits his friend, and if he fails, he has at least the consciousness
that he suffers for only doing well.




No. 41. TUESDAY, AUGUST 7, 1750.


  _Nulla recordanti lux est ingrata, gravisque:_
    _Nulla subit cujus non meminisse velit._
  _Ampliat ætatis spatium sibi vir bonus: hoc est_
    _Vivere bis, vitâ posse priore frui._
                                                 MART. lib. x. Epig. 23.

  No day's remembrance shall the good regret,
  Nor wish one bitter moment to forget:
  They stretch the limits of this narrow span;
  And, by enjoying, live past life again.
                                                               F. LEWIS.


So few of the hours of life are filled up with objects adequate to the
mind of man, and so frequently are we in want of present pleasure or
employment, that we are forced to have recourse every moment to the past
and future for supplemental satisfactions, and relieve the vacuities of
our being, by recollection of former passages, or anticipation of events
to come.

I cannot but consider this necessity of searching on every side for
matter on which the attention may be employed, as a strong proof of the
superior and celestial nature of the soul of man. We have no reason to
believe that other creatures have higher faculties, or more extensive
capacities, than the preservation of themselves, or their species,
requires; they seem always to be fully employed, or to be completely at
ease without employment, to feel few intellectual miseries or pleasures,
and to have no exuberance of understanding to lay out upon curiosity
or caprice, but to have their minds exactly adapted to their bodies,
with few other ideas than such as corporal pain or pleasure impresses
upon them.

Of memory, which makes so large a part of the excellence of the human
soul, and which has so much influence upon all its other powers, but a
small portion has been allotted to the animal world. We do not find the
grief with which the dams lament the loss of their young, proportionate
to the tenderness with which they caress, the assiduity with which they
feed, or the vehemence with which they defend them. Their regard for
their offspring, when it is before their eyes, is not, in appearance,
less than that of a human parent; but when it is taken away, it is very
soon forgotten, and, after a short absence, if brought again, wholly
disregarded.

That they have very little remembrance of any thing once out of the reach
of their senses, and scarce any power of comparing the present with the
past, and regulating their conclusions from experience, may be gathered
from this, that their intellects are produced in their full perfection.
The sparrow that was hatched last spring makes her first nest the ensuing
season, of the same materials, and with the same art, as in any following
year; and the hen conducts and shelters her first brood of chickens with
all the prudence that she ever attains.

It has been asked by men who love to perplex any thing that is plain to
common understandings, how reason differs from instinct; and Prior has
with no great propriety made Solomon himself declare, that to distinguish
them is _the fool's ignorance, and the pedant's pride_. To give an
accurate answer to a question, of which the terms are not completely
understood, is impossible; we do not know in what either reason or
instinct consists, and therefore cannot tell with exactness how they
differ; but surely he that contemplates a ship and a bird's nest, will
not be long without finding out, that the idea of the one was impressed
at once, and continued through all the progressive descents of the
species, without variation or improvement; and that the other is the
result of experiments, compared with experiments, has grown, by
accumulated observation, from less to greater excellence, and exhibits
the collective knowledge of different ages and various professions.

Memory is the purveyor of reason, the power which places those images
before the mind upon which the judgment is to be exercised, and which
treasures up the determinations that are once passed, as the rules of
future action, or grounds of subsequent conclusions.

It is, indeed, the faculty of remembrance, which may be said to place us
in the class of moral agents. If we were to act only in consequence of
some immediate impulse, and receive no direction from internal motives
of choice, we should be pushed forward by an invincible fatality, without
power or reason for the most part to prefer one thing to another, because
we could make no comparison but of objects which might both happen to
be present.

We owe to memory not only the increase of our knowledge, and our progress
in rational inquiries, but many other intellectual pleasures. Indeed,
almost all that we can be said to enjoy is past or future; the present
is in perpetual motion, leaves us as soon as it arrives, ceases to be
present before its presence is well perceived, and is only known to have
existed by the effects which it leaves behind. The greatest part of our
ideas arises, therefore, from the view before or behind us, and we are
happy or miserable, according as we are affected by the survey of our
life, or our prospect of future existence.

With regard to futurity, when events are at such a distance from us that
we cannot take the whole concatenation into our view, we have generally
power enough over our imagination to turn it upon pleasing scenes, and
can promise ourselves riches, honours, and delights, without intermingling
those vexations and anxieties, with which all human enjoyments are
polluted. If fear breaks in on one side, and alarms us with dangers and
disappointments, we can call in hope on the other, to solace us with
rewards, and escapes, and victories; so that we are seldom without
means of palliating remote evils, and can generally sooth ourselves to
tranquillity, whenever any troublesome presage happens to attack us.

It is, therefore, I believe, much more common for the solitary and
thoughtful to amuse themselves with schemes of the future, than reviews
of the past. For the future is pliant and ductile, and will be easily
moulded by a strong fancy into any form. But the images which memory
presents are of a stubborn and untractable nature, the objects of
remembrance have already existed, and left their signature behind them
impressed upon the mind, so as to defy all attempts of rasure or of
change.

As the satisfactions, therefore, arising from memory are less arbitrary,
they are more solid, and are, indeed, the only joys which we can call
our own. Whatever we have once reposited, as Dryden expresses it, _in
the sacred treasure of the past_, is out of the reach of accident, or
violence, nor can be lost either by our own weakness, or another's malice:

  _----Non tamen irritum_
  _Quodcunque retro est, efficiet; neque_
    _Diffinget, infectumque reddet,_
      _Quod fugiens semel hora vexit._
                                              HOR. lib. iii. Ode 29. 43.

    Be fair or foul, or rain or shine,
    The joys I have possess'd in spite of fate are mine.
  Not Heav'n itself upon the past has pow'r,
  But what has been has been, and I have had my hour.
                                                                 DRYDEN.

There is certainly no greater happiness than to be able to look back
on a life usefully and virtuously employed, to trace our own progress
in existence, by such tokens as excite neither shame nor sorrow. Life,
in which nothing has been done or suffered to distinguish one day from
another, is to him that has passed it, as if it had never been, except
that he is conscious how ill he has husbanded the great deposit of his
Creator. Life, made memorable by crimes, and diversified through its
several periods by wickedness, is indeed easily reviewed, but reviewed
only with horrour and remorse.

The great consideration which ought to influence us in the use of the
present moment, is to arise from the effect, which, as well or ill applied,
it must have upon the time to come; for though its actual existence be
inconceivably short, yet its effects are unlimited; and there is not
the smallest point of time but may extend its consequences, either to
our hurt or our advantage, through all eternity, and give us reason to
remember it for ever, with anguish or exultation.

The time of life, in which memory seems particularly to claim predominance
over the other faculties of the mind, is our declining age. It has been
remarked by former writers, that old men are generally narrative, and
fall easily into recitals of past transactions, and accounts of persons
known to them in their youth. When we approach the verge of the grave it
is more eminently true;

  _Vitæ summa brevis spem nos vetat inchoare longam._
                                                 HOR. lib. i. Ode 4. 15.

  Life's span forbids thee to extend thy cares,
    And stretch thy hopes beyond thy years.
                                                                 CREECH.

We have no longer any possibility of great vicissitudes in our favour;
the changes which are to happen in the world will come too late for
our accommodation; and those who have no hope before them, and to whom
their present state is painful and irksome, must of necessity turn their
thoughts back to try what retrospect will afford. It ought, therefore, to
be the care of those who wish to pass the last hours with comfort, to lay
up such a treasure of pleasing ideas, as shall support the expenses of
that time, which is to depend wholly upon the fund already acquired.

  _----Petite hinc, juvenesque senesque_
  _Finem animo certum, miserisque viatica curis._

  Seek here, ye young, the anchor of your mind;
  Here, suff'ring age, a bless'd provision find.
                                                             ELPHINSTON.

In youth, however unhappy, we solace ourselves with the hope of better
fortune, and however vicious, appease our consciences with intentions
of repentance; but the time comes at last, in which life has no more
to promise, in which happiness can be drawn only from recollection, and
virtue will be all that we can recollect with pleasure.




No. 42. SATURDAY, AUGUST 11, 1750.


  _Mihi tarda fluunt ingrataque tempora._
                                               HOR. lib. i. Epist 1. 15.

  How heavily my time revolves along.
                                                             ELPHINSTON.


TO THE RAMBLER.

MR. RAMBLER,

I am no great admirer of grave writings, and therefore very frequently
lay your papers aside before I have read them through; yet I cannot
but confess that, by slow degrees, you have raised my opinion of your
understanding, and that, though I believe it will be long before I can be
prevailed upon to regard you with much kindness, you have, however, more
of my esteem than those whom I sometimes make happy with opportunities
to fill my tea-pot, or pick up my fan. I shall therefore chuse you for
the confidant of my distresses, and ask your counsel with regard to
the means of conquering or escaping them, though I never expect from
you any of that softness and pliancy, which constitutes the perfection
of a companion for the ladies: as, in the place where I now am, I have
recourse to the mastiff for protection, though I have no intention of
making him a lap-dog.

My mamma is a very fine lady, who has more numerous and more frequent
assemblies at her house than any other person in the same quarter of
the town. I was bred from my earliest infancy in a perpetual tumult
of pleasure, and remember to have heard of little else than messages,
visits, playhouses, and balls; of the awkwardness of one woman, and the
coquetry of another; the charming convenience of some rising fashion,
the difficulty of playing a new game, the incidents of a masquerade, and
the dresses of a court-night. I knew before I was ten years old all the
rules of paying and receiving visits, and to how much civility every one
of my acquaintance was entitled; and was able to return, with the proper
degree of reserve or of vivacity, the stated and established answer to
every compliment; so that I was very soon celebrated as a wit and a
beauty, and had heard before I was thirteen all that is ever said to
a young lady. My mother was generous to so uncommon a degree as to
be pleased with my advance into life, and allowed me, without envy or
reproof, to enjoy the same happiness with herself; though most women
about her own age were very angry to see young girls so forward, and
many fine gentlemen told her how cruel it was to throw new chains upon
mankind, and to tyrannize over them at the same time with her own charms,
and those of her daughter.

I have now lived two-and-twenty years, and have passed of each year nine
months in town, and three at Richmond; so that my time has been spent
uniformly in the same company, and the same amusements, except as fashion
has introduced new diversions, or the revolutions of the gay world have
afforded new successions of wits and beaux. However, my mother is so good
an economist of pleasure, that I have no spare hours upon my hands; for
every morning brings some new appointment, and every night is hurried
away by the necessity of making our appearance at different places, and
of being with one lady at the opera, and with another at the card-table.

When the time came of settling our schemes of felicity for the summer,
it was determined that I should pay a visit to a rich aunt in a remote
county. As you know the chief conversation of all tea-tables, in the
spring, arises from a communication of the manner in which time is to
be passed till winter, it was a great relief to the barrenness of our
topicks, to relate the pleasures that were in store for me, to describe
my uncle's seat, with the park and gardens, the charming walks and
beautiful waterfalls; and every one told me how much she envied me, and
what satisfaction she had once enjoyed in a situation of the same kind.

As we are all credulous in our own favour, and willing to imagine some
latent satisfaction in any thing which we have not experienced, I will
confess to you, without restraint, that I had suffered my head to be
filled with expectations of some nameless pleasure in a rural life, and
that I hoped for the happy hour that should set me free from noise, and
flutter, and ceremony, dismiss me to the peaceful shade, and lull me in
content and tranquillity. To solace myself under the misery of delay, I
sometimes heard a studious lady of my acquaintance read pastorals, I was
delighted with scarce any talk but of leaving the town, and never went
to bed without dreaming of groves, and meadows, and frisking lambs.

At length I had all my clothes in a trunk, and saw the coach at the door;
I sprung in with ecstasy, quarrelled with my maid for being too long in
taking leave of the other servants, and rejoiced as the ground grew less
which lay between me and the completion of my wishes. A few days brought
me to a large old house, encompassed on three sides with woody hills,
and looking from the front on a gentle river, the sight of which renewed
all my expectations of pleasure, and gave me some regret for having
lived so long without the enjoyment which these delightful scenes were
now to afford me. My aunt came out to receive me, but in a dress so far
removed from the present fashion, that I could scarcely look upon her
without laughter, which would have been no kind requital for the trouble
which she had taken to make herself fine against my arrival. The night
and the next morning were driven along with inquiries about our family;
my aunt then explained our pedigree, and told me stories of my great
grandfather's bravery in the civil wars, nor was it less than three days
before I could persuade her to leave me to myself.

At last economy prevailed; she went in the usual manner about her own
affairs, and I was at liberty to range in the wilderness, and sit by the
cascade. The novelty of the objects about me pleased me for a while, but
after a few days they were new no longer, and I soon began to perceive
that the country was not my element; that shades, and flowers, and lawns,
and waters, had very soon exhausted all their power of pleasing, and that
I had not in myself any fund of satisfaction, with which I could supply
the loss of my customary amusements.

I unhappily told my aunt, in the first warmth of our embraces, that I had
leave to stay with her ten weeks. Six only yet are gone, and how shall I
live through the remaining four? I go out and return; I pluck a flower,
and throw it away; I catch an insect, and when I have examined its
colours set it at liberty; I fling a pebble into the water, and see one
circle spread after another. When it chances to rain, I walk in the great
hall, and watch the minute-hand upon the dial, or play with a litter of
kittens, which the cat happens to have brought in a lucky time.

My aunt is afraid I shall grow melancholy, and therefore encourages the
neighbouring gentry to visit us. They came at first with great eagerness
to see the fine lady from London; but when we met, we had no common
topick on which we could converse; they had no curiosity after plays,
operas, or musick: and I find as little satisfaction from their accounts
of the quarrels or alliances of families, whose names, when once I can
escape, I shall never hear. The women have now seen me, know how my gown
is made, and are satisfied; the men are generally afraid of me, and say
little, because they think themselves not at liberty to talk rudely.

Thus I am condemned to solitude; the day moves slowly forward, and I
see the dawn with uneasiness, because I consider that night is at a
great distance. I have tried to sleep by a brook, but find its murmurs
ineffectual; so that I am forced to be awake at least twelve hours,
without visits, without cards, without laughter, and without flattery. I
walk because I am disgusted with sitting still, and sit down because I am
weary with walking. I have no motive to action, nor any object of love,
or hate, or fear, or inclination. I cannot dress with spirit, for I have
neither rival nor admirer. I cannot dance without a partner; nor be kind
or cruel, without a lover.

Such is the life of Euphelia; and such it is likely to continue for a
month to come. I have not yet declared against existence, nor called
upon the destinies to cut my thread; but I have sincerely resolved not to
condemn myself to such another summer, nor too hastily to flatter myself
with happiness. Yet I have heard, Mr. Rambler, of those who never thought
themselves so much at ease as in solitude, and cannot but suspect it to be
some way or other my own fault, that, without great pain, either of mind
or body, I am thus weary of myself: that the current of youth stagnates,
and that I am languishing in a dead calm, for want of some external
impulse. I shall therefore think you a benefactor to our sex, if you will
teach me the art of living alone; for I am confident that a thousand and
a thousand ladies, who affect to talk with ecstasies of the pleasures of
the country, are in reality, like me, longing for the winter, and wishing
to be delivered from themselves by company and diversion.

I am, Sir, Yours,

                                                               EUPHELIA.




No. 43. TUESDAY, AUGUST 14, 1750.


  _Flumine perpetuo torrens solet acrius ire._
    _Sed tamen hæc brevis est, illa perennis aqua._
                                                         OVID, Rem. 651.

  In course impetuous soon the torrent dries,
  The brook a constant peaceful stream supplies.
                                                               F. LEWIS.


It is observed by those who have written on the constitution of the human
body, and the original of those diseases by which it is afflicted, that
every man comes into the world morbid, that there is no temperature so
exactly regulated but that some humour is fatally predominant, and that
we are generally impregnated, in our first entrance upon life, with the
seeds of that malady, which, in time, shall bring us to the grave.

This remark has been extended by others to the intellectual faculties.
Some that imagine themselves to have looked with more than common
penetration into human nature, have endeavoured to persuade us that each
man is born with a mind formed peculiarly for certain purposes, and with
desires unalterably determined to particular objects, from which the
attention cannot be long diverted, and which alone, as they are well or
ill pursued, must produce the praise or blame, the happiness or misery of
his future life.

This position has not, indeed, been hitherto proved with strength
proportionate to the assurance with which it has been advanced, and
perhaps will never gain much prevalence by a close examination.

If the doctrine of innate ideas be itself disputable, there seems to
be little hope of establishing an opinion, which supposes that even
complications of ideas have been given us at our birth, and that we are
made by nature ambitious, or covetous, before we know the meaning of
either power or money.

Yet as every step in the progression of existence changes our position
with respect to the things about us, so as to lay us open to new assaults
and particular dangers, and subjects us to inconveniences from which any
other situation is exempt; as a publick or a private life, youth and age,
wealth and poverty, have all some evil closely adherent, which cannot
wholly be escaped but by quitting the state to which it is annexed, and
submitting to the incumbrances of some other condition; so it cannot
be denied that every difference in the structure of the mind has its
advantages and its wants; and that failures and defects being inseparable
from humanity, however the powers of understanding be extended or
contracted, there will on one side or the other always be an avenue to
errour and miscarriage.

There seem to be some souls suited to great, and others to little
employments; some formed to soar aloft, and take in wide views, and
others to grovel on the ground, and confine their regard to a narrow
sphere. Of these the one is always in danger of becoming useless by a
daring negligence, the other by a scrupulous solicitude; the one collects
many ideas, but confused and indistinct; the other is busied in minute
accuracy, but without compass and without dignity.

The general errour of those who possess powerful and elevated
understandings, is, that they form schemes of too great extent, and
flatter themselves too hastily with success; they feel their own force
to be great, and by the complacency with which every man surveys himself,
imagine it still greater: they therefore look out for undertakings worthy
of their abilities, and engage in them with very little precaution, for
they imagine that without premeditated measures, they shall be able to
find expedients in all difficulties. They are naturally apt to consider
all prudential maxims as below their regard, to treat with contempt those
securities and resources which others know themselves obliged to provide,
and disdain to accomplish their purposes by established means, and common
gradations.

Precipitation thus incited by the pride of intellectual superiority,
is very fatal to great designs. The resolution of the combat is seldom
equal to the vehemence of the charge. He that meets with an opposition
which he did not expect, loses his courage. The violence of his first
onset is succeeded by a lasting and unconquerable languor; miscarriage
makes him fearful of giving way to new hopes; and the contemplation of an
attempt in which he has fallen below his own expectations is painful and
vexatious; he therefore naturally turns his attention to more pleasing
objects, and habituates his imagination to other entertainments, till, by
slow degrees, he quits his first pursuit, and suffers some other project
to take possession of his thoughts, in which the same ardour of mind
promises him again certain success, and which disappointments of the same
kind compel him to abandon.

Thus too much vigour in the beginning of an undertaking, often intercepts
and prevents the steadiness and perseverance always necessary in the
conduct of a complicated scheme, where many interests are to be connected,
many movements to be adjusted, and the joint effort of distinct and
independent powers to be directed to a single point. In all important
events which have been suddenly brought to pass, chance has been the
agent rather than reason; and, therefore, however those who seemed to
preside in the transaction, may have been celebrated by such as loved or
feared them, succeeding times have commonly considered them as fortunate
rather than prudent. Every design in which the connexion is regularly
traced from the first motion to the last, must be formed and executed by
calm intrepidity, and requires not only courage which danger cannot turn
aside, but constancy which fatigues cannot weary, and contrivance which
impediments cannot exhaust.

All the performances of human art, at which we look with praise or wonder,
are instances of the resistless force of perseverance: it is by this
that the quarry becomes a pyramid, and that distant countries are united
with canals. If a man was to compare the effect of a single stroke of the
pick-axe, or of one impression of the spade, with the general design and
last result, he would be overwhelmed by the sense of their disproportion;
yet those petty operations, incessantly continued, in time surmount the
greatest difficulties, and mountains are levelled, and oceans bounded, by
the slender force of human beings.

It is therefore of the utmost importance that those, who have any intention
of deviating from the beaten roads of life, and acquiring a reputation
superior to names hourly swept away by time among the refuse of fame,
should add to their reason, and their spirit, the power of persisting in
their purposes; acquire the art of sapping what they cannot batter, and
the habit of vanquishing obstinate resistance by obstinate attacks.

The student who would build his knowledge on solid foundations, and
proceed by just degrees to the pinnacles of truth, is directed by the
great philosopher of France to begin by doubting of his own existence.
In like manner, whoever would complete any arduous and intricate
enterprise, should, as soon as his imagination can cool after the first
blaze of hope, place before his own eyes every possible embarrassment
that may retard or defeat him. He should first question the probability
of success, and then endeavour to remove the objections that he has
raised. It is proper, says old Markham[43], to exercise your horse on the
more inconvenient side of the course, that if he should, in the race,
be forced upon it, he may not be discouraged; and Horace advises his
poetical friend to consider every day as the last which he shall enjoy,
because that will always give pleasure which we receive beyond our hopes.
If we alarm ourselves beforehand with more difficulties than we really
find, we shall be animated by unexpected facility with double spirit;
and if we find our cautions and fears justified by the consequence, there
will however happen nothing against which provision has not been made, no
sudden shock will be received, nor will the main scheme be disconcerted.

There is, indeed, some danger lest he that too scrupulously balances
probabilities, and too perspicaciously foresees obstacles, should
remain always in a state of inaction, without venturing upon attempts
on which he may perhaps spend his labour without advantage. But previous
despondence is not the fault of those for whom this essay is designed;
they who require to be warned against precipitation, will not suffer more
fear to intrude into their contemplations than is necessary to allay the
effervescence of an agitated fancy. As Des Cartes has kindly shewn how a
man may prove to himself his own existence, if once he can be prevailed
upon to question it, so the ardent and adventurous will not be long
without finding some plausible extenuation of the greatest difficulties.
Such, indeed, is the uncertainty of all human affairs, that security
and despair are equal follies; and as it is presumption and arrogance
to anticipate triumphs, it is weakness and cowardice to prognosticate
miscarriages. The numbers that have been stopped in their career of
happiness are sufficient to shew the uncertainty of human foresight; but
there are not wanting contrary instances of such success obtained against
all appearances, as may warrant the boldest flights of genius, if they
are supported by unshaken perseverance.

[Footnote 43: Gervase Markham, in his book entitled "Perfect Horsemanship,"
12mo. 1671. He was a dramatic poet, and a voluminous writer on various
subjects.]




No. 44. SATURDAY, AUGUST 18, 1750.


  [Greek: Honar ek Dios estin.]
                                                  HOMER, Il. lib. i. 63.

  ----Dreams descend from Jove.
                                                                   POPE.


TO THE RAMBLER.

SIR,

I had lately a very remarkable dream, which made so strong an impression
on me, that I remember it every word; and if you are not better employed,
you may read the relation of it as follows:

Methought I was in the midst of a very entertaining set of company,
and extremely delighted in attending to a lively conversation, when
on a sudden I perceived one of the most shocking figures imagination
can frame, advancing towards me. She was drest in black, her skin was
contracted into a thousand wrinkles, her eyes sunk deep in her head,
and her complexion pale and livid as the countenance of death. Her looks
were filled with terrour and unrelenting severity, and her hands armed
with whips and scorpions. As soon as she came near, with a horrid frown,
and a voice that chilled my very blood, she bid me follow her. I obeyed,
and she led me through rugged paths, beset with briars and thorns,
into a deep solitary valley. Wherever she passed, the fading verdure
withered beneath her steps; her pestilential breath infected the air with
malignant vapours, obscured the lustre of the sun, and involved the fair
face of Heaven in universal gloom. Dismal howlings resounded through the
forest, from every baleful tree the night raven uttered his dreadful note,
and the prospect was filled with desolation and horrour. In the midst of
this tremendous scene my execrable guide addressed me in the following
manner:

"Retire with me, O rash unthinking mortal, from the vain allurements of
a deceitful world, and learn that pleasure was not designed the portion
of human life. Man was born to mourn and to be wretched; this is the
condition of all below the stars, and whoever endeavours to oppose
it, acts in contradiction to the will of Heaven. Fly then from the
fatal enchantments of youth, and social delight, and here consecrate
the solitary hours to lamentation and woe. Misery is the duty of all
sublunary beings, and every enjoyment is an offence to the Deity, who is
to be worshipped only by the mortification of every sense of pleasure,
and the everlasting exercise of sighs and tears."

This melancholy picture of life quite sunk my spirits, and seemed to
annihilate every principle of joy within me. I threw myself beneath a
blasted yew, where the winds blew cold and dismal round my head, and
dreadful apprehensions chilled my heart. Here I resolved to lie till
the hand of death, which I impatiently invoked, should put an end to
the miseries of a life so deplorably wretched. In this sad situation I
espied on one hand of me a deep muddy river, whose heavy waves rolled on
in slow sullen murmurs. Here I determined to plunge, and was just upon
the brink, when I found myself suddenly drawn back. I turned about, and
was surprised by the sight of the loveliest object I had ever beheld.
The most engaging charms of youth and beauty appeared in all her form;
effulgent glories sparkled in her eyes, and their awful splendours were
softened by the gentlest looks of compassion and peace. At her approach
the frightful spectre who had before tormented me, vanished away, and
with her all the horrours she had caused. The gloomy clouds brightened
into cheerful sunshine, the groves recovered their verdure, and the
whole region looked gay and blooming as the garden of Eden. I was quite
transported at this unexpected change, and reviving pleasure began to glad
my thoughts, when, with a look of inexpressible sweetness my beauteous
deliverer thus uttered her divine instructions:

"My name is Religion. I am the offspring of Truth and Love, and the parent
of Benevolence, Hope, and Joy. That monster from whose power I have
freed you is called Superstition; she is the child of Discontent, and her
followers are Fear and Sorrow. Thus different as we are, she has often
the insolence to assume my name and character, and seduces unhappy mortals
to think us the same, till she, at length, drives them to the borders of
Despair, that dreadful abyss into which you were just going to sink.

"Look round and survey the various beauties of the globe, which heaven has
destined for the seat of the human race, and consider whether a world
thus exquisitely framed could be meant for the abode of misery and pain.
For what end has the lavish hand of Providence diffused such innumerable
objects of delight, but that all might rejoice in the privilege of
existence, and be filled with gratitude to the beneficent author of it?
Thus to enjoy the blessings he has sent, is virtue and obedience; and to
reject them merely as means of pleasure, is pitiable ignorance or absurd
perverseness. Infinite goodness is the source of created existence;
the proper tendency of every rational being, from the highest order of
raptured seraphs, to the meanest rank of men, is to rise incessantly
from the lower degrees of happiness to higher. They have each faculties
assigned them for various orders of delights."

"What," cried I, "is this the language of Religion? Does she lead her
votaries through flowery paths, and bid them pass an unlaborious life?
Where are the painful toils of virtue, the mortifications of penitents,
the self-denying exercises of saints and heroes?"

"The true enjoyments of a reasonable being," answered she mildly, "do not
consist in unbounded indulgence, or luxurious ease, in the tumult of
passions, the languor of indolence, or the flutter of light amusements.
Yielding to immoral pleasure corrupts the mind, living to animal and
trifling ones debases it; both in their degree disqualify it for its
genuine good, and consign it over to wretchedness. Whoever would be really
happy, must make the diligent and regular exercise of his superior powers
his chief attention, adoring the perfections of his Maker, expressing
good-will to his fellow-creatures, cultivating inward rectitude. To his
lower faculties he must allow such gratifications as will, by refreshing
him, invigorate his nobler pursuits. In the regions inhabited by angelic
natures, unmingled felicity for ever blooms, joy flows there with a
perpetual and abundant stream, nor needs there any mound to check its
course. Beings conscious of a frame of mind originally diseased, as
all the human race has cause to be, must use the regimen of a stricter
self-government. Whoever has been guilty of voluntary excesses must
patiently submit both to the painful workings of nature and needful
severities of medicine, in order to his cure. Still he is entitled to a
moderate share of whatever alleviating accommodations this fair mansion
of his merciful Parent affords, consistent with his recovery. And in
proportion as this recovery advances, the liveliest joy will spring
from his secret sense of an amended and improving heart.--So far from
the horrours of despair is the condition even of the guilty.--Shudder,
poor mortal, at the thought of the gulf into which thou wast but now
going to plunge.

"While the most faulty have every encouragement to amend, the more
innocent soul will be supported with still sweeter consolations under
all its experience of human infirmities; supported by the gladdening
assurances that every sincere endeavour to outgrow them shall be assisted,
accepted, and rewarded. To such a one the lowliest self-abasement is
but a deep-laid foundation for the most elevated hopes; since they who
faithfully examine and acknowledge what they are, shall be enabled under
my conduct to become what they desire. The christian and the hero are
inseparable; and to aspirings of unassuming trust, and filial confidence,
are set no bounds. To him who is animated with a view of obtaining
approbation from the Sovereign of the universe, no difficulty
is insurmountable. Secure in this pursuit of every needful aid, his
conflict with the severest pains and trials, is little more than the
vigorous exercises of a mind in health. His patient dependence on that
Providence which looks through all eternity, his silent resignation,
his ready accommodation of his thoughts and behaviour to its inscrutable
ways, is at once the most excellent sort of self-denial, and a source
of the most exalted transports. Society is the true sphere of human
virtue. In social, active life, difficulties will perpetually be met
with; restraints of many kinds will be necessary; and studying to behave
right in respect of these is a discipline of the human heart, useful to
others, and improving to itself. Suffering is no duty, but where it is
necessary to avoid guilt, or to do good; nor pleasure a crime, but where
it strengthens the influence of bad inclinations, or lessens the generous
activity of virtue. The happiness allotted to man in his present state,
is indeed faint and low, compared with his immortal prospects and noble
capacities; but yet whatever portion of it the distributing hand of
heaven offers to each individual, is a needful support and refreshment
for the present moment, so far as it may not hinder the attaining of
his final destination.

"Return then with me from continual misery to moderate enjoyment and
grateful alacrity. Return from the contracted views of solitude to the
proper duties of a relative and dependent being. Religion is not confined
to cells and closets, nor restrained to sullen retirement. These are
the gloomy doctrines of Superstition, by which she endeavours to break
those chains of benevolence and social affection, that link the welfare
of every particular with that of the whole. Remember that the greatest
honour you can pay to the Author of your being is by such a cheerful
behaviour, as discovers a mind satisfied with his dispensations."

Here my preceptress paused, and I was going to express my acknowledgments
for her discourse, when a ring of bells from the neighbouring village,
and a new-risen sun darting his beams through my windows, awaked me[44].

I am, Yours, &c.

[Footnote 44: This paper, and No. 100, were written by the late Mrs.
Elizabeth Carter, of Deal in Kent, who died Feb. 19, 1806.]




No. 45. TUESDAY, AUGUST 21, 1750.


  [Greek: Hêper megistê gignetai sôtêria,
  Hotan gynê prôs andra mê dichostatê.
  Nyn d' echthra panta.]
                                                         EURIP. Med. 14.

  This is the chief felicity of life,
  That concord smile on the connubial bed;
  But now 'tis hatred all.


TO THE RAMBLER.

SIR,

Though, in the dissertations which you have given us on marriage, very
just cautions are laid down against the common causes of infelicity,
and the necessity of having, in that important choice, the first regard
to virtue, is carefully inculcated; yet I cannot think the subject so
much exhausted, but that a little reflection would present to the mind
many questions, in the discussion of which great numbers are interested,
and many precepts which deserve to be more particularly and forcibly
impressed.

You seem, like most of the writers that have gone before you, to have
allowed as an uncontested principle, that _marriage is generally unhappy_:
but I know not whether a man who professes to think for himself, and
concludes from his own observations, does not depart from his character
when he follows the crowd thus implicitly, and receives maxims without
recalling them to a new examination, especially when they comprise so
wide a circuit of life, and include such a variety of circumstances. As
I have an equal right with others to give my opinion of the objects about
me, and a better title to determine concerning that state which I have
tried, than many who talk of it without experience, I am unwilling to be
restrained by mere authority from advancing what, I believe, an accurate
view of the world will confirm, that marriage is not commonly unhappy,
otherwise than as life is unhappy; and that most of those who complain of
connubial miseries, have as much satisfaction as their nature would have
admitted, or their conduct procured, in any other condition.

It is, indeed, common to hear both sexes repine at their change, relate
the happiness of their earlier years, blame the folly and rashness
of their own choice, and warn those whom they see coming into the
world against the same precipitance and infatuation. But it is to be
remembered, that the days which they so much wish to call back, are
the days not only of celibacy but of youth, the days of novelty and
improvement, of ardour and of hope, of health and vigour of body, of
gaiety and lightness of heart. It is not easy to surround life with any
circumstances in which youth will not be delightful; and I am afraid that
whether married or unmarried, we shall find the vesture of terrestrial
existence more heavy and cumbrous, the longer it is worn.

That they censure themselves for the indiscretion of their choice, is
not a sufficient proof that they have chosen ill, since we see the same
discontent at every other part of life which we cannot change. Converse
with almost any man, grown old in a profession, and you will find him
regretting that he did not enter into some different course, to which
he too late finds his genius better adapted, or in which he discovers
that wealth and honour are more easily attained. "The merchant," says
Horace, "envies the soldier, and the soldier recounts the felicity of the
merchant; the lawyer, when his clients harass him, calls out for the quiet
of the countryman; and the countryman, when business calls him to town,
proclaims that there is no happiness but amidst opulence and crowds."
Every man recounts the inconveniences of his own station, and thinks
those of any other less, because he has not felt them. Thus the married
praise the ease and freedom of a single state, and the single fly to
marriage from the weariness of solitude. From all our observations we
may collect with certainty, that misery is the lot of man, but cannot
discover in what particular condition it will find most alleviations;
or whether all external appendages are not, as we use them, the causes
either of good or ill.

Whoever feels great pain, naturally hopes for ease from change of posture;
he changes it, and finds himself equally tormented: and of the same
kind are the expedients by which we endeavour to obviate or elude those
uneasinesses, to which mortality will always be subject. It is not likely
that the married state is eminently miserable, since we see such numbers,
whom the death of their partners has set free from it, entering it again.

Wives and husbands are, indeed, incessantly complaining of each other; and
there would be reason for imagining that almost every house was infested
with perverseness or oppression beyond human sufferance, did we not know
upon how small occasions some minds bursts out, into lamentations and
reproaches, and how naturally every animal revenges his pain upon those
who happen to be near, without any nice examination of its cause. We are
always willing to fancy ourselves within a little of happiness, and when,
with repeated efforts, we cannot reach it, persuade ourselves that it
is intercepted by an ill-paired mate, since, if we could find any other
obstacle, it would be our own fault that it was not removed.

Anatomists have often remarked, that though our diseases are sufficiently
numerous and severe, yet when we inquire into the structure of the body,
the tenderness of some parts, the minuteness of others, and the immense
multiplicity of animal functions that must concur to the healthful and
vigorous exercise of all our powers, there appears reason to wonder rather
that we are preserved so long, than that we perish so soon, and that our
frame subsists for a single day, or hour, without disorder, rather than
that it should be broken or obstructed by violence of accidents, or length
of time.

The same reflection arises in my mind, upon observation of the manner in
which marriage is frequently contracted. When I see the avaricious and
crafty, taking companions to their tables and their beds without any
inquiry, but after farms and money; or the giddy and thoughtless uniting
themselves for life to those whom they have only seen by the light of
tapers at a ball; when parents make articles for their children, without
inquiring after their consent; when some marry for heirs to disappoint
their brothers, and others throw themselves into the arms of those whom
they do not love, because they have found themselves rejected where they
were most solicitous to please; when some marry because their servants
cheat them, some because they squander their own money, some because
their houses are pestered with company, some because they will live like
other people, and some only because they are sick in themselves, I am not
so much inclined to wonder that marriage is sometimes unhappy, as that
it appears so little loaded with calamity; and cannot but conclude that
society has something in itself eminently agreeable to human nature, when
I find its pleasures so great, that even the ill choice of a companion
can hardly overbalance them.

By the ancient customs of the Muscovites, the men and women never saw
each other till they were joined beyond the power of parting. It may be
suspected that by this method many unsuitable matches were produced, and
many tempers associated that were not qualified to give pleasure to each
other. Yet, perhaps, among a people so little delicate, where the paucity
of gratifications, and the uniformity of life, gave no opportunity for
imagination to interpose its objections, there was not much danger of
capricious dislike; and while they felt neither cold nor hunger they might
live quietly together, without any thought of the defects of one another.

Amongst us, whom knowledge has made nice and affluence wanton, there are,
indeed, more cautions requisite to secure tranquillity; and yet if we
observe the manner in which those converse, who have singled out each
other for marriage, we shall, perhaps, not think that the Russians
lost much by their restraint. For the whole endeavour of both parties,
during the time of courtship, is to hinder themselves from being known,
and to disguise their natural temper, and real desires, in hypocritical
imitation, studied compliance, and continual affectation. From the time
that their love is avowed, neither sees the other but in a mask, and the
cheat is managed often on both sides with so much art, and discovered
afterwards with so much abruptness, that each has reason to suspect
that some transformation has happened on the wedding night, and that,
by a strange imposture, one has been courted, and another married.

I desire you, therefore, Mr. Rambler, to question all who shall hereafter
come to you with matrimonial complaints, concerning their behaviour in
the time of courtship, and inform them that they are neither to wonder
nor repine, when a contract begun with fraud has ended in disappointment.

I am, &c.




No. 46. SATURDAY, AUGUST 25, 1750.


  _----Genus, et proavos, et quæ non fecimus ipsi,_
  _Via ea nostra voco._
                                                 OVID, Metam. xiii. 140.

  Nought from my birth or ancestors I claim;
  All is my own, my honour and my shame.


TO THE RAMBLER.

SIR,

Since I find that you have paid so much regard to my complaints as to
publish them, I am inclined by vanity, or gratitude, to continue our
correspondence; and indeed, without either of these motives, am glad of an
opportunity to write, for I am not accustomed to keep in any thing that
swells my heart, and have here none with whom I can freely converse. While
I am thus employed, some tedious hours will slip away, and when I return
to watch the clock, I shall find that I have disburdened myself of part
of the day.

You perceive that I do not pretend to write with much consideration
of any thing but my own convenience; and, not to conceal from you my
real sentiments, the little time which I have spent, against my will,
in solitary meditation, has not much contributed to my veneration for
authors. I have now sufficient reason to suspect, that, with all your
splendid professions of wisdom, and seeming regard for truth, you have
very little sincerity; that you either write what you do not think, and
willingly impose upon mankind, or that you take no care to think right,
but while you set up yourselves as guides, mislead your followers by
credulity or negligence; that you produce to the publick whatever notions
you can speciously maintain, or elegantly express, without enquiring
whether they are just, and transcribe hereditary falsehoods from old
authors perhaps as ignorant and careless as yourselves.

You may perhaps wonder that I express myself with so much acrimony on a
question in which women are supposed to have very little interest; and
you are likely enough, for I have seen many instances of the sauciness
of scholars, to tell me, that I am more properly employed in playing with
my kittens, than in giving myself airs of criticism, and censuring the
learned. But you are mistaken, if you imagine that I am to be intimidated
by your contempt, or silenced by your reproofs. As I read, I have a
right to judge; as I am injured, I have a right to complain; and these
privileges, which I have purchased at so dear a rate, I shall not easily
be persuaded to resign.

To read has, indeed, never been my business, but as there are hours of
leisure in the most active life, I have passed the superfluities of
time, which the diversions of the town left upon my hands, in turning
over a large collection of tragedies and romances, where, amongst other
sentiments common to all authors of this class, I have found almost every
page filled with the charms and happiness of a country life; that life
to which every statesman in the highest elevation of his prosperity is
contriving to retire; that life to which every tragic heroine in some
scene or other wishes to have been born, and which is represented as a
certain refuge from folly, from anxiety, from passion, and from guilt.

It was impossible to read so many passionate exclamations, and soothing
descriptions, without feeling some desire to enjoy the state in which all
this felicity was to be enjoyed; and therefore I received with raptures
the invitation of my good aunt, and expected that by some unknown
influence I should find all hopes and fears, jealousies and competitions,
vanish from my heart upon my first arrival at the seats of innocence
and tranquillity; that I should sleep in halcyon bowers, and wander in
elysian gardens, where I should meet with nothing but the softness of
benevolence, the candour of simplicity, and the cheerfulness of content;
where I should see reason exerting her sovereignty over life, without any
interruption from envy, avarice, or ambition, and every day passing in
such a manner as the severest wisdom should approve.

This, Mr. Rambler, I tell you I expected, and this I had by an hundred
authors been taught to expect. By this expectation I was led hither, and
here I live in perpetual uneasiness, without any other comfort than that
of hoping to return to London.

Having, since I wrote my former letter, been driven by the mere necessity
of escaping from absolute inactivity, to make myself more acquainted
with the affairs and inhabitants of this place, I am now no longer an
absolute stranger to rural conversation and employments, but am far from
discovering in them more innocence or wisdom, than in the sentiments
or conduct of those with whom I have passed more cheerful and more
fashionable hours.

It is common to reproach the tea-table, and the park, with given
opportunities and encouragement to scandal. I cannot wholly clear them
from the charge; but must, however, observe in favour of the modish
prattlers, that if not by principle, we are at least by accident, less
guilty of defamation than the country ladies. For having greater numbers
to observe and censure, we are commonly content to charge them only with
their own faults or follies, and seldom give way to malevolence, but
such as arises from some injury or affront, real or imaginary, offered
to ourselves. But in these distant provinces, where the same families
inhabit the same houses from age to age, they transmit and recount the
faults of a whole succession. I have been informed how every estate
in the neighbourhood was originally got, and find, if I may credit the
accounts given me, that there is not a single acre in the hands of the
right owner. I have been told of intrigues between beaux and toasts
that have been now three centuries in their quiet graves, and am often
entertained with traditional scandal on persons of whose names there
would have been no remembrance, had they not committed somewhat that
might disgrace their descendants.

In one of my visits I happened to commend the air and dignity of a young
lady, who had just left the company; upon which two grave matrons looked
with great sliness at each other, and the elder asked me whether I had
ever seen the picture of Henry the eighth. You may imagine that I did
not immediately perceive the propriety of the question: but after having
waited awhile for information, I was told that the lady's grandmother
had a great-great-grandmother that was an attendant on Anna Bullen, and
supposed to have been too much a favourite of the king.

If once there happens a quarrel between the principal persons of two
families, the malignity is continued without end, and it is common for
old maids to fall out about some election, in which their grandfathers
were competitors; the heart-burnings of the civil war are not yet
extinguished; there are two families in the neighbourhood who have
destroyed each other's game from the time of Philip and Mary; and when
an account came of an inundation, which had injured the plantations of
a worthy gentleman, one of the hearers remarked, with exultation, that
he might now have some notion of the ravages committed by his ancestors
in their retreat from Bosworth.

Thus malice and hatred descend here with an inheritance, and it is
necessary to be well versed in history, that the various factions of
this county may be understood. You cannot expect to be on good terms with
families who are resolved to love nothing in common; and, in selecting
your intimates, you are perhaps to consider which party you most favour
in the barons' wars. I have often lost the good opinion of my aunt's
visitants by confounding the interests of York and Lancaster, and was
once censured for sitting silent when William Rufus was called a tyrant.
I have, however, now thrown aside all pretences to circumspection, for
I find it impossible in less than seven years to learn all the requisite
cautions. At London, if you know your company, and their parents,
you are safe; but you are here suspected of alluding to the slips of
great-grandmothers, and of reviving contests which were decided in armour
by the redoubted knights of ancient times. I hope, therefore, that you
will not condemn my impatience, if I am weary of attending where nothing
can be learned, and of quarrelling where there is nothing to contest, and
that you will contribute to divert me while I stay here by some facetious
performance.

I am, sir,

                                                               EUPHELIA.




No. 47. TUESDAY, AUGUST 28, 1750.


    _Quamquam his solatiis acquiescam, debilitor et frangor eadem
    illa humanitate quæ me, ut hoc ipsum permitterem, induxit. Non
    ideo tamen velim durior fieri: nec ignoro alios hujusmodi casus
    nihil amplius vocare quam damnum; eoque sibi magnos homines
    et sapientes videri. Qui an magni sapientesque sint, nescio;
    homines non sunt. Hominis est enim affici dolore, sentire:
    resistere tamen, et solatia admittere._
                                                  PLIN. Epist. viii. 16.

    These proceedings have afforded me some comfort in my distress;
    notwithstanding which, I am still dispirited and unhinged
    by the same motives of humanity that induced me to grant such
    indulgences. However, I by no means wish to become less susceptible
    of tenderness. I know these kind of misfortunes would be estimated
    by other persons only as common losses, and from such sensations
    they would conceive themselves great and wise men. I shall not
    determine either their greatness or their wisdom; but I am certain
    they have no humanity. It is the part of a man to be affected with
    grief; to feel sorrow, at the same time that he is to resist it,
    and to admit of comfort.
                                                         Earl of ORRERY.


Of the passions with which the mind of man is agitated, it may be
observed, that they naturally hasten towards their own extinction, by
inciting and quickening the attainment of their objects. Thus fear urges
our flight, and desire animates our progress; and if there are some which
perhaps may be indulged till they outgrow the good appropriated to their
satisfaction, as it is frequently observed of avarice and ambition, yet
their immediate tendency is to some means of happiness really existing,
and generally within the prospect. The miser always imagines that
there is a certain sum that will fill his heart to the brim; and every
ambitious man, like king Pyrrhus, has an acquisition in his thoughts that
is to terminate his labours, after which he shall pass the rest of his
life in ease or gaiety, in repose or devotion.

Sorrow is perhaps the only affection of the breast that can be expected
from this general remark, and it therefore deserves the particular
attention of those who have assumed the arduous province of preserving
the balance of the mental constitution. The other passions are diseases
indeed, but they necessarily direct us to their proper cure. A man at
once feels the pain and knows the medicine, to which he is carried with
greater haste as the evil which requires it is more excruciating,
and cures himself by unerring instinct, as the wounded stags of Crete
are related by Ælian to have recourse to vulnerary herbs. But for
sorrow there is no remedy provided by nature; it is often occasioned by
accidents irreparable, and dwells upon objects that have lost or changed
their existence; it required what it cannot hope, that the laws of the
universe should be repealed; that the dead should return, or the past
should be recalled.

Sorrow is not that regret for negligence or errour which may animate us to
future care or activity, or that repentance of crimes for which, however
irrevocable, our Creator has promised to accept it as an atonement; the
pain which arises from these causes has very salutary effects, and is
every hour extenuating itself by the reparation of those miscarriages
that produce it. Sorrow is properly that state of the mind in which our
desires are fixed upon the past, without looking forward to the future,
an incessant wish that something were otherwise than it has been, a
tormenting and harassing want of some enjoyment or possession which
we have lost, and which no endeavours can possibly regain. Into such
anguish many have sunk upon some sudden diminution of their fortune,
an unexpected blast of their reputation, or the loss of children or of
friends. They have suffered all sensibility of pleasure to be destroyed
by a single blow, have given up for ever the hopes of substituting any
other object in the room of that which they lament, resigned their lives
to gloom and despondency, and worn themselves out in unavailing misery.

Yet so much is this passion the natural consequence of tenderness and
endearment, that, however painful and however useless, it is justly
reproachful not to feel it on some occasions; and so widely and
constantly has it always prevailed, that the laws of some nations, and
the customs of others, have limited a time for the external appearances
of grief caused by the dissolution of close alliances, and the breach of
domestick union.

It seems determined by the general suffrage of mankind, that sorrow
is to a certain point laudable, as the offspring of love, or at least
pardonable, as the effect of weakness; but that it ought not to be
suffered to increase by indulgence, but must give way, after a stated
time, to social duties, and the common avocations of life. It is at
first unavoidable, and therefore must be allowed, whether with or without
our choice; it may afterwards be admitted as a decent and affectionate
testimony of kindness and esteem; something will be extorted by nature,
and something may be given to the world. But all beyond the bursts of
passion, or the forms of solemnity, is not only useless, but culpable;
for we have no right to sacrifice, to the vain longings of affection,
that time which Providence allows us for the task of our station.

Yet it too often happens that sorrow, thus lawfully entering, gains such
a firm possession of the mind, that it is not afterwards to be ejected;
the mournful ideas, first violently impressed and afterwards willingly
received, so much engross the attention, as to predominate in every
thought, to darken gaiety, and perplex ratiocination. An habitual sadness
seizes upon the soul, and the faculties are chained to a single object,
which can never be contemplated but with hopeless uneasiness.

From this state of dejection it is very difficult to rise to cheerfulness
and alacrity; and therefore many who have laid down rules of intellectual
health, think preservatives easier than remedies, and teach us not to
trust ourselves with favourite enjoyments, not to indulge the luxury of
fondness, but to keep our minds always suspended in such indifference,
that we may change the objects about us without emotion.

An exact compliance with this rule might, perhaps, contribute to
tranquillity, but surely it would never produce happiness. He that
regards none so much as to be afraid of losing them, must live for ever
without the gentle pleasures of sympathy and confidence; he must feel no
melting fondness, no warmth of benevolence, nor any of those honest joys
which nature annexes to the power of pleasing. And as no man can justly
claim more tenderness than he pays, he must forfeit his share in that
officious and watchful kindness which love only can dictate, and those
lenient endearments by which love only can soften life. He may justly
be overlooked and neglected by such as have more warmth in their heart;
for who would be the friend of him, whom, with whatever assiduity he may
be courted, and with whatever services obliged, his principles will not
suffer to make equal returns, and who, when you have exhausted all the
instances of good-will, can only be prevailed on not to be an enemy?

An attempt to preserve life in a state of neutrality and indifference, is
unreasonable and vain. If by excluding joy we could shut out grief, the
scheme would deserve very serious attention; but since, however we may
debar ourselves from happiness, misery will find its way at many inlets,
and the assaults of pain will force our regard, though we may withhold it
from the invitations of pleasure, we may surely endeavour to raise life
above the middle point of apathy at one time, since it will necessarily
sink below it at another.

But though it cannot be reasonable not to gain happiness for fear of
losing it, yet it must be confessed, that in proportion to the pleasure
of possession, will be for some time our sorrow for the loss; it is
therefore the province of the moralist to enquire whether such pains
may not quickly give way to mitigation. Some have thought that the most
certain way to clear the heart from its embarrassment is to drag it by
force into scenes of merriment. Others imagine, that such a transition
is too violent, and recommend rather to sooth it into tranquillity, by
making it acquainted with miseries more dreadful and afflictive, and
diverting to the calamities of others the regards which we are inclined
to fix too closely upon our own misfortunes.

It may be doubted whether either of those remedies will be sufficiently
powerful. The efficacy of mirth it is not always easy to try, and the
indulgence of melancholy may be suspected to be one of those medicines,
which will destroy, if it happens not to cure.

The safe and general antidote against sorrow is employment. It is commonly
observed, that among soldiers and seamen, though there is much kindness,
there is little grief; they see their friend fall without any of that
lamentation which is indulged in security and idleness, because they
have no leisure to spare from the care of themselves; and whoever shall
keep his thoughts equally busy, will find himself equally unaffected with
irretrievable losses.

Time is observed generally to wear out sorrow, and its effects might
doubtless be accelerated by quickening the succession, and enlarging the
variety of objects.

      _----Si tempore reddi_
  _Pax animo tranquilla potest, tu sperne morari:_
  _Qui sapiet, sibi tempus erit.----_
                                             GROTIUS, Consol. ad Patrem.

  'Tis long ere time can mitigate your grief;
  To wisdom fly, she quickly brings relief.
                                                               F. LEWIS.

Sorrow is a kind of rust of the soul, which every new idea contributes in
its passage to scour away. It is the putrefaction of stagnant life, and
is remedied by exercise and motion.




No. 48. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 1750.


  _Non est vivere, sed valere, vita._
                                              MART. Lib. vi. Ep, 70. 15.

  For life is not to live, but to be well.
                                                             ELPHINSTON.


Among the innumerable follies, by which we lay up in our youth repentance
and remorse for the succeeding part of our lives, there is scarce any
against which warnings are of less efficacy, than the neglect of health.
When the springs of motion are yet elastick, when the heart bounds with
vigour, and the eye sparkles with spirit, it is with difficulty that we
are taught to conceive the imbecility that every hour is bringing upon
us, or to imagine that the nerves which are now braced with so much
strength, and the limbs which play with so much activity, will lose all
their power under the gripe of time, relax with numbness, and totter with
debility.

To the arguments which have been used against complaints under the
miseries of life, the philosophers have, I think, forgot to add the
incredulity of those to whom we recount our sufferings. But if the
purpose of lamentation be to excite pity, it is surely superfluous for
age and weakness to tell their plaintive stories; for pity pre-supposes
sympathy, and a little attention will shew them, that those who do not
feel pain, seldom think that it is felt; and a short recollection will
inform almost every man, that he is only repaid the insult which he has
given, since he may remember how often he has mocked infirmity, laughed
at its cautions, and censured its impatience.

The valetudinarian race have made the care of health ridiculous by
suffering it to prevail over all other considerations, as the miser has
brought frugality into contempt, by permitting the love of money not to
share, but to engross his mind: they both err alike, by confounding the
means with the end; they grasp at health only to be well, as at money
only to be rich; and forget that every terrestrial advantage is chiefly
valuable, as it furnishes abilities for the exercise of virtue.

Health is indeed so necessary to all the duties, as well as pleasures of
life, that the crime of squandering it is equal to the folly; and he that
for a short gratification brings weakness and diseases upon himself, and
for the pleasure of a very few years passed in the tumults of diversion,
and clamours of merriment, condemns the maturer and more experienced
part of his life to the chamber and the couch, may be justly reproached,
not only as a spendthrift of his own happiness, but as a robber of the
publick; as a wretch that has voluntarily disqualified himself for the
business of his station, and refused that part which Providence assigns
him in the general task of human nature.

There are perhaps very few conditions more to be pitied than that of an
active and elevated mind, labouring under the weight of a distempered
body. The time of such a man is always spent in forming schemes, which
a change of wind hinders him from executing, his powers fume away in
projects and in hope, and the day of action never arrives. He lies down
delighted with the thoughts of to-morrow, pleases his ambition with
the fame he shall acquire, or his benevolence with the good he shall
confer. But in the night the skies are overcast, the temper of the air
is changed, he wakes in langour, impatience, and distraction, and has
no longer any wish but for ease, nor any attention but to misery. It
may be said that disease generally begins that equality which death
completes; the distinctions which set one man so much above another are
very little perceived in the gloom of a sick chamber, where it will be
vain to expect entertainment from the gay, or instruction from the wise;
where all human glory is obliterated, the wit is clouded, the reasoner
perplexed, and the hero subdued; where the highest and brightest of
mortal beings finds nothing left him but the consciousness of innocence.

There is among the fragments of the Greek poets a short Hymn to Health,
in which her power of exalting the happiness of life, of heightening the
gifts of fortune, and adding enjoyment to possession, is inculcated with
so much force and beauty, that no one, who has ever languished under the
discomforts and infirmities of a lingering disease, can read it without
feeling the images dance in his heart, and adding from his own experience
new vigour to the wish, and from his own imagination new colours to
the picture. The particular occasion of this little composition is not
known, but it is probable that the author had been sick, and in the first
raptures of returning vigour addressed Health in the following manner:

  [Greek: Hygieia presbista Makarôn,
      Meta sou naioimi
    To leipomenon biotas;
  Sy de moi prophrôn sunoikos eiês.
  Ei gar tis ê ploutou charis ê tekeôn,
    Tas eudaimonos t' anthrôpois
  Basilêidos archas, ê pothôn,
  Ous kryphiois Aphroditês arkysin thêreuomen,
  Ê ei tis alla theothen anthrôpois terpsis,
    Ê ponôn ampnoa pephantai;
  Meta seio, makaira, Hygieia,
  Tethêle panta, kai lampei charitôn ear;
    Sethen de chôris, oudeis eudaimôn pelei.]


    Health, most venerable of the powers of heaven! with thee may
    the remaining part of my life be passed, nor do thou refuse to
    bless me with thy residence. For whatever there is of beauty or
    of pleasure in wealth, in descendants, or in sovereign command,
    the highest summit of human enjoyment, or in those objects of
    desire which we endeavour to chase into the toils of love; whatever
    delight, or whatever solace is granted by the celestials, to
    soften our fatigues, in thy presence, thou parent of happiness,
    all those joys spread out and flourish; in thy presence blooms
    the spring of pleasure, and without thee no man is happy.

Such is the power of health, that without its co-operation every other
comfort is torpid and lifeless as the powers of vegetation without
the sun. And yet this bliss is commonly thrown away in thoughtless
negligence, or in foolish experiments on our own strength; we let it
perish without remembering its value, or waste it to show how much we
have to spare; it is sometimes given up to the management of levity and
chance, and sometimes sold for the applause of jollity and debauchery.

Health is equally neglected, and with equal impropriety, by the votaries
of business and the followers of pleasure. Some men ruin the fabrick
of their bodies by incessant revels, and others by intemperate studies;
some batter it by excess, and others sap it by inactivity. To the noisy
route of bacchanalian rioters, it will be to little purpose that advice
is offered, though it requires no great abilities to prove, that he loses
pleasure who loses health; their clamours are too loud for the whispers
of caution, and they run the course of life with too much precipitance
to stop at the call of wisdom. Nor perhaps will they that are busied in
adding thousands to thousands, pay much regard to him that shall direct
them to hasten more slowly to their wishes. Yet since lovers of money are
generally cool, deliberate, and thoughtful, they might surely consider,
that the greater good ought not to be sacrificed to the less. Health is
certainly more valuable than money, because it is by health that money
is procured; but thousands and millions are of small avail to alleviate
the protracted tortures of the gout, to repair the broken organs of sense,
or resuscitate the powers of digestion. Poverty is, indeed, an evil from
which we naturally fly; but let us not run from one enemy to another,
nor take shelter in the arms of sickness.

  _----Projecere animam! quàm vellent æthere in alto_
  _Nunc et pauperiem, et duros tolerare labores!_

  For healthful indigence in vain they pray,
  In quest of wealth who throw their lives away.

Those who lose their health in an irregular and impetuous pursuit of
literary accomplishments are yet less to be excused; for they ought to
know that the body is not forced beyond its strength, but with the loss
of more vigour than is proportionate to the effect produced. Whoever
takes up life beforehand, by depriving himself of rest and refreshment,
must not only pay back the hours, but pay them back with usury: and
for the gain of a few months but half enjoyed, must give up years to
the listlessness of languor, and the implacability of pain. They whose
endeavour is mental excellence, will learn, perhaps too late, how much it
is endangered by diseases of the body, and find that knowledge may easily
be lost in the starts of melancholy, the flights of impatience, and the
peevishness of decrepitude.




No. 49. TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 1750.


  _Non omnis moriar; multaque pars mei_
  _Vitabit Libitinam, usque ego posterâ_
  _Crescum lande recens._
                                              HOR. Lib. iii. Ode xxx. 6.

  Whole Horace shall not die; his songs shall save
  The greatest portion from the greedy grave
                                                                 CREECH.


The first motives of human actions are those appetites which Providence
has given to man in common with the rest of the inhabitants of the earth.
Immediately after our birth, thirst and hunger incline us to the breast,
which we draw by instinct, like other young creatures, and when we are
satisfied, we express our uneasiness by importunate and incessant cries,
till we have obtained a place or posture proper for repose.

The next call that rouses us from a state of inactivity, is that of our
passions; we quickly begin to be sensible of hope and fear, love and
hatred, desire and aversion; these arising from the power of comparison
and reflection, extend their range wider, as our reason strengthens, and
our knowledge enlarges. At first we have no thought of pain, but when
we actually feel it; we afterwards begin to fear it, yet not before it
approaches us very nearly; but by degrees we discover it at a greater
distance, and find it lurking in remote consequences. Our terrour in
time improves into caution, and we learn to look round with vigilance
and solicitude, to stop all the avenues at which misery can enter, and
to perform or endure many things in themselves toilsome and unpleasing,
because we know by reason, or by experience, that our labour will be
overbalanced by the reward, that it will either procure some positive
good, or avert some evil greater than itself.

But as the soul advances to a fuller exercise of its powers, the animal
appetites, and the passions immediately arising from them, are not
sufficient to find it employment; the wants of nature are soon supplied,
the fear of their return is easily precluded, and something more is
necessary to relieve the long intervals of inactivity, and to give
those faculties, which cannot lie wholly quiescent, some particular
direction. For this reason, new desires and artificial passions are by
degrees produced; and, from having wishes only in consequence of our
wants, we begin to feel wants in consequence of our wishes; we persuade
ourselves to set a value upon things which are of no use, but because
we have agreed to value them; things which can neither satisfy hunger,
nor mitigate pain, nor secure us from any real calamity, and which,
therefore, we find of no esteem among those nations whose artless and
barbarous manners keep them always anxious for the necessaries of life.

This is the original of avarice, vanity, ambition, and generally of all
those desires which arise from the comparison of our condition with that
of others. He that thinks himself poor because his neighbour is richer;
he that, like Cæsar, would rather be the first man of a village, than
the second in the capital of the world, has apparently kindled in himself
desires which he never received from nature, and acts upon principles
established only by the authority of custom.

Of these adscititious passions, some, as avarice and envy, are universally
condemned; some, as friendship and curiosity, generally praised; but
there are others about which the suffrages of the wise are divided, and
of which it is doubted, whether they tend most to promote the happiness,
or increase the miseries of mankind.

Of this ambiguous and disputable kind is the love of fame, a desire of
filling the minds of others with admiration, and of being celebrated by
generations to come with praises which we shall not hear. This ardour
has been considered by some as nothing better than splendid madness,
as a flame kindled by pride, and fanned by folly; for what, say they,
can be more remote from wisdom, than to direct all our actions by the
hope of that which is not to exist till we ourselves are in the grave?
To pant after that which can never be possessed, and of which the value
thus wildly put upon it, arises from this particular condition, that,
during life, it is not to be obtained? To gain the favour, and hear the
applauses of our contemporaries, is indeed equally desirable with any
other prerogative of superiority, because fame may be of use to smooth
the paths of life, to terrify opposition, and fortify tranquillity; but
to what end shall we be the darlings of mankind, when we can no longer
receive any benefits from their favour? It is more reasonable to wish
for reputation, while it may yet be enjoyed, as Anacreon calls upon his
companions to give him for present use the wine and garlands which they
purpose to bestow upon his tomb.

The advocates for the love of fame allege in its vindication, that it
is a passion natural and universal; a flame lighted by Heaven, and
always burning with greatest vigour in the most enlarged and elevated
minds. That the desire of being praised by posterity implies a resolution
to deserve their praises, and that the folly charged upon it, is only a
noble and disinterested generosity, which is not felt, and therefore not
understood, by those who have been always accustomed to refer every thing
to themselves, and whose selfishness has contracted their understandings.
That the soul of man, formed for eternal life, naturally springs forward
beyond the limits of corporeal existence, and rejoices to consider
herself as co-operating with future ages, and as co-extended with endless
duration. That the reproach urged with so much petulance, the reproach
of labouring for what cannot be enjoyed, is founded on an opinion which
may with great probability be doubted; for since we suppose the powers
of the soul to be enlarged by its separation, why should we conclude that
its knowledge of sublunary transactions is contracted or extinguished?

Upon an attentive and impartial review of the argument, it will appear that
the love of fame is to be regulated rather than extinguished: and that
men should be taught not to be wholly careless about their memory, but to
endeavour that they may be remembered chiefly for their virtues, since no
other reputation will be able to transmit any pleasure beyond the grave.

It is evident that fame, considered merely as the immortality of a name,
is not less likely to be the reward of bad actions than of good; he
therefore has no certain principle for the regulation of his conduct,
whose single aim is not to be forgotten. And history will inform us,
that this blind and undistinguishing appetite of renown has always
been uncertain in its effects, and directed by accident or opportunity,
indifferently to the benefit or devastation of the world. When
Themistocles complained that the trophies of Miltiades hindered him from
sleep, he was animated by them to perform the same services in the same
cause. But Cæsar, when he wept at the sight of Alexander's picture, having
no honest opportunities of action, let his ambition break out to the
ruin of his country.

If, therefore, the love of fame is so far indulged by the mind as to
become independent and predominant, it is dangerous and irregular; but
it may be usefully employed as an inferior and secondary motive, and will
serve sometimes to revive our activity, when we begin to languish and
lose sight of that more certain, more valuable, and more durable reward,
which ought always to be our first hope and our last. But it must be
strongly impressed upon our minds that virtue is not to be pursued as
one of the means to fame, but fame to be accepted as the only recompence
which mortals can bestow on virtue; to be accepted with complacence, but
not sought with eagerness. Simply to be remembered is no advantage; it
is a privilege which satire as well as penegyrick can confer, and is not
more enjoyed by Titus or Constantine, than by Timocreon of Rhodes, of
whom we only know from his epitaph, _that he had eaten many a meal, drunk
many a flaggon, and uttered many a reproach_.

  [Greek: Polla phagôn, kai polla piôn, kai polla kak' eipôn
    Anthrôpous, keimai Timokreôn Rhodios.]

The true satisfaction which is to be drawn from the consciousness that we
shall share the attention of future times, must arise from the hope, that
with our name, our virtues will be propagated; and that those whom we
cannot benefit in our lives, may receive instruction from our examples,
and incitement from our renown.




No. 50. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 1750.


  _Credebant hoc grande nefas, et morte piandum,_
  _Si juvenis vetulo non assurrexerat, atque_
  _Barbato cuicunque puer, licet ipse videret_
  _Plura domi fraga, et majores glandis acervos._
                                                     JUV. Sat. xiii. 54.

  And had not men the hoary head rever'd,
  And boys paid rev'rence when a man appear'd,
  Both must have died, though richer skins they wore,
  And saw more heaps of acorns in their store
                                                                 CREECH.


I have always thought it the business of those who turn their speculations
upon the living world, to commend the virtues, as well as to expose the
faults of their contemporaries, and to confute a false as well as to
support a just accusation; not only because it is peculiarly the business
of a monitor to keep his own reputation untainted, lest those who can
once charge him with partiality, should indulge themselves afterwards
in disbelieving him at pleasure; but because he may find real crimes
sufficient to give full employment to caution or repentance, without
distracting the mind by needless scruples and vain solicitudes.

There are certain fixed and stated reproaches that one part of mankind
has in all ages thrown upon another, which are regularly transmitted
through continued successions, and which he that has once suffered them
is certain to use with the same undistinguishing vehemence, when he has
changed his station, and gained the prescriptive right of inflicting on
others what he had formerly endured himself.

To these hereditary imputations, of which no man sees the justice, till it
becomes his interest to see it, very little regard is to be shewn; since
it does not appear that they are produced by ratiocination or inquiry, but
received implicitly, or caught by a kind of instantaneous contagion, and
supported rather by willingness to credit, than ability to prove, them.

It has been always the practice of those who are desirous to believe
themselves made venerable by length of time, to censure the new comers
into life, for want of respect to grey hairs and sage experience, for
heady confidence in their own understandings, for hasty conclusions
upon partial views, for disregard of counsels, which their fathers and
grandsires are ready to afford them, and a rebellious impatience of that
subordination to which youth is condemned by nature, as necessary to
its security from evils into which it would be otherwise precipitated,
by the rashness of passion, and the blindness of ignorance.

Every old man complains of the growing depravity of the world, of the
petulance and insolence of the rising generation. He recounts the
decency and regularity of former times, and celebrates the discipline and
sobriety of the age in which his youth was passed; a happy age, which is
now no more to be expected, since confusion has broken in upon the world,
and thrown down all the boundaries of civility and reverence.

It is not sufficiently considered how much he assumes who dares to claim
the privilege of complaining; for as every man has, in his own opinion,
a full share of the miseries of life, he is inclined to consider all
clamorous uneasiness, as a proof of impatience rather than of affliction,
and to ask, what merit has this man to show, by which he has acquired a
right to repine at the distributions of nature? Or, why does he imagine
that exemptions should be granted him from the general condition of man?
We find ourselves excited rather to captiousness than pity, and instead
of being in haste to soothe his complaints by sympathy and tenderness,
we enquire, whether the pain be proportionate to the lamentation; and
whether, supposing the affliction real, it is not the effect of vice and
folly, rather than calamity.

The querulousness and indignation which is observed so often to disfigure
the last scene of life, naturally leads us to enquiries like these. For
surely it will be thought at the first view of things, that if age be
thus contemned and ridiculed, insulted and neglected, the crime must
at least be equal on either part. They who have had opportunities of
establishing their authority over minds ductile and unresisting, they
who have been the protectors of helplessness, and the instructors of
ignorance, and who yet retain in their own hands the power of wealth,
and the dignity of command, must defeat their influence by their own
misconduct, and make use of all these advantages with very little skill,
if they cannot secure to themselves an appearance of respect, and ward
off open mockery, and declared contempt.

The general story of mankind will evince, that lawful and settled
authority is very seldom resisted when it is well employed. Gross
corruption, or evident imbecility, is necessary to the suppression
of that reverence with which the majority of mankind look upon their
governors, and on those whom they see surrounded by splendour, and
fortified by power. For though men are drawn by their passions into
forgetfulness of invisible rewards and punishments, yet they are easily
kept obedient to those who have temporal dominion in their hands, till
their veneration is dissipated by such wickedness and folly as can
neither be defended nor concealed.

It may, therefore, very reasonably be suspected that the old draw upon
themselves the greatest part of those insults which they so much lament,
and that age is rarely despised but when it is contemptible. If men
imagine that excess of debauchery can be made reverend by time, that
knowledge is the consequence of long life, however idly or thoughtlessly
employed, that priority of birth will supply the want of steadiness or
honesty, can it raise much wonder that their hopes are disappointed, and
that they see their posterity rather willing to trust their own eyes in
their progress into life, than enlist themselves under guides who have
lost their way?

There are, indeed, many truths which time necessarily and certainly
teaches, and which might, by those who have learned them from experience,
be communicated to their successors at a cheaper rate: but dictates,
though liberally enough bestowed, are generally without effect, the
teacher gains few proselytes by instruction which his own behaviour
contradicts; and young men miss the benefit of counsel, because they are
not very ready to believe that those who fell below them in practice, can
much excel them in theory. Thus the progress of knowledge is retarded,
the world is kept long in the same state, and every new race is to
gain the prudence of their predecessors by committing and redressing
the same miscarriages.

To secure to the old that influence which they are willing to claim, and
which might so much contribute to the improvement of the arts of life,
it is absolutely necessary that they give themselves up to the duties
of declining years; and contentedly resign to youth its levity, its
pleasures, its frolicks, and its fopperies. It is a hopeless endeavour
to unite the contrarieties of spring and winter; it is unjust to claim
the privileges of age, and retain the playthings of childhood. The young
always form magnificent ideas of the wisdom and gravity of men, whom they
consider as placed at a distance from them in the ranks of existence, and
naturally look on those whom they find trifling with long beards, with
contempt and indignation, like that which women feel at the effeminacy
of men. If dotards will contend with boys in those performances in
which boys must always excel them; if they will dress crippled limbs
in embroidery, endeavour at gaiety with faultering voices, and darken
assemblies of pleasure with the ghastliness of disease, they may well
expect those who find their diversions obstructed will hoot them away;
and that if they descend to competition with youth, they must bear the
insolence of successful rivals.

  _Lusisti satis, edisti satis atque bibisti:_
  _Tempus abire tibi est._

  You've had your share of mirth, of meat and drink;
  'Tis time to quit the scene--'tis time to think.
                                                             ELPHINSTON.

Another vice of age, by which the rising generation may be alienated
from it, is severity and censoriousness, that gives no allowance to
the failings of early life, that expects artfulness from childhood, and
constancy from youth, that is peremptory in every command, and inexorable
to every failure. There are many who live merely to hinder happiness, and
whose descendants can only tell of long life, that it produces suspicion,
malignity, peevishness, and persecution: and yet even these tyrants can
talk of the ingratitude of the age, curse their heirs for impatience,
and wonder that young men cannot take pleasure in their father's company.

He that would pass the latter part of life with honour and decency, must,
when he is young, consider that he shall one day be old; and remember,
when he is old, that he has once been young. In youth, he must lay up
knowledge for his support, when his powers of acting shall forsake him;
and in age forbear to animadvert with rigour on faults which experience
only can correct.




No. 51. TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 1750.


  _----Stultus labor est ineptiarum._
                                          MART. Lib. ii. Ep. lxxxvi. 10.

  How foolish is the toil of trifling cares!
                                                             ELPHINSTON.


TO THE RAMBLER.

SIR,

As you have allowed a place in your paper to Euphelia's letters from
the country, and appear to think no form of human life unworthy of
your attention, I have resolved, after many struggles with idleness and
diffidence, to give you some account of my entertainment in this sober
season of universal retreat, and to describe to you the employments of
those who look with contempt on the pleasures and diversions of polite
life, and employ all their powers of censure and invective upon the
uselessness, vanity, and folly, of dress, visits, and conversation.

When a tiresome and vexatious journey of four days had brought me to the
house, where invitation, regularly sent for seven years together, had at
last induced me to pass the summer, I was surprised, after the civilities
of my first reception, to find, instead of the leisure and tranquillity,
which a rural life always promises, and, if well conducted, might always
afford, a confused wildness of care, and a tumultuous hurry of diligence,
by which every face was clouded, and every motion agitated. The old lady,
who was my father's relation, was, indeed, very full of the happiness
which she received from my visit, and, according to the forms of obsolete
breeding, insisted that I should recompense the long delay of my company
with a promise not to leave her till winter. But, amidst all her kindness
and caresses, she very frequently turned her head aside, and whispered,
with anxious earnestness, some order to her daughters, which never failed
to send them out with unpolite precipitation. Sometimes her impatience
would not suffer her to stay behind; she begged my pardon, she must
leave me for a moment; she went, and returned and sat down again, but
was again disturbed by some new care, dismissed her daughters with the
same trepidation, and followed them with the same countenance of business
and solicitude.

However I was alarmed at this show of eagerness and disturbance, and
however my curiosity was excited by such busy preparations as naturally
promised some great event, I was yet too much a stranger to gratify myself
with enquiries; but finding none of the family in mourning, I pleased
myself with imagining that I should rather see a wedding than a funeral.

At last we sat down to supper, when I was informed that one of the young
ladies, after whom I thought myself obliged to enquire, was under a
necessity of attending some affair that could not be neglected. Soon
afterward my relation began to talk of the regularity of her family, and
the inconvenience of London hours; and at last let me know that they had
purposed that night to go to bed sooner than was usual, because they were
to rise early in the morning to make cheesecakes. This hint sent me to my
chamber, to which I was accompanied by all the ladies, who begged me to
excuse some large sieves of leaves and flowers that covered two-thirds
of the floor, for they intended to distil them when they were dry,
and they had no other room that so conveniently received the rising sun.

The scent of the plants hindered me from rest, and therefore I rose early
in the morning with a resolution to explore my new habitation. I stole
unperceived by my busy cousins into the garden, where I found nothing
either more great or elegant, than in the same number of acres cultivated
for the market. Of the gardener I soon learned that his lady was the
greatest manager in that part of the country, and that I was come hither
at the time in which I might learn to make more pickles and conserves,
than could be seen at any house a hundred miles round.

It was not long before her ladyship gave me sufficient opportunities
of knowing her character, for she was too much pleased with her own
accomplishments to conceal them, and took occasion, from some sweetmeats
which she set next day upon the table, to discourse for two long
hours upon robs and jellies; laid down the best methods of conserving,
reserving, and preserving all sorts of fruit; told us with great contempt
of the London lady in the neighbourhood, by whom these terms were very
often confounded; and hinted how much she should be ashamed to set before
company, at her own house, sweetmeats of so dark a colour as she had
often seen at mistress Sprightly's.

It is, indeed, the great business of her life, to watch the skillet on
the fire, to see it simmer with the due degree of heat, and to snatch
it off at the moment of projection; and the employments to which she has
bred her daughters, are to turn rose-leaves in the shade, to pick out the
seeds of currants with a quill, to gather fruit without brusing it, and
to extract bean-flower water for the skin. Such are the tasks with which
every day, since I came hither, has begun and ended, to which the early
hours of life are sacrificed, and in which that time is passing away
which never shall return.

But to reason or expostulate are hopeless attempts. The lady has settled
her opinions, and maintains the dignity of her own performances with all
the firmness of stupidity accustomed to be flattered. Her daughters,
having never seen any house but their own, believe their mother's
excellence on her own word. Her husband is a mere sportsman, who is
pleased to see his table well furnished, and thinks the day sufficiently
successful, in which he brings home a leash of hares to be potted by
his wife.

After a few days I pretended to want books, but my lady soon told me that
none of her books would suit my taste; for her part she never loved to
see young women give their minds to such follies, by which they would
only learn to use hard words; she bred up her daughters to understand
a house, and whoever should marry them, if they knew any thing of good
cookery, would never repent it.

There are, however, some things in the culinary sciences too sublime for
youthful intellects, mysteries into which they must not be initiated
till the years of serious maturity, and which are referred to the day of
marriage, as the supreme qualification for connubial life. She makes an
orange pudding, which is the envy of all the neighbourhood, and which she
has hitherto found means of mixing and baking with such secrecy, that the
ingredient to which it owes its flavour has never been discovered. She,
indeed, conducts this great affair with all the caution that human policy
can suggest. It is never known before-hand when this pudding will be
produced; she takes the ingredient privately into her own closet, employs
her maids and daughters in different parts of the house, orders the oven
to be heated for a pie, and places the pudding in it with her own hands,
the mouth of the oven is then stopped, and all enquiries are vain.

The composition of the pudding she has, however, promised Clarinda, that
if she pleases her in marriage, she shall be told without reserve. But
the art of making English capers she has not yet persuaded herself to
discover, but seems resolved that secret shall perish with her, as some
alchymists have obstinately suppressed the art of transmuting metals.

I once ventured to lay my fingers on her book of receipts, which she
left upon the table, having intelligence that a vessel of gooseberry
wine had burst the hoops. But though the importance of the event
sufficiently engrossed her care, to prevent any recollection of the
danger to which her secrets were exposed, I was not able to make use of
the golden moments; for this treasure of hereditary knowledge was so well
concealed by the manner of spelling used by her grandmother, her mother,
and herself, that I was totally unable to understand it, and lost the
opportunity of consulting the oracle, for want of knowing the language
in which its answers were returned.

It is, indeed, necessary, if I have any regard to her ladyship's esteem,
that I should apply myself to some of these economical accomplishments;
for I overheard her, two days ago, warning her daughters, by my mournful
example, against negligence of pastry, and ignorance in carving: for you
saw, said she, that, with all her pretensions to knowledge, she turned
the partridge the wrong way when she attempted to cut it, and, I believe,
scarcely knows the difference between paste raised, and paste in a dish.

The reason, Mr. Rambler, why I have laid Lady Bustle's character before
you, is a desire to be informed whether, in your opinion, it is worthy of
imitation, and whether I shall throw away the books which I have hitherto
thought it my duty to read, for _the lady's closet opened_, _the complete
servant maid_, and _the court cook_, and resign all curiosity after right
and wrong, for the art of scalding damascenes without bursting them, and
preserving the whiteness of pickled mushrooms.

Lady Bustle has, indeed, by this incessant application to fruits and
flowers, contracted her cares into a narrow space, and set herself free
from many perplexities with which other minds are disturbed. She has no
curiosity after the events of a war, or the fate of heroes in distress;
she can hear, without the least emotion, the ravage of a fire, or
devastations of a storm; her neighbours grow rich or poor, come into
the world or go out of it, without regard, while she is pressing the
jelly-bag, or airing the store-room; but I cannot perceive that she is
more free from disquiets than those whose understandings take a wider
range. Her marigolds, when they are almost cured, are often scattered by
the wind, and the rain sometimes falls upon fruit, when it ought to be
gathered dry. While her artificial wines are fermenting, her whole life
is restlessness and anxiety. Her sweetmeats are not always bright, and
the maid sometimes forgets the just proportions of salt and pepper, when
venison is to be baked. Her conserves mould, her wines sour, and pickles
mother; and, like all the rest of mankind, she is every day mortified
with the defeat of her schemes, and the disappointment of her hopes.

With regard to vice and virtue she seems a kind of neutral being. She has
no crime but luxury, nor any virtue but chastity; she has no desire to be
praised but for her cookery; nor wishes any ill to the rest of mankind,
but that whenever they aspire to a feast, their custards may be wheyish,
and their pie-crusts tough.

I am now very impatient to know whether I am to look on these ladies as
the great patterns of our sex, and to consider conserves and pickles as
the business of my life; whether the censures which I now suffer be just,
and whether the brewers of wines, and the distillers of washes, have a
right to look with insolence on the weakness of

                                                               CORNELIA.




No. 52. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 1750.


  _----Quoties flenti Theseius heros_
  _Siste modum, dixit, neque enim fortuna querenda_
  _Sola tua est, similes aliorum respice casus,_
  _Mitius ista feres._
                                                     OVID, Met. xv. 492.

  How oft in vain the son of Theseus said,
  The stormy sorrows be with patience laid;
  Nor are thy fortunes to be wept alone;
  Weigh others' woes, and learn to bear thy own.
                                                                CATCOTT.


Among the various methods of consolation, to which the miseries
inseparable from our present state have given occasion, it has been, as I
have already remarked, recommended by some writers to put the sufferer in
mind of heavier pressures, and more excruciating calamities, than those
of which he has himself reason to complain.

This has, in all ages, been directed and practised; and, in conformity to
this custom, Lipsius, the great modern master of the Stoick philosophy,
has, in his celebrated treatise on _Steadiness of Mind_, endeavoured
to fortify the breast against too much sensibility of misfortune, by
enumerating the evils which have in former ages fallen upon the world,
the devastation of wide-extended regions, the sack of cities, and
massacre of nations. And the common voice of the multitude, uninstructed
by precept, and unprejudiced by authority, which, in questions that
relate to the heart of man, is, in my opinion, more decisive than the
learning of Lipsius, seems to justify the efficacy of this procedure; for
one of the first comforts which one neighbour administers to another, is
a relation of the like infelicity, combined with circumstances of greater
bitterness.

But this medicine of the mind is like many remedies applied to the body,
of which, though we see the effects, we are unacquainted with the manner
of operation, and of which, therefore, some, who are unwilling to suppose
any thing out of the reach of their own sagacity, have been inclined
to doubt whether they have really those virtues for which they are
celebrated, and whether their reputation is not the mere gift of fancy,
prejudice, and credulity.

Consolation, or comfort, are words which, in their proper acceptation,
signify some alleviation of that pain to which it is not in our power to
afford the proper and adequate remedy; they imply rather an augmentation
of the power of bearing, than a diminution of the burthen. A prisoner
is relieved by him that sets him at liberty, but receives comfort from
such as suggest considerations by which he is made patient under the
inconvenience of confinement. To that grief which arises from a great
loss, he only brings the true remedy, who makes his friend's condition
the same as before; but he may be properly termed a comforter, who by
persuasion extenuates the pain of poverty, and shews, in the style of
Hesiod, that _half is more than the whole_.

It is, perhaps, not immediately obvious, how it can lull the memory of
misfortune, or appease the throbbings of anguish, to hear that others
are more miserable; others, perhaps, unknown or wholly indifferent, whose
prosperity raises no envy, and whose fall can gratify no resentment.
Some topicks of comfort arising, like that which gave hope and spirit
to the captive of Sesostris, from the perpetual vicissitudes of life,
and mutability of human affairs, may as properly raise the dejected
as depress the proud, and have an immediate tendency to exhilarate and
revive. But how can it avail the man who languishes in the gloom of
sorrow, without prospect of emerging into the sunshine of cheerfulness,
to hear that others are sunk yet deeper in the dungeon of misery,
shackled with heavier chains, and surrounded with darker desperation?

The solace arising from this consideration seems indeed the weakest of
all others, and is perhaps never properly applied, but in cases where
there is no place for reflections of more speedy and pleasing efficacy.
But even from such calamities life is by no means free; a thousand
ills incurable, a thousand losses irreparable, a thousand difficulties
insurmountable are known, or will be known, by all the sons of men. Native
deformity cannot be rectified, a dead friend cannot return, and the hours
of youth trifled away in folly, or lost in sickness, cannot be restored.

Under the oppression of such melancholy, it has been found useful to take
a survey of the world, to contemplate the various scenes of distress
in which mankind are struggling round us, and acquaint ourselves with
the _terribiles visit formæ_, the various shapes of misery, which
make havock of terrestrial happiness, range all corners almost without
restraint, trample down our hopes at the hour of harvest, and, when we
have built our schemes to the top, ruin their foundations.

The first effect of this meditation is, that it furnishes a new employment
for the mind, and engages the passions on remoter objects; as kings have
sometimes freed themselves from a subject too haughty to be governed and
too powerful to be crushed, by posting him in a distant province, till
his popularity has subsided, or his pride been repressed. The attention
is dissipated by variety, and acts more weakly upon any single part, as
that torrent may be drawn off to different channels, which, pouring down
in one collected body, cannot be resisted. This species of comfort is,
therefore, unavailing in severe paroxysms of corporal pain, when the mind
is every instant called back to misery, and in the first shock of any
sudden evil; but will certainly be of use against encroaching melancholy,
and a settled habit of gloomy thoughts.

It is further advantageous, as it supplies us with opportunities of making
comparisons in our own favour. We know that very little of the pain,
or pleasure, which does not begin and end in our senses, is otherwise
than relative; we are rich or poor, great or little, in proportion to
the number that excel us, or fall beneath us, in any of these respects;
and therefore, a man, whose uneasiness arises from reflection on any
misfortune that throws him below those with whom he was once equal, is
comforted by finding that he is not yet the lowest.

There is another kind of comparison, less tending towards the vice of
envy, very well illustrated by an old poet[45], whose system will not
afford many reasonable motives to content. "It is," says he, "pleasing to
look from shore upon the tumults of a storm, and to see a ship struggling
with the billows; it is pleasing, not because the pain of another can give
us delight, but because we have a stronger impression of the happiness
of safety." Thus, when we look abroad, and behold the multitudes that
are groaning under evils heavier than those which we have experienced,
we shrink back to our own state, and instead of repining that so much
must be felt, learn to rejoice that we have not more to feel.

By this observation of the miseries of others, fortitude is strengthened,
and the mind brought to a more extensive knowledge of her own powers. As
the heroes of action catch the flame from one another, so they to whom
Providence has allotted the harder task of suffering with calmness and
dignity, may animate themselves by the remembrance of those evils which
have been laid on others, perhaps naturally as weak as themselves, and
bear up with vigour and resolution against their own oppressions, when
they see it possible that more severe afflictions may be borne.

There is still another reason why, to many minds, the relation of other
men's infelicity may give a lasting and continual relief. Some, not well
instructed in the measures by which Providence distributes happiness, are
perhaps misled by divines, who, as Bellarmine makes temporal prosperity
one of the characters of the true church, have represented wealth and
ease as the certain concomitants of virtue, and the unfailing result of
the divine approbation. Such sufferers are dejected in their misfortunes,
not so much for what they feel, as for what they dread; not because
they cannot support the sorrows, or endure the wants, of their present
condition, but because they consider them as only the beginnings of
more sharp and more lasting pains. To these mourners it is an act of the
highest charity to represent the calamities which not only virtue has
suffered, but virtue has incurred; to inform them that one evidence of
a future state, is the uncertainty of any present reward for goodness;
and to remind them, from the highest authority, of the distresses and
penury of men of whom the world was not worthy.

[Footnote 45: Lucretius.]




No. 53. TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 1750.


  [Greek: Pheideo tôn kteanôn.]
                                                         _Epigram. Vet._

  Husband thy possessions.


There is scarcely among the evils of human life any so generally dreaded
as poverty. Every other species of misery, those, who are not much
accustomed to disturb the present moment with reflection, can easily
forget, because it is not always forced upon their regard; but it is
impossible to pass a day or an hour in the confluxes of men, without
seeing how much indigence is exposed to contumely, neglect, and insult;
and, in its lowest state, to hunger and nakedness; to injuries against
which every passion is in arms, and to wants which nature cannot sustain.

Against other evils the heart is often hardened by true or by false notions
of dignity and reputation: thus we see dangers of every kind faced with
willingness, because bravery in a good or bad cause is never without its
encomiasts and admirers. But in the prospect of poverty, there is nothing
but gloom and melancholy; the mind and body suffer together; its miseries
bring no alleviations; it is a state in which every virtue is obscured,
and in which no conduct can avoid reproach: a state in which cheerfulness
is insensibility, and dejection sullenness, of which the hardships are
without honour, and the labours without reward.

Of these calamities there seems not to be wanting a general conviction; we
hear on every side the noise of trade, and see the streets thronged with
numberless multitudes, whose faces are clouded with anxiety, and whose
steps are hurried by precipitation, from no other motive than the hope
of gain; and the whole world is put in motion, by the desire of that
wealth which is chiefly to be valued as it secures us from poverty;
for it is more useful for defence than acquisition, and is not so much
able to procure good as to exclude evil.

Yet there are always some whose passions or follies lead them to a conduct
opposite to the general maxims and practice of mankind; some who seem
to rush upon poverty with the same eagerness with which others avoid
it, who see their revenues hourly lessened, and the estates which they
inherit from their ancestors mouldering away, without resolution to
change their course of life; who persevere against all remonstrances, and
go forward with full career, though they see before them the precipice
of destruction.

It is not my purpose in this paper, to expostulate with such as ruin
their fortunes by expensive schemes of buildings and gardens, which they
carry on with the same vanity that prompted them to begin, choosing,
as it happens in a thousand other cases, the remote evil before the
lighter, and deferring the shame of repentance till they incur the
miseries of distress. Those for whom I intend my present admonitions,
are the thoughtless, the negligent, and the dissolute, who having, by
the vitiousness of their own inclinations, or the seducements of alluring
companions, been engaged in habits of expense, and accustomed to move
in a certain round of pleasures disproportioned to their condition, are
without power to extricate themselves from the enchantments of custom,
avoid thought because they know it will be painful, and continue from day
to day, and from month to month, to anticipate their revenues, and sink
every hour deeper into the gulfs of usury and extortion.

This folly has less claim to pity, because it cannot be imputed to the
vehemence of sudden passion; nor can the mischief which it produces be
extenuated as the effect of any single act, which rage, or desire, might
execute before there could be time for an appeal to reason. These men are
advancing towards misery by soft approaches, and destroying themselves,
not by the violence of a blow, which, when once given, can never be
recalled, but by a slow poison, hourly repeated, and obstinately continued.

This conduct is so absurd when it is examined by the unprejudiced eye
of rational judgment, that nothing but experience could evince its
possibility; yet, absurd as it is, the sudden fall of some families, and
the sudden rise of others, prove it to be common, and every year sees
many wretches reduced to contempt and want, by their costly sacrifices to
pleasure and vanity.

It is the fate of almost every passion, when it has passed the bounds
which nature prescribes, to counteract its own purpose. Too much rage
hinders the warriour from circumspection, too much eagerness of profit
hurts the credit of the trader, too much ardour takes away from the lover
that easiness of address with which ladies are delighted.

Thus extravagance, though dictated by vanity, and incited by
voluptuousness, seldom procures ultimately either applause or pleasure.

If praise be justly estimated by the character of those from whom it
is received, little satisfaction will be given to the spendthrift by
the encomiums which he purchases. For who are they that animate him in
his pursuits, but young men, thoughtless and abandoned like himself,
unacquainted with all on which the wisdom of nations has impressed the
stamp of excellence, and devoid alike of knowledge and of virtue? By whom
is his profusion praised, but by wretches who consider him as subservient
to their purposes, Sirens that entice him to shipwreck, and Cyclops that
are gaping to devour him.

Every man, whose knowledge or whose virtue can give value to his opinion,
looks with scorn, or pity, neither of which can afford much gratification
to pride, on him whom the panders of luxury have drawn into the circle
of their influence, and whom he sees parcelled out among the different
ministers of folly, and about to be torn to pieces by tailors and
jockeys, vintners and attorneys, who at once rob and ridicule him, and
who are secretly triumphing over his weakness, when they present new
incitements to his appetite, and heighten his desires by counterfeited
applause.

Such is the praise that is purchased by prodigality. Even when it is
yet not discovered to be false, it is the praise only of those whom
it is reproachful to please, and whose sincerity is corrupted by their
interest; men who live by the riots which they encourage, and who know
that whenever their pupil grows wise, they shall loose their power. Yet
with such flatteries, if they could last, might the cravings of vanity,
which is seldom very delicate, be satisfied; but the time is always
hastening forward when this triumph, poor as it is, shall vanish, and
when those who now surround him with obsequiousness and compliments,
fawn among his equipage, and animate his riots, shall turn upon him with
insolence, and reproach him with the vices promoted by themselves.

And as little pretensions has the man who squanders his estate, by vain
or vicious expenses, to greater degrees of pleasure than are obtained by
others. To make any happiness sincere, it is necessary that we believe it
to be lasting; since whatever we suppose ourselves in danger of losing,
must be enjoyed with solicitude and uneasiness, and the more value we set
upon it, the more must the present possession be imbittered. How can he
then be envied for his felicity, who knows that its continuance cannot be
expected, and who is conscious that a very short time will give him up to
the gripe of poverty, which will be harder to be borne, as he has given
way to more excesses, wantoned in greater abundance, and indulged his
appetites with more profuseness?

It appears evident that frugality is necessary even to complete the
pleasure of expense; for it may be generally remarked of those who
squander what they know their fortune not sufficient to allow, that
in their most jovial expense, there always breaks out some proof of
discontent and impatience; they either scatter with a kind of wild
desperation, and affected lavishness, as criminals brave the gallows
when they cannot escape it, or pay their money with a peevish anxiety,
and endeavour at once to spend idly, and to save meanly: having neither
firmness to deny their passions, nor courage to gratify them, they murmur
at their own enjoyments, and poison the bowl of pleasure by reflection
on the cost.

Among these men there is often the vociferation of merriment, but very
seldom the tranquillity of cheerfulness; they inflame their imaginations
to a kind of momentary jollity, by the help of wine and riot, and
consider it as the first business of the night to stupify recollection,
and lay that reason asleep which disturbs their gaiety, and calls upon
them to retreat from ruin.

But this poor broken satisfaction is of short continuance, and must
be expiated by a long series of misery and regret. In a short time
the creditor grows impatient, the last acre is sold, the passions and
appetites still continue their tyranny, with incessant calls for their
usual gratifications, and the remainder of life passes away in vain
repentance, or impotent desire.




No. 54. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 1750.


  _Truditur dies die,_
    _Novteque pergunt interire Lunæ._
  _Tu secanda marmora_
    _Locas sub ipsum funus, et sepulchri_
  _Immemor struis domos._
                                            HOR. Lib. ii. Ode xviii. 15.

  Day presses on the heels of day,
  And moons increase to their decay;
  But you, with thoughtless pride elate,
  Unconscious of impending fate,
  Command the pillar'd dome to rise,
  When lo! thy tomb forgotten lies.
                                                                FRANCIS.


TO THE RAMBLER.

SIR,

I have lately been called, from a mingled life of business and amusement,
to attend the last hours of an old friend; an office which has filled me,
if not with melancholy, at least with serious reflections, and turned my
thoughts towards the contemplation of those subjects, which though of the
utmost importance, and of indubitable certainty, are generally secluded
from our regard, by the jollity of health, the hurry of employment, and
even by the calmer diversions of study and speculation; or if they become
accidental topicks of conversation and argument, yet rarely sink deep
into the heart, but give occasion only to some subtilties of reasoning,
or elegancies of declamation, which are heard, applauded, and forgotten.

It is, indeed, not hard to conceive how a man accustomed to extend his
views through a long concatenation of causes and effects, to trace
things from their origin to their period, and compare means with ends,
may discover the weakness of human schemes; detect the fallacies by
which mortals are deluded; shew the insufficiency of wealth, honours,
and power, to real happiness; and please himself, and his auditors, with
learned lectures on the vanity of life.

But though the speculatist may see and shew the folly of terrestrial
hopes, fears, and desires, every hour will give proofs that he never felt
it. Trace him through the day or year, and you will find him acting upon
principles which he has in common with the illiterate and unenlightened,
angry and pleased like the lowest of the vulgar, pursuing, with the same
ardour, the same designs, grasping, with all the eagerness of transport,
those riches which he knows he cannot keep, and swelling with the
applause which he has gained by proving that applause is of no value.

The only conviction that rushes upon the soul, and takes away from our
appetites and passions the power of resistance, is to be found, where
I have received it, at the bed of a dying friend. To enter this school
of wisdom is not the peculiar privilege of geometricians; the most
sublime and important precepts require no uncommon opportunities, nor
laborious preparations; they are enforced without the aid of eloquence,
and understood without skill in analytick science. Every tongue can utter
them, and every understanding can conceive them. He that wishes in
earnest to obtain just sentiments concerning his condition, and would
be intimately acquainted with the world, may find instructions on every
side. He that desires to enter behind the scene, which every art has been
employed to decorate, and every passion labours to illuminate, and wishes
to see life stripped of those ornaments which make it glitter on the
stage, and exposed in its natural meanness, impotence, and nakedness, may
find all the delusion laid open in the chamber of disease: he will there
find vanity divested of her robes, power deprived of her sceptre, and
hypocrisy without her mask.

The friend whom I have lost was a man eminent for genius, and, like others
of the same class, sufficiently pleased with acceptance and applause.
Being caressed by those who have preferments and riches in their
disposal, he considered himself as in the direct road of advancement,
and had caught the flame of ambition by approaches to its object. But
in the midst of his hopes, his projects, and his gaieties, he was seized
by a lingering disease, which, from its first stage, he knew to be
incurable. Here was an end of all his visions of greatness and happiness;
from the first hour that his health declined, all his former pleasures
grew tasteless. His friends expected to please him by those accounts
of the growth of his reputation, which were formerly certain of being
well received; but they soon found how little he was now affected by
compliments, and how vainly they attempted, by flattery, to exhilarate
the languor of weakness, and relieve the solicitude of approaching
death. Whoever would know how much piety and virtue surpass all external
goods, might here have seen them weighed against each other, where all
that gives motion to the active, and elevation to the eminent, all that
sparkles in the eye of hope, and pants in the bosom of suspicion, at once
became dust in the balance, without weight and without regard. Riches,
authority, and praise, lose all their influence when they are considered
as riches which to-morrow shall be bestowed upon another, authority which
shall this night expire for ever, and praise which, however merited, or
however sincere, shall, after a few moments, be heard no more.

In those hours of seriousness and wisdom, nothing appeared to raise his
spirits, or gladden his heart, but the recollection of acts of goodness;
nor to excite his attention, but some opportunity for the exercise of
the duties of religion. Every thing that terminated on this side of the
grave was received with coldness and indifference, and regarded rather
in consequence of the habit of valuing it, than from any opinion that
it deserved value; it had little more prevalence over his mind than a
bubble that was now broken, a dream from which he was awake. His whole
powers were engrossed by the consideration of another state, and all
conversation was tedious, that had not some tendency to disengage him
from human affairs, and open his prospects into futurity.

It is now past, we have closed his eyes, and heard him breathe the groan
of expiration. At the sight of this last conflict, I felt a sensation
never known to me before; a confusion of passions, an awful stillness
of sorrow, a gloomy terrour without a name. The thoughts that entered my
soul were too strong to be diverted, and too piercing to be endured; but
such violence cannot be lasting, the storm subsided in a short time, I
wept, retired, and grew calm.

I have from that time frequently revolved in my mind, the effects which
the observation of death produces, in those who are not wholly without
the power and use of reflection; for, by far the greater part, it is
wholly unregarded. Their friends and their enemies sink into the grave
without raising any uncommon emotion, or reminding them that they are
themselves on the edge of the precipice, and that they must soon plunge
into a gulf of eternity.

It seems to me remarkable that death increases our veneration for the
good, and extenuates our hatred of the bad. Those virtues which once
we envied, as Horace observes, because they eclipsed our own, can now
no longer obstruct our reputation, and we have therefore no interest to
suppress their praise. That wickedness, which we feared for its malignity,
is now become impotent, and the man whose name filled us with alarm, and
rage, and indignation, can at last be considered only with pity, or
contempt.

When a friend is carried to his grave, we at once find excuses for
every weakness, and palliations of every fault; we recollect a thousand
endearments, which before glided off our minds without impression, a
thousand favours unrepaid, a thousand duties unperformed, and wish,
vainly wish, for his return, not so much that we may receive, as that we
may bestow happiness, and recompense that kindness which before we never
understood.

There is not, perhaps, to a mind well instructed, a more painful
occurrence, than the death of one whom we have injured without
reparation. Our crime seems now irretrievable, it is indelibly recorded,
and the stamp of fate is fixed upon it. We consider, with the most
afflictive anguish, the pain which we have given, and now cannot
alleviate, and the losses which we have caused, and now cannot repair.

Of the same kind are the emotions which the death of an emulator or
competitor produces. Whoever had qualities to alarm our jealousy, had
excellence to deserve our fondness; and to whatever ardour of opposition
interest may inflame us, no man ever outlived an enemy, whom he did not
then wish to have made a friend. Those who are versed in literary history
know, that the elder Scaliger was the redoubted antagonist of Cardan
and Erasmus; yet at the death of each of his great rivals he relented,
and complained that they were snatched away from him before their
reconciliation was completed:

  _Tu-ne etiam moreris? Ah! quid me linquis, Erasme,_
    _Ante meus quam sit conciliatus amor?_

  Art thou too fallen? Ere anger could subside
  And love return, has great Erasmus died?

Such are the sentiments with which we finally review the effects of
passion, but which we sometimes delay till we can no longer rectify our
errours. Let us, therefore, make haste to do what we shall certainly at
last wish to have done; let us return the caresses of our friends, and
endeavour by mutual endearments to heighten that tenderness which is
the balm of life. Let us be quick to repent of injuries while repentance
may not be a barren anguish, and let us open our eyes to every rival
excellence, and pay early and willingly those honours which justice will
compel us to pay at last.

                                                              ATHANATUS.




No. 55. TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 1750.


    _Maturo propior desine funeri_
  _Inter ludere virgines,_
    _Et stellis nebulam spargere candidis._
  _Non siquid Pholoen satis,_
  _Et te, Chlori, decet._
                                               HOR. Lib. iii. Ode xv. 4.

  Now near to death that comes but slow,
  Now thou art stepping down below;
  Sport not amongst the blooming maids,
  But think on ghosts and empty shades:
  What suits with Pholoe in her bloom,
  Grey Chloris, will not thee become;
  A bed is different from a tomb.
                                                                 CREECH.


TO THE RAMBLER.

SIR,

I have been but a little time conversant in the world, yet I have
already had frequent opportunities of observing the little efficacy of
remonstrance and complaint, which, however extorted by oppression, or
supported by reason, are detested by one part of the world as rebellion,
censured by another as peevishness, by some heard with an appearance
of compassion, only to betray any of those sallies of vehemence and
resentment, which are apt to break out upon encouragement, and by others
passed over with indifference and neglect, as matters in which they have
no concern, and which if they should endeavour to examine or regulate,
they might draw mischief upon themselves.

Yet since it is no less natural for those who think themselves injured to
complain, than for others to neglect their complaints, I shall venture to
lay my case before you, in hopes that you will enforce my opinion, if you
think it just, or endeavour to rectify my sentiments, if I am mistaken.
I expect at least, that you will divest yourself of partiality, and that
whatever your age or solemnity may be, you will not, with the dotard's
insolence, pronounce me ignorant and foolish, perverse and refractory,
only because you perceive that I am young.

My father dying when I was but ten years old, left me, and a brother two
years younger than myself, to the care of my mother, a woman of birth
and education, whose prudence or virtue he had no reason to distrust.
She felt, for some time, all the sorrow which nature calls forth, upon
the final separation of persons dear to one another; and as her grief was
exhausted by its own violence, it subsided into tenderness for me and my
brother, and the year of mourning was spent in caresses, consolations,
and instruction, in celebration of my father's virtues, in professions of
perpetual regard to his memory, and hourly instances of such fondness as
gratitude will not easily suffer me to forget.

But when the term of this mournful felicity was expired, and my mother
appeared again without the ensigns of sorrow, the ladies of her
acquaintance began to tell her, upon whatever motives, that it was time
to live like the rest of the world; a powerful argument, which is seldom
used to a woman without effect. Lady Giddy was incessantly relating
the occurrences of the town, and Mrs. Gravely told her privately, with
great tenderness, that it began to be publickly observed how much she
overacted her part, and that most of her acquaintance suspected her hope
of procuring another husband to be the true ground of all that appearance
of tenderness and piety.

All the officiousness of kindness and folly was busied to change her
conduct. She was at one time alarmed with censure, and at another fired
with praise. She was told of balls, where others shone only because
she was absent; of new comedies, to which all the town was crowding;
and of many ingenious ironies, by which domestick diligence was made
contemptible.

It is difficult for virtue to stand alone against fear on one side, and
pleasure on the other; especially when no actual crime is proposed, and
prudence itself can suggest many reasons for relaxation and indulgence.
My mamma was at last persuaded to accompany Miss Giddy to a play. She
was received with a boundless profusion of compliments, and attended
home by a very fine gentleman. Next day she was with less difficulty
prevailed on to play at Mrs. Gravely's, and came home gay and lively;
for the distinctions that had been paid her awakened her vanity, and good
luck had kept her principles of frugality from giving her disturbance.
She now made her second entrance into the world, and her friends were
sufficiently industrious to prevent any return to her former life; every
morning brought messages of invitation, and every evening was passed in
places of diversion, from which she for some time complained that she
had rather be absent. In a short time she began to feel the happiness
of acting without controul, of being unaccountable for her hours, her
expenses, and her company; and learned by degrees to drop an expression
of contempt, or pity, at the mention of ladies whose husbands were
suspected of restraining their pleasures, or their play, and confessed
that she loved to go and come as she pleased.

I was still favoured with some incidental precepts and transient
endearments, and was now and then fondly kissed for smiling like my
papa: but most part of her morning was spent in comparing the opinion of
her maid and milliner, contriving some variation in her dress, visiting
shops, and sending compliments; and the rest of the day was too short for
visits, cards, plays, and concerts.

She now began to discover that it was impossible to educate children
properly at home. Parents could not have them always in their sight; the
society of servants was contagious; company produced boldness and spirit;
emulation excited industry; and a large school was naturally the first
step into the open world. A thousand other reasons she alleged, some of
little force in themselves, but so well seconded by pleasure, vanity, and
idleness, that they soon overcame all the remaining principles of kindness
and piety, and both I and my brother were despatched to boarding schools.

How my mamma spent her time when she was thus disburthened I am not able
to inform you, but I have reason to believe that trifles and amusements
took still faster hold of her heart. At first, she visited me at school,
and afterwards wrote to me; but in a short time, both her visits and her
letters were at an end, and no other notice was taken of me than to remit
money for my support.

When I came home at the vacation, I found myself coldly received, with an
observation, "that this girl will presently be a woman." I was, after the
usual stay, sent to school again, and overheard my mother say, as I was
a-going, "Well, now I shall recover."

In six months more I came again, and, with the usual childish alacrity,
was running to my mother's embrace, when she stopt me with exclamations
at the suddenness and enormity of my growth, having, she said, never seen
any body shoot up so much at my age. She was sure no other girls spread
at that rate, and she hated to have children look like women before their
time. I was disconcerted, and retired without hearing any thing more than
"Nay, if you are angry, Madam Steeple, you may walk off."

When once the forms of civility are violated, there remains little hope
of return to kindness or decency. My mamma made this appearance of
resentment a reason for continuing her malignity; and poor Miss May-pole,
for that was my appellation, was never mentioned or spoken to but, with
some expression of anger or dislike.

She had yet the pleasure of dressing me like a child, and I know not when
I should have been thought fit to change my habit, had I not been rescued
by a maiden sister of my father, who could not bear to see women in
hanging-sleeves, and therefore presented me with brocade for a gown, for
which I should have thought myself under great obligations, had she not
accompanied her favour with some hints that my mamma might now consider
her age, and give me her ear-rings, which she had shewn long enough in
publick places.

I now left the school, and came to live with my mamma, who considered me
as an usurper that had seized the rights of a woman before they were due,
and was pushing her down the precipice of age, that I might reign without
a superior. While I am thus beheld with jealousy and suspicion, you will
readily believe that it is difficult to please. Every word and look is an
offence. I never speak, but I pretend to some qualities and excellencies
which it is criminal to possess; if I am gay, she thinks it early enough
to coquette; if I am grave, she hates a prude in bibs; if I venture into
company, I am in haste for a husband; if I retire to my chamber, such
matron-like ladies are lovers of contemplation. I am on one pretence or
other generally excluded from her assemblies, nor am I ever suffered to
visit at the same place with my mamma. Every one wonders why she does
not bring Miss more into the world, and when she comes home in vapours I
am certain that she has heard either of my beauty or my wit, and expect
nothing for the ensuing week but taunts and menaces, contradiction and
reproaches.

Thus I live in a state of continual persecution, only because I was born
ten years too soon, and cannot stop the course of nature or of time, but
am unhappily a woman before my mother can willingly cease to be a girl.
I believe you would contribute to the happiness of many families, if, by
any arguments or persuasions, you could make mothers ashamed of rivalling
their children; if you could shew them, that though they may refuse to
grow wise, they must inevitably grow old; and that the proper solaces of
age are not musick and compliments, but wisdom and devotion; that those
who are so unwilling to quit the world will soon be driven from it; and
that it is therefore their interest to retire while there yet remain a
few hours for nobler employments.

I am, &c.




No. 56. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 1750.


  _----Valeat res ludicra, si me_
  _Palma negata macrum, donata reducit opimum._
                                               HOR. Lib. ii. Ep. i. 180.

  Farewell the stage; for humbly I disclaim
  Such fond pursuits of pleasure, or of fame,
  If I must sink in shame, or swell with pride,
  As the gay palm is granted or denied.
                                                                FRANCIS.


Nothing is more unpleasing than to find that offence has been received
when none was intended, and that pain has been given to those who were
not guilty of any provocation. As the great end of society is mutual
beneficence, a good man is always uneasy when he finds himself acting in
opposition to the purposes of life; because, though his conscience may
easily acquit him of _malice prepense_, of settled hatred or contrivances
of mischief, yet he seldom can be certain, that he has not failed by
negligence, or indolence; that he has not been hindered from consulting
the common interest by too much regard to his own ease, or too much
indifference to the happiness of others.

Nor is it necessary, that, to feel this uneasiness, the mind should be
extended to any great diffusion of generosity, or melted by uncommon
warmth of benevolence; for that prudence which the world teaches, and a
quick sensibility of private interest, will direct us to shun needless
enmities; since there is no man whose kindness we may not some time want,
or by whose malice we may not some time suffer.

I have therefore frequently looked with wonder, and now and then with
pity, at the thoughtlessness with which some alienate from themselves
the affections of all whom chance, business, or inclination, brings in
their way. When we see a man pursuing some darling interest, without
much regard to the opinion of the world, we justly consider him as
corrupt and dangerous, but are not long in discovering his motives; we
see him actuated by passions which are hard to be resisted, and deluded
by appearances which have dazzled stronger eyes. But the greater part of
those who set mankind at defiance by hourly irritation, and who live but
to infuse malignity, and multiply enemies, have no hopes to foster, no
designs to promote, nor any expectations of attaining power by insolence,
or of climbing to greatness by trampling on others. They give up all the
sweets of kindness, for the sake of peevishness, petulance, or gloom; and
alienate the world by neglect of the common forms of civility, and breach
of the established laws of conversation.

Every one must, in the walks of life, have met with men of whom all speak
with censure, though they are not chargeable with any crime, and whom
none can be persuaded to love, though a reason can scarcely be assigned
why they should be hated; and who, if their good qualities and actions
sometimes force a commendation, have their panegyrick always concluded
with confessions of disgust; "he is a good man, but I cannot like him."
Surely such persons have sold the esteem of the world at too low a price,
since they have lost one of the rewards of virtue, without gaining the
profits of wickedness.

This ill economy of fame is sometimes the effect of stupidity. Men whose
perceptions are languid and sluggish, who lament nothing but loss of
money, and feel nothing but a blow, are often at a difficulty to guess
why they are encompassed with enemies, though they neglect all those arts
by which men are endeared to one another. They comfort themselves that
they have lived irreproachably; that none can charge them with having
endangered his life, or diminished his possessions; and therefore conclude
that they suffer by some invincible fatality, or impute the malice of
their neighbours to ignorance or envy. They wrap themselves up in their
innocence, and enjoy the congratulations of their own hearts, without
knowing or suspecting that they are every day deservedly incurring
resentments, by withholding from those with whom they converse, that
regard, or appearance of regard, to which every one is entitled by the
customs of the world.

There are many injuries which almost every man feels, though he does not
complain, and which, upon those whom virtue, elegance, or vanity, have
made delicate and tender, fix deep and lasting impressions; as there are
many arts of graciousness and conciliation, which are to be practised
without expense, and by which those may be made our friends, who have
never received from us any real benefit. Such arts, when they include
neither guilt nor meanness, it is surely reasonable to learn, for who
would want that love which is so easily to be gained? And such injuries
are to be avoided; for who would be hated without profit?

Some, indeed, there are, for whom the excuse of ignorance or negligence
cannot be alleged, because it is apparent that they are not only
careless of pleasing, but studious to offend; that they contrive to make
all approaches to them difficult and vexatious, and imagine that they
aggrandize themselves by wasting the time of others in useless attendance,
by mortifying them with slights, and teazing them with affronts.

Men of this kind are generally to be found among those that have not
mingled much in general conversation, but spent their lives amidst the
obsequiousness of dependants, and the flattery of parasites; and by long
consulting only their own inclination, have forgotten that others have
claim to the same deference.

Tyranny thus avowed, is indeed an exuberance of pride, by which all
mankind is so much enraged, that it is never quietly endured, except
in those who can reward the patience which they exact; and insolence is
generally surrounded only by such whose baseness inclines them to think
nothing insupportable that produces gain, and who can laugh at scurrility
and rudeness with a luxurious table and an open purse.

But though all wanton provocations and contemptuous insolence are to
be diligently avoided, there is no less danger in timid compliance and
tame resignation. It is common for soft and fearful tempers to give
themselves up implicitly to the direction of the bold, the turbulent,
and the overbearing; of those whom they do not believe wiser or better
than themselves; to recede from the best designs where opposition must
be encountered, and to fall off from virtue for fear of censure.

Some firmness and resolution is necessary to the discharge of duty; but it
is a very unhappy state of life in which the necessity of such struggles
frequently occurs; for no man is defeated without some resentment, which
will be continued with obstinacy while he believes himself in the right,
and exerted with bitterness, if even to his own conviction he is detected
in the wrong.

Even though no regard be had to the external consequences of contrariety
and dispute, it must be painful to a worthy mind to put others in pain,
and there will be danger lest the kindest nature may be vitiated by too
long a custom of debate and contest.

I am afraid that I may be taxed with insensibility by many of my
correspondents, who believe their contributions unjustly neglected.
And, indeed, when I sit before a pile of papers, of which each is the
production of laborious study, and the offspring of a fond parent, I, who
know the passions of an author, cannot remember how long they have lain
in my boxes unregarded, without imagining to myself the various changes
of sorrow, impatience, and resentment, which the writers must have felt
in this tedious interval.

These reflections are still more awakened, when, upon perusal, I find some
of them calling for a place in the next paper, a place which they have
never yet obtained: others writing in a style of superiority and
haughtiness, as secure of deference, and above fear of criticism; others
humbly offering their weak assistance with softness and submission,
which they believe impossible to be resisted; some introducing their
compositions with a menace of the contempt which he that refuses them will
incur; others applying privately to the booksellers for their interest
and solicitation; every one by different ways endeavouring to secure
the bliss of publication. I cannot but consider myself as placed in a
very incommodious situation, where I am forced to repress confidence,
which it is pleasing to indulge, to repay civilities with appearances of
neglect, and so frequently to offend those by whom I never was offended.

I know well how rarely an author, fired with the beauties of his new
composition, contains his raptures in his own bosom, and how naturally
he imparts to his friends his expectations of renown; and as I can easily
conceive the eagerness with which a new paper is snatched up, by one
who expects to find it filled with his own production, and perhaps has
called his companions to share the pleasure of a second perusal, I grieve
for the disappointment which he is to feel at the fatal inspection. His
hopes, however, do not yet forsake him; he is certain of giving lustre
the next day. The next day comes, and again he pants with expectation,
and having dreamed of laurels and Parnassus, casts his eyes upon the
barren page, with which he is doomed never more to be delighted.

For such cruelty what atonement can be made? For such calamities what
alleviation can be found? I am afraid that the mischief already done must
be without reparation, and all that deserves my care is prevention for
the future. Let therefore the next friendly contributor, whoever he be,
observe the cautions of Swift, and write secretly in his own chamber,
without communicating his design to his nearest friend, for the nearest
friend will be pleased with an opportunity of laughing. Let him carry
it to the post himself, and wait in silence for the event. If it is
published and praised, he may then declare himself the author; if it be
suppressed, he may wonder in private without much vexation; and if it be
censured, he may join in the cry, and lament the dulness of the writing
generation.




No. 57. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 2, 1750.


  _Non intelligunt homines quam magnum vectigal sit parsimonia._
                                                          TULL. Par. vi.

  The world has not yet learned the riches of frugality.


TO THE RAMBLER.

SIR,

I am always pleased when I see literature made useful, and scholars
descending from that elevation, which, as it raises them above common
life, must likewise hinder them from beholding the ways of men otherwise
than in a cloud of bustle and confusion. Having lived a life of business,
and remarked how seldom any occurrences emerge for which great qualities
are required, I have learned the necessity of regarding little things;
and though I do not pretend to give laws to the legislators of mankind,
or to limit the range of those powerful minds that carry light and heat
through all the regions of knowledge, yet I have long thought, that the
greatest part of those who lose themselves in studies by which I have not
found that they grow much wiser, might, with more advantage both to the
publick and themselves, apply their understandings to domestick arts, and
store their minds with axioms of humble prudence, and private economy.

Your late paper on frugality was very elegant and pleasing, but, in my
opinion, not sufficiently adapted to common readers, who pay little
regard to the musick of periods, the artifice of connection, or the
arrangement of the flowers of rhetorick; but require a few plain and
cogent instructions, which may sink into the mind by their own weight.

Frugality is so necessary to the happiness of the world, so beneficial
in its various forms to every rank of men, from the highest of human
potentates, to the lowest labourer or artificer; and the miseries which
the neglect of it produces are so numerous and so grievous, that it
ought to be recommended with every variation of address, and adapted
to every class of understanding.

Whether those who treat morals as a science will allow frugality to be
numbered among the virtues, I have not thought it necessary to inquire.
For I, who draw my opinions from a careful observation of the world, am
satisfied with knowing what is abundantly sufficient for practice; that
if it be not a virtue, it is, at least, a quality which can seldom exist
without some virtues, and without which few virtues can exist. Frugality
may be termed the daughter of prudence, the sister of temperance, and the
parent of liberty. He that is extravagant will quickly become poor, and
poverty will enforce dependence, and invite corruption; it will almost
always produce a passive compliance with the wickedness of others; and
there are few who do not learn by degrees to practice those crimes which
they cease to censure.

If there are any who do not dread poverty as dangerous to virtue, yet
mankind seem unanimous enough in abhorring it as destructive to happiness;
and all to whom want is terrible, upon whatever principle, ought to
think themselves obliged to learn the sage maxims of our parsimonious
ancestors, and attain the salutary arts of contracting expense; for
without frugality none can be rich, and with it very few would be poor.

To most other acts of virtue or exertions of wisdom, a concurrence of many
circumstances is necessary, some previous knowledge must be attained,
some uncommon gifts of nature possessed, or some opportunity produced
by an extraordinary combination of things; but the mere power of saving
what is already in our hands, must be easy of acquisition to every mind;
and as the example of Bacon may shew, that the highest intellect cannot
safely neglect it, a thousand instances will every day prove, that the
meanest may practise it with success.

Riches cannot be within the reach of great numbers, because to be rich
is to possess more than is commonly placed in a single hand; and, if
many could obtain the sum which now makes a man wealthy, the name of
wealth must then be transferred to still greater accumulation. But I am
not certain that it is equally impossible to exempt the lower classes
of mankind from poverty; because, though whatever be the wealth of the
community, some will always have least, and he that has less than any
other is comparatively poor; yet I do not see any co-active necessity
that many should be without the indispensable conveniencies of life; but
am sometimes inclined to imagine, that, casual calamities excepted, there
might, by universal prudence, be procured an universal exemption from
want; and that he who should happen to have least, might notwithstanding
have enough.

But without entering too far into speculations which I do not remember
that any political calculator has attempted, and in which the most
perspicacious reasoner may be easily bewildered, it is evident that they
to whom Providence has allotted no other care but of their own fortune
and their own virtue, which make far the greater part of mankind, have
sufficient incitements to personal frugality, since, whatever might
be its general effect upon provinces or nations, by which it is never
likely to be tried, we know with certainty, that there is scarcely
any individual entering the world, who, by prudent parsimony, may not
reasonably promise himself a cheerful competence in the decline of life.

The prospect of penury in age is so gloomy and terrifying, that every man
who looks before him must resolve to avoid it; and it must be avoided
generally by the science of sparing. For, though in every age there are
some, who by bold adventures, or by favourable accidents, rise suddenly
to riches, yet it is dangerous to indulge hopes of such rare events:
and the bulk of mankind must owe their affluence to small and gradual
profits, below which their expense must be resolutely reduced.

You must not therefore think me sinking below the dignity of a practical
philosopher, when I recommend to the consideration of your readers,
from the statesman to the apprentice, a position replete with mercantile
wisdom, _A penny saved is two-pence got_; which may, I think, be
accommodated to all conditions, by observing not only that they who
pursue any lucrative employment will save time when they forbear expense,
and that the time may be employed to the increase of profit; but that
they who are above such minute considerations will find, by every victory
over appetite or passion, new strength added to the mind, will gain the
power of refusing those solicitations by which the young and vivacious
are hourly assaulted, and in time set themselves above the reach of
extravagance and folly.

It may, perhaps, be inquired by those who are willing rather to cavil
than to learn, what is the just measure of frugality? and when expense,
not absolutely necessary, degenerates into profusion? To such questions
no general answer can be returned; since the liberty of spending,
or necessity of parsimony, may be varied without end by different
circumstances. It may, however, be laid down as a rule never to be
broken, that a _man's voluntary expense should not exceed his revenue_.
A maxim so obvious and incontrovertible, that the civil law ranks the
prodigal with the madman[46], and debars them equally from the conduct of
their own affairs. Another precept arising from the former, and indeed
included in it, is yet necessary to be distinctly impressed upon the
warm, the fanciful, and the brave; _Let no man anticipate uncertain
profits_. Let no man presume to spend upon hopes, to trust his own
abilities for means of deliverance from penury, to give a loose to his
present desires, and leave the reckoning to fortune or to virtue.

To these cautions, which, I suppose, are, at least among the graver part
of mankind, undisputed, I will add another, _Let no man squander against
his inclination_. With this precept it may be, perhaps, imagined easy to
comply; yet if those whom profusion has buried in prisons, or driven into
banishment, were examined, it would be found that very few were ruined by
their own choice, or purchased pleasure with the loss of their estates;
but that they suffered themselves to be borne away by the violence of
those with whom they conversed, and yielded reluctantly to a thousand
prodigalities, either from a trivial emulation of wealth and spirit,
or a mean fear of contempt and ridicule; an emulation for the prize of
folly, or the dread of the laugh of fools.

I am, Sir,

Your humble servant,

                                                                SOPHRON.

[Footnote 46: Institut. i. 23. 3. De furiosis et prodigis.]




No. 58. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 6, 1750.


  _----Improbæ_
  _Crescunt divitiæ; tamen_
  _Curtæ nescio quid semper abest rei._
                                            HOR. Lib. iii. Ode xxiv. 62.

  But, while in heaps his wicked wealth ascends,
  He is not of his wish possess'd;
  There's something wanting still to make him bless'd.
                                                                FRANCIS.


As the love of money has been, in all ages, one of the passions that have
given great disturbance to the tranquillity of the world, there is no
topick more copiously treated by the ancient moralists than the folly of
devoting the heart to the accumulation of riches. They who are acquainted
with these authors need not be told how riches excite pity, contempt,
or reproach, whenever they are mentioned; with what numbers of examples
the danger of large possessions is illustrated; and how all the powers
of reason and eloquence have been exhausted in endeavours to eradicate a
desire, which seems to have intrenched itself too strongly in the mind
to be driven out, and which, perhaps, had not lost its power, even over
those who declaimed against it, but would have broken out in the poet or
the sage, if it had been excited by opportunity, and invigorated by the
approximation of its proper object.

Their arguments have been, indeed, so unsuccessful, that I know not
whether it can be shewn, that by all the wit and reason which this
favourite cause has called forth, a single convert was ever made; that
even one man has refused to be rich, when to be rich was in his power,
from the conviction of the greater happiness of a narrow fortune; or
disburthened himself of wealth when he had tried its inquietudes, merely
to enjoy the peace and leisure and security of a mean and unenvied state.

It is true, indeed, that many have neglected opportunities of raising
themselves to honours and to wealth, and rejected the kindest offers of
fortune: but however their moderation may be boasted by themselves, or
admired by such as only view them at a distance, it will be, perhaps,
seldom found that they value riches less, but that they dread labour
or danger more, than others; they are unable to rouse themselves to
action, to strain in the race of competition, or to stand the shock of
contest; but though they, therefore, decline the toil of climbing, they
nevertheless wish themselves aloft, and would willingly enjoy what they
dare not seize.

Others have retired from high stations, and voluntarily condemned
themselves to privacy and obscurity. But even these will not afford
many occasions of triumph to the philosopher; for they have commonly
either quitted that only which they thought themselves unable to hold,
and prevented disgrace by resignation; or they have been induced to try
new measures by general inconstancy, which always dreams of happiness
in novelty, or by a gloomy disposition, which is disgusted in the same
degree with every state, and wishes every scene of life to change as soon
as it is beheld. Such men found high and low stations equally unable to
satisfy the wishes of a distempered mind, and were unable to shelter
themselves in the closest retreat from disappointment, solicitude, and
misery.

Yet though these admonitions have been thus neglected by those who either
enjoyed riches, or were able to procure them, it is not rashly to be
determined that they are altogether without use; for since far the
greatest part of mankind must be confined to conditions comparatively
mean, and placed in situations from which they naturally look up with
envy to the eminences before them, those writers cannot be thought ill
employed that have administered remedies to discontent almost universal,
by shewing, that what we cannot reach may very well be forborne; that the
inequality of distribution, at which we murmur, is for the most part less
than it seems, and that the greatness, which we admire at a distance, has
much fewer advantages, and much less splendour, when we are suffered to
approach it.

It is the business of moralists to detect the frauds of fortune, and to
shew that she imposes upon the careless eye, by a quick succession of
shadows, which will shrink to nothing in the gripe; that she disguises
life in extrinsick ornaments, which serve only for shew, and are laid
aside in the hours of solitude, and of pleasure; and that when greatness
aspires either to felicity or to wisdom, it shakes off those distinctions
which dazzle the gazer, and awe the supplicant.

It may be remarked, that they whose condition has not afforded them the
light of moral or religious instruction, and who collect all their ideas
by their own eyes, and digest them by their own understandings, seem to
consider those who are placed in ranks of remote superiority, as almost
another and higher species of beings. As themselves have known little
other misery than the consequences of want, they are with difficulty
persuaded that where there is wealth there can be sorrow, or that those
who glitter in dignity, and glide along in affluence, can be acquainted
with pains and cares like those which lie heavy upon the rest of mankind.

This prejudice is, indeed, confined to the lowest meanness, and the
darkest ignorance; but it is so confined only because others have been
shewn its folly, and its falsehood, because it has been opposed in its
progress by history and philosophy, and hindered from spreading its
infection by powerful preservatives.

The doctrine of the contempt of wealth, though it has not been able to
extinguish avarice or ambition, or suppress that reluctance with which a
man passes his days in a state of inferiority, must, at least, have made
the lower conditions less grating and wearisome, and has consequently
contributed to the general security of life, by hindering that fraud and
violence, rapine and circumvention, which must have been produced by an
unbounded eagerness of wealth, arising from an unshaken conviction that
to be rich is to be happy.

Whoever finds himself incited, by some violent impulse of passion, to
pursue riches as the chief end of being, must surely be so much alarmed
by the successive admonitions of those whose experience and sagacity
have recommended them as the guides of mankind, as to stop and consider
whether he is about to engage in an undertaking that will reward his
toil, and to examine, before he rushes to wealth, through right and
wrong, what it will confer when he has acquired it; and this examination
will seldom fail to repress his ardour, and retard his violence.

Wealth is nothing in itself, it is not useful but when it departs from
us; its value is found only in that which it can purchase, which, if
we suppose it put to its best use by those that possess it, seems not
much to deserve the desire or envy of a wise man. It is certain that,
with regard to corporal enjoyment, money can neither open new avenues
to pleasure, nor block up the passages of anguish. Disease and infirmity
still continue to torture and enfeeble, perhaps exasperated by luxury,
or promoted by softness. With respect to the mind, it has rarely been
observed, that wealth contributes much to quicken the discernment,
enlarge the capacity, or elevate the imagination; but may, by hiring
flattery, or laying diligence asleep, confirm errour, and harden stupidity.

Wealth cannot confer greatness, for nothing can make that great, which the
decree of nature has ordained to be little. The bramble may be placed in
a hot-bed, but can never become an oak. Even royalty itself is not able
to give that dignity which it happens not to find, but oppresses feeble
minds, though it may elevate the strong. The world has been governed in
the name of kings, whose existence has scarcely been perceived by any
real effects beyond their own palaces.

When therefore the desire of wealth is taking hold of the heart, let us
look round and see how it operates upon those whose industry or fortune
has obtained it. When we find them oppressed with their own abundance,
luxurious without pleasure, idle without ease, impatient and querulous in
themselves, and despised or hated by the rest of mankind, we shall soon
be convinced, that if the real wants of our condition are satisfied, there
remains little to be sought with solicitude, or desired with eagerness.




No. 59. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 9, 1750.


  _Est aliquid fatale malum per verba levare,_
    _Hoc querulam Prognen Halcyonenque facit:_
  _Hoc erat in gelido quare Pæantius antro_
    _Voce fatigaret Lemnia saxa sua._
  _Strangulat inclusus dolor, atque exæstuat intus,_
    _Cogitur et vires multiplicare suas._
                                                    OVID, Trist. vi. 59.

  Complaining oft gives respite to our grief;
  From hence the wretched Progne sought relief,
  Hence the Pæantian chief his fate deplores,
  And vents his sorrow to the Lemnian shores:
  In vain by secrecy we would assuage
  Our cares; conceal'd they gather tenfold rage.
                                                               F. LEWIS.


It is common to distinguish men by the names of animals which they are
supposed to resemble. Thus a hero is frequently termed a lion, and a
statesman a fox, an extortioner gains the appellation of vulture, and
a fop the title of monkey. There is also among the various anomalies of
character, which a survey of the world exhibits, a species of beings
in human form, which may be properly marked out as the screech-owls
of mankind.

These screech-owls seem to be settled in an opinion that the great business
of life is to complain, and that they were born for no other purpose than
to disturb the happiness of others, to lessen the little comforts, and
shorten the short pleasures of our condition, by painful remembrances of
the past, or melancholy prognosticks of the future; their only care is
to crush the rising hope, to damp the kindling transport, and allay the
golden hours of gaiety with the hateful dross of grief and suspicion.

To those whose weakness of spirits, or timidity of temper, subjects them
to impressions from others, and who are apt to suffer by fascination,
and catch the contagion of misery, it is extremely unhappy to live within
the compass of a screech-owl's voice; for it will often fill their ears
in the hour of dejection, terrify them with apprehensions, which their
own thoughts would never have produced, and sadden, by intruded sorrows,
the day which might have been passed in amusements or in business; it
will burthen the heart with unnecessary discontents, and weaken for a
time that love of life which is necessary to the vigorous prosecution of
any undertaking.

Though I have, like the rest of mankind, many failings and weaknesses,
I have not yet, by either friends or enemies, been charged with
superstition; I never count the company which I enter, and I look at
the new moon indifferently over either shoulder. I have, like most other
philosophers, often heard the cuckoo without money in my pocket, and
have been sometimes reproached as fool-hardy for not turning down my eyes
when a raven flew over my head. I never go home abruptly because a snake
crosses my way, nor have any particular dread of a climacterical year;
yet I confess that, with all my scorn of old women, and their tales,
I consider it as an unhappy day when I happen to be greeted, in the
morning, by Suspirius the screech-owl.

I have now known Suspirius fifty-eight years and four months, and have
never yet passed an hour with him in which he has not made some attack
upon my quiet. When we were first acquainted, his great topick was the
misery of youth without riches; and whenever we walked out together he
solaced me with a long enumeration of pleasures, which, as they were
beyond the reach of my fortune, were without the verge of my desires, and
which I should never have considered as the objects of a wish, had not
his unseasonable representations placed them in my sight.

Another of his topicks is the neglect of merit, with which he never fails
to amuse every man whom he sees not eminently fortunate. If he meets
with a young officer, he always informs him of gentlemen whose personal
courage is unquestioned, and whose military skill qualifies them to
command armies, that have, notwithstanding all their merit, grown old
with subaltern commissions. For a genius in the church, he is always
provided with a curacy for life. The lawyer he informs of many men of
great parts and deep study, who have never had an opportunity to speak
in the courts: and meeting Serenus the physician, "Ah, doctor," says
he, "what a-foot still, when so many block-heads are rattling in their
chariots? I told you seven years ago that you would never meet with
encouragement, and I hope you will now take more notice, when I tell you
that your Greek, and your diligence, and your honesty, will never enable
you to live like yonder apothecary, who prescribes to his own shop, and
laughs at the physician."

Suspirius has, in his time, intercepted fifteen authors in their way to
the stage; persuaded nine and thirty merchants to retire from a prosperous
trade for fear of bankruptcy, broke off an hundred and thirteen matches
by prognostications of unhappiness, and enabled the small-pox to kill
nineteen ladies, by perpetual alarms of the loss of beauty.

Whenever my evil stars bring us together, he never fails to represent to
me the folly of my pursuits, and informs me that we are much older than
when we began our acquaintance, that the infirmities of decrepitude are
coming fast upon me, that whatever I now get, I shall enjoy but a little
time, that fame is to a man tottering on the edge of the grave of very
little importance, and that the time is at hand when I ought to look for
no other pleasures than a good dinner and an easy chair.

Thus he goes on in his unharmonious strain, displaying present miseries,
and foreboding more, [Greek: nuktikorax aei thanatêphoros], every
syllable is loaded with misfortune, and death is always brought nearer
to the view. Yet, what always raises my resentment and indignation, I do
not perceive that his mournful meditations have much effect upon himself.
He talks and has long talked of calamities, without discovering otherwise
than by the tone of his voice, that he feels any of the evils which he
bewails or threatens, but has the same habit of uttering lamentations, as
others of telling stories, and falls into expressions of condolence for
past, or apprehension of future mischiefs, as all men studious of their
ease have recourse to those subjects upon which they can most fluently or
copiously discourse[47].

It is reported of the Sybarites, that they destroyed all their cocks, that
they might dream out their morning dreams without disturbance. Though I
would not so far promote effeminacy as to propose the Sabarites for an
example, yet since there is no man so corrupt or foolish, but something
useful may be learned from him, I could wish that, in imitation of a
people not often to be copied, some regulations might be made to exclude
screech-owls from all company, as the enemies of mankind, and confine
them to some proper receptacle, where they may mingle sighs at leisure,
and thicken the gloom of one another.

_Thou prophet of evil_, says Homer's Agamemnon, _thou never foretellest me
good, but the joy of thy heart is to predict misfortunes_. Whoever is of
the same temper, might there find the means of indulging his thoughts,
and improving his vein of denunciation, and the flock of screech-owls
might hoot together without injury to the rest of the world.

Yet, though I have so little kindness for this dark generation, I am very
far from intending to debar the soft and tender mind from the privilege of
complaining, when the sigh arises from the desire not of giving pain, but
of gaining ease. To hear complaints with patience, even when complaints
are vain, is one of the duties of friendship; and though it must be
allowed that he suffers most like a hero that hides his grief in silence,

  _Spem vultu simulat, premit altum corde dolorem;_

  His outward smiles conceal'd his inward smart;
                                                                 DRYDEN.

yet it cannot be denied, that he who complains acts like a man, like a
social being, who looks for help from his fellow-creatures. Pity is to
many of the unhappy a source of comfort in hopeless distresses, as it
contributes to recommend them to themselves, by proving that they have
not lost the regard of others; and heaven seems to indicate the duty even
of barren compassion, by inclining us to weep for evils which we cannot
remedy.

[Footnote 47: Suspirius, the screech-owl, is presumed by some to have
suggested the character of Croaker to Goldsmith, in his Comedy of the
Good-natured Man.]




No. 60. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 13, 1750.


  _Quid sit pulchrum, quid turpe, quid utile, quid non,_
  _Plenius ac melius Chrysippo et Crantore dicit._
                                              HOR. Lib. i. Epist. ii. 3.

  Whose works the beautiful and base contain,
  Of vice and virtue more instructive rules,
  Than all the sober sages of the schools.
                                                                FRANCIS.


All joy or sorrow for the happiness or calamities of others is produced
by an act of the imagination, that realizes the event however fictitious,
or approximates it however remote, by placing us, for a time, in the
condition of him whose fortune we contemplate; so that we feel, while the
deception lasts, whatever motions would be excited by the same good or
evil happening to ourselves.

Our passions are therefore more strongly moved, in proportion as we
can more readily adopt the pains or pleasure proposed to our minds,
by recognising them as once our own, or considering them as naturally
incident to our state of life. It is not easy for the most artful
writer to give us an interest in happiness or misery, which we think
ourselves never likely to feel, and with which we have never yet been
made acquainted. Histories of the downfal of kingdoms, and revolutions of
empires, are read with great tranquillity; the imperial tragedy pleases
common auditors only by its pomp of ornament, and grandeur of ideas; and
the man whose faculties have been engrossed by business, and whose heart
never fluttered but at the rise or fall of the stocks, wonders how the
attention can be seized, or the affection agitated, by a tale of love.

Those parallel circumstances and kindred images, to which we readily
conform our minds, are, above all other writings, to be found in
narratives of the lives of particular persons; and therefore no species
of writing seems more worthy of cultivation than biography, since none
can be more delightful or more useful, none can more certainly enchain
the heart by irresistible interest, or more widely diffuse instruction to
every diversity of condition.

The general and rapid narratives of history, which involve a thousand
fortunes in the business of a day, and complicate innumerable incidents
in one great transaction, afford few lessons applicable to private
life, which derives its comforts and its wretchedness from the right
or wrong management of things, which nothing but their frequency makes
considerable, _Parva si non fiant quotidie_, says Pliny, and which
can have no place in those relations which never descend below the
consultation of senates, the motions of armies, and the schemes of
conspirators.

I have often thought that there has rarely passed a life of which a
judicious and faithful narrative would not be useful. For, not only
every man has, in the mighty mass of the world, great numbers in the same
condition with himself, to whom his mistakes and miscarriages, escapes
and expedients, would be of immediate and apparent use; but there is such
an uniformity in the state of man, considered apart from adventitious and
separable decorations and disguises, that there is scarce any possibility
of good or ill, but is common to human kind. A great part of the time of
those who are placed at the greatest distance by fortune, or by temper,
must unavoidably pass in the same manner; and though, when the claims of
nature are satisfied, caprice, and vanity, and accident, begin to produce
discriminations and peculiarities, yet the eye is not very heedful or
quick, which cannot discover the same causes still terminating their
influence in the same effects, though sometimes accelerated, sometimes
retarded, or perplexed by multiplied combinations. We are all prompted
by the same motives, all deceived by the same fallacies, all animated by
hope, obstructed by danger, entangled by desire, and seduced by pleasure.

It is frequently objected to relations of particular lives, that they are
not distinguished by any striking or wonderful vicissitudes. The scholar
who passed his life among his books, the merchant who conducted only
his own affairs, the priest, whose sphere of action was not extended
beyond that of his duty, are considered as no proper objects of publick
regard, however they might have excelled in their several stations,
whatever might have been their learning, integrity, and piety. But this
notion arises from false measures of excellence and dignity, and must be
eradicated by considering, that in the esteem of uncorrupted reason, what
is of most use is of most value.

It is, indeed, not improper to take honest advantages of prejudice, and
to gain attention by a celebrated name; but the business of a biographer
is often to pass slightly over those performances and incidents, which
produce vulgar greatness, to lead the thoughts into domestick privacies,
and display the minute details of daily life, where exterior appendages
are cast aside, and men excel each other only by prudence and by virtue.
The account of Thuanus is, with great propriety, said by its author to
have been written, that it might lay open to posterity the private and
familiar character of that man, _cujus ingenium et candorem ex ipsius
scriptis sunt olim semper miraturi_, whose candour and genius will to
the end of time be by his writings preserved in admiration.

There are many invisible circumstances which, whether we read as inquirers
after natural and moral knowledge, whether we intend to enlarge our
science, or increase our virtue, are more important than publick
occurrences. Thus Sallust, the great master of nature, has not forgot,
in his account of Cataline, to remark that _his walk was now quick, and
again slow_, as an indication of a mind revolving something with violent
commotion. Thus the story of Melancthon affords a striking lecture on
the value of time, by informing us, that when he made an appointment,
he expected not only the hour, but the minute to be fixed, that the day
might not run out in the idleness of suspense: and all the plans and
enterprizes of De Witt are now of less importance to the world, than that
part of his personal character, which represents him as _careful of his
health, and negligent of his life_.

But biography has often been allotted to writers who seem very little
acquainted with the nature of their task, or very negligent about the
performance. They rarely afford any other account than might be collected
from publick papers, but imagine themselves writing a life when they
exhibit a chronological series of actions or preferments; and so little
regard the manners or behaviour of their heroes, that more knowledge may
be gained of a man's real character, by a short conversation with one of
his servants, than from a formal and studied narrative, begun with his
pedigree, and ended with his funeral.

If now and then they condescend to inform the world of particular facts,
they are not always so happy as to select the most important. I know not
well what advantage posterity can receive from the only circumstance by
which Tickell has distinguished Addison from the rest of mankind, _the
irregularity of his pulse_: nor can I think myself overpaid for the time
spent in reading the life of Malherb by being enabled to relate after
the learned biographer, that Malherb had two predominant opinions;
one, that the looseness of a single woman might destroy all her boast
of ancient descent; the other, that the French beggars made use very
improperly and barbarously of the phrase _noble Gentleman_, because
either word included the sense to both.

There are, indeed, some natural reasons why these narratives are often
written by such as were not likely to give much instruction or delight,
and why most accounts of particular persons are barren and useless. If
a life be delayed till interest and envy are at an end, we may hope for
impartiality, but must expect little intelligence; for the incidents
which give excellence to biography are of a volatile and evanescent kind,
such as soon escape the memory, and are rarely transmitted by tradition.
We know how few can pourtray a living acquaintance, except by his most
prominent and observable particularities, and the grosser features of his
mind; and it may be easily imagined how much of this little knowledge may
be lost in imparting it, and how soon a succession of copies will lose
all resemblance of the original.

If the biographer writes from personal knowledge, and makes haste to
gratify the public curiosity, there is danger lest his interest, his
fear, his gratitude, or his tenderness, overpower his fidelity, and tempt
him to conceal, if not to invent. There are many who think it an act of
piety to hide the faults or failings of their friends, even when they
can no longer suffer by their detection; we therefore see whole ranks of
characters adorned with uniform panegyrick, and not to be known from one
another, but by extrinsick and casual circumstances. "Let me remember,"
says Hale, "when I find myself inclined to pity a criminal, that there
is likewise a pity due to the country." If we owe regard to the memory of
the dead, there is yet more respect to be paid to knowledge, to virtue,
and to truth.




No. 61. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 16, 1750.


  _Falsus honor juvat, et mendax infamia terret,_
  _Quem, nisi mendosum et mendacem?_
                                               HOR. Lib. i. Ep. xvi. 39.

  False praise can charm, unreal shame controul,
  Whom but a vicious or a sickly soul?
                                                                FRANCIS.


TO THE RAMBLER.

SIR,

It is extremely vexatious to a man of eager and thirsty curiosity to be
placed at a great distance from the fountain of intelligence, and not
only never to receive the current of report till it has satiated the
greatest part of the nation, but at last to find it mudded in its course,
and corrupted with taints or mixtures from every channel through which
it flowed.

One of the chief pleasures of my life is to hear what passes in the world;
to know what are the schemes of the politick, the aims of the busy,
and the hopes of the ambitious; what changes of publick measures are
approaching; who is likely to be crushed in the collision of parties; who
is climbing to the top of power, and who is tottering on the precipice
of disgrace. But as it is very common for us to desire most what we
are least qualified to obtain, I have suffered this appetite of news to
outgrow all the gratifications which my present situation can afford it;
for being placed in a remote country, I am condemned always to confound
the future with the past, to form prognostications of events no longer
doubtful, and to consider the expediency of schemes already executed or
defeated. I am perplexed with a perpetual deception in my prospects, like
a man pointing his telescope at a remote star, which before the light
reaches his eye has forsaken the place from which it was emitted.

The mortification of being thus always behind the active world in my
reflections and discoveries, is exceedingly aggravated by the petulance
of those whose health, or business, or pleasure, brings them hither from
London. For, without considering the insuperable disadvantages of my
condition, and the unavoidable ignorance which absence must produce,
they often treat me with the utmost superciliousness of contempt, for
not knowing what no human sagacity can discover; and sometimes seem
to consider me as a wretch scarcely worthy of human converse, when I
happen to talk of the fortune of a bankrupt, or propose the healths of
the dead, when I warn them of mischiefs already incurred, or wish for
measures that have been lately taken. They seem to attribute to the
superiority of their intellects what they only owe to the accident of
their condition, and think themselves indisputably entitled to airs
of insolence and authority, when they find another ignorant of facts,
which, because they echoed in the streets of London, they suppose equally
publick in all other places, and known where they could neither be seen,
related, nor conjectured.

To this haughtiness they are indeed too much encouraged by the respect
which they receive amongst us, for no other reason than that they come
from London. For no sooner is the arrival of one of these disseminators
of knowledge known in the country, than we crowd about him from every
quarter, and by innumerable inquiries flatter him into an opinion of his
own importance. He sees himself surrounded by multitudes, who propose
their doubts, and refer their controversies, to him, as to a being
descended from some nobler region, and he grows on a sudden oraculous and
infallible, solves all difficulties, and sets all objections at defiance.

There is, in my opinion, great reason for suspecting, that they sometimes
take advantage of this reverential modesty, and impose upon rustick
understandings, with a false show of universal intelligence; for I do not
find that they are willing to own themselves ignorant of any thing, or
that they dismiss any inquirer with a positive and decisive answer. The
court, the city, the park, and exchange, are those men of unbounded
observation equally familiar, and they are alike ready to tell the hour
at which stocks will rise, or the ministry be changed.

A short residence at London entitles a man to knowledge, to wit, to
politeness, and to a despotick and dictatorial power of prescribing to
the rude multitude, whom he condescends to honour with a biennial visit;
yet, I know not well upon what motives, I have lately found myself
inclined to cavil at this prescription, and to doubt whether it be not,
on some occasions, proper to withhold our veneration, till we are more
authentically convinced of the merits of the claimant.

It is well remembered here, that about seven years ago, one Frolick,
a tall boy, with lank hair, remarkable for stealing eggs, and sucking
them, was taken from the school in this parish, and sent up to London
to study the law. As he had given amongst us no proofs of a genius
designed by nature for extraordinary performances, he was, from the
time of his departure, totally forgotten, nor was there any talk of
his vices or virtues, his good or his ill fortune, till last summer
a report burst upon us, that Mr. Frolick was come down in the first
post-chaise which this village had seen, having travelled with such
rapidity that one of his postillions had broke his leg, and another
narrowly escaped suffocation in a quicksand; but that Mr. Frolick seemed
totally unconcerned, for such things were never heeded at London.

Mr. Frolick next day appeared among the gentlemen at their weekly
meeting on the bowling-green, and now were seen the effects of a London
education. His dress, his language, his ideas, were all new, and he did
not much endeavour to conceal his contempt of every thing that differed
from the opinions, or practice, of the modish world. He showed us the
deformity of our skirts and sleeves, informed us where hats of the proper
size were to be sold, and recommended to us the reformation of a thousand
absurdities in our clothes, our cookery, and our conversation. When any
of his phrases were unintelligible, he could not suppress the joy of
confessed superiority, but frequently delayed the explanation, that he
might enjoy his triumph over our barbarity.

When he is pleased to entertain us with a story, he takes care to crowd
into it names of streets, squares, and buildings, with which he knows we
are unacquainted. The favourite topicks of his discourse are the pranks
of drunkards, and the tricks put upon country gentlemen by porters and
link-boys. When he is with ladies, he tells them of the innumerable
pleasures to which he can introduce them; but never fails to hint how
much they will be deficient, at their first arrival, in the knowledge
of the town. What it is _to know the town_, he has not indeed hitherto
informed us, though there is no phrase so frequent in his mouth, nor any
science which he appears to think of so great a value, or so difficult
attainment.

But my curiosity has been most engaged by the recital of his own
adventures and achievements. I have heard of the union of various
characters in single persons, but never met with such a constellation
of great qualities as this man's narrative affords. Whatever has
distinguished the hero; whatever has elevated the wit; whatever has
endeared the lover, are all concentered in Mr. Frolick, whose life has,
for seven years, been a regular interchange of intrigues, dangers, and
waggeries, and who has distinguished himself in every character that can
be feared, envied, or admired.

I question whether all the officers of the royal navy can bring together,
from all their journals, a collection of so many wonderful escapes as
this man has known upon the Thames, on which he has been a thousand and
a thousand times on the point of perishing, sometimes by the terrours
of foolish women in the same boat, sometimes by his own acknowledged
imprudence in passing the river in the dark, and sometimes by shooting
the bridge under which he has rencountered mountainous waves, and
dreadful cataracts.

Nor less has been his temerity by land, nor fewer his hazards. He has
reeled with giddiness on the top of the monument; he has crossed the
street amidst the rush of coaches; he has been surrounded by robbers
without number; he has headed parties at the playhouse; he has scaled
the windows of every toast, of whatever condition; he has been hunted for
whole winters by his rivals; he has slept upon bulks, he has cut chairs,
he has bilked coachmen; he has rescued his friends from the bailiffs, has
knocked down the constable, has bullied the justice, and performed many
other exploits, that have filled the town with wonder and with merriment.

But yet greater is the fame of his understanding than his bravery; for
he informs us, that he is, at London, the established arbitrator of all
points of honour, and the decisive judge of all performances of genius;
that no musical performer is in reputation till the opinion of Frolick
has ratified his pretensions; that the theatres suspend their sentence
till he begins the clap or hiss, in which all are proud to concur; that
no publick entertainment has failed or succeeded, but because he opposed
or favoured it; that all controversies at the gaming-table are referred
to his determination; that he adjusts the ceremonial at every assembly,
and prescribes every fashion of pleasure or of dress.

With every man whose name occurs in the papers of the day, he his
intimately acquainted; and there are very few posts either in the state
or army, of which he has not more or less influenced the disposal. He has
been very frequently consulted both upon war and peace; but the time is
not yet come when the nation shall know how much it is indebted to the
genius of Frolick.

Yet, notwithstanding all these declarations, I cannot hitherto persuade
myself to see Mr. Frolick has more wit, or knowledge, or courage, than
the rest of mankind, or that any uncommon enlargement of his faculties
has happened in the time of his absence. For when he talks on subjects
known to the rest of the company, he has no advantage over us, but by
catches of interruption, briskness of interrogation, and pertness of
contempt; and therefore if he has stunned the world with his name, and
gained a place in the first ranks of humanity, I cannot but conclude,
that either a little understanding confers eminence at London, or that
Mr. Frolick thinks us unworthy of the exertion of his powers, or that
his faculties are benumbed by rural stupidity, as the magnetick needle
loses its animation in the polar climes.

I would not, however, like many hasty philosophers, search after the cause
till I am certain of the effect; and therefore I desire to be informed,
whether you have yet heard the great name of Mr. Frolick. If he is
celebrated by other tongues than his own, I shall willingly propagate
his praise; but if he has swelled among us with empty boasts, and honours
conferred only by himself, I shall treat him with rustick sincerity, and
drive him as an impostor from this part of the kingdom to some region of
more credulity.

I am, &c.

                                                               RURICOLA.




No. 62. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 20, 1750.


  _Nunc ego Triptolemi cuperem conscendere currus,_
    _Misit in ignotam qui rude semen humum:_
  _Nunc ego Medeæ vellem frænare dracones,_
    _Quos habuit fugiens arce, Corinthe, tua;_
  _Nunc ego jactandas optarem sumere pennas,_
  _Sive tuas, Perseu; Dædale, sive tuas._
                                        OVID, Trist. Lib. iii. El. 8. 1.

  Now would I mount his car, whose bounteous hand
  First sow'd with teeming seed the furrow'd land:
  Now to Medæa's dragons fix my reins,
  That swiftly bore her from Corinthian plains;
  Now on Dædalian waxen pinions stray,
  Or those which wafted Perseus on his way.
                                                               F. LEWIS.


TO THE RAMBLER.

SIR,

I am a young woman of very large fortune, which, if my parents would have
been persuaded to comply with the rules and customs of the polite part of
mankind, might long since have raised me to the highest honours of the
female world; but so strangely have they hitherto contrived to waste my
life, that I am now on the borders of twenty, without having ever danced
but at our monthly assembly, or been toasted but among a few gentlemen
of the neighbourhood, or seen in any company in which it was worth a
wish to be distinguished.

My father having impaired his patrimony in soliciting a place at court, at
last grew wise enough to cease his pursuit; and to repair the consequences
of expensive attendance and negligence of his affairs, married a lady
much older than himself, who had lived in the fashionable world till she
was considered as an incumbrance upon parties of pleasure, and as I can
collect from incidental informations, retired from gay assemblies just
time enough to escape the mortifications of universal neglect.

She was, however, still rich, and not yet wrinkled; my father was too
distressfully embarrassed to think much on any thing but the means of
extrication, and though it is not likely that he wanted the delicacy which
polite conversation will always produce in understandings not remarkably
defective, yet he was contented with a match, by which he might be set
free from inconveniencies, that would have destroyed all the pleasures of
imagination, and taken from softness and beauty the power of delighting.

As they were both somewhat disgusted with their treatment in the world,
and married, though without any dislike of each other, yet principally
for the sake of setting themselves free from dependance on caprice or
fashion, they soon retired into the country, and devoted their lives to
rural business and diversions.

They had not much reason to regret the change of their situation;
for their vanity, which had so long been tormented by neglect and
disappointment, was here gratified with every honour that could be paid
them. Their long familiarity with publick life made them the oracles of
all those who aspired to intelligence, or politeness. My father dictated
politicks, my mother prescribed the mode, and it was sufficient to entitle
any family to some consideration, that they were known to visit at Mrs.
Courtly's.

In this state they were, to speak in the style of novelists, made happy
by the birth of your correspondent. My parents had no other child, I was
therefore not brow-beaten by a saucy brother, or lost in a multitude of
coheiresses, whose fortunes being equal, would probably have conferred
equal merit, and procured equal regard; and as my mother was now old, my
understanding and my person had fair play, my inquiries were not checked,
my advances towards importance were not repressed, and I was soon suffered
to tell my own opinions, and early accustomed to hear my own praises.

By these accidental advantages I was much exalted above the young ladies
with whom I conversed, and was treated by them with great deference. I
saw none who did not seem to confess my superiority, and to be held in
awe by the splendour of my appearance; for the fondness of my father made
him pleased to see me dressed, and my mother had no vanity nor expenses
to hinder her from concurring with his inclination.

Thus, Mr. Rambler, I lived without much desire after any thing beyond
the circle of our visits; and here I should have quietly continued to
portion out my time among my books, and my needle, and my company, had
not my curiosity been every moment excited by the conversation of my
parents, who, whenever they sit down to familiar prattle, and endeavour
the entertainment of each other, immediately transport themselves to
London, and relate some adventure in a hackney-coach, some frolick
at a masquerade, some conversation in the park, or some quarrel at
an assembly, display the magnificence of a birth-night, relate the
conquests of maids of honour, or give a history of diversions, shows,
and entertainments, which I had never known but from their accounts.

I am so well versed in the history of the gay world, that I can relate,
with great punctuality, the lives of all the last race of wits and
beauties; can enumerate with exact chronology, the whole succession of
celebrated singers, musicians, tragedians, comedians, and harlequins;
can tell to the last twenty years all the changes of fashions; and am,
indeed, a complete antiquary with respect to head-dresses, dances, and
operas.

You will easily imagine, Mr. Rambler, that I could not hear these
narratives, for sixteen years together, without suffering some
impression, and wishing myself nearer to those places where every hour
brings some new pleasure, and life is diversified with an unexhausted
succession of felicity.

I indeed often asked my mother why she left a place which she recollected
with so much delight, and why she did not visit London once a year,
like some other ladies, and initiate me in the world by showing me its
amusements, its grandeur, and its variety. But she always told me that
the days which she had seen were such as will never come again; that all
diversion is now degenerated, that the conversation of the present age
is insipid, that their fashions are unbecoming, their customs absurd,
and their morals corrupt; that there is no ray left of the genius which
enlightened the times that she remembers; that no one who had seen, or
heard, the ancient performers, would be able to bear the bunglers of this
despicable age: and that there is now neither politeness, nor pleasure,
nor virtue, in the world. She therefore assures me that she consults
my happiness by keeping me at home, for I should now find nothing but
vexation and disgust, and she should be ashamed to see me pleased with
such fopperies and trifles, as take up the thoughts of the present set of
young people.

With this answer I was kept quiet for several years, and thought it no
great inconvenience to be confined to the country, till last summer a
young gentleman and his sister came down to pass a few months with one
of our neighbours. They had generally no great regard for the country
ladies, but distinguished me by a particular complaisance, and, as we
grew intimate, gave me such a detail of the elegance, the splendour,
the mirth, the happiness of the town, that I am resolved to be no longer
buried in ignorance and obscurity, but to share with other wits the joy
of being admired, and divide with other beauties the empire of the world.

I do not find, Mr. Rambler, upon a deliberate and impartial comparison,
that I am excelled by Belinda in beauty, in wit, in judgment, in
knowledge, or in any thing, but a kind of gay, lively familiarity,
by which she mingles with strangers as with persons long acquainted,
and which enables her to display her powers without any obstruction,
hesitation, or confusion. Yet she can relate a thousand civilities paid
to her in publick, can produce, from a hundred lovers, letters filled
with praises, protestations, ecstacies, and despair; has been handed
by dukes to her chair; has been the occasion of innumerable quarrels;
has paid twenty visits in an afternoon; been invited to six balls in an
evening, and been forced to retire to lodgings in the country from the
importunity of courtship, and the fatigue of pleasure.

I tell you, Mr. Rambler, I will stay here no longer. I have at last
prevailed upon my mother to send me to town, and shall set out in three
weeks on the grand expedition. I intend to live in publick, and to crowd
into the winter every pleasure which money can purchase, and every honour
which beauty can obtain.

But this tedious interval how shall I endure? Cannot you alleviate the
misery of delay by some pleasing description of the entertainments of
the town? I can read, I can talk, I can think of nothing else; and if you
will not sooth my impatience, heighten my ideas, and animate my hopes,
you may write for those who have more leisure, but are not to expect any
longer the honour of being read by those eyes which are now intent only
on conquest and destruction.

                                                              RHODOCLIA.




No. 63. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 23, 1750.


  _----Habebat sæpe ducentos,_
  _Sæpe decem servos: modo Reges, atque Tetrarchus,_
  _Omnia magna loquens; modo, Sit mihi mensa tripes, et_
  _Concha salis puri, et toga, quæ defendere frigus,_
  _Quamvis crassa, queat._
                                              HOR. Lib. i. Sat. iii. 11.

  Now with two hundred slaves he crowds his train;
  Now walks with ten. In high and haughty strain
  At morn, of kings and governors he prates;
  At night--"A frugal table, O ye fates,
  "A little shell the sacred salt to hold,
  "And clothes, tho' coarse, to keep me from the cold."
                                                                FRANCIS.


It has been remarked, perhaps, by every writer who has left behind him
observations upon life, that no man is pleased with his present state;
which proves equally unsatisfactory, says Horace, whether fallen upon by
chance, or chosen with deliberation; we are always disgusted with some
circumstance or other of our situation, and imagine the condition of
others more abundant in blessings, or less exposed to calamities.

This universal discontent has been generally mentioned with great severity
of censure, as unreasonable in itself, since of two, equally envious of
each other, both cannot have the larger share of happiness, and as tending
to darken life with unnecessary gloom, by withdrawing our minds from the
contemplation and enjoyment of that happiness which our state affords us,
and fixing our attention upon foreign objects, which we only behold to
depress ourselves, and increase our misery by injurious comparisons.

When this opinion of the felicity of others predominates in the heart, so
as to excite resolutions of obtaining, at whatever price, the condition
to which such transcendent privileges are supposed to be annexed; when it
bursts into action, and produces fraud, violence, and injustice, it is to
be pursued with all the rigour of legal punishments. But while operating
only upon the thoughts it disturbs none but him who has happened to admit
it, and, however it may interrupt content, makes no attack on piety or
virtue, I cannot think it so far criminal or ridiculous, but that it may
deserve some pity, and admit some excuse.

That all are equally happy, or miserable, I suppose none is sufficiently
enthusiastical to maintain; because though we cannot judge of the
condition of others, yet every man has found frequent vicissitudes in
his own state, and must therefore be convinced that life is susceptible
of more or less felicity. What then shall forbid us to endeavour the
alteration of that which is capable of being improved, and to grasp at
augmentations of good, when we know it possible to be increased, and
believe that any particular change of situation will increase it?

If he that finds himself uneasy may reasonably make efforts to rid
himself from vexation, all mankind have a sufficient plea for some degree
of restlessness, and the fault seems to be little more than too much
temerity of conclusion, in favour of something not yet experienced, and
too much readiness to believe, that the misery which our own passions and
appetites produce, is brought upon us by accidental causes, and external
efficients.

It is, indeed, frequently discovered by us, that we complained too
hastily of peculiar hardships, and imagined ourselves distinguished by
embarrassments, in which other classes of men are equally entangled. We
often change a lighter for a greater evil, and wish ourselves restored
again to the state from which we thought it desirable to be delivered.
But this knowledge, though it is easily gained by the trial, is not
always attainable any other way; and that errour cannot justly be
reproached, which reason could not obviate, nor prudence avoid.

To take a view at once distinct and comprehensive of human life, with all
its intricacies of combination, and varities of connexion, is beyond the
power of mortal intelligences. Of the state with which practice has not
acquainted us we snatch a glimpse, we discern a point, and regulate the
rest by passion, and by fancy. In this inquiry every favourite prejudice,
every innate desire, is busy to deceive us. We are unhappy, at least
less happy than our nature seems to admit; we necessarily desire the
melioration of our lot; what we desire we very reasonably seek, and
what we seek we are naturally eager to believe that we have found. Our
confidence is often disappointed, but our reason is not convinced,
and there is no man who does not hope for something which he has not,
though perhaps his wishes lie unactive, because he foresees the difficulty
of attainment. As among the numerous students of Hermetick philosophy,
not one appears to have desisted from the task of transmutation, from
conviction of its impossibility, but from weariness of toil, or impatience
of delay, a broken body, or exhausted fortune.

Irresolution and mutability are often the faults of men, whose views
are wide, and whose imagination is vigorous and excursive, because they
cannot confine their thoughts within their own boundaries of action,
but are continually ranging over all the scenes of human existence, and
consequently are often apt to conceive that they fall upon new regions of
pleasure, and start new possibilities of happiness. Thus they are busied
with a perpetual succession of schemes, and pass their lives in alternate
elation and sorrow, for want of that calm and immovable acquiescence
in their condition, by which men of slower understandings are fixed for
ever to a certain point, or led on in the plain beaten track, which their
fathers and grandsires have trod before them.

Of two conditions of life equally inviting to the prospect, that will
always have the disadvantage which we have already tried; because the
evils which we have felt we cannot extenuate; and though we have, perhaps
from nature, the power as well of aggravating the calamity which we
fear, as of heightening the blessing we expect, yet in those meditations
which we indulge by choice, and which are not forced upon the mind by
necessity, we have always the art of fixing our regard upon the more
pleasing images, and suffer hope to dispose the lights by which we look
upon futurity.

The good and ill of different modes of life are sometimes so equally
opposed, that perhaps no man ever yet made his choice between them upon
a full conviction, and adequate knowledge; and therefore fluctuation
of will is not more wonderful, when they are proposed to the election,
than oscillations of a beam charged with equal weights. The mind no
sooner imagines itself determined by some prevalent advantage, than some
convenience of equal weight is discovered on the other side, and the
resolutions, which are suggested by the nicest examination, are often
repented as soon as they are taken.

Eumenes, a young man of great abilities, inherited a large estate
from a father, long eminent in conspicuous employments. His father,
harassed with competitions, and perplexed with multiplicity of business,
recommended the quiet of a private station with so much force, that
Eumenes for some years resisted every motion of ambitious wishes; but
being once provoked by the sight of oppression, which he could not
redress, he began to think it the duty of an honest man to enable himself
to protect others, and gradually felt a desire of greatness, excited by
a thousand projects of advantage to his country. His fortune placed him
in the senate, his knowledge and eloquence advanced him at court, and he
possessed that authority and influence which he had resolved to exert for
the happiness of mankind.

He now became acquainted with greatness, and was in a short time
convinced, that in proportion as the power of doing well is enlarged,
the temptations to do ill are multiplied and enforced. He felt himself
every moment in danger of being either seduced or driven from his honest
purposes. Sometimes a friend was to be gratified, and sometimes a rival
to be crushed, by means which his conscience could not approve. Sometimes
he was forced to comply with the prejudices of the publick, and sometimes
with the schemes of the ministry. He was by degrees wearied with perpetual
struggles to unite policy and virtue, and went back to retirement as the
shelter of innocence, persuaded that he could only hope to benefit mankind
by a blameless example of private virtue. Here he spent some years in
tranquillity and beneficence; but finding that corruption increased,
and false opinions in government prevailed, he thought himself again
summoned to posts of publick trust, from which new evidence of his own
weakness again determined him to retire.

Thus men may be made inconstant by virtue and by vice, by too much or
too little thought; yet inconstancy, however dignified by its motives,
is always to be avoided, because life allows us but a small time for
inquiry and experiment, and he that steadily endeavours at excellence, in
whatever employment, will more benefit mankind than he that hesitates in
chusing his part till he is called to the performance. The traveller that
resolutely follows a rough and winding path, will sooner reach the end of
his journey, than he that is always changing his direction, and wastes the
hours of day-light in looking for smoother ground and shorter passages.




No. 64. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 27, 1750.


  _Idem velle, et idem nolle, ea demum firma amicitia est._
                                                    SALL. Bell. Cat. 20.

  To live in friendship is to have the same desires and the same aversions.


When Socrates was building himself a house at Athens, being asked by one
that observed the littleness of the design, why a man so eminent would
not have an abode more suitable to his dignity? he replied, that he
should think himself sufficiently accommodated, if he could see that
narrow habitation filled with real friends[48]. Such was the opinion of
this great master of human life, concerning the infrequency of such an
union of minds as might deserve the name of friendship, that among the
multitudes whom vanity or curiosity, civility or veneration, crowded
about him, he did not expect, that very spacious apartments would be
necessary to contain all that should regard him with sincere kindness,
or adhere to him with steady fidelity.

So many qualities are indeed requisite to the possibility of friendship,
and so many accidents must concur to its rise and continuance, that the
greatest part of mankind content themselves without it, and supply its
place as they can, with interest and dependance.

Multitudes are unqualified for a constant and warm reciprocation of
benevolence, as they are incapacitated for any other elevated excellence,
by perpetual attention to their interest, and unresisting subjection to
their passions. Long habits may superinduce inability to deny any desire,
or repress, by superior motives, the importunities of any immediate
gratification, and an inveterate selfishness will imagine all advantages
diminished in proportion as they are communicated.

But not only this hateful and confirmed corruption, but many varieties of
disposition, not inconsistent with common degrees of virtue, may exclude
friendship from the heart. Some ardent enough in their benevolence,
and defective neither in officiousness nor liberality, are mutable and
uncertain, soon attracted by new objects, disgusted without offence, and
alienated without enmity. Others are soft and flexible, easily influenced
by reports or whispers, ready to catch alarms from every dubious
circumstance, and to listen to every suspicion which envy and flattery
shall suggest, to follow the opinion of every confident adviser, and move
by the impulse of the last breath. Some are impatient of contradiction,
more willing to go wrong by their own judgment, than to be indebted for
a better or a safer way to the sagacity of another, inclined to consider
counsel as insult, and inquiry as want of confidence, and to confer
their regard on no other terms than unreserved submission, and implicit
compliance. Some are dark and involved, equally careful to conceal good
and bad purposes; and pleased with producing effects by invisible means,
and shewing their design only in its execution. Others are universally
communicative, alike open to every eye, and equally profuse of their
own secrets and those of others, without the necessary vigilance of
caution, or the honest arts of prudent integrity, ready to accuse without
malice, and to betray without treachery. Any of these may be useful to
the community, and pass through the world with the reputation of good
purposes and uncorrupted morals, but they are unfit for close and tender
intimacies. He cannot properly be chosen for a friend, whose kindness
is exhaled by its own warmth, or frozen by the first blast of slander;
he cannot be a useful counsellor who will hear no opinion but his own;
he will not much invite confidence whose principal maxim is to suspect;
nor can the candour and frankness of that man be much esteemed, who
spreads his arms to humankind, and makes every man, without distinction,
a denizen of his bosom.

That friendship may be at once fond and lasting, there must not only be
equal virtue on each part, but virtue of the same kind; not only the
same end must be proposed, but the same means must be approved by both.
We are often, by superficial accomplishments and accidental endearments,
induced to love those whom we cannot esteem; we are sometimes, by great
abilities, and incontestable evidences of virtue, compelled to esteem
those whom we cannot love. But friendship, compounded of esteem and love,
derives from one its tenderness, and its permanence from the other;
and therefore requires not only that its candidates should gain the
judgment, but that they should attract the affections; that they should
not only be firm in the day of distress, but gay in the hour of jollity;
not only useful in exigencies, but pleasing in familiar life; their
presence should give cheerfulness as well as courage, and dispel alike
the gloom of fear and of melancholy.

To this mutual complacency is generally requisite an uniformity of
opinions, at least of those active and conspicuous principles which
discriminate parties in government, and sects in religion, and which
every day operate more or less on the common business of life. For though
great tenderness has, perhaps, been sometimes known to continue between
men eminent in contrary factions; yet such friends are to be shewn rather
as prodigies than examples, and it is no more proper to regulate our
conduct by such instances, than to leap a precipice, because some have
fallen from it and escaped with life.

It cannot but be extremely difficult to preserve private kindness in
the midst of publick opposition, in which will necessarily be involved
a thousand incidents, extending their influence to conversation and
privacy. Men engaged, by moral or religious motives, in contrary parties,
will generally look with different eyes upon every man, and decide almost
every question upon different principles. When such occasions of dispute
happen, to comply is to betray our cause, and to maintain friendship by
ceasing to deserve it; to be silent is to lose the happiness and dignity
of independence, to live in perpetual constraint, and to desert, if not
to betray: and who shall determine which of two friends shall yield,
where neither believes himself mistaken, and both confess the importance
of the question? What then remains but contradiction and debate? and from
those what can be expected, but acrimony and vehemence, the insolence of
triumph, the vexation of defeat, and, in time, a weariness of contest,
and an extinction of benevolence? Exchange of endearments and intercourse
of civility may continue, indeed, as boughs may for a while be verdant,
when the root is wounded; but the poison of discord is infused, and
though the countenance may preserve its smile, the heart is hardening
and contracting.

That man will not be long agreeable, whom we see only in times of
seriousness and severity; and therefore to maintain the softness and
serenity of benevolence, it is necessary that friends partake each
other's pleasures as well as cares, and be led to the same diversions
by similitude of taste. This is, however, not to be considered as
equally indispensable with conformity of principles, because any man may
honestly, according to the precepts of Horace, resign the gratifications
of taste to the humour of another, and friendship may well deserve the
sacrifice of pleasure, though not of conscience.

It was once confessed to me, by a painter, that no professor of his art
ever loved another. This declaration is so far justified by the knowledge
of life, as to damp the hopes of warm and constant friendship, between
men whom their studies have made competitors, and whom every favourer
and every censurer are hourly inciting against each other. The utmost
expectation that experience can warrant, is, that they should forbear
open hostilities and secret machinations, and when the whole fraternity
is attacked, be able to unite against a common foe. Some, however,
though few, may perhaps be found, in whom emulation has not been able to
overpower generosity, who are distinguished from lower beings by nobler
motives than the love of fame, and can preserve the sacred flame of
friendship from the gusts of pride, and the rubbish of interest.

Friendship is seldom lasting but between equals, or where the superiority
on one side is reduced by some equivalent advantage on the other.
Benefits which cannot be repaid, and obligations which cannot be
discharged, are not commonly found to increase affection; they excite
gratitude indeed, and heighten veneration; but commonly take away that
easy freedom and familiarity of intercourse, without which, though
there may be fidelity, and zeal, and admiration, there cannot be
friendship. Thus imperfect are all earthly blessings; the great effect
of friendship is beneficence, yet by the first act of uncommon kindness
it is endangered, like plants that bear their fruit and die. Yet this
consideration ought not to restrain bounty, or repress compassion; for
duty is to be preferred before convenience, and he that loses part of
the pleasures of friendship by his generosity, gains in its place the
gratulation of his conscience.

[Footnote 48: This passage is almost a literal translation from Phædrus,
lib. iii. 9.

  Vulgare amici nomen, sed rara est fides.
  Quum parvas ædes sibi fundasset Socrates,
  (Cujus non fugio mortem, si famam adsequar,
  Et cedo invidiæ, dum modo absolvar cinis.)
  E populo sic, nescio quis, ut fieri solet:
  Quæso tam angustam, talis vir, ponis domum?
  Utinam, inquit, veris hanc amicis impleam.]




No. 65. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 30, 1750.


  _----Garrit aniles_
  _Ex re fabellas.----_
                                          HOR. Lib. i. Sat. vi. 77.

  The cheerful sage, when solemn dictates fail,
  Conceals the moral counsel in a tale.


Obidah, the son of Abensina, left the caravansera early in the morning,
and pursued his journey through the plains of Indostan. He was fresh and
vigorous with rest; he was animated with hope; he was incited by desire;
he walked swiftly forward over the valleys, and saw the hills gradually
rising before him. As he passed along, his ears were delighted with the
morning song of the bird of paradise, he was fanned by the last flutters
of the sinking breeze, and sprinkled with dew by groves of spices; he
sometimes contemplated the towering height of the oak, monarch of the
hills; and sometimes caught the gentle fragrance of the primrose, eldest
daughter of the spring; all his senses were gratified, and all care was
banished from his heart.

Thus he went on till the sun approached his meridian, and the increasing
heat preyed upon his strength; he then looked round about him for some
more commodious path. He saw, on his right hand, a grove that seemed to
wave its shades as a sign of invitation; he entered it, and found the
coolness and verdure irresistibly pleasant. He did not, however, forget
whither he was travelling, but found a narrow way bordered with flowers,
which appeared to have the same direction with the main road, and was
pleased that, by this happy experiment, he had found means to unite
pleasure with business, and to gain the rewards of diligence without
suffering its fatigues. He, therefore, still continued to walk for a time,
without the least remission of his ardour, except that he was sometimes
tempted to stop by the musick of the birds whom the heat had assembled
in the shade; and sometimes amused himself with plucking the flowers
that covered the banks on either side, or the fruits that hung upon
the branches. At last the green path began to decline from its first
tendency, and to wind among hills and thickets, cooled with fountains
and murmuring with waterfalls. Here Obidah paused for a time, and began
to consider whether it were longer safe to forsake the known and common
track; but remembering that the heat was now in its greatest violence,
and that the plain was dusty and uneven, he resolved to pursue the new
path, which he supposed only to make a few meanders, in compliance with
the varieties of the ground, and to end at last in the common road.

Having thus calmed his solicitude, he renewed his pace, though he suspected
that he was not gaining ground. This uneasiness of his mind inclined him
to lay hold on every new object, and give way to every sensation that
might sooth or divert him. He listened to every echo, he mounted every
hill for a fresh prospect, he turned aside to every cascade, and pleased
himself with tracing the course of a gentle river that rolled among the
trees, and watered a large region with innumerable circumvolutions. In
these amusements the hours passed away uncounted, his deviations had
perplexed his memory, and he knew not towards what point to travel. He
stood pensive and confused, afraid to go forward lest he should go wrong,
yet conscious that the time of loitering was now past. While he was thus
tortured with uncertainty, the sky was overspread with clouds, the
day vanished from before him, and a sudden tempest gathered round his
head. He was now roused by his danger to a quick and painful remembrance
of his folly; he now saw how happiness is lost when ease is consulted;
he lamented the unmanly impatience that prompted him to seek shelter
in the grove, and despised the petty curiosity that led him on from
trifle to trifle. While he was thus reflecting, the air grew blacker,
and a clap of thunder broke his meditation.

He now resolved to do what remained yet in his power, to tread back the
ground which he had passed, and try to find some issue where the wood
might open into the plain. He prostrated himself on the ground, and
commended his life to the Lord of nature. He rose with confidence and
tranquillity, and pressed on with his sabre in his hand, for the beasts
of the desert were in motion, and on every hand were heard the mingled
howls of rage and fear, and ravage and expiration; all the horrours of
darkness and solitude surrounded him; the winds roared in the woods, and
the torrents tumbled from the hills,

  [Greek: ----cheimarrhoi potamoi kat' oresphi rheontes
  Es misgankeian symballeton obrimon hydôr,
  Tonde te têlose doupon en ouresin eklye poimên.]

  Work'd into sudden rage by wintry show'rs,
  Down the steep hill the roaring torrent pours;
  The mountain shepherd hears the distant noise.

Thus forlorn and distressed, he wandered through the wild, without knowing
whither he was going, or whether he was every moment drawing nearer to
safety or to destruction. At length not fear but labour began to overcome
him; his breath grew short, and his knees trembled, he was on the point
of lying down in resignation to his fate, when he beheld through the
brambles the glimmer of a taper. He advanced towards the light, and
finding that it proceeded from the cottage of a hermit, he called humbly
at the door, and obtained admission. The old man set before him such
provisions as he had collected for himself, on which Obidah fed with
eagerness and gratitude.

When the repast was over, "Tell me," said the hermit, "by what chance thou
hast been brought hither; I have been now twenty years an inhabitant of
the wilderness, in which I never saw a man before." Obidah then related
the occurrences of his journey, without any concealment or palliation.

"Son," said the hermit, "let the errours and follies, the dangers and
escape of this day, sink deep into thy heart. Remember, my son, that
human life is the journey of a day. We rise in the morning of youth,
full of vigour and full of expectation; we set forward with spirit
and hope, with gaiety and with diligence, and travel on a while in the
straight road of piety towards the mansions of rest. In a short time we
remit our fervour, and endeavour to find some mitigation of our duty,
and some more easy means of obtaining the same end. We then relax our
vigour, and resolve no longer to be terrified with crimes at a distance,
but rely upon our own constancy, and venture to approach what we resolve
never to touch. We thus enter the bowers of ease, and repose in the shades
of security. Here the heart softens and vigilance subsides; we are then
willing to inquire whether another advance cannot be made, and whether
we may not, at least, turn our eyes upon the gardens of pleasure. We
approach them with scruple and hesitation; we enter them, but enter
timorous and trembling, and always hope to pass through them without
losing the road of virtue, which we, for a while, keep in our sight,
and to which we propose to return. But temptation succeeds temptation,
and one compliance prepares us for another; we in time lose the happiness
of innocence, and solace our disquiet with sensual gratifications. By
degrees we let fall the remembrance of our original intention, and quit
the only adequate object of rational desire. We entangle ourselves in
business, immerge ourselves in luxury, and rove through the labyrinths
of inconstancy, till the darkness of old age begins to invade us, and
disease and anxiety obstruct our way. We then look back upon our lives
with horrour, with sorrow, with repentance; and wish, but too often vainly
wish, that we had not forsaken the ways of virtue. Happy are they, my son,
who shall learn from thy example not to despair, but shall remember, that
though the day is past, and their strength is wasted, there yet remains
one effort to be made; that reformation is never hopeless, nor sincere
endeavours ever unassisted; that the wanderer may at length return after
all his errours, and that he who implores strength and courage from above,
shall find danger and difficulty give way before him. Go now, my son,
to thy repose, commit thyself to the care of Omnipotence, and when the
morning calls again to toil, begin anew thy journey and thy life."




No. 66. SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 1750.


  _----Pauci dignoscere possunt_
  _Vera bona, atque illis multum diversa, remotâ_
  _Erroris nebula._
                                                         JUV. Sat. x. 2.

  ----How few
  Know their own good; or, knowing it, pursue!
  How void of reason are our hopes and fears!
                                                                 DRYDEN.


The folly of human wishes and pursuits has always been a standing subject
of mirth and declamation, and has been ridiculed and lamented from age
to age; till perhaps the fruitless repetition of complaints and censures,
may be justly numbered among the subjects of censure and complaint.

Some of these instructors of mankind have not contented themselves with
checking the overflows of passion, and lopping the exuberance of desire,
but have attempted to destroy the root as well as the branches; and not
only to confine the mind within bounds, but to smooth it for ever by a
dead calm. They have employed their reason and eloquence to persuade us,
that nothing is worth the wish of a wise man, have represented all earthly
good and evil as indifferent, and counted among vulgar errours the dread
of pain, and the love of life.

It is almost always the unhappiness of a victorious disputant, to destroy
his own authority by claiming too many consequences, or diffusing his
proposition to an indefensible extent. When we have heated our zeal in a
cause, and elated our confidence with success, we are naturally inclined
to pursue the same train of reasoning, to establish some collateral
truth, to remove some adjacent difficulty, and to take in the whole
comprehension of our system. As a prince, in the ardour of acquisition,
is willing to secure his first conquest by the addition of another, add
fortress to fortress, and city to city, till despair and opportunity turn
his enemies upon him, and he loses in a moment the glory of a reign.

The philosophers having found an easy victory over those desires which
we produce in ourselves, and which terminate in some imaginary state of
happiness unknown and unattainable, proceeded to make further inroads
upon the heart, and attacked at last our senses and our instincts. They
continued to war upon nature with arms, by which only folly could be
conquered; they therefore lost the trophies of their former combats, and
were considered no longer with reverence or regard.

Yet it cannot be with justice denied, that these men have been very useful
monitors, and have left many proofs of strong reason, deep penetration,
and accurate attention to the affairs of life, which it is now our
business to separate from the foam of a boiling imagination, and to apply
judiciously to our own use. They have shewn that most of the conditions
of life, which raise the envy of the timorous, and rouse the ambition
of the daring, are empty shows of felicity, which, when they become
familiar, lose their power of delighting; and that the most prosperous
and exalted have very few advantages over a meaner and more obscure
fortune, when their dangers and solicitudes are balanced against their
equipage, their banquets, and their palaces.

It is natural for every man uninstructed to murmur at his condition,
because, in the general infelicity of life, he feels his own miseries,
without knowing that they are common to all the rest of the species;
and therefore, though he will not be less sensible of pain by being
told that others are equally tormented, he will at least be freed from
the temptation of seeking, by perpetual changes, that ease which is no
where to be found; and though his disease still continues, he escapes the
hazard of exasperating it by remedies.

The gratifications which affluence of wealth, extent of power, and
eminence of reputation confer, must be always, by their own nature,
confined to a very small number; and the life of the greater part of
mankind must be lost in empty wishes and painful comparisons, were
not the balm of philosophy shed upon us, and our discontent at the
appearances of an unequal distribution soothed and appeased.

It seemed, perhaps, below the dignity of the great masters of moral
learning, to descend to familiar life, and caution mankind against that
petty ambition which is known among us by the name of Vanity; which
yet had been an undertaking not unworthy of the longest beard, and most
solemn austerity. For though the passions of little minds, acting in
low stations, do not fill the world with bloodshed and devastations, or
mark, by great events, the periods of time, yet they torture the breast
on which they seize, infest those that are placed within the reach of
their influence, destroy private quiet and private virtue, and undermine
insensibly the happiness of the world.

The desire of excellence is laudable, but is very frequently ill directed.
We fall, by chance, into some class of mankind, and, without consulting
nature or wisdom, resolve to gain their regard by those qualities which
they happen to esteem. I once knew a man remarkably dim-sighted, who,
by conversing much with country gentlemen, found himself irresistibly
determined to sylvan honours. His great ambition was to shoot flying,
and he therefore spent whole days in the woods pursuing game; which,
before he was near enough to see them, his approach frighted away.

When it happens that the desire tends to objects which produce no
competition, it may be overlooked with some indulgence, because, however
fruitless or absurd, it cannot have ill effects upon the morals. But most
of our enjoyments owe their value to the peculiarity of possession, and
when they are rated at too high a value, give occasion to stratagems of
malignity, and incite opposition, hatred, and defamation. The contest of
two rural beauties for preference and distinction, is often sufficiently
keen and rancorous to fill their breasts with all those passions, which
are generally thought the curse only of senates, of armies, and of
courts; and the rival dancers of an obscure assembly have their partizans
and abettors, often not less exasperated against each other, than those
who are promoting the interests of rival monarchs.

It is common to consider those whom we find infected with an unreasonable
regard for trifling accomplishments, as chargeable with all the
consequences of their folly, and as the authors of their own unhappiness:
but, perhaps, those whom we thus scorn or detest, have more claim to
tenderness than has been yet allowed them. Before we permit our severity
to break loose upon any fault or errour, we ought surely to consider how
much we have countenanced or promoted it. We see multitudes busy in the
pursuit of riches, at the expense of wisdom and of virtue; but we see the
rest of mankind approving their conduct, and inciting their eagerness, by
paying that regard and deference to wealth, which wisdom and virtue only
can deserve. We see women universally jealous of the reputation of their
beauty, and frequently look with contempt on the care with which they
study their complexions, endeavour to preserve or to supply the bloom
of youth, regulate every ornament, twist their hair into curls, and
shade their faces from the weather. We recommend the care of their nobler
part, and tell them how little addition is made by all their arts to
the graces of the mind. But when was it known that female goodness or
knowledge was able to attract that officiousness, or inspire that ardour,
which beauty produces whenever it appears? And with what hope can we
endeavour to persuade the ladies, that the time spent at the toilet is
lost in vanity, when they have every moment some new conviction, that
their interest is more effectually promoted by a riband well disposed,
than by the brightest act of heroick virtue?

In every instance of vanity it will be found that the blame ought to
be shared among more than it generally reaches; all who exalt trifles
by immoderate praise, or instigate needless emulation by invidious
incitements, are to be considered as perverters of reason, and corrupters
of the world: and since every man is obliged to promote happiness and
virtue, he should be careful not to mislead unwary minds, by appearing to
set too high a value upon things by which no real excellence is conferred.




No. 67. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 1750.


  [Greek: Ai d' elpides boskousi phygadas, hôs logos
  Kalois blepousi g' ommasin, mellousi de.]
                                                      EURIP. Phoen. 407.

  Exiles, the proverb says, subsist on hope,
  Delusive hope still points to distant good,
  To good that mocks approach.


There is no temper so generally indulged as hope: other passions operate
by starts on particular occasions, or in certain parts of life; but hope
begins with the first power of comparing our actual with our possible
state, and attends us through every stage and period, always urging us
forward to new acquisitions, and holding out some distant blessing to our
view, promising us either relief from pain, or increase of happiness.

Hope is necessary in every condition. The miseries of poverty, of
sickness, of captivity, would, without this comfort, be insupportable;
nor does it appear that the happiest lot of terrestrial existence can set
us above the want of this general blessing; or that life, when the gifts
of nature and of fortune are accumulated upon it, would not still be
wretched, were it not elevated and delighted by the expectation of some
new possession, of some enjoyment yet behind, by which the wish shall be
at last satisfied, and the heart filled up to its utmost extent.

Hope, is indeed, very fallacious, and promises what it seldom gives; but
its promises are more valuable than the gifts of fortune, and it seldom
frustrates us without assuring us of recompensing the delay by a greater
bounty.

I was musing on this strange inclination which every man feels to deceive
himself, and considering the advantages and dangers proceeding from this
gay prospect of futurity, when, falling asleep, on a sudden I found myself
placed in a garden, of which my sight could descry no limits. Every scene
about me was gay and gladsome, light with sunshine, and fragrant with
perfumes; the ground was painted with all the variety of spring, and all
the choir of nature was singing in the groves. When I had recovered from
the first raptures, with which the confusion of pleasure had for a time
entranced me, I began to take a particular and deliberate view of this
delightful region. I then perceived that I had yet higher gratifications
to expect, and that, at a small distance from me, there were brighter
flowers, clearer fountains, and more lofty groves, where the birds, which
I yet heard but faintly, were exerting all the power of melody. The trees
about me were beautiful with verdure, and fragrant with blossoms; but I
was tempted to leave them by the sight of ripe fruits, which seemed to
hang only to be plucked. I therefore walked hastily forwards, but found,
as I proceeded, that the colours of the field faded at my approach, the
fruit fell before I reached it, the birds flew still singing before me,
and though I pressed onward with great celerity, I was still in sight
of pleasures of which I could not yet gain the possession, and which
seemed to mock my diligence, and to retire as I advanced.

Though I was confounded with so many alternations of joy and grief, I yet
persisted to go forward, in hopes that these fugitive delights would in
time be overtaken. At length I saw an innumerable multitude of every age
and sex, who seemed all to partake of some general felicity; for every
cheek was flushed with confidence, and every eye sparkled with eagerness:
yet each appeared to have some particular and secret pleasure, and very
few were willing to communicate their intentions, or extend their concern
beyond themselves. Most of them seemed, by the rapidity of their motion,
too busy to gratify the curiosity of a stranger, and therefore I was
content for a while to gaze upon them, without interrupting them with
troublesome inquiries. At last I observed one man worn with time, and
unable to struggle in the crowd; and, therefore, supposing him more at
leisure, I began to accost him: but he turned from me with anger, and
told me he must not be disturbed, for the great hour of projection was
now come when Mercury should lose his wings, and slavery should no longer
dig the mine for gold.

I left him, and attempted another, whose softness of mien, and easy
movement, gave me reason to hope for a more agreeable reception; but he
told me, with a low bow, that nothing would make him more happy than an
opportunity of serving me, which he could not now want, for a place which
he had been twenty years soliciting would be soon vacant. From him I had
recourse to the next, who was departing in haste to take possession of
the estate of an uncle, who by the course of nature could not live long.
He that followed was preparing to dive for treasure in a new-invented
bell; and another was on the point of discovering the longitude.

Being thus rejected wheresoever I applied myself for information, I
began to imagine it best to desist from inquiry, and try what my own
observation would discover: but seeing a young man, gay and thoughtless,
I resolved upon one more experiment, and was informed that I was in the
garden of Hope, and daughter of Desire, and that all those whom I saw
thus tumultuously bustling round me were incited by the promises of Hope,
and hastening to seize the gifts which she held in her hand.

I turned my sight upward, and saw a goddess in the bloom of youth sitting
on a throne: around her lay all the gifts of fortune, and all the
blessings of life were spread abroad to view; she had a perpetual gaiety
of aspect, and every one imagined that her smile, which was impartial and
general, was directed to himself, and triumphed in his own superiority to
others, who had conceived the same confidence from the same mistake.

I then mounted an eminence, from which I had a more extensive view of
the whole place, and could with less perplexity consider the different
conduct of the crowds that filled it. From this station I observed,
that the entrance into the garden of Hope was by two gates, one of
which was kept by Reason, and the other by Fancy. Reason was surly and
scrupulous, and seldom turned the key without many interrogatories,
and long hesitation; but Fancy was a kind and gentle portress, she held
her gate wide open, and welcomed all equally to the district under her
superintendency; so that the passage was crowded by all those who either
feared the examination of Reason, or had been rejected by her.

From the gate of Reason there was a way to the throne of Hope, by a
craggy, slippery and winding path, called the _Streight of Difficulty_,
which those who entered with the permission of the guard endeavoured
to climb. But though they surveyed the way very carefully before they
began to rise, and marked out the several stages of their progress, they
commonly found unexpected obstacles, and were obliged frequently to stop
on the sudden, where they imagined the way plain and even. A thousand
intricacies embarrassed them, a thousand slips threw them back, and a
thousand pitfalls impeded their advance. So formidable were the dangers,
and so frequent the miscarriages, that many returned from the first
attempt, and many fainted in the midst of the way, and only a very small
number were led up to the summit of Hope, by the hand of Fortitude. Of
these few the greater part, when they had obtained the gift which Hope
had promised them, regretted the labour which it cost, and felt in their
success the regret of disappointment; the rest retired with their prize,
and were led by Wisdom to the bowers of Content.

Turning then towards the gate of Fancy, I could find no way to the seat
of Hope; but though she sat full in view, and held out her gifts with an
air of invitation, which filled every heart with rapture, the mountain
was, on that side, inaccessibly steep, but so channelled and shaded,
that none perceived the impossibility of ascending it, but each imagined
himself to have discovered a way to which the rest were strangers. Many
expedients were indeed tried by this industrious tribe, of whom some were
making themselves wings, which others were contriving to actuate by the
perpetual motion. But with all their labour, and all their artifices,
they never rose above the ground, or quickly fell back, nor ever
approached the throne of Hope, but continued still to gaze at a distance,
and laughed at the slow progress of those whom they saw toiling in the
_Streight of Difficulty_.

Part of the favourites of Fancy, when they had entered the garden,
without making, like the rest, an attempt to climb the mountain, turned
immediately to the vale of Idleness, a calm and undisturbed retirement,
from whence they could always have Hope in prospect, and to which they
pleased themselves with believing that she intended speedily to descend.
These were indeed scorned by all the rest; but they seemed very little
affected by contempt, advice, or reproof, but were resolved to expect at
ease the favour of the goddess.

Among this gay race I was wandering, and found them ready to answer all
my questions, and willing to communicate their mirth; but turning round,
I saw two dreadful monsters entering the vale, one of whom I knew to be
Age, and the other Want. Sport and revelling were now at an end, and an
universal shriek of affright and distress burst out and awaked me.




No. 68. SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 1750.


  _Vivendum recte est, cum propter plurima, tum his_
  _Præcipæ causis, ut linguas mancipiorum_
  _Contemnas. Nam lingua mali pars pessima servi._
                                                           JUV. ix. 118.

  Let us live well: were it alone for this
  The baneful tongues of servants to despise
  Slander, that worst of poisons, ever finds
  An easy entrance to ignoble minds.
                                                                 HERVEY.


The younger Pliny has very justly observed, that of actions that deserve
our attention, the most splendid are not always the greatest. Fame, and
wonder, and applause, are not excited but by external and adventitious
circumstances, often distinct and separate from virtue and heroism.
Eminence of station, greatness of effect, and all the favours of
fortune, must concur to place excellence in publick view; but fortitude,
diligence, and patience, divested of their show, glide unobserved through
the crowd of life, and suffer and act, though with the same vigour and
constancy, yet without pity and without praise.

This remark may be extended to all parts of life. Nothing is to be
estimated by its effect upon common eyes and common ears. A thousand
miseries make silent and invisible inroads on mankind, and the heart
feels innumerable throbs, which never break into complaint. Perhaps,
likewise, our pleasures are for the most part equally secret, and most
are borne up by some private satisfaction, some internal consciousness,
some latent hope, some peculiar prospect, which they never communicate,
but reserve for solitary hours, and clandestine meditation.

The main of life is, indeed, composed of small incidents and petty
occurrences; of wishes for objects not remote, and grief for
disappointments of no fatal consequence; of insect vexations which
sting us and fly away, impertinences which buzz awhile about us, and
are heard no more; of meteorous pleasures which dance before us and are
dissipated; of compliments which glide off the soul like other musick,
and are forgotten by him that gave, and him that received them.

Such is the general heap out of which every man is to cull his own
condition: for, as the chemists tell us, that all bodies are resolvable
into the same elements, and that the boundless variety of things arises
from the different proportions of very few ingredients; so a few pains
and a few pleasures are all the materials of human life, and of these
the proportions are partly allotted by Providence, and partly left to the
arrangement of reason and of choice.

As these are well or ill disposed, man is for the most part happy or
miserable. For very few are involved in great events, or have their
thread of life entwisted with the chain of causes on which armies or
nations are suspended; and even those who seem wholly busied in publick
affairs, and elevated above low cares, or trivial pleasures, pass the
chief part of their time in familiar and domestick scenes; from these
they came into publick life, to these they are every hour recalled by
passions not to be suppressed; in these they have the reward of their
toils, and to these at last they retire.

The great end of prudence is to give cheerfulness to those hours, which
splendour cannot gild, and acclamation cannot exhilarate; those soft
intervals of unbended amusement, in which a man shrinks to his natural
dimensions, and throws aside the ornaments or disguises, which he feels
in privacy to be useless incumbrances, and to lose all effect when
they become familiar. To be happy at home is the ultimate result of all
ambition, the end to which every enterprise and labour tends, and of
which every desire prompts the prosecution.

It is, indeed, at home that every man must be known by those who would
make a just estimate either of his virtue or felicity; for smiles and
embroidery are alike occasional, and the mind is often dressed for show
in painted honour and fictitious benevolence.

Every man must have found some whose lives, in every house but their
own, was a continual series of hypocrisy, and who concealed under fair
appearances bad qualities, which, whenever they thought themselves out
of the reach of censure, broke out from their restraint, like winds
imprisoned in their caverns, and whom every one had reason to love, but
they whose love a wise man is chiefly solicitous to procure. And there
are others who, without any show of general goodness, and without the
attractions by which popularity is conciliated, are received among their
own families as bestowers of happiness, and reverenced as instructors,
guardians, and benefactors.

The most authentick witnesses of any man's character are those who
know him in his own family, and see him without any restraint or rule
of conduct, but such as he voluntarily prescribes to himself. If a
man carries virtue with him into his private apartments, and takes no
advantage of unlimited power or probable secrecy; if we trace him through
the round of his time, and find that his character, with those allowances
which mortal frailty must always want, is uniform and regular, we have
all the evidence of his sincerity that one man can have with regard to
another: and, indeed, as hypocrisy cannot be its own reward, we may,
without hesitation, determine that his heart is pure.

The highest panegyrick, therefore, that private virtue can receive, is the
praise of servants. For, however vanity or insolence may look down with
contempt on the suffrage of men undignified by wealth, and unenlightened
by education, it very seldom happens that they commend or blame without
justice. Vice and virtue are easily distinguished. Oppression, according
to Harrington's aphorism, will be felt by those that cannot see it;
and, perhaps, it falls out very often that, in moral questions, the
philosophers in the gown, and in the livery, differ not so much in their
sentiments, as in their language, and have equal power of discerning
right, though they cannot point it out to others with equal address.

There are very few faults to be committed in solitude, or without some
agents, partners, confederates, or witnesses; and, therefore, the servant
must commonly know the secrets of a master, who has any secrets to
entrust; and failings, merely personal, are so frequently exposed by that
security which pride and folly generally produce, and so inquisitively
watched by that desire of reducing the inequalities of condition, which
the lower orders of the world will always feel, that the testimony of
a menial domestick can seldom be considered as defective for want of
knowledge. And though its impartiality may be sometimes suspected, it is
at least as credible as that of equals, where rivalry instigates censure,
or friendship dictates palliations.

The danger of betraying our weakness to our servants, and the
impossibility of concealing it from them, may be justly considered as
one motive to a regular and irreproachable life. For no condition is
more hateful or despicable, than his who has put himself in the power of
his servant; in the power of him whom, perhaps, he has first corrupted
by making him subservient to his vices, and whose fidelity he therefore
cannot enforce by any precepts of honesty or reason. It is seldom known
that authority thus acquired, is possessed without insolence, or that the
master is not forced to confess by his tameness or forbearance, that he
has enslaved himself by some foolish confidence. And his crime is equally
punished, whatever part he takes of the choice to which he is reduced;
and he is from that fatal hour, in which he sacrificed his dignity to his
passions, in perpetual dread of insolence or defamation; of a controuler
at home, or an accuser abroad. He is condemned to purchase, by continual
bribes, that secrecy which bribes never secured, and which, after a long
course of submission, promises, and anxieties, he will find violated in
a fit of rage, or in a frolick of drunkenness.

To dread no eye, and to suspect no tongue, is the great prerogative of
innocence; an exemption granted only to invariable virtue. But guilt has
always its horrours and solicitudes; and to make it yet more shameful and
detestable, it is doomed often to stand in awe of those, to whom nothing
could give influence or weight, but their power of betraying.




No. 69. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 1750.


  _Flet quoque, ut in speculo rugas adspexit aniles,_
  _Tyndaris: et secum, cur sit bis rapta, requirit._
  _Tempus edax rerum, tuque invidiosa vetustas,_
  _Omnia destruitis: vitiataque dentibus ævi_
  _Paulatim lentâ consumitis omnia morte._
                                                     OVID, Met. xv. 232.

  The dreadful wrinkles when poor Helen spy'd,
  Ah! why this second rape? with tears she cry'd,
  Time, thou devourer, and thou, envious age,
  Who all destroy with keen corroding rage,
  Beneath your jaws, whate'er have pleas'd or please,
  Must sink, consum'd by swift or slow degrees.
                                                             ELPHINSTON.


An old Greek epigrammatist, intending to shew the miseries that attend the
last stage of man, imprecates upon those who are so foolish as to wish
for long life, the calamity of continuing to grow old from century to
century. He thought that no adventitious or foreign pain was requisite;
that decrepitude itself was an epitome of whatever is dreadful; and
nothing could be added to the curse of age, but that it should be
extended beyond its natural limits.

The most indifferent or negligent spectator can indeed scarcely retire
without heaviness of heart, from a view of the last scenes of the tragedy
of life, in which he finds those who, in the former parts of the drama,
were distinguished by opposition of conduct, contrariety of designs, and
dissimilitude of personal qualities, all involved in one common distress,
and all struggling with affliction which they cannot hope to overcome.

The other miseries, which way-lay our passage through the world, wisdom
may escape, and fortitude may conquer: by caution and circumspection we
may steal along with very little to obstruct or incommode us; by spirit
and vigour we may force a way, and reward the vexation of contest by the
pleasures of victory. But a time must come when our policy and bravery
shall be equally useless; when we shall all sink into helplessness and
sadness, without any power of receiving solace from the pleasures that
have formerly delighted us, or any prospect of emerging into a second
possession of the blessings that we have lost.

The industry of man has, indeed, not been wanting in endeavours to procure
comforts for these hours of dejection and melancholy, and to gild the
dreadful gloom with artificial light. The most usual support of old age
is wealth. He whose possessions are large, and whose chests are full,
imagines himself always fortified against invasions on his authority. If
he has lost all other means of government, if his strength and his reason
fail him, he can at last alter his will; and therefore all that have
hopes must, likewise have fears, and he may still continue to give laws
to such as have not ceased to regard their own interest.

This is, indeed, too frequently the citadel of the dotard, the last
fortress to which age retires, and in which he makes the stand against the
upstart race that seizes his domains, disputes his commands, and cancels
his prescriptions. But here, though there may be safety, there is no
pleasure; and what remains is but a proof that more was once possessed.

Nothing seems to have been more universally dreaded by the ancients than
orbity, or want of children; and, indeed, to a man who has survived all
the companions of his youth, all who have participated his pleasures
and his cares, have been engaged in the same events, and filled their
minds with the same conceptions, this full-peopled world is a dismal
solitude. He stands forlorn and silent, neglected or insulted, in the
midst of multitudes, animated with hopes which he cannot share, and
employed in business which he is no longer able to forward or retard; nor
can he find any to whom his life or his death are of importance, unless
he has secured some domestick gratifications, some tender employments,
and endeared himself to some whose interest and gratitude may unite them
to him.

So different are the colours of life as we look forward to the future,
or backward to the past; and so different the opinions and sentiments
which this contrariety of appearance naturally produces, that the
conversation of the old and young ends generally with contempt or pity
on either side. To a young man entering the world with fulness of hope,
and ardour of pursuit, nothing is so unpleasing as the cold caution,
the faint expectations, the scrupulous diffidence, which experience and
disappointments certainly infuse; and the old man wonders in his turn that
the world never can grow wiser, that neither precepts, nor testimonies,
can cure boys of their credulity and sufficiency; and that not one can be
convinced that snares are laid for him, till he finds himself entangled.

Thus one generation is always the scorn and wonder of the other; and the
notions of the old and young are like liquors of different gravity and
texture, which never can unite. The spirits of youth sublimed by health,
and volatilized by passion, soon leave behind them the phlegmatick
sediment of weariness and deliberation, and burst out in temerity and
enterprise. The tenderness, therefore, which nature infuses, and which
long habits of beneficence confirm, is necessary to reconcile such
opposition; and an old man must be a father to bear with patience those
follies and absurdities which he will perpetually imagine himself to find
in the schemes and expectations, the pleasures and the sorrows, of those
who have not yet been hardened by time, and chilled by frustration.

Yet it may be doubted, whether the pleasure of seeing children ripening
into strength, be not overbalanced by the pain of seeing some fall in
the blossom, and others blasted in their growth; some shaken down with
storms, some tainted with cankers, and some shrivelled in the shade; and
whether he that extends his care beyond himself, does not multiply his
anxieties more than his pleasures, and weary himself to no purpose, by
superintending what he cannot regulate.

But though age be to every order of human beings sufficiently terrible, it
is particularly to be dreaded by fine ladies, who have had no other end
or ambition than to fill up the day and the night with dress, diversions,
and flattery, and who, having made no acquaintance with knowledge, or
with business, have constantly caught all their ideas from the current
prattle of the hour, and been indebted for all their happiness to
compliments and treats. With these ladies, age begins early, and very
often lasts long; it begins when their beauty fades, when their mirth
loses its sprightliness, and their motion its ease. From that time all
which gave them joy vanishes from about them; they hear the praises
bestowed on others, which used to swell their bosoms with exultation.
They visit the seats of felicity, and endeavour to continue the habit of
being delighted. But pleasure is only received when we believe that we
give it in return. Neglect and petulance inform them that their power and
their value are past; and what then remains but a tedious and comfortless
uniformity of time, without any motion of the heart, or exercise of the
reason?

Yet, however age may discourage us by its appearance from considering
it in prospect, we shall all by degrees certainly be old; and therefore
we ought to inquire what provision can be made against that time of
distress? what happiness can be stored up against the winter of life? and
how we may pass our latter years with serenity and cheerfulness?

If it has been found by the experience of mankind, that not even the best
seasons of life are able to supply sufficient gratifications, without
anticipating uncertain felicities, it cannot surely be supposed that
old age, worn with labours, harassed with anxieties, and tortured with
diseases, should have any gladness of its own, or feel any satisfaction
from the contemplation of the present. All the comfort that can now be
expected must be recalled from the past, or borrowed from the future;
the past is very soon exhausted, all the events or actions which the
memory can afford pleasure are quickly recollected; and the future lies
beyond the grave, where it can be reached only by virtue and devotion.

Piety is the only proper and adequate relief of decaying man. He that
grows old without religious hopes, as he declines into imbecility, and
feels pains and sorrows incessantly crowding upon him, falls into a gulph
of bottomless misery, in which every reflection must plunge him deeper,
and where he finds only new gradations of anguish, and precipices of
horrour.




No. 70. SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 1750.


  _----Argentea proles,_
  _Auro deterior, fulvo pretiosior ære._
                                                      OVID, Met. i. 114.

  Succeeding times a silver age behold,
  Excelling brass, but more excell'd by gold.
                                                                 DRYDEN.


Hesiod, in his celebrated distribution of mankind, divides them into three
orders of intellect. "The first place," says he, "belongs to him that
can by his own powers discern what is right and fit, and penetrate to the
remoter motives of action. The second is claimed by him that is willing
to hear instruction, and can perceive right and wrong when they are shewn
him by another; but he that has neither acuteness nor docility, who can
neither find the way by himself, nor will be led by others, is a wretch
without use or value."

If we survey the moral world, it will be found, that the same division
may be made of men, with regard to their virtue. There are some whose
principles are so firmly fixed, whose conviction is so constantly present
to their minds, and who have raised in themselves such ardent wishes for
the approbation of God, and the happiness with which he has promised to
reward obedience and perseverance, that they rise above all other cares
and considerations, and uniformly examine every action and desire, by
comparing it with the divine commands. There are others in a kind of
equipoise between good and ill; who are moved on the one part by riches
or pleasure, by the gratifications of passion and the delights of sense;
and, on the other, by laws of which they own the obligation, and rewards
of which they believe the reality, and whom a very small addition of
weight turns either way. The third class consists of beings immersed
in pleasure, or abandoned to passion, without any desire of higher
good, or any effort to extend their thoughts beyond immediate and gross
satisfactions.

The second class is so much the most numerous, that it may be considered
as comprising the whole body of mankind. Those of the last are not very
many, and those of the first are very few; and neither the one nor the
other fall much under the consideration of the moralists, whose precepts
are intended chiefly for those who are endeavouring to go forward up the
steeps of virtue, not for those who have already reached the summit, or
those who are resolved to stay for ever in their present situation.

To a man not versed in the living world, but accustomed to judge only by
speculative reason, it is scarcely credible that any one should be in
this state of indifference, or stand undetermined and unengaged, ready to
follow the first call to either side. It seems certain, that either a man
must believe that virtue will make him happy, and resolve therefore to
be virtuous, or think that he may be happy without virtue, and therefore
cast off all care but for his present interest. It seems impossible that
conviction should be on one side, and practice on the other; and that
he who has seen the right way should voluntarily shut his eyes, that
he may quit it with more tranquillity. Yet all these absurdities are
every hour to be found; the wisest and best men deviate from known and
acknowledged duties, by inadvertency or surprise; and most are good
no longer than while temptation is away, than while their passions are
without excitements, and their opinions are free from the counteraction
of any other motive.

Among the sentiments which almost every man changes as he advances into
years, is the expectation of uniformity of character. He that without
acquaintance with the power of desire, the cogency of distress, the
complications of affairs, or the force of partial influence, has filled
his mind with the excellence of virtue, and, having never tried his
resolution in any encounters with hope or fear, believes it able to
stand firm whatever shall oppose it, will be always clamorous against
the smallest failure, ready to exact the utmost punctualities of right,
and to consider every man that fails in any part of his duty, as without
conscience and without merit; unworthy of trust or love, of pity or
regard; as an enemy whom all should join to drive out of society, as a
pest which all should avoid, or as a weed which all should trample.

It is not but by experience, that we are taught the possibility of
retaining some virtues, and rejecting others, or of being good or bad
to a particular degree. For it is very easy to the solitary reasoner, to
prove that the same arguments by which the mind is fortified against one
crime are of equal force against all, and the consequence very naturally
follows, that he whom they fail to move on any occasion, has either never
considered them, or has by some fallacy taught himself to evade their
validity; and that, therefore, when a man is known to be guilty of one
crime, no farther evidence is needful of his depravity and corruption.

Yet such is the state of all mortal virtue, that it is always uncertain
and variable, sometimes extending to the whole compass of duty, and
sometimes shrinking into a narrow space, and fortifying only a few avenues
of the heart, while all the rest is left open to the incursions of
appetite, or given up to the dominion of wickedness. Nothing therefore
is more unjust than to judge of man by too short an acquaintance,
and too slight inspection; for it often happens, that in the loose,
and thoughtless, and dissipated, there is a secret radical worth, which
may shoot out by proper cultivation; that the spark of heaven, though
dimmed and obstructed, is yet not extinguished, but may, by the breath
of counsel and exhortation, be kindled into flame.

To imagine that every one who is not completely good is irrecoverably
abandoned, is to suppose that all are capable of the same degree
of excellence; it is indeed to exact from all that perfection which
none ever can attain. And since the purest virtue is consistent with
some vice, and the virtue of the greatest number with almost an equal
proportion of contrary qualities, let none too hastily conclude, that all
goodness is lost, though it may for a time be clouded and overwhelmed;
for most minds are the slaves of external circumstances, and conform to
any hand that undertakes to mould them, roll down any torrent of custom
in which they happen to be caught, or bend to any importunity that bears
hard against them.

It may be particularly observed of women, that they are for the most
part good or bad, as they fall among those who practise vice or virtue;
and that neither education nor reason gives them much security against
the influence of example. Whether it be that they have less courage to
stand against opposition, or that their desire of admiration makes them
sacrifice their principles to the poor pleasure of worthless praise, it
is certain, whatever be the cause, that female goodness seldom keeps its
ground against laughter, flattery, or fashion.

For this reason, every one should consider himself as entrusted, not only
with his own conduct, but with that of others; and as accountable, not
only for the duties which he neglects, or the crimes that he commits, but
for that negligence and irregularity which he may encourage or inculcate.
Every man, in whatever station, has, or endeavours to have, his followers,
admirers, and imitators, and has therefore the influence of his example
to watch with care; he ought to avoid not only crimes, but the appearance
of crimes, and not only to practise virtue, but to applaud, countenance,
and support it. For it is possible that for want of attention, we may
teach others faults from which ourselves are free, or by a cowardly
desertion of a cause which we ourselves approve, may pervert those who
fix their eyes upon us, and having no rule of their own to guide their
course, are easily misled by the aberrations of that example which they
choose for their direction.




No. 71. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 1750.


  _Vivere quod propero pauper, nec inutilis annis;_
  _Da veniam: properat vivere nemo satis._
                                               MART. Lib. ii. Ep. xc. 4.

  True, sir, to live I haste, your pardon give,
  For tell me, who makes haste enough to live?
                                                               F. LEWIS.


Many words and sentences are so frequently heard in the mouths of men,
that a superficial observer is inclined to believe, that they must
contain some primary principle, some great rule of action, which it is
proper always to have present to the attention, and by which the use of
every hour is to be adjusted. Yet, if we consider the conduct of those
sententious philosophers, it will often be found, that they repeat these
aphorisms, merely because they have somewhere heard them, because they
have nothing else to say, or because they think veneration gained by
such appearances of wisdom, but that no ideas are annexed to the words,
and that, according to the old blunder of the followers of Aristotle,
their souls are mere pipes or organs, which transmit sounds, but do not
understand them.

Of this kind is the well-known and well-attested position, that _life is
short_, which may be heard among mankind by an attentive auditor, many
times a day, but which never yet within my reach of observation left
any impression upon the mind; and perhaps, if my readers will turn their
thoughts back upon their old friends, they will find it difficult to call
a single man to remembrance, who appeared to know that life was short
till he was about to lose it.

It is observable that Horace, in his account of the characters of men, as
they are diversified by the various influence of time, remarks, that the
old man is _dilator, spe longus_, given to procrastination, and inclined
to extend his hopes to a great distance. So far are we generally from
thinking what we often say of the shortness of life, that at the time
when it is necessarily shortest, we form projects which we delay to
execute, indulge such expectations as nothing but a long train of events
can gratify, and suffer those passions to gain upon us, which are only
excusable in the prime of life.

These reflections were lately excited in my mind, by an evening's
conversation with my friend Prospero, who, at the age of fifty-five, has
bought an estate, and is now contriving to dispose and cultivate it with
uncommon elegance. His great pleasure is to walk among stately trees,
and lie musing in the heat of noon under their shade; he is therefore
maturely considering how he shall dispose his walks and his groves, and
has at last determined to send for the best plans from Italy, and forbear
planting till the next season.

Thus is life trifled away in preparations to do what never can be done,
if it be left unattempted till all the requisites which imagination can
suggest are gathered together. Where our design terminates only in our
own satisfaction, the mistake is of no great importance; for the pleasure
of expecting enjoyment is often greater than that of obtaining it, and
the completion of almost every wish is found a disappointment; but when
many others are interested in an undertaking, when any design is formed,
in which the improvement or security of mankind is involved, nothing
is more unworthy either of wisdom or benevolence, than to delay it from
time to time, or to forget how much every day that passes over us takes
away from our power, and how soon an idle purpose to do an action, sinks
into a mournful wish that it had once been done.

We are frequently importuned, by the bacchanalian writers, to lay hold on
the present hour, to catch the pleasures within our reach, and remember
that futurity is not at our command.

  [Greek: To rhodon akmazei baion chronon; hên de parelthês,
    Zêtôn heurêseis ou rhodon, alla baton.]

  Soon fades the rose; once past the fragrant hour,
  The loiterer finds a bramble for a flow'r.

But surely these exhortations may, with equal propriety, be applied to
better purposes; it may be at least inculcated that pleasures are more
safely postponed than virtues, and that greater loss is suffered by
missing an opportunity of doing good, than an hour of giddy frolick and
noisy merriment.

When Baxter had lost a thousand pounds, which he had laid up for the
erection of a school, he used frequently to mention the misfortune as
an incitement to be charitable while God gives the power of bestowing,
and considered himself as culpable in some degree for having left a
good action in the hands of chance, and suffered his benevolence to be
defeated for want of quickness and diligence.

It is lamented by Hearne, the learned antiquary of Oxford, that this
general forgetfulness of the fragility of life, has remarkably infected
the students of monuments and records; as their employment consists first
in collecting, and afterwards in arranging or abstracting what libraries
afford them, they ought to amass no more than they can digest; but when
they have undertaken a work, they go on searching and transcribing,
call for new supplies, when they are already overburthened, and at last
leave their work unfinished. _It is_, says he, _the business of a good
antiquary, as of a good man, to have mortality always before him_.

Thus, not only in the slumber of sloth, but in the dissipation of
ill-directed industry, is the shortness of life generally forgotten. As
some men lose their hours in laziness, because they suppose, that there
is time enough for the reparation of neglect; others busy themselves
in providing that no length of life may want employment; and it often
happens, that sluggishness and activity are equally surprised by the
last summons, and perish not more differently from each other, than the
fowl that received the shot in her flight, from her that is killed upon
the bush.

Among the many improvements made by the last centuries in human knowledge,
may be numbered the exact calculations of the value of life; but whatever
may be their use in traffick, they seem very little to have advanced
morality. They have hitherto been rather applied to the acquisition of
money, than of wisdom; the computer refers none of his calculations to
his own tenure, but persists, in contempt of probability, to foretel old
age to himself, and believes that he is marked out to reach the utmost
verge of human existence, and see thousands and ten thousands fall into
the grave.

So deeply is this fallacy rooted in the heart, and so strongly guarded by
hope and fear against the approach of reason, that neither science nor
experience can shake it, and we act as if life were without end, though
we see and confess its uncertainty and shortness.

Divines have, with great strength and ardour, shewn the absurdity of
delaying reformation and repentance; a degree of folly, indeed, which
sets eternity to hazard. It is the same weakness, in proportion to the
importance of the neglect, to transfer any care, which now claims our
attention, to a future time; we subject ourselves to needless dangers
from accidents which early diligence would have obviated, or perplex
our minds by vain precautions, and make provision for the execution of
designs, of which the opportunity once missed never will return.

As he that lives longest lives but a little while, every man may be
certain that he has no time to waste. The duties of life are commensurate
to its duration, and every day brings its task, which if neglected is
doubled on the morrow. But he that has already trifled away those months
and years, in which he should have laboured, must remember that he has
now only a part of that of which the whole is little; and that since the
few moments remaining are to be considered as the last trust of heaven,
not one is to be lost.




No. 72. SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 24, 1750.


  _Omnis Aristippum decuit color, et status, et res,_
  _Tentantem majora, fere præsentibus æquum._
                                              HOR. Lib. i. Ep. xvii. 23.

  Yet Aristippus ev'ry dress became,
  In ev'ry various change of life the same;
  And though he aim'd at things of higher kind,
  Yet to the present held an equal mind.
                                                                FRANCIS.


TO THE RAMBLER.

SIR,

Those who exalt themselves into the chair of instruction, without
inquiring whether any will submit to their authority, have not
sufficiently considered how much of human life passes in little
incidents, cursory conversation, slight business, and casual amusements;
and therefore they have endeavoured only to inculcate the more awful
virtues, without condescending to regard those petty qualities, which
grow important only by their frequency, and which, though they produce
no single acts of heroism, nor astonish us by great events, yet are every
moment exerting their influence upon us, and make the draught of life
sweet or bitter by imperceptible instillations. They operate unseen and
unregarded, as change of air makes us sick or healthy, though we breathe
it without attention, and only know the particles that impregnate it by
their salutary or malignant effects.

You have shewn yourself not ignorant of the value of those subaltern
endowments, yet have hitherto neglected to recommend good-humour to the
world, though a little reflection will shew you that it is the _balm of
being_, the quality to which all that adorns or elevates mankind must owe
its power of pleasing. Without good-humour, learning and bravery can only
confer that superiority which swells the heart of the lion in the desert,
where he roars without reply, and ravages without resistance. Without
good-humour, virtue may awe by its dignity, and amaze by its brightness;
but must always be viewed at a distance, and will scarcely gain a friend
or attract an imitator.

Good-humour may be defined a habit of being pleased; a constant and
perennial softness of manner, easiness of approach, and suavity of
disposition; like that which every man perceives in himself, when the
first transports of new felicity have subsided, and his thoughts are only
kept in motion by a slow succession of soft impulses. Good-humour is a
state between gaiety and unconcern; the act or emanation of a mind at
leisure to regard the gratification of another.

It is imagined by many, that whenever they aspire to please, they are
required to be merry, and to shew the gladness of their souls by flights
of pleasantry, and bursts of laughter. But though these men may be for
a time heard with applause and admiration, they seldom delight us long.
We enjoy them a little, and then retire to easiness and good-humour, as
the eye gazes awhile on eminences glittering with the sun, but soon turns
aching away to verdure and to flowers.

Gaiety is to good-humour as animal perfumes to vegetable fragrance; the
one overpowers weak spirits, and the other recreates and revives them.
Gaiety seldom fails to give some pain; the hearers either strain their
faculties to accompany its towerings, or are left behind in envy and
despair. Good-humour boasts no faculties which every one does not believe
in his own power, and pleases principally by not offending.

It is well known that the most certain way to give any man pleasure, is
to persuade him that you receive pleasure from him, to encourage him to
freedom and confidence, and to avoid any such appearance of superiority
as may overbear and depress him. We see many that by this art only spend
their days in the midst of caresses, invitations, and civilities; and
without any extraordinary qualities or attainments, are the universal
favourites of both sexes, and certainly find a friend in every place.
The darlings of the world will, indeed, be generally found such as excite
neither jealousy nor fear, and are not considered as candidates for
any eminent degree of reputation, but content themselves with common
accomplishments, and endeavour rather to solicit kindness than to raise
esteem; therefore in assemblies and places of resort it seldom fails
to happen, that though at the entrance of some particular person every
face brightens with gladness, and every hand is extended in salutation,
yet if you pursue him beyond the first exchange of civilities, you will
find him of very small importance, and only welcome to the company, as
one by whom all conceive themselves admired, and with whom any one is at
liberty to amuse himself when he can find no other auditor or companion;
as one with whom all are at ease, who will hear a jest without criticism,
and a narrative without contradiction, who laughs with every wit, and
yields to every disputer.

There are many whose vanity always inclines them to associate with those
from whom they have no reason to fear mortification; and there are times
in which the wise and the knowing are willing to receive praise without
the labour of deserving it, in which the most elevated mind is willing
to descend, and the most active to be at rest. All therefore are at
some hour or another fond of companions whom they can entertain upon
easy terms, and who will relieve them from solitude, without condemning
them to vigilance and caution. We are most inclined to love when we have
nothing to fear, and he that encourages us to please ourselves, will not
be long without preference in our affection to those whose learning holds
us at the distance of pupils, or whose wit calls all attention from us,
and leaves us without importance and without regard.

It is remarked by prince Henry, when he sees Falstaff lying on the
ground, that _he could have better spared a better man_. He was well
acquainted with the vices and follies of him whom he lamented, but
while his conviction compelled him to do justice to superior qualities,
his tenderness still broke out at the remembrance of Falstaff, of the
cheerful companion, the loud buffoon, with whom he had passed his time in
all the luxury of idleness, who had gladded him with unenvied merriment,
and whom he could at once enjoy and despise.

You may perhaps think this account of those who are distinguished for
their good-humour, not very consistent with the praises which I have
bestowed upon it. But surely nothing can more evidently shew the value
of this quality, than that it recommends those who are destitute of all
other excellencies, and procures regard to the trifling, friendship to
the worthless, and affection to the dull.

Good-humour is indeed generally degraded by the characters in which
it is found; for, being considered as a cheap and vulgar quality, we
find it often neglected by those that, having excellencies of higher
reputation and brighter splendour, perhaps imagine that they have some
right to gratify themselves at the expense of others, and are to demand
compliance, rather than to practise it. It is by some unfortunate mistake
that almost all those who have any claim to esteem or love, press their
pretensions with too little consideration of others. This mistake, my
own interest, as well as my zeal for general happiness, makes me desirous
to rectify; for I have a friend, who, because he knows his own fidelity
and usefulness, is never willing to sink into a companion: I have a wife
whose beauty first subdued me, and whose wit confirmed her conquest, but
whose beauty now serves no other purpose than to entitle her to tyranny,
and whose wit is only used to justify perverseness.

Surely nothing can be more unreasonable than to lose the will to please,
when we are conscious of the power, or show more cruelty than to chuse
any kind of influence before that of kindness. He that regards the
welfare of others, should make his virtue approachable, that it may be
loved and copied; and he that considers the wants which every man feels,
or will feel, of external assistance, must rather wish to be surrounded
by those that love him, than by those that admire his excellencies, or
solicit his favours; for admiration ceases with novelty, and interest
gains its end and retires. A man whose great qualities want the ornament
of superficial attractions, is like a naked mountain with mines of gold,
which will be frequented only till the treasure is exhausted.

I am, &c.

                                                             PHILOMIDES.




No. 73. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 27, 1750.


  _Stulte, quid o frustra votis puerilibus optas,_
    _Quæ non ulla tulit, fertque, feretque, dies._
                                    OVID, Trist. Lib. iii. El. viii. 11.

  Why thinks the fool with childish hope to see
  What neither is, nor was, nor e'er shall be?
                                                             ELPHINSTON.


TO THE RAMBLER.

SIR,

If you feel any of that compassion which you recommend to others, you will
not disregard a case which I have reason from observation to believe very
common, and which I know by experience to be very miserable. And though
the querulous are seldom received with great ardour of kindness, I hope
to escape the mortification of finding that my lamentations spread the
contagion of impatience, and produce anger rather than tenderness. I
write not merely to vent the swelling of my heart, but to inquire by what
means I may recover my tranquillity; and shall endeavour at brevity in
my narrative, having long known that complaint quickly tires, however
elegant, or however just.

I was born in a remote county, of a family that boasts alliances with the
greatest names in English history, and extends its claims of affinity to
the Tudors and Plantagenets. My ancestors, by little and little, wasted
their patrimony, till my father had not enough left for the support
of a family, without descending to the cultivation of his own grounds,
being condemned to pay three sisters the fortunes allotted them by my
grandfather, who is suspected to have made his will when he was incapable
of adjusting properly the claims of his children, and who, perhaps without
design, enriched his daughters by beggaring his son. My aunts being, at
the death of their father, neither young nor beautiful, nor very eminent
for softness of behaviour, were suffered to live unsolicited, and by
accumulating the interest of their portions grew every day richer and
prouder. My father pleased himself with foreseeing that the possessions
of those ladies must revert at last to the hereditary estate, and that
his family might lose none of its dignity, resolved to keep me untainted
with a lucrative employment; whenever therefore I discovered any
inclination to the improvement of my condition, my mother never failed
to put me in mind of my birth, and charged me to do nothing with which I
might be reproached when I should come to my aunts' estate.

In all the perplexities or vexations which want of money brought upon
us, it was our constant practice to have recourse to futurity. If any
of our neighbours surpassed us in appearance, we went home and contrived
an equipage, with which the death of my aunts was to supply us. If any
purse-proud upstart was deficient in respect, vengeance was referred to
the time in which our estate was to be repaired. We registered every act
of civility and rudeness, inquired the number of dishes at every feast,
and minuted the furniture of every house, that we might, when the hour
of affluence should come, be able to eclipse all their splendour, and
surpass all their magnificence.

Upon plans of elegance and schemes of pleasure the day rose and set,
and the year went round unregarded, while we were busied in laying out
plantations on ground not yet our own, and deliberating whether the
manor-house should be rebuilt or repaired. This was the amusement of
our leisure, and the solace of our exigencies; we met together only to
contrive how our approaching fortune should be enjoyed; for in this our
conversation always ended, on whatever subject it began. We had none of
the collateral interests which diversify the life of others with joys and
hopes, but had turned our whole attention on one event, which we could
neither hasten nor retard, and had no other object of curiosity than the
health or sickness of my aunts, of which we were careful to procure very
exact and early intelligence.

This visionary opulence for a while soothed our imagination, but
afterwards fired our wishes, and exasperated our necessities, and my
father could not always restrain himself from exclaiming, that _no
creature had so many lives as a cat and an old maid_. At last, upon
the recovery of his sister from an ague, which she was supposed to have
caught by sparing fire, he began to lose his stomach, and four months
afterwards sunk into his grave.

My mother, who loved her husband, survived him but a little while, and
left me the sole heir of their lands, their schemes, and their wishes.
As I had not enlarged my conceptions either by books or conversation,
I differed only from my father by the freshness of my cheeks, and the
vigour of my step; and, like him, gave way to no thoughts but of enjoying
the wealth which my aunts were hoarding.

At length the eldest fell ill. I paid the civilities and compliments which
sickness requires with the utmost punctuality. I dreamed every night
of escutcheons and white gloves, and inquired every morning at an early
hour, whether there were any news of my dear aunt. At last a messenger
was sent to inform me that I must come to her without the delay of a
moment. I went and heard her last advice, but opening her will, found
that she had left her fortune to her second sister.

I hung my head; the youngest sister threatened to be married, and every
thing was disappointment and discontent. I was in danger of losing
irreparably one third of my hopes, and was condemned still to wait for
the rest. Of part of my terror I was soon eased; for the youth whom his
relations would have compelled to marry the old lady, after innumerable
stipulations, articles, and settlements, ran away with the daughter of
his father's groom; and my aunt, upon this conviction of the perfidy of
man, resolved never to listen more to amorous addresses.

Ten years longer I dragged the shackles of expectation, without ever
suffering a day to pass, in which I did not compute how much my chance
was improved of being rich to-morrow. At last the second lady died,
after a short illness, which yet was long enough to afford her time for
the disposal of her estate, which she gave to me after the death of her
sister.

I was now relieved from part of my misery; a larger fortune, though not
in my power, was certain and unalienable; nor was there now any danger,
that I might at last be frustrated of my hopes by a fret of dotage,
the flatteries of a chambermaid, the whispers of a tale-bearer, or the
officiousness of a nurse. But my wealth was yet in reversion, my aunt was
to be buried before I could emerge to grandeur and pleasure; and there
were yet, according to my father's observation, nine lives between me
and happiness.

I however lived on, without any clamours of discontent, and comforted
myself with considering, that all are mortal, and they who are
continually decaying must at last be destroyed.

But let no man from this time suffer his felicity to depend on the death
of his aunt. The good gentlewoman was very regular in her hours, and
simple in her diet, and in walking or sitting still, waking or sleeping,
had always in view the preservation of her health. She was subject to
no disorder but hypochondriac dejection; by which, without intention,
she increased my miseries, for whenever the weather was cloudy, she would
take her bed and send me notice that her time was come. I went with all
the haste of eagerness, and sometimes received passionate injunctions
to be kind to her maid, and directions how the last offices should be
performed; but if before my arrival the sun happened to break out, or
the wind to change, I met her at the door, or found her in the garden,
bustling and vigilant, with all the tokens of long life.

Sometimes, however, she fell into distempers, and was thrice given over by
the doctor, yet she found means of slipping through the gripe of death,
and after having tortured me three months at each time with violent
alternations of hope and fear, came out of her chamber without any other
hurt than the loss of flesh, which in a few weeks she recovered by broths
and jellies.

As most have sagacity sufficient to guess at the desires of an heir, it
was the constant practice of those who were hoping at second hand, and
endeavoured to secure my favour against the time when I should be rich,
to pay their court, by informing me that my aunt began to droop, that
she had lately a bad night, that she coughed feebly, and that she could
never climb May-hill; or, at least, that the autumn would carry her off.
Thus was I flattered in the winter with the piercing winds of March, and
in summer, with the fogs of September. But she lived through spring and
fall, and set heat and cold at defiance, till, after near half a century,
I buried her on the fourteenth of last June, aged ninety-three years,
five months, and six days.

For two months after her death I was rich, and was pleased with that
obsequiousness and reverence which wealth instantaneously procures.
But this joy is now past, and I have returned again to my old habit of
wishing. Being accustomed to give the future full power over my mind,
and to start away from the scene before me to some expected enjoyment,
I deliver up myself to the tyranny of every desire which fancy suggests,
and long for a thousand things which I am unable to procure. Money
has much less power than is ascribed to it by those that want it. I had
formed schemes which I cannot execute, I had supposed events which do not
come to pass, and the rest of my life must pass in craving solicitude,
unless you can find some remedy for a mind, corrupted with an inveterate
disease of wishing, and unable to think on any thing but wants, which
reason tells me will never be supplied.

I am, &c.

                                                                CUPIDUS.




No. 74. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 1, 1750.


  _Rixatur de lana sæpe caprina._
                                              HOR. Lib i. Ep. xviii. 15.

  For nought tormented, she for nought torments.
                                                             ELPHINSTON.


Men seldom give pleasure, where they are not pleased themselves; it is
necessary, therefore, to cultivate an habitual alacrity and cheerfulness,
that in whatever state we may be placed by Providence, whether we
are appointed to confer or receive benefits, to implore or to afford
protection, we may secure the love of those with whom we transact. For
though it is generally imagined, that he who grants favours, may spare
any attention to his behaviour, and that usefulness will always procure
friends; yet it has been found, that there is an art of granting requests,
an art very difficult of attainment; that officiousness and liberality
may be so adulterated, as to lose the greater part of their effect; that
compliance may provoke, relief may harass, and liberality distress.

No disease of the mind can more fatally disable it from benevolence, the
chief duty of social beings, than ill-humour or peevishness; for though
it breaks not out in paroxysms of outrage, nor bursts into clamour,
turbulence, and bloodshed, it wears out happiness by slow corrosion,
and small injuries incessantly repeated. It may be considered as the
canker of life, that destroys its vigour, and checks its improvement,
that creeps on with hourly depredations, and taints and vitiates what
it cannot consume.

Peevishness, when it has been so far indulged, as to outrun the motions
of the will, and discover itself without premeditation, is a species of
depravity in the highest degree disgusting and offensive, because no
rectitude of intention, nor softness of address, can ensure a moment's
exemption from affront and indignity. While we are courting the favour
of a peevish man, and exerting ourselves in the most diligent civility,
an unlucky syllable displeases, an unheeded circumstance ruffles and
exasperates; and in the moment when we congratulate ourselves upon having
gained a friend, our endeavours are frustrated at once, and all our
assiduity forgotten, in the casual tumult of some trifling irritation.

This troublesome impatience is sometimes nothing more than the symptom
of some deeper malady. He that is angry without daring to confess his
resentment, or sorrowful without the liberty of telling his grief, is
too frequently inclined to give vent to the fermentations of his mind
at the first passages that are opened, and to let his passions boil over
upon those whom accident throws in his way. A painful and tedious course
of sickness frequently produces such an alarming apprehension of the
least increase of uneasiness, as keeps the soul perpetually on the watch,
such a restless and incessant solicitude, as no care or tenderness can
appease, and can only be pacified by the cure of the distemper, and the
removal of that pain by which it is excited.

Nearly approaching to this weakness, is the captiousness of old age. When
the strength is crushed, the senses dulled, and the common pleasures
of life become insipid by repetition, we are willing to impute our
uneasiness to causes not wholly out of our power, and please ourselves
with fancying that we suffer by neglect, unkindness, or any evil which
admits a remedy, rather than by the decays of nature, which cannot be
prevented or repaired. We therefore revenge our pains upon those on whom
we resolve to charge them; and too often drive mankind away at the time
we have the greatest need of tenderness and assistance.

But though peevishness may sometimes claim our compassion, as the
consequence or concomitant of misery, it is very often found, where
nothing can justify or excuse its admission. It is frequently one of the
attendants on the prosperous, and is employed by insolence in exacting
homage, or by tyranny in harassing subjection. It is the offspring of
idleness or pride; of idleness anxious for trifles; or pride unwilling to
endure the least obstruction of her wishes. Those who have long lived in
solitude indeed naturally contract this unsocial quality, because, having
long had only themselves to please, they do not readily depart from their
own inclinations; their singularities therefore are only blameable, when
they have imprudently or morosely withdrawn themselves from the world;
but there are others, who have, without any necessity, nursed up this
habit in their minds, by making implicit submissiveness the condition of
their favour, and suffering none to approach them, but those who never
speak but to applaud, or move but to obey.

He that gives himself up to his own fancy, and converses with none but
such as he hires to lull him on the down of absolute authority, to
sooth him with obsequiousness, and regale him with flattery, soon grows
too slothful for the labour of contest, too tender for the asperity of
contradiction, and too delicate for the coarseness of truth; a little
opposition offends, a little restraint enrages, and a little difficulty
perplexes him; having been accustomed to see every thing give way to his
humour, he soon forgets his own littleness, and expects to find the world
rolling at his beck, and all mankind employed to accommodate and delight
him.

Tetrica had a large fortune bequeathed to her by an aunt, which made
her very early independent, and placed her in a state of superiority
to all about her. Having no superfluity of understanding, she was soon
intoxicated by the flatteries of her maid, who informed her that ladies,
such as she, had nothing to do but take pleasure their own way; that she
wanted nothing from others, and had therefore no reason to value their
opinion; that money was every thing; and that they who thought themselves
ill-treated, should look for better usage among their equals.

Warm with these generous sentiments, Tetrica came forth into the world,
in which she endeavoured to force respect by haughtiness of mien and
vehemence of language; but having neither birth, beauty, nor wit, in any
uncommon degree, she suffered such mortifications from those who thought
themselves at liberty to return her insults, as reduced her turbulence
to cooler malignity, and taught her to practise her arts of vexation only
where she might hope to tyrannize without resistance. She continued from
her twentieth to her fifty-fifth year to torment all her inferiors with
so much diligence, that she has formed a principle of disapprobation, and
finds in every place something to grate her mind, and disturb her quiet.

If she takes the air, she is offended with the heat or cold, the glare of
the sun, or the gloom of the clouds; if she makes a visit, the room in
which she is to be received is too light, or too dark, or furnished with
something which she cannot see without aversion. Her tea is never of the
right sort; the figures on the China give her disgust. Where there are
children, she hates the gabble of brats; where there are none, she cannot
bear a place without some cheerfulness and rattle. If many servants are
kept in a house, she never fails to tell how lord Lavish was ruined by a
numerous retinue; if few, she relates the story of a miser that made his
company wait on themselves. She quarrelled with one family, because she
had an unpleasant view from their windows; with another, because the
squirrel leaped within two yards of her; and with a third, because she
could not bear the noise of the parrot.

Of milliners and mantua-makers she is the proverbial torment. She compels
them to alter their work, then to unmake it, and contrive it after another
fashion; then changes her mind, and likes it better as it was at first;
then will have a small improvement. Thus she proceeds till no profit can
recompense the vexation; they at last leave the clothes at her house, and
refuse to serve her. Her maid, the only being who can endure her tyranny,
professes to take her own course, and hear her mistress talk. Such is the
consequence of peevishness; it can be borne only when it is despised.

It sometimes happens that too close an attention to minute exactness,
or a too rigorous habit of examining every thing by the standard of
perfection, vitiates the temper, rather than improves the understanding,
and teaches the mind to discern faults with unhappy penetration. It is
incident likewise to men of vigorous imagination to please themselves
too much with futurities, and to fret because those expectations
are disappointed, which should never have been formed. Knowledge and
genius are often enemies to quiet, by suggesting ideas of excellence,
which men and the performances of men cannot attain. But let no man
rashly determine, that his unwillingness to be pleased is a proof
of understanding, unless his superiority appears from less doubtful
evidence; for though peevishness may sometimes justly boast its descent
from learning or from wit, it is much oftener of a base extraction, the
child of vanity and nursling of ignorance.




No. 75. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 4, 1750.


  _Diligitur nemo, nisi cui Fortuna secunda est._
  _Quæ, simul intonuit, proxima quæque fugat._
                                   OVID, Ex Ponto. Lib. ii. Ep. iii. 23.

  When smiling Fortune spreads her golden ray,
  All crowd around to flatter and obey:
  But when she thunders from an angry sky,
  Our friends, our flatterers, our lovers fly.
                                                          Miss A. W.[49]


TO THE RAMBLER.

SIR,

The diligence with which you endeavour to cultivate the knowledge of
nature, manners, and life, will perhaps incline you to pay some regard
to the observations of one who has been taught to know mankind by
unwelcome information, and whose opinions are the result, not of solitary
conjectures, but of practice and experience.

I was born to a large fortune, and bred to the knowledge of those arts
which are supposed to accomplish the mind, and adorn the person of a
woman. To these attainments, which custom and education almost forced
upon me, I added some voluntary acquisitions by the use of books, and
the conversation of that species of men whom the ladies generally mention
with terrour and aversion under the name of scholars, but whom I have
found a harmless and inoffensive order of beings, not so much wiser than
ourselves, but that they may receive as well as communicate knowledge,
and more inclined to degrade their own character by cowardly submission,
than to overbear or oppress us with their learning or their wit.

From these men, however, if they are by kind treatment encouraged to talk,
something may be gained, which, embellished with elegancy, and softened
by modesty, will always add dignity and value to female conversation; and
from my acquaintance with the bookish part of the world I derived many
principles of judgment and maxims of prudence, by which I was enabled
to draw upon myself the general regard in every place of concourse or
pleasure. My opinion was the great rule of approbation, my remarks were
remembered by those who desired the second degree of fame, my mien was
studied, my dress was imitated, my letters were handed from one family
to another, and read by those who copied them as sent to themselves; my
visits were solicited as honours, and multitudes boasted of an intimacy
with Melissa, who had only seen me by accident, and whose familiarity
had never proceeded beyond the exchange of a compliment, or return of
a courtesy.

I shall make no scruple of confessing that I was pleased with this
universal veneration, because I always considered it as paid to my
intrinsick qualities and inseparable merit, and very easily persuaded
myself that fortune had no part in my superiority. When I looked upon my
glass, I saw youth and beauty, with health that might give me reason to
hope their continuance; when I examined my mind, I found some strength
of judgment, and fertility of fancy; and was told that every action was
grace, and that every accent was persuasion.

In this manner my life passed like a continual triumph, amidst
acclamations, and envy, and courtship, and caresses: to please Melissa
was the general ambition, and every stratagem of artful flattery was
practised upon me. To be flattered is grateful, even when we know that
our praises are not believed by those who pronounce them; for they prove,
at least, our power, and show that our favour is valued, since it is
purchased by the meanness of falsehood. But, perhaps, the flatterer is
not often detected, for an honest mind is not apt to suspect, and no one
exerts the power of discernment with much vigour when self-love favours
the deceit.

The number of adorers, and the perpetual distraction of my thoughts by new
schemes of pleasure, prevented me from listening to any of those who crowd
in multitudes to give girls advice, and kept me unmarried and unengaged
to my twenty-seventh year, when, as I was towering in all the pride of
uncontested excellency, with a face yet little impaired, and a mind
hourly improving, the failure of a fund, in which my money was placed,
reduced me to a frugal competency, which allowed little beyond neatness
and independence.

I bore the diminution of my riches without any outrages of sorrow, or
pusillanimity of dejection. Indeed I did not know how much I had lost,
for having always heard and thought more of my wit and beauty, than of
my fortune, it did not suddenly enter my imagination, that Melissa could
sink beneath her established rank, while her form and her mind continued
the same; that she could cease to raise admiration but by ceasing to
deserve it, or feel any stroke but from the hand of time.

It was in my power to have concealed the loss, and to have married,
by continuing the same appearance, with all the credit of my original
fortune; but I was not so far sunk in my own esteem, as to submit to the
baseness of fraud, or to desire any other recommendation than sense and
virtue. I, therefore, dismissed my equipage, sold those ornaments which
were become unsuitable to my new condition, and appeared among those with
whom I used to converse with less glitter, but with equal spirit.

I found myself received at every visit, with sorrow beyond what is
naturally felt for calamities in which we have no part, and was
entertained with condolence and consolation so frequently repeated, that
my friends plainly consulted rather their own gratification, than my
relief. Some from that time refused my acquaintance, and forbore, without
any provocation, to repay my visits; some visited me, but after a longer
interval than usual, and every return was still with more delay; nor
did any of my female acquaintances fail to introduce the mention of my
misfortunes, to compare my present and former condition, to tell me how
much it must trouble me to want the splendour which I became so well, to
look at pleasures which I had formerly enjoyed, and to sink to a level
with those by whom I had been considered as moving in a higher sphere,
and who had hitherto approached me with reverence and submission, which
I was now no longer to expect.

Observations like these, are commonly nothing better than covert insults,
which serve to give vent to the flatulence of pride, but they are now
and then imprudently uttered by honesty and benevolence, and inflict
pain where kindness is intended; I will, therefore, so far maintain my
antiquated claim to politeness, as to venture the establishment of this
rule, that no one ought to remind another of misfortunes of which the
sufferer does not complain, and which there are no means proposed of
alleviating. You have no right to excite thoughts which necessarily give
pain whenever they return, and which perhaps might not have revived but
by absurd and unseasonable compassion.

My endless train of lovers immediately withdrew, without raising any
emotions. The greater part had indeed always professed to court, as it is
termed, upon the square, had inquired my fortune, and offered settlements;
these had undoubtedly a right to retire without censure, since they had
openly treated for money, as necessary to their happiness, and who can
tell how little they wanted any other portion? I have always thought the
clamours of women unreasonable, who imagine themselves injured because
the men who followed them upon the supposition of a greater fortune,
reject them when they are discovered to have less. I have never known
any lady, who did not think wealth a title to some stipulations in her
favour; and surely what is claimed by the possession of money is justly
forfeited by its loss. She that has once demanded a settlement has
allowed the importance of fortune: and when she cannot shew pecuniary
merit, why should she think her cheapener obliged to purchase?

My lovers were not all contented with silent desertion. Some of them
revenged the neglect which they had formerly endured by wanton and
superfluous insults, and endeavoured to mortify me, by paying, in my
presence, those civilities to other ladies, which were once devoted only
to me. But, as it had been my rule to treat men according to the rank
of their intellect, I had never suffered any one to waste his life in
suspense, who could have employed it to better purpose, and had therefore
no enemies but coxcombs, whose resentment and respect were equally below
my consideration.

The only pain which I have felt from degradation, is the loss of that
influence which I had always exerted on the side of virtue, in the
defence of innocence, and the assertion of truth. I now find my opinions
slighted, my sentiments criticised, and my arguments opposed by those
that used to listen to me without reply, and struggle to be first in
expressing their conviction.

The female disputants have wholly thrown off my authority; and if I
endeavour to enforce my reasons by an appeal to the scholars that happen
to be present, the wretches are certain to pay their court by sacrificing
me and my system to a finer gown, and I am every hour insulted with
contradiction by cowards, who could never find till lately that Melissa
was liable to errour.

There are two persons only whom I cannot charge with having changed their
conduct with my change of fortune. One is an old curate that has passed
his life in the duties of his profession, with great reputation for his
knowledge and piety; the other is a lieutenant of dragoons. The parson
made no difficulty in the height of my elevation to check me when I was
pert, and instruct me when I blundered; and if there is any alteration,
he is now more timorous, lest his freedom should be thought rudeness. The
soldier never paid me any particular addresses, but very rigidly observed
all the rules of politeness, which he is now so far from relaxing, that
whenever he serves the tea, he obstinately carries me the first dish, in
defiance of the frowns and whispers of the table,

This, Mr. Rambler, is _to see the world_. It is impossible for those
that have only known affluence and prosperity, to judge of themselves
or others. The rich and the powerful live in a perpetual masquerade, in
which all about them wear borrowed characters; and we only discover in
what estimation we are held, when we can no longer give hopes or fears.

I am, &c.

                                                                MELISSA.

[Footnote 49: Anna Williams, of whom an account is given in the Life of Dr.
Johnson, prefixed to this edition.]




No. 76. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 8, 1750.


  _----Silvis, ubi passim_
  _Palantes error certo de tramite pellit,_
  _Ille sinistrorsum, hic dextrorsum abit; unus utrique_
  _Error, sed variis illudit partibus._
                                              HOR. Lib. ii. Sat iii. 48.

  While mazy error draws mankind astray
  From truth's sure path, each takes his devious way;
  One to the right, one to the left recedes,
  Alike deluded, as each fancy leads.
                                                             ELPHINSTON.


It is easy for every man, whatever be his character with others, to
find reasons for esteeming himself, and therefore censure, contempt,
or conviction of crimes, seldom deprive him of his own favour. Those,
indeed, who can see only external facts, may look upon him with
abhorrence? but when he calls himself to his own tribunal, he finds every
fault, if not absolutely effaced, yet so much palliated by the goodness
of his intention, and the cogency of the motive, that very little
guilt or turpitude remains; and when he takes a survey of the whole
complication of his character, he discovers so many latent excellencies,
so many virtues that want but an opportunity to exert themselves in act,
and so many kind wishes for universal happiness, that he looks on himself
as suffering unjustly under the infamy of single failings, while the
general temper of his mind is unknown or unregarded.

It is natural to mean well, when only abstracted ideas of virtue are
proposed to the mind, and no particular passion turns us aside from
rectitude; and so willing is every man to flatter himself, that the
difference between approving laws, and obeying them, is frequently
forgotten; he that acknowledges the obligations of morality, and pleases
his vanity with enforcing them to others, concludes himself zealous in
the cause of virtue, though he has no longer any regard to her precepts,
than they conform to his own desires; and counts himself among her warmest
lovers, because he praises her beauty, though every rival steals away
his heart.

There are, however, great numbers who have little recourse to the
refinements of speculation, but who yet live at peace with themselves,
by means which require less understanding, or less attention. When
their hearts are burthened with the consciousness of a crime, instead
of seeking for some remedy within themselves, they look round upon the
rest of mankind, to find others tainted with the same guilt: they please
themselves with observing, that they have numbers on their side; and
that, though they are hunted out from the society of good men, they are
not likely to be condemned to solitude.

It may be observed, perhaps without exception, that none are so
industrious to detect wickedness, or so ready to impute it, as they
whose crimes are apparent and confessed. They envy an unblemished
reputation, and what they envy they are busy to destroy; they are
unwilling to suppose themselves meaner and more corrupt than others, and
therefore willingly pull down from their elevations those with whom they
cannot rise to an equality. No man yet was ever wicked without secret
discontent, and according to the different degrees of remaining virtue,
or unextinguished reason, he either endeavours to reform himself, or
corrupt others; either to regain the station which he has quitted, or
prevail on others to imitate his defection.

It has always been considered as an alleviation of misery not to suffer
alone, even when union and society can contribute nothing to resistance
or escape; some comfort of the same kind seems to incite wickedness
to seek associates, though indeed another reason may be given, for as
guilt is propagated the power of reproach is diminished, and among numbers
equally detestable every individual may be sheltered from shame, though
not from conscience.

Another lenitive by which the throbs of the breast are assuaged, is, the
contemplation, not of the same, but of different crimes. He that cannot
justify himself by his resemblance to others, is ready to try some other
expedient, and to inquire what will rise to his advantage from opposition
and dissimilitude. He easily finds some faults in every human being,
which he weighs against his own, and easily makes them preponderate
while he keeps the balance in his own hand, and throws in or takes out
at his pleasure circumstances that make them heavier or lighter. He then
triumphs in his comparative purity, and sets himself at ease, not because
he can refute the charges advanced against him, but because he can
censure his accusers with equal justice, and no longer fears the arrows
of reproach, when he has stored his magazine of malice with weapons
equally sharp and equally envenomed.

This practice, though never just, is yet specious and artful, when the
censure is directed against deviations to the contrary extreme. The man
who is branded with cowardice, may, with some appearance of propriety,
turn all his force of argument against a stupid contempt of life, and
rash precipitation into unnecessary danger. Every recession from temerity
is an approach towards cowardice, and though it be confessed that
bravery, like other virtues, stands between faults on either hand, yet
the place of the middle point may always be disputed; he may therefore
often impose upon careless understandings, by turning the attention
wholly from himself, and keeping it fixed invariably on the opposite
fault; and by shewing how many evils are avoided by his behaviour, he
may conceal for a time those which are incurred.

But vice has not always opportunities or address for such artful
subterfuges; men often extenuate their own guilt, only by vague and
general charges upon others, or endeavour to gain rest to themselves,
by pointing some other prey to the pursuit of censure.

Every whisper of infamy is industriously circulated, every hint of
suspicion eagerly improved, and every failure of conduct joyfully
published, by those whose interest it is, that the eye and voice of the
publick should be employed on any rather than on themselves.

All these artifices, and a thousand others equally vain and equally
despicable, are incited by that conviction of the deformity of
wickedness, from which none can set himself free, and by an absurd
desire to separate the cause from the effects, and to enjoy the profit of
crimes without suffering the shame. Men are willing to try all methods of
reconciling guilt and quiet, and when their understandings are stubborn
and uncomplying, raise their passions against them, and hope to overpower
their own knowledge.

It is generally not so much the desire of men, sunk into depravity, to
deceive the world as themselves, for when no particular circumstances make
them dependant on others, infamy disturbs them little, but as it revives
their remorse, and is echoed to them from their own hearts. The sentence
most dreaded is that of reason and conscience, which they would engage
on their side at any price but the labours of duty, and the sorrows of
repentance. For this purpose every seducement and fallacy is sought, the
hopes still rest upon some new experiment till life is at an end; and
the last hour steals on unperceived, while the faculties are engaged in
resisting reason, and repressing the sense of the Divine disapprobation.




No. 77. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 11, 1750.


  _Os dignum æterno nitidum quod fulgeat auro,_
  _Si mallet laudare Deum, cui sordida monstra_
  _Prætulit, et liquidam temeravit crimine vocem._
                                                                PRUDENT.

  A golden statue such a wit might claim,
  Had God and virtue rais'd the noble flame;
  But ah! how lewd a subject has he sung,
  What vile obscenity profanes his tongue.
                                                               F. LEWIS.


Among those, whose hopes of distinction, or riches, arise from an opinion
of their intellectual attainments, it has been, from age to age, an
established custom to complain of the ingratitude of mankind to their
instructors, and the discouragement which men of genius and study suffer
from avarice and ignorance, from the prevalence of false taste, and the
encroachment of barbarity.

Men are most powerfully affected by those evils which themselves feel, or
which appear before their own eyes; and as there has never been a time of
such general felicity, but that many have failed to obtain the rewards to
which they had, in their own judgment, a just claim, some offended writer
has always declaimed, in the rage of disappointment, against his age or
nation; nor is there one who has not fallen upon times more unfavourable
to learning than any former century, or who does not wish, that he had
been reserved in the insensibility of non-existence to some happier
hour, when literary merit shall no longer be despised, and the gifts and
caresses of mankind shall recompense the toils of study, and add lustre
to the charms of wit.

Many of these clamours are undoubtedly to be considered only as the bursts
of pride never to be satisfied, as the prattle of affectation, mimicking
distresses unfelt, or as the common places of vanity solicitous for
splendour of sentences, and acuteness of remark. Yet it cannot be denied
that frequent discontent must proceed from frequent hardships, and though
it is evident, that not more than one age or people can deserve the
censure of being more averse from learning than any other, yet at all
times knowledge must have encountered impediments, and wit been mortified
with contempt, or harassed with persecution.

It is not necessary, however, to join immediately in the outcry, or to
condemn mankind as pleased with ignorance, or always envious of superior
abilities. The miseries of the learned have been related by themselves,
and since they have not been found exempt from that partiality with which
men look upon their own actions and sufferings, we may conclude that
they have not forgotten to deck their cause with the brightest ornaments,
and strongest colours. The logician collected all his subtilties when
they were to be employed in his own defence; and the master of rhetorick
exerted against his adversary all the arts by which hatred is embittered,
and indignation inflamed.

To believe no man in his own cause, is the standing and perpetual rule
of distributive justice. Since therefore, in the controversy between the
learned and their enemies, we have only the pleas of one party, of the
party more able to delude our understandings, and engage our passions,
we must determine our opinion by facts uncontested, and evidences on each
side allowed to be genuine.

By this procedure, I know not whether the students will find their cause
promoted, or the compassion which they expect much increased. Let their
conduct be impartially surveyed; let them be allowed no longer to direct
attention at their pleasure, by expatiating on their own deserts; let
neither the dignity of knowledge overawe the judgment, nor the graces of
elegance seduce it. It will then, perhaps, be found, that they were not
able to produce claims to kinder treatment, but provoked the calamities
which they suffered, and seldom wanted friends, but when they wanted
virtue.

That few men, celebrated for theoretick wisdom, live with conformity to
their precepts, must be readily confessed; and we cannot wonder that the
indignation of mankind rises with great vehemence against those, who
neglect the duties which they appear to know with so strong conviction the
necessity of performing. Yet since no man has power of acting equal to
that of thinking, I know not whether the speculatist may not sometimes
incur censures too severe, and by those who form ideas of his life from
their knowledge of his books, be considered as worse than others, only
because he was expected to be better.

He, by whose writings the heart is rectified, the appetites counteracted,
and the passions repressed, may be considered as not unprofitable to the
great republick of humanity, even though his behaviour should not always
exemplify his rules. His instructions may diffuse their influence to
regions, in which it will not be inquired, whether the author be _albus
an ater_, good or bad; to times, when all his faults and all his follies
shall be lost in forgetfulness, among things of no concern or importance
to the world; and he may kindle in thousands and ten thousands that flame
which burnt but dimly in himself, through the fumes of passion, or the
damps of cowardice. The vicious moralist may be considered as a taper,
by which we are lighted through the labyrinth of complicated passions:
he extends his radiance further than his heat, and guides all that are
within view, but burns only those who make too near approaches.

Yet since good or harm must be received for the most part from those to
whom we are familiarly known, he whose vices overpower his virtues, in
the compass to which his vices can extend, has no reason to complain that
he meets not with affection or veneration, when those with whom he passes
his life are more corrupted by his practice than enlightened by his
ideas. Admiration begins where acquaintance ceases; and his favourers are
distant, but his enemies at hand.

Yet many have dared to boast of neglected merit, and to challenge their
age for cruelty and folly, of whom it cannot be alledged that they have
endeavoured to increase the wisdom or virtue of their readers. They
have been at once profligate in their lives, and licentious in their
compositions; have not only forsaken the paths of virtue, but attempted
to lure others after them. They have smoothed the road of perdition,
covered with flowers the thorns of guilt, and taught temptation sweeter
notes, softer blandishments, and stronger allurements.

It has been apparently the settled purpose of some writers, whose powers
and acquisitions place them high in the rank of literature, to set
fashion on the side of wickedness; to recommend debauchery and lewdness,
by associating them with qualities most likely to dazzle the discernment,
and attract the affections; and to shew innocence and goodness with such
attendant weaknesses as necessarily expose them to contempt and derision.

Such naturally found intimates among the corrupt, the thoughtless, and the
intemperate; passed their lives amidst the levities of sportive idleness,
or the warm professions of drunken friendship; and fed their hopes with
the promises of wretches, whom their precepts had taught to scoff at
truth. But when fools had laughed away their sprightliness, and the
languors of excess could no longer be relieved, they saw their protectors
hourly drop away, and wondered and stormed to find themselves abandoned.
Whether their companions persisted in wickedness, or returned to virtue,
they were left equally without assistance; for debauchery is selfish and
negligent, and from virtue the virtuous only can expect regard.

It is said by Florus of Catiline, who died in the midst of slaughtered
enemies, that _his death had been illustrious, had it been suffered
for his country_. Of the wits who have languished away life under the
pressures of poverty, or in the restlessness of suspense, caressed and
rejected, flattered and despised, as they were of more or less use to
those who styled themselves their patrons, it might be observed, that
their miseries would enforce compassion, had they been brought upon them
by honesty and religion.

The wickedness of a loose or profane author is more atrocious than that of
the giddy libertine, or drunken ravisher, not only because it extends its
effects wider, as a pestilence that taints the air is more destructive
than poison infused in a draught, but because it is committed with cool
deliberation. By the instantaneous violence of desire, a good man may
sometimes be surprised before reflection can come to his rescue; when
the appetites have strengthened their influence by habit, they are not
easily resisted or suppressed; but for the frigid villainy of studious
lewdness, for the calm malignity of laboured impiety, what apology can
be invented? What punishment can be adequate to the crime of him who
retires to solitudes for the refinement of debauchery; who tortures his
fancy, and ransacks his memory, only that he may leave the world less
virtuous than he found it; that he may intercept the hopes of the rising
generation; and spread snares for the soul with more dexterity?

What were their motives, or what their excuses, is below the dignity of
reason to examine. If having extinguished in themselves the distinction
of right and wrong, they were insensible of the mischief which they
promoted, they deserved to be hunted down by the general compact, as no
longer partaking of social nature; if influenced by the corruption of
patrons, or readers, they sacrificed their own convictions to vanity or
interest, they were to be abhorred with more acrimony than he that murders
for pay; since they committed greater crimes without greater temptations.

_Of him, to whom much is given, much shall be required._ Those, whom God
has favoured with superior faculties, and made eminent for quickness
of intuition, and accuracy of distinctions, will certainly be regarded
as culpable in his eye, for defects and deviations which, in souls
less enlightened, may be guiltless. But, surely, none can think without
horrour on that man's condition, who has been more wicked in proportion
as he had more means of excelling in virtue, and used the light imparted
from heaven only to embellish folly, and shed lustre upon crimes.




No. 78. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 15, 1750.


  _----Mors sola fatetur,_
  _Quantula sint hominum corpuscula._
                                                       JUV. Sat. x. 172.

  Death only this mysterious truth unfolds,
  The mighty soul how small a body holds.
                                                                 DRYDEN.


Corporal sensation is known to depend so much upon novelty, that custom
takes away from many things their power of giving pleasure or pain. Thus
a new dress becomes easy by wearing it, and the palate is reconciled
by degrees to dishes which at first disgusted it. That by long habit
of carrying a burden, we lose, in great part, our sensibility of its
weight, any man may be convinced by putting on for an hour the armour
of our ancestors; for he will scarcely believe that men would have had
much inclination to marches and battles, encumbered and oppressed, as he
will find himself, with the ancient panoply. Yet the heroes that overran
regions, and stormed towns in iron accoutrements, he knows not to have
been bigger, and has no reason to imagine them stronger, than the present
race of men; he therefore must conclude, that their peculiar powers were
conferred only by peculiar habits, and that their familiarity with the
dress of war enabled them to move in it with ease, vigour, and agility.

Yet it seems to be the condition of our present state, that pain should
be more fixed and permanent than pleasure. Uneasiness gives way by slow
degrees, and is long before it quits its possession of the sensory; but
all our gratifications are volatile, vagrant, and easily dissipated.
The fragrance of the jessamine bower is lost after the enjoyment of a
few moments, and the Indian wanders among his native spices without any
sense of their exhalations. It is, indeed, not necessary to shew by many
instances what all mankind confess, by an incessant call for variety, and
restless pursuit of enjoyments, which they value only because unpossessed.

Something similar, or analogous, may be observed in effects produced
immediately upon the mind; nothing can strongly strike or affect us,
but what is rare or sudden. The most important events, when they become
familiar, are no longer considered with wonder or solicitude, and that
which at first filled up our whole attention, and left no place for
any other thought, is soon thrust aside into some remote repository
of the mind, and lies among other lumber of the memory, overlooked and
neglected. Thus far the mind resembles the body, but here the similitude
is at an end.

The manner in which external force acts upon the body is very little
subject to the regulation of the will; no man can at pleasure obtund or
invigorate his senses, prolong the agency of any impulse, or continue
the presence of any image traced upon the eye, or any sound infused
into the ear. But our ideas are more subjected to choice; we can call
them before us, and command their stay, we can facilitate and promote
their recurrence, we can either repress their intrusion, or hasten their
retreat. It is therefore the business of wisdom and virtue, to select
among numberless objects striving for our notice, such as may enable us
to exalt our reason, extend our views, and secure our happiness. But this
choice is to be made with very little regard to rareness or frequency;
for nothing is valuable merely because it is either rare or common, but
because it is adapted to some useful purpose, and enables us to supply
some deficiency of our nature.

Milton has judiciously represented the father of mankind, as seized with
horrour and astonishment at the sight of death, exhibited to him on the
mount of vision. For surely, nothing can so much disturb the passions,
or perplex the intellects of man, as the disruption of his union with
visible nature; a separation from all that has hitherto delighted or
engaged him; a change not only of the place, but the manner of his being;
an entrance into a state not simply which he knows not, but which perhaps
he has not faculties to know; an immediate and perceptible communication
with the supreme Being, and, what is above all distressful and alarming,
the final sentence, and unalterable allotment.

Yet we to whom the shortness of life has given frequent occasions of
contemplating mortality, can, without emotion, see generations of men
pass away, and are at leisure to establish modes of sorrow, and adjust
the ceremonial of death. We can look upon funeral pomp as a common
spectacle in which we have no concern, and turn away from it to trifles
and amusements, without dejection of look, or inquietude of heart.

It is, indeed, apparent, from the constitution of the world, that there
must be a time for other thoughts; and a perpetual meditation upon
the last hour, however it may become the solitude of a monastery, is
inconsistent with many duties of common life. But surely the remembrance
of death ought to predominate in our minds, as an habitual and settled
principle, always operating, though not always perceived; and our
attention should seldom wander so far from our own condition, as not to
be recalled and fixed by sight of an event, which must soon, we know not
how soon, happen likewise to ourselves, and of which, though we cannot
appoint the time, we may secure the consequence.

Every instance of death may justly awaken our fears and quicken our
vigilance; but its frequency so much weakens its effect, that we are
seldom alarmed unless some close connexion is broken, some scheme
frustrated, or some hope defeated. Many therefore seem to pass on from
youth to decrepitude without any reflection on the end of life, because
they are wholly involved within themselves, and look on others only as
inhabitants of the common earth, without any expectation of receiving
good, or intention of bestowing it.

Events, of which we confess the importance, excite little sensibility,
unless they affect us more nearly than as sharers in the common interest
of mankind; that desire which every man feels of being remembered and
lamented, is often mortified when we remark how little concern is caused
by the eternal departure even of those who have passed their lives with
publick honours, and been distinguished by extraordinary performances.
It is not possible to be regarded with tenderness except by a few. That
merit which gives greatness and renown, diffuses its influence to a
wide compass, but acts weakly on every single breast; it is placed at a
distance from common spectators, and shines like one of the remote stars,
of which the light reaches us, but not the heat. The wit, the hero,
the philosopher, whom their tempers or their fortunes have hindered
from intimate relations, die, without any other effect than that of
adding a new topic to the conversation of the day. They impress none
with any fresh conviction of the fragility of our nature, because none
had any particular interest in their lives, or was united to them by a
reciprocation of benefits and endearments.

Thus it often happens, that those who in their lives were applauded and
admired, are laid at last in the ground without the common honour of a
stone; because by those excellencies with which many were delighted, none
had been obliged, and though they had many to celebrate, they had none to
love them.

Custom so far regulates the sentiments, at least of common minds, that
I believe men may be generally observed to grow less tender as they
advance in age. He, who, when life was new, melted at the loss of every
companion, can look in time, without concern, upon the grave into which
his last friend was thrown, and into which himself is ready to fall;
not that he is more willing to die than formerly, but that he is more
familiar to the death of others, and therefore is not alarmed so far
as to consider how much nearer he approaches to his end. But this is to
submit tamely to the tyranny of accident, and to suffer our reason to lie
useless. Every funeral may justly be considered as a summons to prepare
for that state, into which it shews us that we must some time enter; and
the summons is more loud and piercing, as the event of which it warns us
is at less distance. To neglect at any time preparation for death, is to
sleep on our post at a siege; but to omit it in old age, is to sleep at
an attack.

It has always appeared to me one of the most striking passages in the
Visions of Quevedo, which stigmatises those as fools who complain that
they failed of happiness by sudden death. "How," says he, "can death be
sudden to a being who always knew that he must die, and that the time of
his death was uncertain?"

Since business and gaiety are always drawing our attention away from a
future state, some admonition is frequently necessary to recall it to our
minds; and what can more properly renew the impression than the examples
of mortality which every day supplies? The great incentive to virtue is
the reflection that we must die; it will therefore be useful to accustom
ourselves, whenever we see a funeral, to consider how soon we may be
added to the number of those whose probation is past, and whose happiness
or misery shall endure for ever.[50]

[Footnote 50:

  Death in itself is nothing; but we fear
  To be we know not what, we know not where.
                                            Aurung-Zebe, act. iv. sc. 1.

See also Claudio's speech in Shakspeare's "Measure for Measure."]




No. 79. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 18, 1750.


  _Tam sæpe nostrum decipi Fabulinum_
  _Miraris, Aule? Semper bonus homo tiro est._
                                                 MART. Lib. xii. Ep. 51.

  You wonder I've so little wit,
  Friend John, so often to be bit--
  None better guard against a cheat
  Than he who is a knave complete.
                                                               F. LEWIS.


Suspicion, however necessary it may be to our safe passage through ways
beset on all sides by fraud and malice, has been always considered, when
it exceeds the common measures, as a token of depravity and corruption;
and a Greek writer of sentences has laid down as a standing maxim, that
_he who believes not another on his oath, knows himself to be perjured_.

We can form our opinions of that which we know not, only by placing it in
comparison with something that we know; whoever, therefore, is over-run
with suspicion, and detects artifice and stratagem in every proposal,
must either have learned by experience or observation the wickedness of
mankind, and been taught to avoid fraud by having often suffered or seen
treachery, or he must derive his judgment from the consciousness of his
own disposition, and impute to others the same inclinations, which he
feels predominant in himself.

To learn caution by turning our eyes upon life, and observing the arts
by which negligence is surprized, timidity overborne, and credulity
amused, requires either great latitude of converse and long acquaintance
with business, or uncommon activity of vigilance, and acuteness of
penetration. When, therefore, a young man, not distinguished by vigour
of intellect, comes into the world full of scruples and diffidence; makes
a bargain with many provisional limitations; hesitates in his answer to
a common question, lest more should be intended than he can immediately
discover; has a long reach in detecting the projects of his acquaintance;
considers every caress as an act of hypocrisy, and feels neither
gratitude nor affection from the tenderness of his friends, because he
believes no one to have any real tenderness but for himself; whatever
expectations this early sagacity may raise of his future eminence or
riches, I can seldom forbear to consider him as a wretch incapable of
generosity or benevolence; as a villain early completed beyond the need
of common opportunities and gradual temptations.

Upon men of this class instruction and admonition are generally
thrown away, because they consider artifice and deceit as proofs of
understanding; they are misled at the same time by the two great seducers
of the world, vanity and interest, and not only look upon those who act
with openness and confidence, as condemned by their principles to
obscurity and want, but as contemptible for narrowness of comprehension,
shortness of views, and slowness of contrivance.

The world has been long amused with the mention of policy in publick
transactions, and of art in private affairs; they have been considered as
the effects of great qualities, and as unattainable by men of the common
level: yet I have not found many performances either of art or policy,
that required such stupendous efforts of intellect, or might not have
been effected by falsehood and impudence, without the assistance of any
other powers. To profess what he does not mean, to promise what he cannot
perform, to flatter ambition with prospects of promotion, and misery
with hopes of relief, to sooth pride with appearances of submission, and
appease enmity by blandishments and bribes, can surely imply nothing more
or greater than a mind devoted wholly to its own purposes, a face that
cannot blush, and a heart that cannot feel.

These practices are so mean and base, that he who finds in himself no
tendency to use them, cannot easily believe that they are considered by
others with less detestation; he therefore suffers himself to slumber
in false security, and becomes a prey to those who applaud their own
subtilty, because they know how to steal upon his sleep, and exult in
the success which they could never have obtained, had they not attempted
a man better than themselves, who was hindered from obviating their
stratagems, not by folly, but by innocence.

Suspicion is, indeed, a temper so uneasy and restless, that it is very
justly appointed the concomitant of guilt. It is said, that no torture
is equal to the inhibition of sleep long continued; a pain, to which the
state of that man bears a very exact analogy, who dares never give rest
to his vigilance and circumspection, but considers himself as surrounded
by secret foes, and fears to entrust his children, or his friend, with
the secret that throbs in his breast, and the anxieties that break into
his face. To avoid, at this expense, those evils to which easiness and
friendship might have exposed him, is surely to buy safety at too dear
a rate, and, in the language of the Roman satirist, to save life by
losing all for which a wise man would live[51].

When in the diet of the German empire, as Camararius relates, the princes
were once displaying their felicity, and each boasting the advantages
of his own dominions, one who possessed a country not remarkable for the
grandeur of its cities, or the fertility of its soil, rose to speak, and
the rest listened between pity and contempt, till he declared, in honour
of his territories, that he could travel through them without a guard,
and if he was weary, sleep in safety upon the lap of the first man whom
he should meet; a commendation which would have been ill exchanged for
the boast of palaces, pastures, or streams.

Suspicion is not less an enemy to virtue than to happiness; he that is
already corrupt is naturally suspicious, and he that becomes suspicious
will quickly be corrupt. It is too common for us to learn the frauds by
which ourselves have suffered; men who are once persuaded that deceit will
be employed against them, sometimes think the same arts justified by the
necessity of defence. Even they whose virtue is too well established to
give way to example, or be shaken by sophistry, must yet feel their love
of mankind diminished with their esteem, and grow less zealous for the
happiness of those by whom they imagine their own happiness endangered.

Thus we find old age, upon which suspicion has been strongly impressed,
by long intercourse with the world, inflexible and severe, not easily
softened by submission, melted by complaint, or subdued by supplication.
Frequent experience of counterfeited miseries, and dissembled virtue, in
time overcomes that disposition to tenderness and sympathy, which is so
powerful in our younger years; and they that happen to petition the old
for compassion or assistance, are doomed to languish without regard, and
suffer for the crimes of men who have formerly been found undeserving
or ungrateful.

Historians are certainly chargeable with the depravation of mankind,
when they relate without censure those stratagems of war by which the
virtues of an enemy are engaged to his destruction. A ship comes before
a port, weather beaten and shattered, and the crew implore the liberty
of repairing their breaches, supplying themselves with necessaries,
or burying their dead. The humanity of the inhabitants inclines them
to consent; the strangers enter the town with weapons concealed, fall
suddenly upon their benefactors, destroy those that make resistance,
and become masters of the place; they return home rich with plunder,
and their success is recorded to encourage imitation.

But surely war has its laws, and ought to be conducted with some regard to
the universal interest of man. Those may justly be pursued as enemies to
the community of nature, who suffer hostility to vacate the unalterable
laws of right, and pursue their private advantage by means, which, if
once established, must destroy kindness, cut off from every man all hopes
of assistance from another, and fill the world with perpetual suspicion
and implacable malevolence. Whatever is thus gained ought to be restored,
and those who have conquered by such treachery may be justly denied the
protection of their native country.

Whoever commits a fraud is guilty not only of the particular injury to
him whom he deceives, but of the diminution of that confidence which
constitutes not only the ease but the existence of society. He that
suffers by imposture has too often his virtue more impaired than his
fortune. But as it is necessary not to invite robbery by supineness, so
it is our duty not to suppress tenderness by suspicion; it is better to
suffer wrong than to do it, and happier to be sometimes cheated than not
to trust.

[Footnote 51: Propter vitam vivendi perdere causas.]




No. 80. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 22, 1750.


  _Vides, ut alta stet nive candidum_
    _Soracte, nec jam sustineant onus_
  _Silvæ laborantes._
                                                 HOR. Lib. i. Ode ix. 1.

  Behold yon mountain's hoary height
    Made higher with new mounts of snow;
  Again behold the winter's weight
    Oppress the lab'ring woods below.
                                                                 DRYDEN.


As Providence has made the human soul an active being, always impatient
for novelty, and struggling for something yet unenjoyed with unwearied
progression, the world seems to have been eminently adapted to this
disposition of the mind; it is formed to raise expectations by constant
vicissitudes, and to obviate satiety by perpetual change.

Wherever we turn our eyes, we find something to revive our curiosity, and
engage our attention. In the dusk of the morning we watch the rising of
the sun, and see the day diversify the clouds, and open new prospects in
its gradual advance. After a few hours, we see the shades lengthen, and
the light decline, till the sky is resigned to a multitude of shining
orbs different from each other in magnitude and splendour. The earth
varies its appearance as we move upon it; the woods offer their shades,
and the fields their harvests; the hill flatters with an extensive view,
and the valley invites with shelter, fragrance, and flowers.

The poets have numbered among the felicities of the golden age, an
exemption from the change of seasons, and a perpetuity of spring; but I
am not certain that in this state of imaginary happiness they have made
sufficient provision for that insatiable demand of new gratifications,
which seems particularly to characterize the nature of man. Our sense of
delight is in a great measure comparative, and arises at once from the
sensations, which we feel, and those which we remember. Thus ease after
torment is pleasure for a time, and we are very agreeably recreated,
when the body, chilled with the weather, is gradually recovering its
natural tepidity; but the joy ceases when we have forgot the cold: we
must fall below ease again, if we desire to rise above it, and purchase
new felicity by voluntary pain. It is therefore not unlikely, that
however the fancy may be amused with the description of regions in which
no wind is heard but the gentle zephyr, and no scenes are displayed but
valleys enamelled with unfading flowers, and woods waving their perennial
verdure, we should soon grow weary of uniformity, find our thoughts
languish for want of other subjects, call on heaven for our wonted
round of seasons, and think ourselves liberally recompensed for the
inconveniences of summer and winter, by new perceptions of the calmness
and mildness of the intermediate variations.

Every season has its particular power of striking the mind. The nakedness
and asperity of the wintry world always fill the beholder with pensive
and profound astonishment; as the variety of the scene is lessened, its
grandeur is increased; and the mind is swelled at once by the mingled
ideas of the present and the past, of the beauties which have vanished
from the eyes, and the waste and desolation that are now before them.

It is observed by Milton, that he who neglects to visit the country in
spring, and rejects the pleasures that are then in their first bloom
and fragrance, is guilty of _sullenness against nature_. If we allot
different duties to different seasons, he may be charged with equal
disobedience to the voice of nature, who looks on the bleak hills and
leafless woods, without seriousness and awe. Spring is the season of
gaiety, and winter of terrour; in spring the heart of tranquillity dances
to the melody of the groves, and the eye of benevolence sparkles at
the sight of happiness and plenty. In the winter, compassion melts at
universal calamity, and the tear of softness starts at the wailings of
hunger, and the cries of the creation in distress.

Few minds have much inclination to indulge heaviness and sorrow, nor do
I recommend them beyond the degree necessary to maintain in its full
vigour that habitual sympathy and tenderness, which, in a world of so
much misery, is necessary to the ready discharge of our most important
duties. The winter, therefore, is generally celebrated as the proper
season for domestick merriment and gaiety. We are seldom invited by the
votaries of pleasure to look abroad for any other purpose, than that
we may shrink back with more satisfaction to our coverts, and when we
have heard the howl of the tempest, and felt the gripe of the frost,
congratulate each other with more gladness upon a close room, an easy
chair, a large fire, and a smoaking dinner.

Winter brings natural inducements to jollity and conversation. Differences,
we know, are never so effectually laid asleep, as by some common
calamity. An enemy unites all to whom he threatens danger. The rigour
of winter brings generally to the same fire-side, those, who, by the
opposition of inclinations, or difference of employment, move in various
directions through the other parts of the year; and when they have met,
and find it their mutual interest to remain together, they endear each
other by mutual compliances, and often wish for the continuance of the
social season, with all its bleakness, and all its severities.

To the men of study and imagination the winter is generally the chief time
of labour. Gloom and silence produce composure of mind, and concentration
of ideas; and the privation of external pleasure naturally causes an
effort to find entertainment within. This is the time in which those
whom literature enables to find amusements for themselves, have more than
common convictions of their own happiness. When they are condemned by the
elements to retirement, and debarred from most of the diversions which
are called in to assist the flight of time, they can find new subjects of
inquiry, and preserve themselves from that weariness which hangs always
flagging upon the vacant mind.

It cannot indeed be expected of all to be poets and philosophers; it is
necessary that the greater part of mankind should be employed in the
minute business of common life; minute, indeed, not if we consider its
influence upon our happiness, but if we respect the abilities requisite
to conduct it. These must necessarily be more dependant on accident
for the means of spending agreeably those hours which their occupations
leave unengaged, or nature obliges them to allow to relaxation. Yet even
on these I would willingly impress such a sense of the value of time,
as may incline them to find out for their careless hours amusements
of more use and dignity than the common games, which not only weary
the mind without improving it, but strengthen the passions of envy and
avarice, and often lead to fraud and to profusion, to corruption and to
ruin. It is unworthy of a reasonable being to spend any of the little
time allotted us, without some tendency, either direct or oblique, to
the end of our existence. And though every moment cannot be laid out on
the formal and regular improvement of our knowledge, or in the stated
practice of a moral or religious duty, yet none should be so spent as
to exclude wisdom or virtue, or pass without possibility of qualifying
us more or less for the better employment of those which are to come.

It is scarcely possible to pass an hour in honest conversation, without
being able, when we rise from it, to please ourselves with having given
or received some advantages; but a man may shuffle cards, or rattle dice,
from noon to midnight, without tracing any new idea in his mind, or being
able to recollect the day by any other token than his gain or loss, and a
confused remembrance of agitated passions, and clamorous altercations.

However, as experience is of more weight than precept, any of my readers,
who are contriving how to spend the dreary months before them, may
consider which of their past amusements fills them now with the greatest
satisfaction, and resolve to repeat those gratifications of which the
pleasure is most durable.




No. 81. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 25, 1750.


  _Discite Justitiam moniti._
                                                      VIRG. Æn. vi. 620.

  Hear, and be just.


Among questions which have been discussed, without any approach to
decision, may be numbered the precedency or superior excellence of one
virtue to another, which has long furnished a subject of dispute to
men whose leisure sent them out into the intellectual world in search
of employment, and who have, perhaps, been sometimes withheld from
the practice of their favourite duty, by zeal for its advancement, and
diligence in its celebration.

The intricacy of this dispute may be alleged as a proof of that tenderness
for mankind which Providence has, I think, universally displayed, by
making attainments easy in proportion as they are necessary. That all
the duties of morality ought to be practised, is without difficulty
discoverable, because ignorance or uncertainty would immediately involve
the world in confusion and distress; but which duty ought to be most
esteemed, we may continue to debate without inconvenience, so all be
diligently performed as there is opportunity or need; for upon practice,
not upon opinion, depends the happiness of mankind; and controversies,
merely speculative, are of small importance in themselves, however they
may have sometimes heated a disputant, or provoked a faction.

Of the Divine Author of our religion it is impossible to peruse the
evangelical histories, without observing how little he favoured the
vanity of inquisitiveness; how much more rarely he condescended to
satisfy curiosity, than to relieve distress; and how much he desired
that his followers should rather excel in goodness than in knowledge. His
precepts tend immediately to the rectification of the moral principles,
and the direction of daily conduct, without ostentation, without art, at
once irrefragable and plain, such as well-meaning simplicity may readily
conceive, and of which we cannot mistake the meaning, but when we are
afraid to find it.

The measure of justice prescribed to us, in our transactions with others,
is remarkably clear and comprehensive: _Whatsoever ye would that men
should do unto you, even so do unto them_. A law by which every claim
of right may be immediately adjusted as far as the private conscience
requires to be informed; a law, of which every man may find the
exposition in his own breast, and which may always be observed without
any other qualifications than honesty of intention, and purity of will.

Over this law, indeed, some sons of sophistry have been subtle enough
to throw mists, which have darkened their own eyes. To perplex this
universal principle, they have inquired whether a man, conscious to
himself of unreasonable wishes, be bound to gratify them in another. But
surely there needed no long deliberation to conclude, that the desires,
which are to be considered by us as the measure of right, must be such as
we approve, and that we ought to pay no regard to those expectations in
others which we condemn in ourselves, and which, however they may intrude
upon our imagination, we know it our duty to resist and suppress.

One of the most celebrated cases which have been produced as requiring
some skill in the direction of conscience to adapt them to this great
rule, is that of a criminal asking mercy of his judge, who cannot but
know, that if he was in the state of the supplicant, he should desire
that pardon which he now denies. The difficulty of this sophism will
vanish, if we remember that the parties are, in reality, on one side the
criminal, and on the other the community, of which the magistrate is only
the minister, and by which he is intrusted with the publick safety. The
magistrate, therefore, in pardoning a man unworthy of pardon, betrays
the trust with which he is invested, gives away what is not his own, and,
apparently, does to others what he would not that others should do to
him. Even the community, whose right is still greater to arbitrary grants
of mercy, is bound by those laws which regard the great republick of
mankind, and cannot justify such forbearance as may promote wickedness,
and lessen the general confidence and security in which all have an equal
interest, and which all are therefore bound to maintain. For this reason
the state has not a right to erect a general sanctuary for fugitives, or
give protection to such as have forfeited their lives by crimes against
the laws of common morality equally acknowledged by all nations, because
no people can, without infraction of the universal league of social
beings, incite, by prospects of impunity and safety, those practices in
another dominion, which they would themselves punish in their own.

One occasion of uncertainty and hesitation, in those by whom this great
rule has been commented and dilated, is the confusion of what the exacter
casuists are careful to distinguish, _debts of justice_, and _debts
of charity_. The immediate and primary intention of this precept, is
to establish a rule of justice; and I know not whether invention, or
sophistry, can start a single difficulty to retard its application, when
it is thus expressed and explained, _let every man allow the claim of
right in another, which he should think himself entitled to make in the
like circumstances._

The discharge of the _debts of charity_, or duties which we owe to others,
not merely as required by justice, but as dictated by benevolence, admits
in its own nature greater complication of circumstances, and greater
latitude of choice. Justice is indispensably and universally necessary,
and what is necessary must always be limited, uniform, and distinct.
But beneficence, though in general equally enjoined by our religion, and
equally needful to the conciliation of the Divine favour, is yet, for the
most part, with regard to its single acts, elective and voluntary. We may
certainly, without injury to our fellow-beings, allow in the distribution
of kindness something to our affections, and change the measure of our
liberality, according to our opinions and prospects, our hopes and fears.
This rule therefore is not equally determinate and absolute, with respect
to offices of kindness, and acts of liberality, because liberality
and kindness, absolutely determined, would lose their nature; for how
could we be called tender, or charitable, for giving that which we are
positively forbidden to withhold?

Yet, even in adjusting the extent of our beneficence, no other measure
can be taken than this precept affords us, for we can only know what
others suffer for want, by considering how we should be affected in
the same state; nor can we proportion our assistance by any other rule
than that of doing what we should then expect from others. It indeed
generally happens that the giver and receiver differ in their opinions
of generosity; the same partiality to his own interest inclines one to
large expectations, and the other to sparing distributions. Perhaps the
infirmity of human nature will scarcely suffer a man groaning under the
pressure of distress, to judge rightly of the kindness of his friends,
or think they have done enough till his deliverance is completed; not
therefore what we might wish, but what we could demand from others, we
are obliged to grant, since, though we can easily know how much we might
claim, it is impossible to determine what we should hope.

But in all inquiries concerning the practice of voluntary and occasional
virtues, it is safest for minds not oppressed with superstitious fears
to determine against their own inclinations, and secure themselves from
deficiency, by doing more than they believe strictly necessary. For of
this every man may be certain, that, if he were to exchange conditions
with his dependent, he should expect more than, with the utmost exertion
of his ardour, he now will prevail upon himself to perform; and when
reason has no settled rule, and our passions are striving to mislead us,
it is surely the part of a wise man to err on the side of safety.




No. 82. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 29, 1750.


  _Omnia Castor emit, sic fiet ut omnia vendat._
                                                       MART. Ep. xcviii.

  Who buys without discretion, buys to sell.


TO THE RAMBLER.

SIR,

It will not be necessary to solicit your good-will by any formal preface,
when I have informed you, that I have long been known as the most
laborious and zealous virtuoso that the present age has had the honour
of producing, and that inconveniencies have been brought upon me by an
unextinguishable ardour of curiosity, and an unshaken perseverance in the
acquisition of the productions of art and nature.

It was observed, from my entrance into the world, that I had something
uncommon in my disposition, and that there appeared in me very early
tokens of superior genius. I was always an enemy to trifles; the
playthings which my mother bestowed upon me I immediately broke, that
I might discover the method of their structure, and the causes of their
motions; of all the toys with which children are delighted I valued only
my coral, and as soon as I could speak, asked, like Peiresc, innumerable
questions which the maids about me could not resolve. As I grew older
I was more thoughtful and serious, and instead of amusing myself with
puerile diversions, made collections of natural rarities, and never
walked into the fields without bringing home stones of remarkable forms,
or insects of some uncommon species. I never entered an old house, from
which I did not take away the painted glass, and often lamented that
I was not one of that happy generation who demolished the convents and
monasteries, and broke windows by law.

Being thus early possessed by a taste for solid knowledge, I passed my
youth with very little disturbance from passions and appetites; and
having no pleasure in the company of boys and girls, who talked of plays,
politicks, fashions, or love, I carried on my inquiries with incessant
diligence, and had amassed more stones, mosses, and shells, than are to
be found in many celebrated collections, at an age in which the greatest
part of young men are studying under tutors, or endeavouring to recommend
themselves to notice by their dress, their air, and their levities.

When I was two and twenty years old, I became, by the death of my father,
possessed of a small estate in land, with a very large sum of money in
the publick funds, and must confess that I did not much lament him, for
he was a man of mean parts, bent rather upon growing rich than wise.
He once fretted at the expense of only ten shillings, which he happened
to overhear me offering for the sting of a hornet, though it was a
cold moist summer, in which very few hornets had been seen. He often
recommended to me the study of physick, in which, said he, you may at
once gratify your curiosity after natural history, and increase your
fortune by benefiting mankind. I heard him, Mr. Rambler, with pity, and
as there was no prospect of elevating a mind formed to grovel, suffered
him to please himself with hoping that I should some time follow his
advice. For you know that there are men, with whom, when they have once
settled a notion in their head, is to very little purpose to dispute.

Being now left wholly to my own inclinations, I very soon enlarged the
bounds of my curiosity, and contented myself no longer with such rarities
as required only judgment and industry, and when once found might be
had for nothing. I now turned my thoughts to exoticks and antiques, and
became so well known for my generous patronage of ingenious men, that
my levee was crowded with visitants, some to see my museum, and others
to increase its treasures, by selling me whatever they had brought from
other countries.

I had always a contempt for that narrowness of conception, which contents
itself with cultivating some single corner of the field of science; I
took the whole region into my view, and wished it of yet greater extent.
But no man's power can be equal to his will. I was forced to proceed
by slow degrees, and to purchase what chance or kindness happened to
present. I did not, however, proceed without some design, or imitate
the indiscretion of those, who begin a thousand collections, and finish
none. Having been always a lover of geography, I determined to collect the
maps drawn in the rude and barbarous times, before any regular surveys,
or just observations; and have, at a great expense, brought together a
volume, in which, perhaps, not a single country is laid down according
to its true situation, and by which he that desires to know the errours
of the ancient geographers may be amply informed.

But my ruling passion is patriotism: my chief care has been to procure
the products of our own country; and as Alfred received the tribute
of the Welsh in wolves' heads, I allowed my tenants to pay their rents
in butterflies, till I had exhausted the papilionaceous tribe. I then
directed them to the pursuit of other animals, and obtained, by this easy
method, most of the grubs and insects, which land, air, or water, can
supply. I have three species of earth-worms not known to the naturalists,
have discovered a new ephemera, and can show four wasps that were taken
torpid in their winter quarters. I have, from my own ground, the longest
blade of grass upon record, and once accepted, as a half-year's rent for
a field of wheat, an ear containing more grains than had been seen before
upon a single stem.

One of my tenants so much neglected his own interest, as to supply me, in
a whole summer, with only two horse-flies, and those of little more than
the common size; and I was upon the brink of seizing for arrears, when
his good fortune threw a white mole in his way, for which he was not only
forgiven, but rewarded.

These, however, were petty acquisitions, and made at small expense; nor
should I have ventured to rank myself among the virtuosi without better
claims. I have suffered nothing worthy the regard of a wise man to escape
my notice. I have ransacked the old and the new world, and been equally
attentive to past ages and the present. For the illustration of ancient
history, I can show a marble, of which the inscription, though it is not
now legible, appears, from some broken remains of the letters, to have
been Tuscan, and, therefore, probably engraved before the foundation of
Rome. I have two pieces of porphyry found among the ruins of Ephesus,
and three letters broken off by a learned traveller from the monuments
of Persepolis; a piece of stone which paved the Areopagus of Athens,
and a plate without figures or characters, which was found at Corinth,
and which I, therefore, believe to be that metal which was once valued
before gold. I have sand gathered out of the Granicus; a fragment of
Trajan's bridge over the Danube; some of the mortar which cemented the
watercourse of Tarquin; a horseshoe broken on the Flaminian way; and
a turf with five daisies dug from the field of Pharsalia.

I do not wish to raise the envy of unsuccessful collectors, by too pompous
a display of my scientifick wealth, but cannot forbear to observe, that
there are few regions of the globe which are not honoured with some
memorial in my cabinets. The Persian monarchs are said to have boasted
the greatness of their empire, by being served at their tables with drink
from the Ganges and the Danube. I can show one vial, of which the water
was formerly an icicle on the crags of Caucasus, and another that contains
what once was snow on the top of Atlas; in a third is dew brushed from a
banana in the gardens of Ispahan; and, in another, brine that has rolled
in the Pacifick ocean. I flatter myself that I am writing to a man who
will rejoice at the honour which my labours have procured to my country;
and therefore I shall tell you that Britain can, by my care, boast of a
snail that has crawled upon the wall of China; a humming bird which an
American princess wore in her ear; the tooth of an elephant which carried
the queen of Siam; the skin of an ape that was kept in the palace of the
great mogul; a riband that adorned one of the maids of a Turkish sultana;
and a cimeter once wielded by a soldier of Abas the great.

In collecting antiquities of every country, I have been careful to choose
only by intrinsick worth, and real usefulness, without regard to party or
opinions. I have therefore a lock of Cromwell's hair in a box turned from
a piece of the royal oak; and keep in the same drawers, sand scraped from
the coffin of king Richard, and a commission signed by Henry the Seventh.
I have equal veneration for the ruff of Elizabeth and the shoe of Mary of
Scotland; and should lose, with like regret, a tobacco-pipe of Raleigh,
and a stirrup of king James. I have paid the same price for a glove of
Lewis, and a thimble of queen Mary; for a fur cap of the Czar, and a boot
of Charles of Sweden.

You will easily imagine that these accumulations were not made without
some diminution of my fortune, for I was so well known to spare no
cost, that at every sale some bid against me for hire, some for sport,
and some for malice; and if I asked the price of any thing, it was
sufficient to double the demand. For curiosity, trafficking thus with
avarice, the wealth of India had not been enough; and I, by little and
little, transferred all my money from the funds to my closet: here I was
inclined to stop, and live upon my estate in literary leisure, but the
sale of the Harleian collection shook my resolution: I mortgaged my land,
and purchased thirty medals, which I could never find before. I have at
length bought till I can buy no longer, and the cruelty of my creditors
has seized my repository; I am therefore condemned to disperse what the
labour of an age will not re-assemble. I submit to that which cannot be
opposed, and shall, in a short time, declare a sale. I have, while it is
yet in my power, sent you a pebble, picked up by Tavernier on the banks
of the Ganges; for which I desire no other recompense than that you will
recommend my catalogue to the publick.

                                                            QUISQUILIUS.




No. 83. TUESDAY, JANUARY 1, 1751.


  _Nisi utile est, quod facimus, stulta est gloria._
                                          PHÆD. Lib. iii. Fab. xvii. 15.

  All useless science is an empty boast.


The publication of the letter in my last paper has naturally led me to the
consideration of thirst after curiosities, which often draws contempt and
ridicule upon itself, but which is perhaps no otherwise blameable, than
as it wants those circumstantial recommendations which add lustre even to
moral excellencies, and are absolutely necessary to the grace and beauty
of indifferent actions.

Learning confers so much superiority on those who possess it, that they
might probably have escaped all censure had they been able to agree among
themselves; but as envy and competition have divided the republick of
letters into factions, they have neglected the common interest; each has
called in foreign aid, and endeavoured to strengthen his own cause by
the frown of power, the hiss of ignorance, and the clamour of popularity.
They have all engaged in feuds, till by mutual hostilities they
demolished those outworks which veneration had raised for their security,
and exposed themselves to barbarians, by whom every region of science is
equally laid waste.

Between men of different studies and professions, may be observed a
constant reciprocation of reproaches. The collector of shells and stones
derides the folly of him who pastes leaves and flowers upon paper,
pleases himself with colours that are perceptibly fading, and amasses
with care what cannot be preserved. The hunter of insects stands amazed
that any man can waste his short time upon lifeless matter, while many
tribes of animals yet want their history. Every one is inclined not only
to promote his own study, but to exclude all others from regard, and
having heated his imagination with some favourite pursuit, wonders that
the rest of mankind are not seized with the same passion.

There are, indeed, many subjects of study which seem but remotely allied
to useful knowledge, and of little importance to happiness or virtue;
nor is it easy to forbear some sallies of merriment, or expressions
of pity, when we see a man wrinkled with attention, and emaciated with
solicitude, in the investigation of questions, of which, without visible
inconvenience, the world may expire in ignorance. Yet it is dangerous
to discourage well-intended labours, or innocent curiosity; for he who
is employed in searches, which by any deduction of consequences tend
to the benefit of life, is surely laudable, in comparison of those who
spend their time in counteracting happiness, and filling the world with
wrong and danger, confusion and remorse. No man can perform so little
as not to have reason to congratulate himself on his merits, when he
beholds the multitudes that live in total idleness, and have never yet
endeavoured to be useful.

It is impossible to determine the limits of inquiry, or to foresee
what consequences a new discovery may produce. He who suffers not his
faculties to lie torpid, has a chance, whatever be his employment,
of doing good to his fellow creatures. The man that first ranged the
woods in search of medicinal springs, or climbed the mountains for
salutary plants, has undoubtedly merited the gratitude of posterity,
how much soever his frequent miscarriages might excite the scorn of his
contemporaries. If what appears little be universally despised, nothing
greater can be attained, for all that is great was at first little, and
rose to its present bulk by gradual accessions, and accumulated labours.

Those who lay out time or money in assembling matter for contemplation,
are doubtless entitled to some degree of respect, though in a flight of
gaiety it be easy to ridicule their treasure, or in a fit of sullenness
to despise it. A man who thinks only on the particular object before him,
goes not away much illuminated by having enjoyed the privilege of handling
the tooth of a shark, or the paw of a white bear; yet there is nothing
more worthy of admiration to a philosophical eye than the structure of
animals, by which they are qualified to support life in the elements or
climates to which they are appropriated; and of all natural bodies it must
be generally confessed, that they exhibit evidences of infinite wisdom,
bear their testimony to the supreme reason, and excite in the mind new
raptures of gratitude, and new incentives to piety.

To collect the productions of art, and examples of mechanical science or
manual ability, is unquestionably useful, even when the things themselves
are of small importance, because it is always advantageous to know
how far the human powers have proceeded, and how much experience has
found to be within the reach of diligence. Idleness and timidity often
despair without being overcome, and forbear attempts for fear of being
defeated; and we may promote the invigoration of faint endeavours, by
shewing what has been already performed. It may sometimes happen that
the greatest efforts of ingenuity have been exerted in trifles; yet the
same principles and expedients may be applied to more valuable purposes,
and the movements, which put into action machines of no use but to raise
the wonder of ignorance, may be employed to drain fens, or manufacture
metals, to assist the architect, or preserve the sailor.

For the utensils, arms, or dresses of foreign nations, which make the
greatest part of many collections, I have little regard when they are
valued only because they are foreign, and can suggest no improvement of
our own practice. Yet they are not all equally useless, nor can it be
always safely determined which should be rejected or retained; for they
may sometimes unexpectedly contribute to the illustration of history,
and to the knowledge of the natural commodities of the country, or of the
genius and customs of its inhabitants.

Rarities there are of yet a lower rank, which owe their worth merely to
accident, and which can convey no information, nor satisfy any rational
desire. Such are many fragments of antiquity, as urns and pieces of
pavement; and things held in veneration only for having been once the
property of some eminent person, as the armour of King Henry; or for
having been used on some remarkable occasion, as the lantern of Guy
Faux. The loss or preservation of these seems to be a thing indifferent,
nor can I perceive why the possession of them should be coveted. Yet,
perhaps, even this curiosity is implanted by nature; and when I find Tully
confessing of himself, that he could not forbear at Athens to visit the
walks and houses which the old philosophers had frequented or inhabited,
and recollect the reverence which every nation, civil and barbarous,
has paid to the ground where merit has been buried[52], I am afraid to
declare against the general voice of mankind, and am inclined to believe,
that this regard, which we involuntarily pay to the meanest relique of
a man great and illustrious, is intended as an incitement to labour,
and an encouragement to expect the same renown, if it be sought by the
same virtues.

The virtuoso therefore cannot be said to be wholly useless; but perhaps
he may be sometimes culpable for confining himself to business below his
genius, and losing, in petty speculations, those hours by which, if he
had spent them in nobler studies, he might have given new light to the
intellectual world. It is never without grief, that I find a man capable
of ratiocination or invention enlisting himself in this secondary class
of learning; for when he has once discovered a method of gratifying his
desire of eminence by expense rather than by labour, and known the sweets
of a life blest at once with the ease of idleness, and the reputation
of knowledge, he will not easily be brought to undergo again the toil of
thinking, or leave his toys and trinkets for arguments and principles,
arguments which require circumspection and vigilance, and principles
which cannot be obtained but by the drudgery of meditation. He will
gladly shut himself up for ever with his shells and medals, like the
companions of Ulysses, who, having tasted the fruit of Lotos, would not,
even by the hope of seeing their own country, be tempted again to the
dangers of the sea.

  [Greek: All' autou boulonto met andrasi Lôtophagoisi,
  Lôton ereptomenoi menemen nostou te lathesthai.]

                  ------Whoso tastes,
  Insatiate riots in the sweet repasts;
  Nor other home nor other care intends,
  But quits his house, his country, and his friends.
                                                                   POPE.

Collections of this kind are of use to the learned, as heaps of stones
and piles of timber are necessary to the architect. But to dig the quarry
or to search the field, requires not much of any quality beyond stubborn
perseverance; and though genius must often lie unactive without this
humble assistance, yet this can claim little praise, because every man
can afford it.

To mean understandings, it is sufficient honour to be numbered amongst the
lowest labourers of learning; but different abilities must find different
tasks. To hew stone, would have been unworthy of Palladio; and to have
rambled in search of shells and flowers, had but ill suited with the
capacity of Newton.

[Footnote 52: See this sentiment illustrated by a most splendid passage
in Dr. Johnson's "Journey to the Western Islands," when he was on the
Island of Iona.]




No. 84. SATURDAY, JANUARY 5, 1751.


  _Cunarum fueras motor, Charideme, mearum;_
    _Et pueri custos, assiduusque comes._
  _Jam mihi nigrescunt tonsa sudaria barbam,----_
  _Sed tibi non crevi: te noster villicus horret:_
    _Te dispensator, te domus ipsa pavet.----_
  _Corripis, observas, quereris, suspiria ducis;_
    _Et vix a ferulis abstinet ira manum._
                                               MART. Lib. xi. Ep. xxxix.

  You rock'd my cradle, were my guide,
  In youth still tending at my side:
  But now, dear sir, my beard is grown,
  Still I'm a child to thee alone.
  Our steward, butler, cook, and all,
  You fright, nay e'en the very wall;
  You pry, and frown, and growl, and chide,
  And scarce will lay the rod aside.
                                                               F. LEWIS.


TO THE RAMBLER.

SIR,

You seem in all your papers to be an enemy to tyranny, and to look with
impartiality upon the world; I shall therefore lay my case before you,
and hope by your decision to be set free from unreasonable restraints,
and enabled to justify myself against the accusations which spite and
peevishness produce against me.

At the age of five years I lost my mother; and my father, being not
qualified to superintend the education of a girl, committed me to the
care of his sister, who instructed me with the authority, and, not to
deny her what she may justly claim, with the affection of a parent. She
had not very elevated sentiments, or extensive views, but her principles
were good, and her intentions pure; and, though some may practise mere
virtues, scarce any commit fewer faults.

Under this good lady I learned all the common rules of decent behaviour,
and standing maxims of domestick prudence; and might have grown up by
degrees to a country gentlewoman, without any thoughts of ranging beyond
the neighbourhood, had not Flavia come down, last summer, to visit her
relations in the next village. I was taken, of course, to compliment
the stranger, and was, at the first sight, surprised at the unconcern
with which she saw herself gazed at by the company whom she had never
known before; at the carelessness with which she received compliments,
and the readiness with which she returned them. I found she had something
which I perceived myself to want, and could not but wish to be like her,
at once easy and officious, attentive and unembarrassed. I went home,
and for four days could think and talk of nothing but Miss Flavia; though
my aunt told me, that she was a forward slut, and thought herself wise
before her time.

In a little time she repaid my visit, and raised in my heart a new
confusion of love and admiration. I soon saw her again, and still found
new charms in her air, conversation, and behaviour. You, who have perhaps
seen the world, may have observed, that formality soon ceases between
young persons. I know not how others are affected on such occasions, but
I found myself irresistibly allured to friendship and intimacy, by the
familiar complaisance and airy gaiety of Flavia; so that in a few weeks I
became her favourite, and all the time was passed with me, that she could
gain from ceremony and visit.

As she came often to me, she necessarily spent some hours with my aunt,
to whom she paid great respect by low courtesies, submissive compliance,
and soft acquiescence; but as I became gradually more accustomed to
her manners, I discovered that her civility was general; that there
was a certain degree of deference shewn by her to circumstances and
appearances; that many went away flattered by her humility, whom she
despised in her heart; that the influence of far the greatest part
of those with whom she conversed ceased with their presence; and that
sometimes she did not remember the names of them, whom, without any
intentional insincerity or false commendation, her habitual civility had
sent away with very high thoughts of their own importance.

It was not long before I perceived that my aunt's opinion was not of
much weight in Flavia's deliberations, and that she was looked upon
by her as a woman of narrow sentiments, without knowledge of books, or
observations on mankind. I had hitherto considered my aunt as entitled,
by her wisdom and experience, to the highest reverence; and could not
forbear to wonder that any one so much younger should venture to suspect
her of errour, or ignorance; but my surprise was without uneasiness,
and being now accustomed to think Flavia always in the right, I readily
learned from her to trust my own reason, and to believe it possible,
that they who had lived longer might be mistaken.

Flavia had read much, and used so often to converse on subjects of
learning, that she put all the men in the country to flight, except the
old parson, who declared himself much delighted with her company, because
she gave him opportunities to recollect the studies of his younger
years, and, by some mention of ancient story, had made him rub the dust
off his Homer, which had lain unregarded in his closet. With Homer, and
a thousand other names familiar to Flavia, I had no acquaintance, but
began, by comparing her accomplishments with my own, to repine at my
education, and wish that I had not been so long confined to the company
of those from whom nothing but housewifery was to be learned. I then set
myself to peruse such books as Flavia recommended, and heard her opinion
of their beauties and defects. I saw new worlds hourly bursting upon
my mind, and was enraptured at the prospect of diversifying life with
endless entertainment.

The old lady, finding that a large screen, which I had undertaken to adorn
with turkey-work against winter, made very slow advances, and that I
had added in two months but three leaves to a flowered apron then in the
frame, took the alarm, and with all the zeal of honest folly exclaimed
against my new acquaintance, who had filled me with idle notions, and
turned my head with books. But she had now lost her authority, for I
began to find innumerable mistakes in her opinions, and improprieties
in her language; and therefore thought myself no longer bound to pay
much regard to one who knew little beyond her needle and her dairy, and
who professed to think that nothing more is required of a woman than to
see that the house is clean, and that the maids go to bed and rise at a
certain hour.

She seemed however to look upon Flavia as seducing me, and to imagine that
when her influence was withdrawn, I should return to my allegiance; she
therefore contented herself with remote hints, and gentle admonitions,
intermixed with sage histories of the miscarriages of wit, and
disappointments of pride. But since she has found, that though Flavia
is departed, I still persist in my new scheme, she has at length lost
her patience, she snatches my book out of my hand, tears my paper if
she finds me writing, burns Flavia's letters before my face when she can
seize them, and threatens to lock me up, and to complain to my father
of my perverseness. If women, she says, would but know their duty and
their interest, they would be careful to acquaint themselves with family
affairs, and many a penny might be saved; for while the mistress of
the house is scribbling and reading, servants are junketing, and linen
is wearing out. She then takes me round the rooms, shews me the worked
hangings, and chairs of tent-stitch, and asks whether all this was done
with a pen and a book.

I cannot deny that I sometimes laugh and sometimes am sullen; but she has
not delicacy enough to be much moved either with my mirth or my gloom,
if she did not think the interest of the family endangered by this change
of my manners. She had for some years marked out young Mr. Surly, an
heir in the neighbourhood, remarkable for his love of fighting-cocks,
as an advantageous match; and was extremely pleased with the civilities
which he used to pay me, till under Flavia's tuition I learned to
talk of subjects which he could not understand. This, she says, is the
consequence of female study: girls grow too wise to be advised, and too
stubborn to be commanded; but she is resolved to try who shall govern,
and will thwart my humour till she breaks my spirit.

These menaces, Mr. Rambler, sometimes make me quite angry; for I have been
sixteen these ten weeks, and think myself exempted from the dominion of a
governess, who has no pretensions to more sense or knowledge than myself.
I am resolved, since I am as tall and as wise as other women, to be no
longer treated like a girl. Miss Flavia has often told me, that ladies of
my age go to assemblies and routs, without their mothers and their aunts;
I shall therefore, from this time, leave asking advice, and refuse to
give accounts. I wish you would state the time at which young ladies may
judge for themselves, which I am sure you cannot but think ought to begin
before sixteen; if you are inclined to delay it longer, I shall have very
little regard to your opinion.

My aunt often tells me of the advantages of experience, and of the
deference due to seniority; and both she and all the antiquated part
of the world, talk of the unreserved obedience which they paid to the
commands of their parents, and the undoubting confidence with which they
listened to their precepts; of the terrours which they felt at a frown,
and the humility with which they supplicated forgiveness whenever they
had offended. I cannot but fancy that this boast is too general to be
true, and that the young and the old were always at variance. I have,
however, told my aunt, that I will mend whatever she will prove to be
wrong; but she replies that she has reasons of her own, and that she is
sorry to live in an age when girls have the impudence to ask for proofs.

I beg once again, Mr. Rambler, to know whether I am not as wise as my aunt,
and whether, when she presumes to check me as a baby, I may not pluck
up a spirit and return her insolence. I shall not proceed to extremities
without your advice, which is therefore impatiently expected by

                                                               MYRTILLA.

P.S. Remember I am past sixteen.




No. 85. TUESDAY, JANUARY 8, 1751.


  _Otia si tollas, periere Cupidinis arcus,_
    _Contemptæque jacent, et sine luce faces._
                                                         OVID, Rem. 139.

  At busy hearts in vain Love's arrows fly;
  Dim'd, scorn'd, and impotent, his torches lie.


Many writers of eminence in physick have laid out their diligence upon the
consideration of those distempers to which men are exposed by particular
states of life, and very learned treatises have been produced upon the
maladies of the camp, the sea, and the mines. There are, indeed, few
employments which a man accustomed to anatomical inquiries, and medical
refinements, would not find reasons for declining as dangerous to
health, did not his learning or experience inform him, that almost every
occupation, however inconvenient or formidable, is happier and safer than
a life of sloth.

The necessity of action is not only demonstrable from the fabrick of the
body, but evident from observation of the universal practice of mankind,
who, for the preservation of health, in those whose rank or wealth
exempts them from the necessity of lucrative labour, have invented sports
and diversions, though not of equal use to the world with manual trades,
yet of equal fatigue to those who practise them, and differing only
from the drudgery of the husbandman or manufacturer, as they are acts of
choice, and therefore performed without the painful sense of compulsion.
The huntsman rises early, pursues his game through all the dangers and
obstructions of the chace, swims rivers, and scales precipices, till he
returns home no less harassed than the soldier, and has perhaps sometimes
incurred as great hazard of wounds or death; yet he has no motive to
incite his ardour; he is neither subject to the commands of a general,
nor dreads any penalties for neglect and disobedience; he has neither
profit nor honour to expect from his perils and his conquests, but toils
without the hope of mural or civick garlands, and must content himself
with the praise of his tenants and companions.

But such is the constitution of man, that labour may be styled its
own reward; nor will any external incitements be requisite, if it be
considered how much happiness is gained, and how much misery escaped, by
frequent and violent agitation of the body.

Ease is the most that can be hoped from a sedentary and unactive habit;
ease, a neutral state between pain and pleasure. The dance of spirits,
the bound of vigour, readiness of enterprize, and defiance of fatigue,
are reserved for him that braces his nerves, and hardens his fibres, that
keeps his limbs pliant with motion, and by frequent exposure fortifies
his frame against the common accidents of cold and heat.

With ease, however, if it could be secured, many would be content; but
nothing terrestrial can be kept at a stand. Ease, if it is not rising
into pleasure, will be falling towards pain; and whatever hope the dreams
of speculation may suggest of observing the proportion between nutriment
and labour, and keeping the body in a healthy state by supplies exactly
equal to its waste, we know that, in effect, the vital powers unexcited by
motion, grow gradually languid; that, as their vigour fails, obstructions
are generated; and that from obstructions proceed most of those pains
which wear us away slowly with periodical tortures, and which, though
they sometimes suffer life to be long, condemn it to be useless, chain us
down to the couch of misery, and mock us with the hopes of death.

Exercise cannot secure us from that dissolution to which we are decreed;
but while the soul and body continue united, it can make the association
pleasing, and give probable hopes that they shall be disjoined by an easy
separation. It was a principle among the ancients, that acute diseases
are from heaven, and chronical from ourselves: the dart of death indeed
falls from heaven, but we poison it by our own misconduct: to die is the
fate of man, but to die with lingering anguish is generally his folly[53].

It is necessary to that perfection of which our present state is capable,
that the mind and body should both be kept in action; that neither
the faculties of the one nor of the other be suffered to grow lax or
torpid for want of use; that neither health be purchased by voluntary
submission to ignorance, nor knowledge cultivated at the expense of that
health, which must enable it either to give pleasure to its possessor,
or assistance to others. It is too frequently the pride of students
to despise those amusements and recreations, which give to the rest
of mankind strength of limbs and cheerfulness of heart. Solitude and
contemplation are indeed seldom consistent with such skill in common
exercises or sports as is necessary to make them practised with delight,
and no man is willing to do that of which the necessity is not pressing
and immediate, when he knows that his awkwardness must make him ridiculous

  _Ludere qui nescit, campestribus abstinet armis,_
  _Indoctusque pilæ, discive, trochive quiescit,_
  _Ne spissæ risum tollant impune coronæ._
                                                    HOR. Art. Poet. 379.

  He that's unskilful will not toss a ball,
  Nor run, nor wrestle, for he fears the fall;
  He justly fears to meet deserv'd disgrace,
  And that the ring will hiss the baffled ass.
                                                                 CREECH.

Thus the man of learning is often resigned, almost by his own consent, to
languor and pain; and while in the prosecution of his studies he suffers
the weariness of labour, is subject by his course of life to the maladies
of idleness.

It was, perhaps, from the observation of this mischievous omission in
those who are employed about intellectual objects, that Locke has, in his
"System of Education," urged the necessity of a trade to men of all ranks
and professions, that when the mind is weary with its proper task, it
may be relaxed by a slighter attention to some mechanical operation;
and that while the vital functions are resuscitated and awakened by
vigorous motion, the understanding may be restrained from that vagrance
and dissipation by which it relieves itself after a long intenseness of
thought, unless some allurement be presented that may engage application
without anxiety.

There is so little reason for expecting frequent conformity to Locke's
precept, that it is not necessary to inquire whether the practice
of mechanical arts might not give occasion to petty emulation, and
degenerate ambition; and whether, if our divines and physicians were
taught the lathe and the chisel, they would not think more of their
tools than their books; as Nero neglected the care of his empire for his
chariot and his fiddle. It is certainly dangerous to be too much pleased
with little things; but what is there which may not be perverted? Let
us remember how much worse employment might have been found for those
hours, which a manual occupation appears to engross; let us compute the
profit with the loss, and when we reflect how often a genius is allured
from his studies, consider likewise that perhaps by the same attraction
he is sometimes withheld from debauchery, or recalled from malice, from
ambition, from envy, and from lust.

I have always admired the wisdom of those by whom our female education
was instituted, for having contrived, that every woman, of whatever
condition, should be taught some arts of manufacture, by which the
vacuities of recluse and domestick leisure may be filled up. These arts
are more necessary, as the weakness of their sex and the general system
of life debar ladies from any employments which, by diversifying the
circumstances of men, preserve them from being cankered by the rust of
their own thoughts. I know not how much of the virtue and happiness of
the world may be the consequence of this judicious regulation. Perhaps,
the most powerful fancy might be unable to figure the confusion and
slaughter that would be produced by so many piercing eyes and vivid
understandings, turned loose at once upon mankind, with no other business
than to sparkle and intrigue, to perplex and to destroy.

For my part, whenever chance brings within my observation a knot of misses
busy at their needles, I consider myself as in the school of virtue;
and though I have no extraordinary skill in plain work or embroidery,
look upon their operations with as much satisfaction as their governess,
because I regard them as providing a security against the most dangerous
ensnarers of the soul, by enabling themselves to exclude idleness from
their solitary moments, and with idleness her attendant train of passions,
fancies, and chimeras, fears, sorrows, and desires. Ovid and Cervantes
will inform them that love has no power but over those whom he catches
unemployed; and Hector, in the Iliad, when he sees Andromache overwhelmed
with terrours, sends her for consolation to the loom and the distaff.

It is certain that any wild wish or vain imagination never takes such firm
possession of the mind, as when it is found empty and unoccupied. The old
peripatetick principle, that _Nature abhors a vacuum_, may be properly
applied to the intellect, which will embrace any thing, however absurd
or criminal, rather than be wholly without an object. Perhaps every man
may date the predominance of those desires that disturb his life and
contaminate his conscience, from some unhappy hour when too much leisure
exposed him to their incursions; for he has lived with little observation
either on himself or others, who does not know that to be idle is to
be vicious.

[Footnote 53: This passage was once strangely supposed by some readers
to recommend suicide, instead of _exercise_, which is surely the more
obvious meaning. See, however, a letter from Dr. Johnson on the subject,
in Boswell's Life, vol. iv. p. 162.]




No. 86. SATURDAY, JANUARY 12, 1751.


  _Legitimumque sonum digitis callemus et aure._
                                                  HOR. De Ar. Poet. 274.

  By fingers, or by ear, we numbers scan.
                                                             ELPHINSTON.


One of the ancients has observed, that the burthen of government is
increased upon princes by the virtues of their immediate predecessors.
It is, indeed, always dangerous to be placed in a state of unavoidable
comparison with excellence, and the danger is still greater when that
excellence is consecrated by death; when envy and interest cease to act
against it, and those passions by which it was at first vilified and
opposed, now stand in its defence, and turn their vehemence against
honest emulation.

He that succeeds a celebrated writer, has the same difficulties to
encounter; he stands under the shade of exalted merit, and is hindered
from rising to his natural height, by the interception of those beams
which should invigorate and quicken him. He applies to that attention
which is already engaged, and unwilling to be drawn off from certain
satisfaction; or perhaps to an attention already wearied, and not to be
recalled to the same object.

One of the old poets congratulates himself that he had the untrodden
regions of Parnassus before him, and that his garland will be gathered
from plantations which no writer had yet culled. But the imitator treads
a beaten walk, and with all his diligence can only hope to find a few
flowers or branches untouched by his predecessor, the refuse of contempt,
or the omissions of negligence. The Macedonian conqueror, when he was
once invited to hear a man that sung like a nightingale, replied with
contempt, "that he had heard the nightingale herself;" and the same
treatment must every man expect, whose praise is that he imitates another.

Yet, in the midst of these discouraging reflections, I am about to offer
to my reader some observations upon "Paradise Lost," and hope, that,
however I may fall below the illustrious writer who has so long dictated
to the commonwealth of learning, my attempt may not be wholly useless.
There are, in every age, new errours to be rectified, and new prejudices
to be opposed. False taste is always busy to mislead those that are
entering upon the regions of learning; and the traveller, uncertain of
his way, and forsaken by the sun, will be pleased to see a fainter orb
arise on the horizon, that may rescue him from total darkness, though
with weak and borrowed lustre.

Addison, though he has considered this poem under most of the general
topicks of criticism, has barely touched upon the versification; not
probably because he thought the art of numbers unworthy of his notice,
for he knew with what minute attention the ancient criticks considered
the disposition of syllables, and had himself given hopes of some
metrical observations upon the great Roman poet; but being the first who
undertook to display the beauties, and point out the defects of Milton,
he had many objects at once before him, and passed willingly over those
which were most barren of ideas, and required labour, rather than genius.

Yet versification, or the art of modulating his numbers, is indispensably
necessary to a poet. Every other power by which the understanding is
enlightened, or the imagination enchanted, may be exercised in prose. But
the poet has this peculiar superiority, that to all the powers which the
perfection of every other composition can require, he adds the faculty
of joining music with reason, and of acting at once upon the senses
and the passions. I suppose there are few who do not feel themselves
touched by poetical melody, and who will not confess that they are more
or less moved by the same thoughts, as they are conveyed by different
sounds, and more affected by the same words in one order than in another.
The perception of harmony is indeed conferred upon men in degrees very
unequal, but there are none who do not perceive it, or to whom a regular
series of proportionate sounds cannot give delight.

In treating on the versification of Milton, I am desirous to be generally
understood, and shall therefore studiously decline the dialect of
grammarians; though, indeed, it is always difficult, and sometimes
scarcely possible, to deliver the precepts of an art, without the terms
by which the peculiar ideas of that art are expressed, and which had not
been invented but because the language already in use was insufficient.
If, therefore, I shall sometimes seem obscure, it may be imputed to this
voluntary interdiction, and to a desire of avoiding that offence which is
always given by unusual words.

The heroick measure of the English language may be properly considered
as pure or mixed. It is pure when the accent rests upon every second
syllable through the whole line.

  Courage uncertain dangers may abate,
  But whó can beár th' appróach of cértain fáte.
                                                                 DRYDEN.

    Here love his golden shafts employs, here lights
  His cónstant lámp, and wáves his púrple wíngs,
  Reigns here, and revels; not in the bought smile
  Of hárlots, lóveless, jóyless, únendéar'd.
                                                                 MILTON.

The accent may be observed, in the second line of Dryden, and the second
and fourth of Milton, to repose upon every second syllable.

The repetition of this sound or percussion at equal times, is the most
complete harmony of which a single verse is capable, and should therefore
be exactly kept in distichs, and generally in the last line of a
paragraph, that the ear may rest without any sense of imperfection.

But, to preserve the series of sounds untransposed in a long composition,
is not only very difficult, but tiresome and disgusting; for we are soon
wearied with the perpetual recurrence of the same cadence. Necessity
has therefore enforced the mixed measure, in which some variation of the
accents is allowed; this, though it always injures the harmony of the
line, considered by itself, yet compensates the loss by relieving us from
the continual tyranny of the same sound, and makes us more sensible of
the harmony of the pure measure.

Of these mixed numbers every poet affords us innumerable instances, and
Milton seldom has two pure lines together, as will appear if any of his
paragraphs be read with attention merely to the musick.

  Thus at their shady lodge arriv'd, both stood,
  Both turn'd, and under open sky ador'd
  The God that made both sky, air, earth, and heav'n,
  Which they beheld; the moon's resplendent globe,
  _And starry pole: thou also mad'st the night,_
  Maker omnipotent! and thou the day,
  Which we in our appointed work employ'd
  Have finish'd, happy in our mutual help,
  _And mutual love, the crown of all our bliss,_
  Ordain'd by thee; and this delicious place,
  For us too large; where thy abundance wants
  Partakers, and uncrop'd falls to the ground;
  But thou hast promis'd from us two a race
  To fill the earth, who shall with us extol
  Thy goodness infinite, both when we wake,
  And when we seek, as now, thy gift of sleep.

In this passage it will be at first observed, that all the lines are not
equally harmonious, and upon a nearer examination it will be found that
only the fifth and ninth lines are regular, and the rest are more or less
licentious with respect to the accent. In some the accent is equally upon
two syllables together, and in both strong. As

  Thus at their shady lodge arriv'd, _both stood_,
  _Both turned_, and under open sky ador'd
  The God that made both sky, _air_, _earth_, and heav'n.

In others the accent is equally upon two syllables, but upon both weak.

  --------------------------A race
  To fill the earth, who shall with us extol
  Thy goodness _infinite_, both when we wake,
  _And when_ we seek, as now, thy gift of sleep.

In the first pair of syllables the accent may deviate from the rigour
of exactness, without any unpleasing diminution of harmony, as may be
observed in the lines already cited, and more remarkably in this,

  ------------Thou also mad'st the night,
  _Maker_ omnipotent! and thou the day,

But, excepting in the first pair of syllables, which may be considered as
arbitrary, a poet who, not having the invention or knowledge of Milton,
has more need to allure his audience by musical cadences, should seldom
suffer more than one aberration from the rule in any single verse.

There are two lines in this passage more remarkably unharmonious:

  ------------This delicious place,
  For us too large; _where thy_ abundance wants
  Partakers, and uncrop'd _falls_ to the ground,

Here the third pair of syllables in the first, and fourth pair in the
second verse, have their accents retrograde or inverted; the first
syllable being strong or acute, and the second weak. The detriment
which the measure suffers by this inversion of the accents is sometimes
less perceptible, when the verses are carried one into another, but is
remarkably striking in this place, where the vicious verse concludes
a period, and is yet more offensive in rhyme, when we regularly attend
to the flow of every single line. This will appear by reading a couplet
in which Cowley, an author not sufficiently studious of harmony, has
committed the same fault.

  ----------------His harmless life
  Does with substantial blessedness abound,
  And the soft wings of peace _cover_ him round.

In these the law of metre is very grossly violated by mingling
combinations of sound directly opposite to each other, as Milton
expresses in his sonnet, by _committing short and long_, and setting
one part of the measure at variance with the rest. The ancients, who had
a language more capable of variety than ours, had two kinds of verse,
the Iambick, consisting of short and long syllables alternately, from
which our heroick measure is derived, and Trochaick, consisting in a
like alternation of long and short. These were considered as opposites,
and conveyed the contrary images of speed and slowness; to confound
them, therefore, as in these lines, is to deviate from the established
practice. But where the senses are to judge, authority is not necessary,
the ear is sufficient to detect dissonance, nor should I have sought
auxiliaries on such an occasion against any name but that of Milton.




No. 87. TUESDAY, JANUARY 15, 1751.


  _Invidus, iracundus, iners, vinosus, amator,_
  _Nemo adeo ferus est, ut non mitescere possit,_
  _Si modo culturæ patientem commodet aurem._
                                                 HOR. Lib. i. Ep. i. 38.

  The slave to envy, anger, wine, or love,
  The wretch of sloth, its excellence shall prove;
  Fierceness itself shall hear its rage away.
  When list'ning calmly to th' instructive lay.
                                                                FRANCIS.


That few things are so liberally bestowed, or squandered with so little
effect, as good advice, has been generally observed; and many sage
positions have been advanced concerning the reasons of this complaint,
and the means of removing it. It is indeed an important and noble
inquiry, for little would be wanting to the happiness of life, if every
man could conform to the right as soon as he was shewn it.

This perverse neglect of the most salutary precepts, and stubborn
resistance of the most pathetick persuasion, is usually imputed to him
by whom the counsel is received, and we often hear it mentioned as a sign
of hopeless depravity, that though good advice was given, it has wrought
no reformation.

Others, who imagine themselves to have quicker sagacity and deeper
penetration, have found out that the inefficacy of advice is usually the
fault of the counsellor, and rules have been laid down, by which this
important duty may be successfully performed. We are directed by what
tokens to discover the favourable moment at which the heart is disposed
for the operation of truth and reason, with what address to administer,
and with what vehicles to disguise _the catharticks of the soul_.

But, notwithstanding this specious expedient, we find the world yet in the
same state: advice is still given, but still received with disgust; nor
has it appeared that the bitterness of the medicine has been yet abated,
or its powers increased, by any methods of preparing it.

If we consider the manner in which those who assume the office of
directing the conduct of others execute their undertaking, it will not
be very wonderful that their labours, however zealous or affectionate, are
frequently useless. For what is the advice that is commonly given? A few
general maxims, enforced with vehemence, and inculcated with importunity,
but failing for want of particular reference and immediate application.

It is not often that any man can have so much knowledge of another, as
is necessary to make instruction useful. We are sometimes not ourselves
conscious of the original motives of our actions, and when we know them,
our first care is to hide them from the sight of others, and often from
those most diligently, whose superiority either of power or understanding
may entitle them to inspect our lives; it is therefore very probable that
he who endeavours the cure of our intellectual maladies, mistakes their
cause; and that his prescriptions avail nothing, because he knows not
which of the passions or desires is vitiated.

Advice, as it always gives a temporary appearance of superiority, can
never be very grateful, even when it is most necessary or most judicious.
But for the same reason every one is eager to instruct his neighbours.
To be wise or to be virtuous, is to buy dignity and importance at a high
price; but when nothing is necessary to elevation but detection of the
follies or the faults of others, no man is so insensible to the voice of
fame as to linger on the ground.

  _--Tentanda via est, qua me quoque possim_
  _Tollere humo, victorque virûm volitare per ora._
                                                     VIRG. Geor. iii. 8.

  New ways I must attempt, my groveling name
  To raise aloft, and wing my flight to fame.
                                                                 DRYDEN.

Vanity is so frequently the apparent motive of advice, that we, for the
most part, summon our powers to oppose it without any very accurate
inquiry whether it is right. It is sufficient that another is growing
great in his own eyes at our expense, and assumes authority over
us without our permission; for many would contentedly suffer the
consequences of their own mistakes, rather than the insolence of him who
triumphs as their deliverer.

It is, indeed, seldom found that any advantages are enjoyed with that
moderation which the uncertainty of all human good so powerfully
enforces; and therefore the adviser may justly suspect, that he
has inflamed the opposition which he laments by arrogance and
superciliousness. He may suspect, but needs not hastily to condemn
himself, for he can rarely be certain that the softest language or most
humble diffidence would have escaped resentment; since scarcely any
degree of circumspection can prevent or obviate the rage with which the
slothful, the impotent, and the unsuccessful, vent their discontent upon
those that excel them. Modesty itself, if it is praised, will be envied;
and there are minds so impatient of inferiority, that their gratitude is
a species of revenge, and they return benefits, not because recompense is
a pleasure, but because obligation is a pain.

The number of those whom the love of themselves has thus far corrupted,
is perhaps not great; but there are few so free from vanity, as not to
dictate to those who will hear their instructions with a visible sense
of their own beneficence; and few to whom it is not unpleasing to receive
documents, however tenderly and cautiously delivered, or who are not
willing to raise themselves from pupillage, by disputing the propositions
of their teacher.

It was the maxim, I think, of Alphonsus of Arragon, that _dead counsellors
are safest_. The grave puts an end to flattery and artifice, and the
information that we receive from books is pure from interest, fear,
or ambition. Dead counsellors are likewise most instructive; because
they are heard with patience and with reverence. We are not unwilling
to believe that man wiser than ourselves, from whose abilities we may
receive advantage, without any danger of rivalry or opposition, and
who affords us the light of his experience, without hurting our eyes
by flashes of insolence.

By the consultation of books, whether of dead or living authors, many
temptations to petulance and opposition, which occur in oral conferences,
are avoided. An author cannot obtrude his service unasked, nor can be
often suspected of any malignant intention to insult his readers with his
knowledge or his wit. Yet so prevalent is the habit of comparing ourselves
with others, while they remain within the reach of our passions, that
books are seldom read with complete impartiality, but by those from
whom the writer is placed at such a distance that his life or death
is indifferent.

We see that volumes may be perused, and perused with attention, to little
effect; and that maxims of prudence, or principles of virtue, may be
treasured in the memory without influencing the conduct. Of the numbers
that pass their lives among books, very few read to be made wiser or
better, apply any general reproof of vice to themselves, or try their own
manners by axioms of justice. They purpose either to consume those hours
for which they can find no other amusement, to gain or preserve that
respect which learning has always obtained; or to gratify their curiosity
with knowledge, which, like treasures buried and forgotten, is of no use
to others or themselves.

"The preacher (says a French author) may spend an hour in explaining and
enforcing a precept of religion, without feeling any impression from his
own performance, because he may have no further design than to fill up
his hour." A student may easily exhaust his life in comparing divines and
moralists, without any practical regard to morality or religion; he may
be learning not to live, but to reason; he may regard only the elegance
of style, justness of argument, and accuracy of method; and may enable
himself to criticise with judgment, and dispute with subtilty, while the
chief use of his volumes is unthought of, his mind is unaffected, and his
life is unreformed.

But though truth and virtue are thus frequently defeated by pride,
obstinacy, or folly, we are not allowed to desert them; for whoever can
furnish arms which they hitherto have not employed, may enable them to
gain some hearts which would have resisted any other method of attack.
Every man of genius has some arts of fixing the attention peculiar to
himself, by which, honestly exerted, he may benefit mankind; for the
arguments for purity of life fail of their due influence, not because
they have been considered and confuted, but because they have been
passed over without consideration. To the position of Tully, that if
Virtue could be seen, she must be loved, may be added, that if Truth
could be heard, she must be obeyed.




No. 88. SATURDAY, JANUARY 19, 1751.


  _Cum tabulis animum censoris sumet honesti:_
  _Audebit, quæcunque parum splendoris habebunt,_
  _Et sine pondere erunt, et honore indigna ferentur,_
  _Verba movere loco, quamvis invita recedant,_
  _Et versentur adhuc intra penetralia Vestæ._
                                              HOR. Lib. ii. Ep. ii. 110.

  But he that hath a curious piece designed,
  When he begins must take a censor's mind.
  Severe and honest; and what words appear
  Too light and trivial, or too weak to bear
  The weighty sense, nor worth the reader's care,
  Shake off; though stubborn, they are loth to move,
  And though we fancy, dearly though we love.
                                                                 CREECH.


"There is no reputation for genius," says Quintilian, "to be gained by
writing on things, which, however necessary, have little splendour or
shew. The height of a building attracts the eye, but the foundations lie
without regard. Yet since there is not any way to the top of science,
but from the lowest parts, I shall think nothing unconnected with the
art of oratory, which he that wants cannot be an orator."

Confirmed and animated by this illustrious precedent, I shall continue my
inquiries into Milton's art of versification. Since, however minute the
employment may appear, of analysing lines into syllables, and whatever
ridicule may be incurred by a solemn deliberation upon accents and pauses,
it is certain that without this petty knowledge no man can be a poet;
and that from the proper disposition of single sounds results that
harmony that adds force to reason, and gives grace to sublimity; that
shackles attention, and governs passions.

That verse may be melodious and pleasing, it is necessary, not only that
the words be so ranged as that the accent may fall on its proper place,
but that the syllables themselves be so chosen as to flow smoothly into
one another. This is to be effected by a proportionate mixture of vowels
and consonants, and, by tempering the mute consonants with liquids and
semivowels. The Hebrew grammarians have observed, that it is impossible
to pronounce two consonants without the intervention of a vowel, or
without some emission of the breath between one and the other; this is
longer and more perceptible, as the sounds of the consonants are less
harmonically conjoined, and, by consequence, the flow of the verse is
longer interrupted.

It is pronounced by Dryden, that a line of monosyllables is almost always
harsh. This, with regard to our language, is evidently true, not because
monosyllables cannot compose harmony, but because our monosyllables,
being of Teutonick original, or formed by contraction, commonly begin and
end with consonants, as,

  --------Every lower faculty
  _Of sense, whereby they hear, see, smell, touch, taste._

The difference of harmony arising principally from the collocation of
vowels and consonants, will be sufficiently conceived by attending to the
following passages:

  Immortal _Amarant_----there grows
  And flow'rs aloft, shading the fount of life,
  And where the river of bliss through midst of heav'n
  _Rolls o'er Elysian flow'rs her amber stream;_
  With these that never fade, the spirits elect
  _Bind their resplendent locks inwreath'd with beams._

The same comparison that I propose to be made between the fourth and
sixth verses of this passage, may be repeated between the last lines of
the following quotations:

                  --------Under foot the violet,
  Crocus, and hyacinth, with rich in-lay
  _Broider'd the ground, more colour'd than with stone_
  Of costliest emblem.

                  --------Here in close recess,
  With flowers, garlands, and sweet-smelling herbs,
  Espoused Eve first deck'd her nuptial bed;
  _And heav'nly choirs the hymenean sung._

Milton, whose ear had been accustomed, not only to the musick of the
ancient tongues, which, however vitiated by our pronunciation, excel
all that are now in use, but to the softness of the Italian, the most
mellifluous of all modern poetry, seems fully convinced of the unfitness
of our language for smooth versification, and is therefore pleased with
an opportunity of calling in a softer word to his assistance; for this
reason, and I believe for this only, he sometimes indulges himself in a
long series of proper names, and introduces them where they add little
but musick to his poem.

  --------The richer seat
  Of _Atabalipa_, and yet unspoil'd
  _Guiana_, whose great city _Gerion's_ sons
  Call _El Dorado_.----

    The moon----The _Tuscan_ artist views
  At evening, from the top of _Fesole_
  Or in _Valdarno_, to descry new lands.--

He has indeed been more attentive to his syllables than to his accents,
and does not often offend by collisions of consonants, or openings of
vowels upon each other, at least not more often than other writers who
have had less important or complicated subjects to take off their care
from the cadence of their lines.

The great peculiarity of Milton's versification compared with that
of later poets, is the elision of one vowel before another, or the
suppression of the last syllable of a word ending with a vowel, when
a vowel begins the following word. As

                      --------Knowledge
  Oppresses else with surfeit, and soon turns
  Wisdom to folly, as nourishment to wind.

This licence, though now disused in English poetry, was practised by
our old writers, and is allowed in many other languages ancient and
modern, and therefore the criticks on "Paradise Lost" have, without much
deliberation, commended Milton for continuing it[54]. But one language
cannot communicate its rules to another. We have already tried and
rejected the hexameter of the ancients, the double close of the Italians,
and the alexandrine of the French; and the elision of vowels, however
graceful it may seem to other nations, may be very unsuitable to the
genius of the English tongue.

There is reason to believe that we have negligently lost part of our
vowels, and that the silent _e_ which our ancestors added to most of our
monosyllables, was once vocal. By this detruncation of our syllables, our
language is overstocked with consonants, and it is more necessary to add
vowels to the beginning of words, than to cut them off from the end.

Milton therefore seems to have somewhat mistaken the nature of our
language, of which the chief defect is ruggedness and asperity, and has
left our harsh cadences yet harsher. But his elisions are not all equally
to be censured; in some syllables they may be allowed, and perhaps in
a few may be safely imitated. The abscission of a vowel is undoubtedly
vicious when it is strongly sounded, and makes, with its associate
consonant, a full and audible syllable.

                  --------What he gives,
  Spiritual, may to purest spirits be found,
  _No_ ingrateful food, and food alike these pure
  Intelligential substances require.

    Fruits,----Hesperian fables true,
  If true, here _only_, and of delicious taste.

  ----Evening now approach'd,
  For we have _also_ our evening and our morn.

    Of guests he makes them slaves,
  Inhospita_bly_, and kills their infant males.

    And vital Vir_tue_ infus'd, and vital warmth
  Throughout the fluid mass.----

    God made _thee_ of choice his own, and of his own
  To serve him.

I believe every reader will agree, that in all those passages, though not
equally in all, the musick is injured, and in some the meaning obscured.
There are other lines in which the vowel is cut off, but it is so faintly
pronounced in common speech, that the loss of it in poetry is scarcely
perceived; and therefore such compliance with the measure may be allowed.

                  --------Nature breeds
  Perverse, all monstrous, all prodigious things,
  Abomina_ble_, inuttera_ble_; and worse
  Than fables yet have feigned.----

                  --------From the shore
  They view'd the vast immensura_ble_ abyss.
  Impenetra_ble_, impal'd with circling fire.
  To none communica_ble_ in earth or heav'n.

Yet even these contractions increase the roughness of a language too rough
already; and though in long poems they may be sometimes suffered, it
never can be faulty to forbear them.

Milton frequently uses in his poems the hypermetrical or redundant line of
eleven syllables.

          --------Thus it shall befall
  Him who to worth in woman over-trust_ing_
  Lets her will rule.----
  I also err'd in over much admir_ing_.

Verses of this kind occur almost in every page; but though they are not
unpleasing or dissonant, they ought not to be admitted into heroick
poetry, since the narrow limits of our language allow us no other
distinction of epick and tragick measures, than is afforded by the
liberty of changing at will the terminations of the dramatick lines, and
bringing them by that relaxation of metrical rigour nearer to prose.

[Footnote 54: _Variation_. "This licence, though an innovation in English
poetry, is yet allowed in many other languages ancient and modern; and
therefore the criticks on Paradise Lost have, without much deliberation,
commended Milton for introducing it." _First folio edition._]




No. 89. TUESDAY, JANUARY 22, 1751.


  _Dulce est desipere in loco._
                                              HOR. Lib. iv. Od. xii. 28.

  Wisdom at proper times is well forgot.


Locke, whom there is no reason to suspect of being a favourer of idleness
or libertinism, has advanced, that whoever hopes to employ any part of his
time with efficacy and vigour, must allow some of it to pass in trifles.
It is beyond the powers of humanity to spend a whole life in profound
study and intense meditation, and the most rigorous exacters of industry
and seriousness have appointed hours for relaxation and amusement.

It is certain, that, with or without our consent, many of the few moments
allotted us will slide imperceptibly away, and that the mind will break,
from confinement to its stated task, into sudden excursions. Severe and
connected attention is preserved but for a short time; and when a man
shuts himself up in his closet, and bends his thoughts to the discussion
of any abstruse question, he will find his faculties continually
stealing away to more pleasing entertainments. He often perceives himself
transported, he knows not how, to distant tracts of thought, and returns
to his first object as from a dream, without knowing when he forsook it,
or how long he has been abstracted from it.

It has been observed that the most studious are not always the most
learned. There is, indeed, no great difficulty in discovering that this
difference of proficiency may arise from the difference of intellectual
powers, of the choice of books, or the convenience of information. But I
believe it likewise frequently happens that the most recluse are not the
most vigorous prosecutors of study. Many impose upon the world, and many
upon themselves, by an appearance of severe and exemplary diligence, when
they, in reality, give themselves up to the luxury of fancy, please their
minds with regulating the past, or planning the future; place themselves
at will in varied situations of happiness, and slumber away their days
in voluntary visions. In the journey of life some are left behind,
because they are naturally feeble and slow; some because they miss the
way, and many because they leave it by choice, and instead of pressing
onward with a steady pace, delight themselves with momentary deviations,
turn aside to pluck every flower, and repose in every shade.

There is nothing more fatal to a man whose business is to think, than to
have learned the art of regaling his mind with those airy gratifications.
Other vices or follies are restrained by fear, reformed by admonition,
or rejected by the conviction which the comparison of our conduct with
that of others may in time produce. But this invisible riot of the mind,
this secret prodigality of being, is secure from detection, and fearless
of reproach. The dreamer retires to his apartments, shuts out the cares
and interruptions of mankind, and abandons himself to his own fancy; new
worlds rise up before him, one image is followed by another, and a long
succession of delights dances round him. He is at last called back to
life by nature, or by custom, and enters peevish into society, because he
cannot model it to his own will. He returns from his idle excursions with
the asperity, though not with the knowledge of a student, and hastens
again to the same felicity with the eagerness of a man bent upon the
advancement of some favourite science. The infatuation strengthens by
degrees, and like the poison of opiates, weakens his powers, without any
external symptoms of malignity.

It happens, indeed, that these hypocrites of learning are in time
detected, and convinced by disgrace and disappointment of the difference
between the labour of thought, and the sport of musing. But this
discovery is often not made till it is too late to recover the time that
has been fooled away. A thousand accidents may, indeed, awaken drones
to a more early sense of their danger and their shame. But they who are
convinced of the necessity of breaking from this habitual drowsiness, too
often relapse in spite of their resolution; for these ideal seducers are
always near, and neither any particularity of time nor place is necessary
to their influence; they invade the soul without warning, and have often
charmed down resistance before their approach is perceived or suspected.

This captivity, however, it is necessary for every man to break, who
has any desire to be wise or useful, to pass his life with the esteem
of others, or to look back with satisfaction from his old age upon his
earlier years. In order to regain liberty, he must find the means of
flying from himself; he must, in opposition to the Stoick precept, teach
his desires to fix upon external things; he must adopt the joys and the
pains of others, and excite in his mind the want of social pleasures and
amicable communication.

It is, perhaps, not impossible to promote the cure of this mental malady,
by close application to some new study, which may pour in fresh ideas,
and keep curiosity in perpetual motion. But study requires solitude, and
solitude is a state dangerous to those who are too much accustomed to
sink into themselves. Active employment or public pleasure is generally
a necessary part of this intellectual regimen, without which, though some
remission may be obtained, a complete cure will scarcely be effected.

This is a formidable and obstinate disease of the intellect, of which,
when it has once become radicated by time, the remedy is one of the
hardest tasks of reason and of virtue. Its slightest attacks, therefore,
should be watchfully opposed; and he that finds the frigid and narcotick
infection beginning to seize him, should turn his whole attention against
it, and check it at the first discovery by proper counteraction.

The great resolution to be formed, when happiness and virtue are thus
formidably invaded, is, that no part of life be spent in a state of
neutrality or indifference; but that some pleasure be found for every
moment that is not devoted to labour; and that, whenever the necessary
business of life grows irksome or disgusting, an immediate transition be
made to diversion and gaiety.

After the exercises which the health of the body requires, and which
have themselves a natural tendency to actuate and invigorate the mind, the
most eligible amusement of a rational being seems to be that interchange
of thoughts which is practised in free and easy conversation; where
suspicion is banished by experience, and emulation by benevolence; where
every man speaks with no other restraint than unwillingness to offend,
and hears with no other disposition than desire to be pleased.

There must be a time in which every man trifles; and the only choice that
nature offers us, is, to trifle in company or alone. To join profit with
pleasure, has been an old precept among men who have had very different
conceptions of profit. All have agreed that our amusements should not
terminate wholly in the present moment, but contribute more or less to
future advantage. He that amuses himself among well-chosen companions,
can scarcely fail to receive, from the most careless and obstreperous
merriment which virtue can allow, some useful hints; nor can converse
on the most familiar topicks without some casual information. The loose
sparkles of thoughtless wit may give new light to the mind, and the gay
contention for paradoxical positions rectify the opinions.

This is the time in which those friendships that give happiness or
consolation, relief or security, are generally formed. A wise and good
man is never so amiable as in his unbended and familiar intervals.
Heroick generosity, or philosophical discoveries, may compel veneration
and respect, but love always implies some kind of natural or voluntary
equality, and is only to be excited by that levity and cheerfulness
which disencumber all minds from awe and solicitude, invite the modest
to freedom, and exalt the timorous to confidence. This easy gaiety is
certain to please, whatever be the character of him that exerts it; if
our superiors descend from their elevation, we love them for lessening
the distance at which we are placed below them; and inferiors, from whom
we can receive no lasting advantage, will always keep our affections
while their sprightliness and mirth contribute to our pleasure.

Every man finds himself differently affected by the sight of fortresses
of war, and palaces of pleasure; we look on the height and strength of
the bulwarks with a kind of gloomy satisfaction, for we cannot think
of defence without admitting images of danger; but we range delighted
and jocund through the gay apartments of the palace, because nothing
is impressed by them on the mind but joy and festivity. Such is the
difference between great and amiable characters; with protectors we are
safe, with companions we are happy.




No. 90. SATURDAY, JANUARY 26, 1751.


  _In tenui labor._
                                                      VIRG. Geor. iv. 6.

  What toil in slender things!


It is very difficult to write on the minuter parts of literature without
failing either to please or instruct. Too much nicety of detail disgusts
the greatest part of readers, and to throw a multitude of particulars
under general heads, and lay down rules of extensive comprehension, is
to common understandings of little use. They who undertake these subjects
are therefore always in danger, as one or other inconvenience arises to
their imagination, of frighting us with rugged science, or amusing us
with empty sound.

In criticising the work of Milton, there is, indeed, opportunity to
intersperse passages that can hardly fail to relieve the languors of
attention; and since, in examining the variety and choice of the pauses
with which he has diversified his numbers, it will be necessary to
exhibit the lines in which they are to be found, perhaps the remarks may
be well compensated by the examples, and the irksomeness of grammatical
disquisitions somewhat alleviated.

Milton formed his scheme of versification by the poets of Greece and Rome,
whom he proposed to himself for his models, so far as the difference of
his language from theirs would permit the imitation. There are indeed
many inconveniencies inseparable from our heroick measure compared
with that of Homer and Virgil; inconveniencies, which it is no reproach
to Milton not to have overcome, because they are in their own nature
insuperable; but against which he has struggled with so much art and
diligence, that he may at least be said to have deserved success.

The hexameter of the ancients may be considered as consisting of fifteen
syllables, so melodiously disposed, that, as every one knows who has
examined the poetical authors, very pleasing and sonorous lyrick measures
are formed from the fragments of the heroick. It is, indeed, scarce
possible to break them in such a manner but that _invenias etiam disjecti
membra poetæ_, some harmony will still remain, and the due proportions
of sound will always be discovered. This measure therefore allowed great
variety of pauses, and great liberties of connecting one verse with
another, because wherever the line was interrupted, either part singly
was musical. But the ancients seem to have confined this privilege to
hexameters; for in their other measures, though longer than the English
heroick, those who wrote after the refinements of versification, venture
so seldom to change their pauses, that every variation may be supposed
rather a compliance with necessity than the choice of judgment.

Milton was constrained within the narrow limits of a measure not very
harmonious in the utmost perfection; the single parts, therefore, into
which it was to be sometimes broken by pauses, were in danger of losing
the very form of verse. This has, perhaps, notwithstanding all his care,
sometimes happened.

As harmony is the end of poetical measures, no part of a verse ought to
be so separated from the rest as not to remain still more harmonious than
prose, or to show, by the disposition of the tones, that it is part of
a verse. This rule in the old hexameter might be easily observed, but in
English will very frequently be in danger of violation; for the order
and regularity of accents cannot well be perceived in a succession of
fewer than three syllables, which will confine the English poet to only
five pauses; it being supposed, that when he connects one line with
another, he should never make a full pause at less distance than that
of three syllables from the beginning or end of a verse.

That this rule should be universally and indispensably established,
perhaps cannot be granted; something may be allowed to variety, and
something to the adaptation of the numbers to the subject; but it will
be found generally necessary, and the ear will seldom fail to suffer by
its neglect.

Thus when a single syllable is cut off from the rest, it must either be
united to the line with which the sense connects it, or be sounded alone.
If it be united to the other line, it corrupts its harmony; if disjoined,
it must stand alone, and with regard to musick be superfluous; for there
is no harmony in a single sound, because it has no proportion to another.

        ----Hypocrites austerely talk,
  Defaming as impure what God declares
  _Pure_; and commands to some, leaves free to all.

When two syllables likewise are abscinded from the rest, they evidently
want some associate sounds to make them harmonious.

  ----Eyes----
  ----more wakeful than to drouze,
  Charm'd with Arcadian pipe, the pastoral reed
  Of Hermes, or his opiate rod. _Meanwhile_
  To re-salute the world with sacred light
  Leucothea wak'd.

    He ended, and the sun gave signal high
  To the bright minister that watch'd: _he blew_
  His trumpet.

    First in the east his glorious lamp was seen,
  Regent of day; and all th' horizon round
  Invested with bright rays, jocund to run
  His longitude through heav'n's high road; _the gray_
  Dawn, and the Pleiades, before him danc'd,
  Shedding sweet influence.

The same defect is perceived in the following line, where the pause is at
the second syllable from the beginning.

                          --------The race
  Of that wild rout that tore the Thracian bard
  In Rhodope, where woods and rocks had ears
  To rapture, 'till the savage clamour drown'd
  Both harp and voice; nor could the muse defend
  _Her son_. So fail not thou, who thee implores.

When the pause falls upon the third syllable or the seventh, the harmony
is the better preserved; but as the third and seventh are weak syllables,
the period leaves the ear unsatisfied, and in expectation of the
remaining part of the verse.

    ----He, with his horrid crew,
  Lay vanquish'd, rolling in the fiery gulph,
  Confounded though immor_tal_. But his doom
  Reserv'd him to more wrath; for now the thought
  Both of lost happiness and lasting pain
  Torments _him_.

    God,--with frequent intercourse,
  Thither will send his winged messengers
  On errands of supernal grace. So sung
  The glorious train ascend_ing_.

It may be, I think, established as a rule, that a pause which concludes
a period should be made for the most part upon a strong syllable, as
the fourth and sixth; but those pauses which only suspend the sense may
be placed upon the weaker. Thus the rest in the third line of the first
passage satisfies the ear better than in the fourth, and the close of the
second quotation better than of the third.

                    --------The evil soon
  Drawn back, redounded (as a flood) on those
  From whom it _sprung_; impossible to mix
  With _blessedness_.

        --------What we by day
  Lop overgrown, or prune, or prop, or bind,
  One night or two with wanton growth derides,
  Tending to _wild_.

    The paths and bow'rs doubt not but our joint hands
  Will keep from wilderness with ease as wide
  As we need walk, till younger hands ere long
  Assist _us_.

The rest in the fifth place has the same inconvenience as in the seventh
and third, that the syllable is weak.

  Beast now with beast 'gan war, and fowl with fowl,
  And fish with fish, to graze the herb all leaving,
  Devour'd each _other_: Nor stood much in awe
  Of man, but fled _him_, or with countenance grim,
  Glar'd on him pass_ing_.

The noblest and most majestick pauses which our versification admits, are
upon the fourth and sixth syllables, which are both strongly sounded in
a pure and regular verse, and at either of which the line is so divided,
that both members participate of harmony.

    But now at last the sacred influence
  Of light _appears_, and from the walls of heav'n
  Shoots far into the bosom of dim night
  A glimmering _dawn_: here nature first begins
  Her farthest verge, and chaos to retire.

But far above all others, if I can give any credit to my own ear, is the
rest upon the sixth syllable, which, taking in a complete compass of
sound, such as is sufficient to constitute one of our lyrick measures,
makes a full and solemn close. Some passages which conclude at this stop,
I could never read without some strong emotions of delight or admiration.

  Before the hills appear'd, or fountain flow'd,
  Thou with the eternal wisdom didst converse,
  Wisdom thy sister, and with her didst play
  In presence of the almighty Father, pleas'd
  With thy celestial _song_.

  Or other worlds they seem'd, or happy isles,
  Like those Hesperian gardens fam'd of old,
  Fortunate fields, and groves, and flowery vales,
  Thrice happy isles! But who dwelt happy there,
  He stayed not to in_quire_.

                        --------He blew
  His trumpet, heard in Oreb since, perhaps
  When God descended; and, perhaps, once more
  To sound at general _doom_.

If the poetry of Milton be examined, with regard to the pauses and flow of
his verses into each other, it will appear, that he has performed all that
our language would admit; and the comparison of his numbers with those who
have cultivated the same manner of writing, will show that he excelled as
much in the lower as the higher parts of his art, and that his skill in
harmony was not less than his invention or his learning.




No. 91. TUESDAY, JANUARY 29, 1751.


  _Dulcis inexpertis cultura potentis amici;_
  _Expertus metuit._
                                             HOR. Lib. i. Ep. xviii. 86.

  To court the great ones, and to sooth their pride,
  Seems a sweet task to those that never tried;
  But those that have, know well that danger's near.
                                                                 CREECH.


The Sciences having long seen their votaries labouring for the benefit
of mankind without reward, put up their petition to Jupiter for a more
equitable distribution of riches and honours. Jupiter was moved at their
complaints, and touched with the approaching miseries of men, whom the
Sciences, wearied with perpetual ingratitude, were now threatening to
forsake, and who would have been reduced by their departure to feed in
dens upon the mast of trees, to hunt their prey in deserts, and to perish
under the paws of animals stronger and fiercer than themselves.

A synod of the celestials was therefore convened, in which it was
resolved, that Patronage should descend to the assistance of the
Sciences. Patronage was the daughter of Astrea, by a mortal father, and
had been educated in the school of Truth, by the Goddesses, whom she
was now appointed to protect. She had from her mother that dignity of
aspect, which struck terrour into false merit, and from her mistress
that reserve, which made her only accessible to those whom the Sciences
brought into her presence.

She came down, with the general acclamation of all the powers that favour
learning. Hope danced before her, and Liberality stood at her side, ready
to scatter by her direction the gifts which Fortune, who followed her,
was commanded to supply. As she advanced towards Parnassus, the cloud
which had long hung over it, was immediately dispelled. The shades,
before withered with drought, spread their original verdure, and the
flowers that had languished with chillness brightened their colours,
and invigorated their scents; the Muses tuned their harps, and exerted
their voices; and all the concert of nature welcomed her arrival.

On Parnassus she fixed her residence, in a palace raised by the Sciences,
and adorned with whatever could delight the eye, elevate the imagination,
or enlarge the understanding. Here she dispersed the gifts of Fortune with
the impartiality of Justice, and the discernment of Truth. Her gate stood
always open, and Hope sat at the portal, inviting to entrance all whom
the Sciences numbered in their train. The court was therefore thronged
with innumerable multitudes, of whom, though many returned disappointed,
seldom any had confidence to complain; for Patronage was known to neglect
few, but for want of the due claims to her regard. Those, therefore, who
had solicited her favour without success, generally withdrew from publick
notice, and either diverted their attention to meaner employments, or
endeavoured to supply their deficiencies by closer application.

In time, however, the number of those who had miscarried in their
pretensions grew so great, that they became less ashamed of their
repulses; and instead of hiding their disgrace in retirement, began to
besiege the gates of the palace, and obstruct the entrance of such as
they thought likely to be more caressed. The decisions of Patronage,
who was but half a Goddess, had been sometimes erroneous; and though
she always made haste to rectify her mistakes, a few instances of her
fallibility encouraged every one to appeal from her judgment to his own
and that of his companions, who are always ready to clamour in the common
cause, and elate each other with reciprocal applause.

Hope was a steady friend of the disappointed, and Impudence incited
them to accept a second invitation, and lay their claim again before
Patronage. They were again, for the most part, sent back with ignominy,
but found Hope not alienated, and Impudence more resolutely zealous; they
therefore contrived new expedients, and hoped at last to prevail by their
multitudes, which were always increasing, and their perseverance, which
Hope and Impudence forbad them to relax.

Patronage having been long a stranger to the heavenly assemblies, began to
degenerate towards terrestrial nature, and forget the precepts of Justice
and Truth. Instead of confining her friendship to the Sciences, she
suffered herself, by little and little, to contract an acquaintance with
Pride, the son of Falsehood, by whose embraces she had two daughters,
Flattery and Caprice. Flattery was nursed by Liberality, and Caprice by
Fortune, without any assistance from the lessons of the Sciences.

Patronage began openly to adopt the sentiments and imitate the manners of
her husband, by whose opinions she now directed her decisions with very
little heed to the precepts of Truth; and as her daughters continually
gained upon her affections, the Sciences lost their influence, till none
found much reason to boast of their reception, but those whom Caprice or
Flattery conducted to her throne.

The throngs who had so long waited, and so often been dismissed for want
of recommendation from the Sciences, were delighted to see the power of
those rigourous Goddesses tending to its extinction. Their patronesses
now renewed their encouragements. Hope smiled at the approach of Caprice,
and Impudence was always at hand to introduce her clients to Flattery.

Patronage had now learned to procure herself reverence by ceremonies and
formalities, and, instead of admitting her petitioners to an immediate
audience, ordered the ante-chamber to be erected, called among mortals,
the _Hall of Expectation_. Into this hall the entrance was easy to those
whom Impudence had consigned to Flattery, and it was therefore crowded
with a promiscuous throng, assembled from every corner of the earth,
pressing forward with the utmost eagerness of desire, and agitated with
all the anxieties of competition.

They entered this general receptacle with ardour and alacrity, and made
no doubt of speedy access, under the conduct of Flattery, to the presence
of Patronage. But it generally happened that they were here left to their
destiny, for the inner doors were committed to Caprice, who opened and
shut them, as it seemed, by chance, and rejected or admitted without any
settled rule of distinction. In the mean time, the miserable attendants
were left to wear out their lives in alternate exultation and dejection,
delivered up to the sport of Suspicion, who was always whispering into
their ear designs against them which were never formed, and of Envy,
who diligently pointed out the good fortune of one or other of their
competitors. Infamy flew round the hall, and scattered mildews from her
wings, with which every one was stained; Reputation followed her with
slower flight, and endeavoured to hide the blemishes with paint, which
was immediately brushed away, or separated of itself, and left the stains
more visible; nor were the spots of Infamy ever effaced, but with limpid
water effused by the hand of Time from a well which sprung up beneath the
throne of Truth.

It frequently happened that Science, unwilling to lose the ancient
prerogative of recommending to Patronage, would lead her followers into
the Hall of Expectation; but they were soon discouraged from attending,
for not only Envy and Suspicion incessantly tormented them, but Impudence
considered them as intruders, and incited Infamy to blacken them. They
therefore quickly retired, but seldom without some spots which they could
scarcely wash away, and which shewed that they had once waited in the
Hall of Expectation.

The rest continued to expect the happy moment, at which Caprice should
beckon them to approach; and endeavoured to propitiate her, not with
Homerical harmony, the representation of great actions, or the recital
of noble sentiments, but with soft and voluptuous melody, intermingled
with the praises of Patronage and Pride, by whom they were heard at once
with pleasure and contempt.

Some were indeed admitted by Caprice, when they least expected it, and
heaped by Patronage with the gifts of Fortune, but they were from that
time chained to her foot-stool, and condemned to regulate their lives by
her glances and her nods: they seemed proud of their manacles, and seldom
complained of any drudgery, however servile, or any affront, however
contemptuous; yet they were often, notwithstanding their obedience,
seized on a sudden by Caprice, divested of their ornaments, and thrust
back into the Hall of Expectation.

Here they mingled again with the tumult, and all, except a few whom
experience had taught to seek happiness in the regions of liberty,
continued to spend hours, and days, and years, courting the smile of
Caprice by the arts of Flattery; till at length new crowds pressed in
upon them, and drove them forth at different outlets into the habitations
of Disease, and Shame, and Poverty, and Despair, where they passed the
rest of their lives in narratives of promises and breaches of faith, of
joys and sorrows, of hopes and disappointments.

The Sciences, after a thousand indignities, retired from the palace
of Patronage, and having long wandered over the world in grief and
distress, were led at last to the cottage of Independence, the daughter
of Fortitude; where they were taught by Prudence and Parsimony to support
themselves in dignity and quiet.




No. 92. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 1751.


  _Jam nunc minaci murmure cornuum_
  _Perstringis aures: jam litui strepunt._
                                                HOR. Lib. ii. Ode i. 17.

  Lo! now the clarion's voice I hear,
  Its threat'ning murmurs pierce mine ear,
  And in thy lines with brazen breath
  The trumpet sounds the charge of death.
                                                                FRANCIS.


It has been long observed, that the idea of beauty is vague and undefined,
different in different minds, and diversified by time or place. It has
been a term hitherto used to signify that which pleases us we know not
why, and in our approbation of which we can justify ourselves only by
the concurrence of numbers, without much power of enforcing our opinion
upon others by any argument but example and authority. It is, indeed, so
little subject to the examinations of reason, that Paschal supposes it to
end where demonstration begins, and maintains, that without incongruity
and absurdity we cannot speak of _geometrical beauty_.

To trace all the sources of that various pleasure which we ascribe to the
agency of beauty, or to disentangle all the perceptions involved in its
idea, would, perhaps, require a very great part of the life of Aristotle
or Plato. It is, however, in many cases apparent, that this quality
is merely relative and comparative; that we pronounce things beautiful
because they have something which we agree, for whatever reason, to call
beauty, in a greater degree than we have been accustomed to find it in
other things of the same kind; and that we transfer the epithet as our
knowledge increases, and appropriate it to higher excellence, when higher
excellence comes within our view.

Much of the beauty of writing is of this kind; and therefore Boileau
justly remarks, that the books which have stood the test of time, and
been admired through all the changes which the mind of man has suffered
from the various revolutions of knowledge, and the prevalence of contrary
customs, have a better claim to our regard than any modern can boast,
because the long continuance of their reputation proves that they are
adequate to our faculties, and agreeable to nature.

It is, however, the task of criticism to establish principles; to improve
opinion into knowledge; and to distinguish those means of pleasing which
depend upon known causes and rational deduction, from the nameless and
inexplicable elegancies which appeal wholly to the fancy, from which we
feel delight, but know not how they produce it, and which may well be
termed the enchantresses of the soul. Criticism reduces those regions
of literature under the dominion of science, which have hitherto known
only the anarchy of ignorance, the caprices of fancy, and the tyranny
of prescription.

There is nothing in the art of versifying so much exposed to the power
of imagination as the accommodation of the sound to the sense, or the
representation of particular images, by the flow of the verse in which
they are expressed. Every student has innumerable passages, in which
he, and perhaps he alone, discovers such resemblances; and since the
attention of the present race of poetical readers seems particularly
turned upon this species of elegance, I shall endeavour to examine how
much these conformities have been observed by the poets, or directed by
the criticks, how far they can be established upon nature and reason, and
on what occasions they have been practised by Milton.

Homer, the father of all poetical beauty, has been particularly celebrated
by Dionysius of Halicarnassus, as "he that, of all the poets, exhibited
the greatest variety of sound; for there are," says he, "innumerable
passages, in which length of time, bulk of body, extremity of passion,
and stillness of repose; or, in which, on the contrary, brevity, speed,
and eagerness, are evidently marked out by the sound of the syllables.
Thus the anguish and slow pace with which the blind _Polypheme_ groped
out with his hands the entrance of his cave, are perceived in the cadence
of the verses which describe it."

  [Greek: Kyklôps de stenachôn te kai ôdinôn odynêsi,
  Chersi psêlophoôn.----]

  Meantime the Cyclop raging with his wound,
  Spreads his wide arms, and searches round and round.
                                                                   POPE.

The critick then proceeds to shew, that the efforts of Achilles struggling
in his armour against the current of a river, sometimes resisting and
sometimes yielding, may be perceived in the elisions of the syllables,
the slow succession of the feet, and the strength of the consonants.

  [Greek: Deinon d' amph' Hachilêa kykômenon histato kyma
  Ôthei d' en sakei piptôn rhoos; oude podessin
  Eske stêrixasthai.----]

  So oft the surge, in wat'ry mountains spread,
  Beats on his back, or bursts upon his head,
  Yet, dauntless still, the adverse flood he braves,
  And still indignant bounds above the waves.
  Tir'd by the tides, his knees relax with toil;
  Wash'd from beneath him, slides the slimy soil.
                                                                   POPE.

When Homer describes the crush of men dashed against a rock, he collects
the most unpleasing and harsh sounds.

  [Greek: Syn de dyô marpsas, hôste skylakas poti gaiê
  Kopt'; ek d' enkephalos chamadis rhee, deue de gaian.]

  ------His bloody hand
  Snatch'd two, unhappy! of my martial band,
  And dash'd like dogs against the stony floor:
  The pavement swims with brains and mingled gore.
                                                                   POPE.

And when he would place before the eyes something dreadful and
astonishing, he makes choice of the strongest vowels, and the letters
of most difficult utterance.

  [Greek: Tê d' epi men Gorgô blosyrôpis estephanôto
  Deinon derkomenê; peri de Deimos te Phobos te.]

  Tremendous Gorgon frown'd upon its field,
  And circling terrors fill'd th' expressive shield.
                                                                   POPE.

Many other examples Dionysius produces; but these will sufficiently shew,
that either he was fanciful, or we have lost the genuine pronunciation;
for I know not whether, in any one of these instances, such similitude
can be discovered. It seems, indeed, probable, that the veneration with
which Homer was read, produced many suppositious beauties: for though it
is certain, that the sound of many of his verses very justly corresponds
with the things expressed, yet, when the force of his imagination, which
gave him full possession of every object, is considered, together with
the flexibility of his language, of which the syllables might be often
contracted or dilated at pleasure, it will seem unlikely that such
conformity should happen less frequently even without design.

It is not however to be doubted, that Virgil, who wrote amidst the light
of criticism, and who owed so much of his success to art and labour,
endeavoured, among other excellencies, to exhibit this similitude; nor
has he been less happy in this than in the other graces of versification.
This felicity of his numbers was, at the revival of learning, displayed
with great elegance by Vida, in his Art of Poetry.

  Haud satis est illis utcunque claudere versum.----
  Omnia sed numeris vocum concordibus aptant,
  Atque sono quæcunque canunt imitantur, et apta
  Verborum facie, et quæsito carminis ore.
  Nam diversa opus est veluti dare versibus ora,----
  Hic melior motuque pedum, et pernicibus alis,
  Molle Viam tacito lapsu per levia radit:
  Ille autem membris, ac mole ignavius ingens
  Incedit tardo molimine subsiden le.
  Ecce aliquis subit egregio pulcherrimus ore,
  Cui lætum membris Venus omnibus afflat honorem.
  Contra alius rudis, informes ostendit et artus,
  Hirsutumque supercilium, ac caudam sinuosam,
  Ingratus visu, sonitu illætabilis ipso.----
  Ergo ubi jam nautæ spumas salis ære ruentes
  Incubere mari, videas spumare reductis
  Convulsum remis, rostrisque stridentibus æquor.
  Tunc longe sale saxa sonant, tunc et freta ventis
  Incipiunt agitata tumescere: littore fluctus
  Illidunt rauco, atque refracta remurmurat unda
  Ad scopulos, cumulo insequitur præruptus aquæ mons.----
  Cum vero ex alto speculatus cærula Nereus
  Leniit in morem stagni, placidæque paludis,
  Labitur uncta vadis abies, natat uncta carina.----
  Verba etiam res exiguas angusta sequuntur,
  Ingentesque juvant ingentia: cuncta gigantem
  Vasta decent, vultus immanes, pectora lata,
  Et magni membrorum artus, magna ossa, lacertique.
  Atque adeo, siquid geritur molimine magno,
  Adde moram, et pariter tecum quoque verba laborent
  Segnia: seu quando vi multa gleba coactis
  Æternum frangenda bidentibus, æquore seu cum
  Cornua velatarum obvertimus antennarum.
  At mora si fuerit damno, properare jubebo.
  Si se forte cava extulerit mala vipera terra,
  Tolle moras, cape saxa manu, cape robora, pastor:
  Ferte citi flammas, date tela, repellite pestem.
  Ipse etiam versus ruat, in præcepsque feratur,
  Immenso cum præcipitans ruit Oceano nox,
  Aut cum perculsus graviter procumbit humi bos.
  Cumque etiam requies rebus datur, ipsa quoque ultro
  Carmina paulisper cursu cessare videbis
  In medio interrupta: quiêrunt cum freta ponti,
  Postquam auræ posuere, quiescere protinus ipsum
  Cernere erit, mediisque incoeptis sistere versum.
  Quid dicam, senior cum telum imbelle sine ictu
  Invalidus jacit, et defectis viribus æger?
  Num quoque tum versus segni pariter pede languet:
  Sanguis hebet, frigent effoetæ in corpore vires.
  Fortem autem juvenem deceat prorumpere in arces,
  Evertisse domos, præfractaque quadrupedantum
  Pectora pectoribus perrumpere, sternere turres
  Ingentes, totoque, ferum dare funera campo.
                                                          LIB. iii. 365.


  'Tis not enough his verses to complete,
  In measure, number, or determin'd feet.
  To all, proportion'd terms he must dispense,
  And make the sound a picture of the sense;
  The correspondent words exactly frame,
  The look, the features, and the mien the same.
  With rapid feet and wings, without delay,
  This swiftly flies, and smoothly skims away:
  This blooms with youth and beauty in his face,
  And Venus breathes on ev'ry limb a grace;
  That, of rude form, his uncouth members shows,
  Looks horrible, and frowns with his rough brows;
  His monstrous tail, in many a fold and wind,
  Voluminous and vast, curls up behind;
  At once the image and the lines appear,
  Rude to the eye, and frightful to the ear.
  Lo! when the sailors steer the pond'rous ships,
  And plough, with brazen beaks, the foamy deeps,
  Incumbent on the main that roars around,
  Beneath the lab'ring oars the waves resound;
  The prows wide echoing through the dark profound.
  To the loud call each distant rock replies;
  Tost by the storm the tow'ring surges rise;
  While the hoarse ocean beats the sounding shore,
  Dash'd from the strand, the flying waters roar,
  Flash at the shock, and gathering in a heap,
  The liquid mountains rise, and over-hang the deep.
  But when blue Neptune from his car surveys,
  And calms at one regard the raging seas,
  Stretch'd like a peaceful lake the deep subsides,
  And the pitch'd vessel o'er the surface glides.
  When things are small, the terms should still be so;
  For low words please us when the theme is low.
  But when some giant, horrible and grim,
  Enormous in his gait, and vast in every limb,
  Stalks tow'ring on; the swelling words must rise
  In just proportion to the monster's size.
  If some large weight his huge arms strive to shove,
  The verse too labours; the throng'd words scarce move.
  When each stiff clod beneath the pond'rous plough
  Crumbles and breaks, th' encumber'd lines must flow.
  Nor less, when pilots catch the friendly gales,
  Unfurl their shrouds, and hoist the wide-stretch'd sails.
  But if the poem suffers from delay,
  Let the lines fly precipitate away,
  And when the viper issues from the brake,
  Be quick; with stones, and brands, and fire, attack
  His rising crest, and drive the serpent back.
  When night descends, or stunn'd by num'rous strokes,
  And groaning, to the earth drops the vast ox;
  The line too sinks with correspondent sound
  Flat with the steer, and headlong to the ground.
  When the wild waves subside, and tempests cease,
  And hush the roarings of the sea to peace;
  So oft we see the interrupted strain
  Stopp'd in the midst--and with the silent main
  Pause for a space--at last it glides again.
  When Priam strains his aged arms, to throw
  His unavailing jav'line at the foe;
  (His blood congeal'd, and ev'ry nerve unstrung)
  Then with the theme complies the artful song;
  Like him, the solitary numbers flow,
  Weak, trembling, melancholy, stiff, and slow.
  Not so young Pyrrhus, who with rapid force
  Beats down embattled armies in his course.
  The raging youth on trembling Ilion falls,
  Burns her strong gates, and shakes her lofty walls;
  Provokes his flying courser to the speed,
  In full career to charge the warlike steed:
  He piles the field with mountains of the slain;
  He pours, he storms, he thunders thro' the plain.--PITT.

From the Italian gardens Pope seems to have transplanted this flower, the
growth of happier climates, into a soil less adapted to its nature, and
less favourable to its increase.

  Soft is the strain, when Zephyr gentle blows,
  And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows;
  But when loud billows lash the sounding shore,
  The hoarse rough verse should like the torrent roar.
  When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw,
  The line too labours, and the words move slow;
  Nor so when swift Camilla scours the plain,
  Flies o'er th' unbending corn, and skims along the main.

From these lines, laboured with attention, and celebrated by a rival wit,
may be judged what can be expected from the most diligent endeavours
after this imagery of sound. The verse intended to represent the whisper
of the vernal breeze, must be confessed not much to excel in softness
or volubility: and the smooth stream runs with a perpetual clash of
jarring consonants. The noise and turbulence of the torrent, is, indeed,
distinctly imaged, for it requires very little skill to make our language
rough: but in these lines, which mention the effort of Ajax, there is no
particular heaviness, obstruction, or delay. The swiftness of Camilla is
rather contrasted than exemplified; why the verse should be lengthened
to express speed, will not easily be discovered. In the dactyls used
for that purpose by the ancients, two short syllables were pronounced
with such rapidity, as to be equal only to one long; they, therefore,
naturally exhibit the act of passing through a long space in a short
time. But the Alexandrine, by its pause in the midst, is a tardy and
stately measure; and the word _unbending_, one of the most sluggish and
slow which our language affords, cannot much accelerate its motion.

These rules and these examples have taught our present criticks to inquire
very studiously and minutely into sounds and cadences. It is, therefore,
useful to examine with what skill they have proceeded; what discoveries
they have made; and whether any rules can be established which may guide
us hereafter in such researches.




No. 93. TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 1751.


  _----Experiar, quid concedatur in illos,_
  _Quorum flaminia tegitur cinis atque Latina._
                                                       JUV. Sat. i. 170.

  More safely truth to urge her claim presumes,
  On names now found alone on books and tombs.


There are few books on which more time is spent by young students, than
on treatises which deliver the characters of authors; nor any which
oftener deceive the expectation of the reader, or fill his mind with
more opinions which the progress of his studies and the increase of his
knowledge oblige him to resign.

Baillet has introduced his collection of the decisions of the learned, by
an enumeration of the prejudices which mislead the critick, and raise the
passions in rebellion against the judgment. His catalogue, though large,
is imperfect; and who can hope to complete it? The beauties of writing
have been observed to be often such as cannot in the present state of
human knowledge be evinced by evidence, or drawn out into demonstrations;
they are therefore wholly subject to the imagination, and do not force
their effects upon a mind pre-occupied by unfavourable sentiments, nor
overcome the counteraction of a false principle or of stubborn partiality.

To convince any man against his will is hard, but to please him against
his will is justly pronounced by Dryden to be above the reach of human
abilities. Interest and passion will hold out long against the closest
siege of diagrams and syllogisms, but they are absolutely impregnable
to imagery and sentiment; and will for ever bid defiance to the most
powerful strains of Virgil or Homer, though they may give way in time to
the batteries of Euclid or Archimedes.

In trusting therefore to the sentence of a critick, we are in danger not
only from that vanity which exalts writers too often to the dignity of
teaching what they are yet to learn, from that negligence which sometimes
steals upon the most vigilant caution, and that fallibility to which the
condition of nature has subjected every human understanding; but from
a thousand extrinsick and accidental causes, from every thing which can
excite kindness or malevolence, veneration or contempt.

Many of those who have determined with great boldness upon the various
degrees of literary merit, may be justly suspected of having passed
sentence, as Seneca remarks of Claudius,

  _Una tantum parte audita,_
  _Sæpe et nulla,_

without much knowledge of the cause before them: for it will not easily
be imagined of Langbaine, Borrichius, or Rapin, that they had very
accurately perused all the books which they praise or censure: or that,
even if nature and learning had qualified them for judges, they could
read for ever with the attention necessary to just criticism. Such
performances, however, are not wholly without their use; for they are
commonly just echoes to the voice of fame, and transmit the general
suffrage of mankind when they have no particular motives to suppress it.

Criticks, like the rest of mankind, are very frequently misled by
interest. The bigotry with which editors regard the authors whom they
illustrate or correct, has been generally remarked. Dryden was known to
have written most of his critical dissertations only to recommend the
work upon which he then happened to be employed: and Addison is suspected
to have denied the expediency of poetical justice, because his own Cato
was condemned to perish in a good cause.

There are prejudices which authors, not otherwise weak or corrupt, have
indulged without scruple; and perhaps some of them are so complicated
with our natural affections, that they cannot easily be disentangled from
the heart. Scarce any can hear with impartiality a comparison between the
writers of his own and another country; and though it cannot, I think, be
charged equally on all nations, that they are blinded with this literary
patriotism, yet there are none that do not look upon their authors with
the fondness of affinity, and esteem them as well for the place of their
birth, as for their knowledge or their wit. There is, therefore, seldom
much respect due to comparative criticism, when the competitors are of
different countries, unless the judge is of a nation equally indifferent
to both. The Italians could not for a long time believe, that there
was any learning beyond the mountains; and the French seem generally
persuaded, that there are no wits or reasoners equal to their own. I can
scarcely conceive that if Scaliger had not considered himself as allied
to Virgil, by being born in the same country, he would have found his
works so much superior to those of Homer, or have thought the controversy
worthy of so much zeal, vehemence, and acrimony.

There is, indeed, one prejudice, and only one, by which it may be doubted
whether it is any dishonour to be sometimes misguided. Criticism has so
often given occasion to the envious and ill-natured of gratifying their
malignity, that some have thought it necessary to recommend the virtue
of candour without restriction, and to preclude all future liberty of
censure. Writers possessed with this opinion are continually enforcing
civility and decency, recommending to criticks the proper diffidence of
themselves, and inculcating the veneration due to celebrated names.

I am not of opinion that these professed enemies of arrogance and severity
have much more benevolence or modesty than the rest of mankind; or that
they feel in their own hearts, any other intention than to distinguish
themselves by their softness and delicacy. Some are modest because
they are timorous, and some are lavish of praise because they hope to
be repaid.

There is indeed some tenderness due to living writers, when they attack
none of those truths which are of importance to the happiness of mankind,
and have committed no other offence than that of betraying their own
ignorance or dulness. I should think it cruelty to crush an insect
who had provoked me only by buzzing in my ear; and would not willingly
interrupt the dream of harmless stupidity, or destroy the jest which
makes its author laugh. Yet I am far from thinking this tenderness
universally necessary; for he that writes may be considered as a kind of
general challenger, whom every one has a right to attack; since he quits
the common rank of life, steps forward beyond the lists, and offers his
merit to the publick judgment. To commence author is to claim praise,
and no man can justly aspire to honour, but at the hazard of disgrace.
But whatever be decided concerning contemporaries, whom he that knows
the treachery of the human heart, and considers how often we gratify
our own pride or envy under the appearance of contending for elegance
and propriety will find himself not much inclined to disturb; there can
surely be no exemptions pleaded to secure them from criticism, who can
no longer suffer by reproach, and of whom nothing now remains but their
writings and their names. Upon these authors the critick is undoubtedly
at full liberty to exercise the strictest severity, since he endangers
only his own fame, and, like Æneas when he drew his sword in the
infernal regions, encounters phantoms which cannot be wounded. He may
indeed pay some regard to established reputation; but he can by that
shew of reverence consult only his own security, for all other motives
are now at an end.

The faults of a writer of acknowledged excellence are more dangerous,
because the influence of his example is more extensive; and the interest
of learning requires that they should be discovered and stigmatized,
before they have the sanction of antiquity conferred upon them, and
become precedents of indisputable authority.

It has, indeed, been advanced by Addison, as one of the characteristicks
of a true critick, that he points out beauties rather than faults. But
it is rather natural to a man of learning and genius to apply himself
chiefly to the study of writers who have more beauties than faults to
be displayed: for the duty of criticism is neither to depreciate, nor
dignify by partial representations, but to hold out the light of reason,
whatever it may discover; and to promulgate the determinations of truth,
whatever she shall dictate.




No. 94. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 1751.


  _----Bonus atque fidus_
  _Judex * * * * per obstantes catervas_
  _Explicuit sua victor arma._
                                               HOR. Lib. iv. Od. ix. 40.

  Perpetual magistrate is he
    Who keeps strict justice full in sight;
  Who bids the crowd at awful distance gaze,
  And virtue's arms victoriously displays.
                                                                FRANCIS.


The resemblance of poetick numbers, to the subject which they mention or
describe, may be considered as general or particular; as consisting in
the flow and structure of a whole passage taken together, or as comprised
in the sound of some emphatical and descriptive words, or in the cadence
and harmony of single verses.

The general resemblance of the sound to the sense is to be found in every
language which admits of poetry, in every author whose force of fancy
enables him to impress images strongly on his own mind, and whose choice
and variety of language readily supply him with just representations. To
such a writer it is natural to change his measure with his subject, even
without any effort of the understanding, or intervention of the judgment.
To revolve jollity and mirth necessarily tunes the voice of a poet to gay
and sprightly notes, as it fires his eye with vivacity; and reflection
on gloomy situations and disastrous events, will sadden his numbers,
as it will cloud his countenance. But in such passages there is only
the similitude of pleasure to pleasure, and of grief to grief, without
any immediate application to particular images. The same flow of joyous
versification will celebrate the jollity of marriage, and the exultation
of triumph; and the same languor of melody will suit the complaints of an
absent lover, as of a conquered king.

It is scarcely to be doubted, that on many occasions we make the musick
which we imagine ourselves to hear, that we modulate the poem by our own
disposition, and ascribe to the numbers the effects of the sense. We may
observe in life, that it is not easy to deliver a pleasing message in
an unpleasing manner, and that we readily associate beauty and deformity
with those whom for any reason we love or hate. Yet it would be too
daring to declare that all the celebrated adaptations of harmony are
chimerical; that Homer had no extraordinary attention to the melody of
his verse when he described a nuptial festivity;

  [Greek: Nymphas d' ek thalamôn, daidôn hypolampomenaôn,
  Êgineon ana asty, polys d' hymenaios orôrei.]

  Here sacred pomp and genial feast delight,
  And solemn dance, and hymeneal rite;
  Along the street the new-made brides are led,
  With torches flaming, to the nuptial bed;
  The youthful dancers, in a circle, bound
  To the soft flute, and cittern's silver sound.
                                                                   POPE.

That Vida was merely fanciful, when he supposed Virgil endeavouring to
represent, by uncommon sweetness of numbers, the adventitious beauty
of Æneas;

  _Os, humerosque Deo similis: namque ipse decoram_
  _Cæsariem nato genetrix, lumenque juventæ_
  _Purpureum, et lætos oculis afflârat honores._

  The Trojan chief appeared in open sight,
  August in visage, and serenely bright.
  His mother goddess, with her hands divine,
  Had form'd his curling locks, and made his temples shine;
  And giv'n his rolling eyes a sparkling grace,
  And breath'd a youthful vigour on his face.
                                                                 DRYDEN.

Or that Milton did not intend to exemplify the harmony which he mentions:

  Fountains! and ye that warble as ye flow,
  Melodious murmurs! warbling tune his praise.

That Milton understood the force of sounds well adjusted, and knew the
compass and variety of the ancient measures, cannot be doubted; since he
was both a musician and a critick; but he seems to have considered these
conformities of cadence, as either not often attainable in our language,
or as petty excellencies unworthy of his ambition: for it will not be
found that he has always assigned the same cast of numbers to the same
objects. He has given in two passages very minute descriptions of angelic
beauty; but though the images are nearly the same, the numbers will be
found, upon comparison, very different:

  And now a stripling cherub he appears,
  Not of the prime, yet such as in his face
  Youth smil'd celestial, and to every limb
  _Suitable grace diffus'd, so well he feign'd;_
  Under a coronet his flowing hair
  _In curls on either cheek play'd: wings he wore_
  _Of many a coloured plume, sprinkled with gold._

Some of the lines of this description are remarkably defective in harmony,
and therefore by no means correspondent with that symmetrical elegance
and easy grace, which they are intended to exhibit. The failure, however,
is fully compensated by the representation of Raphael, which equally
delights the ear and imagination:

  A seraph wing'd: six wings he wore to shade
  His lineaments divine; the pair that clad
  Each shoulder broad, came mantling o'er his breast
  With regal ornament: the middle pair
  Girt like a starry zone his waist, and round
  Skirted his loins and thighs, with downy gold,
  And colours dipp'd in heav'n; the third his feet
  Shadow'd from either heel with feather'd mail,
  Sky-tinctur'd grain! like Maia's son he stood,
  And shook his plumes, that heav'nly fragrance fill'd
  The circuit wide.----

The adumbration of particular and distinct images by an exact and
perceptible resemblance of sound, is sometimes studied, and sometimes
casual. Every language has many words formed in imitation of the noises
which they signify. Such are _stridor_, _balo_, and _beatus_, in Latin; and
in English to _growl_, to _buzz_, to _hiss_, and to _jarr_. Words of this
kind give to a verse the proper similitude of sound, without much labour
of the writer, and such happiness is therefore to be attributed rather to
fortune than skill; yet they are sometimes combined with great propriety,
and undeniably contribute to enforce the impression of the idea. We hear
the passing arrow in this line of Virgil;

  Et fugit _horrendum stridens_ elapsa sagitta;
  Th' impetuous arrow whizzes on the wing.
                                                                   POPE.

And the creaking of hell-gates, in the description by Milton;

                        --------Open fly
  With impetuous recoil and jarring sound
  Th' infernal doors: and on their hinges grate
  Harsh thunder.----

But many beauties of this kind, which the moderns, and perhaps the
ancients, have observed, seem to be the product of blind reverence acting
upon fancy. Dionysius himself tells us, that the sound of Homer's verses
sometimes exhibits the idea of corporeal bulk. Is not this a discovery
nearly approaching to that of the blind man, who, after long inquiry into
the nature of the scarlet colour, found that it represented nothing so
much as the clangour of a trumpet? The representative power of poetick
harmony consists of sound and measure; of the force of the syllables
singly considered, and of the time in which they are pronounced. Sound
can resemble nothing but sound, and time can measure nothing but motion
and duration.

The criticks, however, have struck out other similitudes; nor is there any
irregularity of numbers which credulous admiration cannot discover to be
eminently beautiful. Thus the propriety of each of these lines has been
celebrated by writers whose opinion the world has reason to regard:

  _Vertitur interea coelum, et ruit oceano nox._

  Meantime the rapid heav'us rowl'd down the light,
  And on the shaded ocean rush'd the night.
                                                                 DRYDEN.

  _Sternitur, exanimisque tremens procumbit humi bos._

  Down drops the beast, nor needs a second wound;
  But sprawls in pangs of death, and spurns the ground.
                                                                 DRYDEN.

  _Parturiunt montes, nascitur ridiculus mus._

  The mountains labour, and a mouse is born.
                                                              ROSCOMMON.

If all these observations are just, there must be some remarkable
conformity between the sudden succession of night to day, the fall of an
ox under a blow, and the birth of a mouse from a mountain; since we are
told of all these images, that they are very strongly impressed by the
same form and termination of the verse.

We may, however, without giving way to enthusiasm, admit that some
beauties of this kind may be produced. A sudden stop at an unusual
syllable may image the cessation of action, or the pause of discourse;
and Milton has very happily imitated the repetitions of an echo:

  --------I fled, and cried out _death_:
  Hell trembled at the hedious name, and sigh'd
  From all her caves, and back resounded _death_.

The measure of time in pronouncing may be varied so as very strongly
to represent, not only the modes of external motion, but the quick or
slow succession of ideas, and consequently the passions of the mind.
This at least was the power of the spondaick and dactylick harmony, but
our language can reach no eminent diversities of sound. We can indeed
sometimes, by encumbering and retarding the line, show the difficulty
of a progress made by strong efforts and with frequent interruptions, or
mark a slow and heavy motion. Thus Milton has imaged the toil of Satan
struggling through chaos;

  So he with difficulty and labour hard
  Mov'd on: with difficulty and labour he--

Thus he has described the leviathans or whales;

  Wallowing unwieldy, enormous in their gait.

But he has at other times neglected such representations, as may be
observed in the volubility and levity of these lines, which express an
action tardy and reluctant.

              --------Descent and fall
  To us is adverse. Who but felt of late,
  When the fierce foe hung on our broken rear
  Insulting, and pursu'd us through the deep,
  With what confusion and laborious flight
  We sunk thus low! Th' ascent is easy then.

In another place, he describes the gentle glide of ebbing waters in a line
remarkably rough and halting;

          --------Tripping ebb; that stole
  With soft foot tow'rds the deep who now had stopp'd
  His sluices.

It is not, indeed, to be expected, that the sound should always assist the
meaning, but it ought never to counteract it; and therefore Milton has
here certainly committed a fault like that of a player, who looked on the
earth when he implored the heavens, and to the heavens when he addressed
the earth.

Those who are determined to find in Milton an assemblage of all the
excellencies which have ennobled all other poets, will perhaps be
offended that I do not celebrate his versification in higher terms; for
there are readers who discover that in this passage,

  So stretch'd out huge in length the arch-fiend lay,

a _long_ form is described in a _long_ line; but the truth is, that
length of body is only mentioned in a _slow_ line, to which it has only
the resemblance of time to space, of an hour to a maypole.

The same turn of ingenuity might perform wonders upon the description of
the ark:

  Then from the mountains hewing timber tall,
  Began to build a vessel of huge bulk;
  Measur'd by cubit, length, and breadth, and height.

In these lines the poet apparently designs to fix the attention upon
bulk; but this is effected by the enumeration, not by the measure; for
what analogy can there be between modulations of sound, and corporeal
dimensions?

Milton indeed seems only to have regarded this species of embellishment so
far as not to reject it when it came unsought; which would often happen
to a mind so vigorous, employed upon a subject so various and extensive.
He had, indeed, a greater and nobler work to perform; a single sentiment
of moral or religious truth, a single image of life or nature, would
have been cheaply lost for a thousand echoes of the cadence of the sense;
and he who had undertaken to _vindicate the ways of God to man_, might
have been accused of neglecting his cause, had he lavished much of his
attention upon syllables and sounds.




No. 95. TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 1751.


    _Parcus Deorum cultor et infrequens,_
  _Insanientis dum sapientiæ_
  _Consultus erro; nunc retrorsum_
  _Vela dare, atque iterare cursus_
    _Cogor relictos._
                                              HOR. Lib. i. Od. xxxiv. 1.

  A fugitive from heav'n and prayer,
  I mock'd at all religious fear,
    Deep scienc'd in the mazy lore
  Of mad philosophy; but now
  Hoist sail, and back my voyage plow
    To that blest harbour, which I left before.
                                                                FRANCIS.


TO THE RAMBLER.

SIR,

There are many diseases both of the body and mind, which it is far easier
to prevent than to cure, and therefore I hope you will think me employed
in an office not useless either to learning or virtue, if I describe the
symptoms of an intellectual malady, which, though at first it seizes only
the passions, will, if not speedily remedied, infect the reason, and, from
blasting the blossoms of knowledge, proceed in time to canker the root.

I was born in the house of discord. My parents were of unsuitable ages,
contrary tempers, and different religions, and therefore employed the
spirit and acuteness which nature had very liberally bestowed upon both,
in hourly disputes, and incessant contrivances to detect each other
in the wrong; so that from the first exertions of reason I was bred a
disputant, trained up in all the arts of domestick sophistry, initiated
in a thousand low stratagems, nimble shifts, and sly concealments; versed
in all the turns of altercation, and acquainted with the whole discipline
of _fending_ and _proving_.

It was necessarily my care to preserve the kindness of both the
controvertists, and therefore I had very early formed the habit of
suspending my judgment, of hearing arguments with indifference, inclining
as occasion required to either side, and of holding myself undetermined
between them till I knew for what opinion I might conveniently declare.

Thus, Sir, I acquired very early the skill of disputation; and, as we
naturally love the arts in which we believe ourselves to excel, I did not
let my abilities lie useless, nor suffer my dexterity to be lost for want
of practice. I engaged in perpetual wrangles with my school-fellows, and
was never to be convinced or repressed by any other arguments than blows,
by which my antagonists commonly determined the controversy, as I was,
like the Roman orator, much more eminent for eloquence than courage.

At the university I found my predominant ambition completely gratified
by the study of logick. I impressed upon my memory a thousand axioms,
and ten thousand distinctions, practised every form of syllogism, passed
all my days in the schools of disputation, and slept every night with
Smiglecius[55] on my pillow.

You will not doubt but such a genius was soon raised to eminence by
such application. I was celebrated in my third year for the most artful
opponent that the university could boast, and became the terrour and envy
of all the candidates for philosophical reputation.

My renown, indeed, was not purchased but at the price of all my time and
all my studies. I never spoke but to contradict, nor declaimed but in
defence of a position universally acknowledged to be false, and therefore
worthy, in my opinion, to be adorned with all the colours of false
representation, and strengthened with all the art of fallacious subtilty.

My father, who had no other wish than to see his son richer than himself,
easily concluded that I should distinguish myself among the professors
of the law; and therefore, when I had taken my first degree, dispatched
me to the Temple with a paternal admonition, that I should never suffer
myself to feel shame, for nothing but modesty could retard my fortune.

Vitiated, ignorant, and heady as I was, I had not yet lost my reverence
for virtue, and therefore could not receive such dictates without
horrour; but, however, was pleased with his determination of my course
of life, because he placed me in the way that leads soonest from the
prescribed walks of discipline and education, to the open fields of
liberty and choice.

I was now in the place where every one catches the contagion of vanity,
and soon began to distinguish myself by sophisms and paradoxes. I declared
war against all received opinions and established rules, and levelled my
batteries particularly against those universal principles which had stood
unshaken in all the vicissitudes of literature, and are considered as the
inviolable temples of truth, or the impregnable bulwarks of science.

I applied myself chiefly to those parts of learning which have filled
the world with doubt and perplexity, and could readily produce all the
arguments relating to matter and motion, time and space, identity and
infinity.

I was equally able and equally willing to maintain the system of Newton or
Descartes, and favoured occasionally the hypothesis of Ptolemy, or that
of Copernicus. I sometimes exalted vegetables to sense, and sometimes
degraded animals to mechanism.

Nor was I less inclined to weaken the credit of history, or perplex the
doctrines of polity. I was always of the party which I heard the company
condemn.

Among the zealots of liberty I could harangue with great copiousness upon
the advantages of absolute monarchy, the secrecy of its counsels, and the
expedition of its measures; and often celebrated the blessings produced
by the extinction of parties, and preclusion of debates.

Among the assertors of regal authority, I never failed to declaim with
republican warmth upon the original charter of universal liberty, the
corruption of courts, and the folly of voluntary submission to those whom
nature has levelled with ourselves.

I knew the defects of every scheme of government, and the inconveniences
of every law. I sometimes shewed how much the condition of mankind would
be improved, by breaking the world into petty sovereignties, and sometimes
displayed the felicity and peace which universal monarchy would diffuse
over the earth.

To every acknowledged fact I found innumerable objections; for it was my
rule, to judge of history only by abstracted probability, and therefore
I made no scruple of bidding defiance to testimony. I have more than once
questioned the existence of Alexander the Great; and having demonstrated
the folly of erecting edifices like the pyramids of Egypt, I frequently
hinted my suspicion that the world had been long deceived, and that they
were to be found only in the narratives of travellers.

It had been happy for me could I have confined my scepticism to historical
controversies and philosophical disquisitions; but having now violated
my reason, and accustomed myself to inquire not after proofs, but
objections, I had perplexed truth with falsehood, till my ideas were
confused, my judgment embarrassed, and my intellects distorted. The habit
of considering every proposition as alike uncertain, left me no test by
which any tenet could be tried; every opinion presented both sides with
equal evidence, and my fallacies began to operate upon my own mind in
more important inquiries. It was at last the sport of my vanity to weaken
the obligations of moral duty, and efface the distinctions of good and
evil, till I had deadened the sense of conviction, and abandoned my heart
to the fluctuations of uncertainty, without anchor and without compass,
without satisfaction of curiosity, or peace of conscience, without
principles of reason, or motives of action.

Such is the hazard of repressing the first perceptions of truth, of
spreading for diversion the snares of sophistry, and engaging reason
against its own determinations.

The disproportions of absurdity grow less and less visible, as we are
reconciled by degrees to the deformity of a mistress; and falsehood, by
long use, is assimilated to the mind, as poison to the body.

I had soon the mortification of seeing my conversation courted only by
the ignorant or wicked, by either boys who were enchanted by novelty, or
wretches, who having long disobeyed virtue and reason, were now desirous
of my assistance to dethrone them.

Thus alarmed, I shuddered at my own corruption, and that pride by which
I had been seduced, contributed to reclaim me. I was weary of continual
irresolution, and a perpetual equipoise of the mind; and ashamed of
being the favourite of those who were scorned and shunned by the rest
of mankind.

I therefore retired from all temptation to dispute, prescribed a new
regimen to my understanding, and resolved, instead of rejecting all
established opinions which I could not prove, to tolerate though not adopt
all which I could not confute. I forebore to heat my imagination with
needless controversies, to discuss questions confessedly uncertain, and
refrained steadily from gratifying my vanity by the support of falsehood.

By this method I am at length recovered from my argumental delirium, and
find myself in the state of one awakened from the confusion and tumult
of a feverish dream. I rejoice in the new possession of evidence and
reality, and step on from truth to truth with confidence and quiet.

I am, Sir, &c.

                                                               PERTINAX.

[Footnote 55: A Polish writer, whose "Logick" was formerly held in great
estimation in this country, as well as on the continent.]




No. 96. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 1751.


  _Quod si Platonis musa personat verum,_
  _Quod quisque discit, immemor recordatur._
                                                               BOETHIUS.

  Truth in Platonick ornaments bedeck'd,
  Inforc'd we love, unheeding recollect.


It is reported of the Persians, by an ancient writer, that the sum of
their education consisted in teaching youth _to ride, to shoot with the
bow, and to speak truth_.

The bow and the horse were easily mastered, but it would have been happy
if we had been informed by what arts veracity was cultivated, and by
what preservatives a Persian mind was secured against the temptations
to falsehood.

There are, indeed, in the present corruption of mankind, many incitements
to forsake truth; the need of palliating our own faults, and the
convenience of imposing on the ignorance or credulity of others, so
frequently occur; so many immediate evils are to be avoided, and so
many present gratifications obtained, by craft and delusion, that very
few of those who are much entangled in life, have spirit and constancy
sufficient to support them in the steady practice of open veracity.

In order that all men may be taught to speak truth, it is necessary that
all likewise should learn to hear it; for no species of falsehood is
more frequent than flattery, to which the coward is betrayed by fear,
the dependant by interest, and the friend by tenderness. Those who are
neither servile nor timorous, are yet desirous to bestow pleasure; and
while unjust demands of praise continue to be made, there will always be
some whom hope, fear, or kindness, will dispose to pay them.

The guilt of falsehood is very widely extended, and many whom their
conscience can scarcely charge with stooping to a lie, have vitiated the
morals of others by their vanity, and patronized the vice they believe
themselves to abhor.

Truth is, indeed, not often welcome for its own sake; it is generally
unpleasing, because contrary to our wishes and opposite to our practice;
and as our attention naturally follows our interest, we hear unwillingly
what we are afraid to know, and soon forget what we have no inclination
to impress upon our memories.

For this reason many arts of instruction have been invented, by which
the reluctance against truth may be overcome; and as physick is given
to children in confections, precepts have been hidden under a thousand
appearances, that mankind may be bribed by pleasure to escape destruction.

While the world was yet in its infancy, Truth came among mortals from
above, and Falsehood from below. Truth was the daughter of Jupiter and
Wisdom; Falsehood was the progeny of Folly impregnated by the Wind. They
advanced with equal confidence to seize the dominion of the new creation,
and, as their enmity and their force were well known to the celestials,
all the eyes of heaven were turned upon the contest.

Truth seemed conscious of superiour power and juster claim, and therefore
came on towering and majestick, unassisted and alone; Reason, indeed,
always attended her, but appeared her follower, rather than companion.
Her march was slow and stately, but her motion was perpetually
progressive, and when once she had grounded her foot, neither gods nor
men could force her to retire.

Falsehood always endeavoured to copy the mien and attitudes of Truth, and
was very successful in the arts of mimickry. She was surrounded, animated,
and supported by innumerable legions of appetites and passions, but
like other feeble commanders, was obliged often to receive law from her
allies. Her motions were sudden, irregular, and violent; for she had no
steadiness nor constancy. She often gained conquests by hasty incursions,
which she never hoped to keep by her own strength, but maintained by the
help of the passions, whom she generally found resolute and faithful.

It sometimes happened that the antagonists met in full opposition. In
these encounters, Falsehood always invested her head with clouds, and
commanded Fraud to place ambushes about her. In her left hand she bore
the shield of Impudence, and the quiver of Sophistry rattled on her
shoulder. All the Passions attended at her call; Vanity clapped her wings
before, and Obstinacy supported her behind. Thus guarded and assisted,
she sometimes advanced against Truth, and sometimes waited the attack;
but always endeavoured to skirmish at a distance, perpetually shifted
her ground, and let fly her arrows in different directions; for she
certainly found that her strength failed, whenever the eye of Truth
darted full upon her.

Truth had the awful aspect though not the thunder of her father, and when
the long continuance of the contest brought them near to one another,
Falsehood let the arms of Sophistry fall from her grasp, and holding up
the shield of Impudence with both her hands, sheltered herself amongst
the Passions.

Truth, though she was often wounded, always recovered in a short time; but
it was common for the slightest hurt, received by Falsehood, to spread
its malignity to the neighbouring parts, and to burst open again when it
seemed to have been cured.

Falsehood, in a short time, found by experience that her superiority
consisted only in the celerity of her course, and the changes of her
posture. She therefore ordered Suspicion to beat the ground before her,
and avoid with great care to cross the way of Truth, who, as she never
varied her point, but moved constantly upon the same line, was easily
escaped by the oblique and desultory movements, the quick retreats, and
active doubles which Falsehood always practised, when the enemy began to
raise terrour by her approach.

By this procedure Falsehood every hour encroached upon the world, and
extended her empire through all climes and regions. Wherever she carried
her victories she left the Passions in full authority behind her;
who were so well pleased with command, that they held out with great
obstinacy when Truth came to seize their posts, and never failed to
retard her progress, though they could not always stop it. They yielded
at last with great reluctance, frequent rallies, and sullen submission;
and always inclined to revolt when Truth ceased to awe them by her
immediate presence.

Truth, who, when she first descended from the heavenly palaces, expected
to have been received by universal acclamation, cherished with kindness,
heard with obedience, and invited to spread her influence from province
to province, now found that wherever she came she must force her
passage. Every intellect was precluded by prejudice, and every heart
preoccupied by passion. She indeed advanced, but she advanced slowly;
and often lost the conquests which she left behind her, by sudden
insurrections of the appetites, that shook off their allegiance, and
ranged themselves again under the banner of her enemy.

Truth, however, did not grow weaker by the struggle, for her vigour was
unconquerable; yet she was provoked to see herself thus baffled and
impeded by an enemy, whom she looked on with contempt, and who had no
advantage but such as she owed to inconstancy, weakness, and artifice.
She, therefore, in the anger of disappointment, called upon her father
Jupiter to reestablish her in the skies, and leave mankind to the
disorder and misery which they deserved, by submitting willingly to the
usurpation of falsehood.

Jupiter compassionated the world too much to grant her request, yet was
willing to ease her labours and mitigate her vexation. He commanded
her to consult the muses by what methods she might obtain an easier
reception, and reign without the toil of incessant war. It was then
discovered, that she obstructed her own progress by the severity of
her aspect, and the solemnity of her dictates; and that men would
never willingly admit her till they ceased to fear her, since by giving
themselves up to falsehood, they seldom make any sacrifice of their
ease or pleasure, because she took the shape that was most engaging,
and always suffered herself to be dressed and painted by desire. The
muses wove, in the loom of Pallas, a loose and changeable robe, like
that in which falsehood captivated her admirers; with this they invested
truth, and named her fiction. She now went out again to conquer with
more success; for when she demanded entrance of the passions, they often
mistook her for falsehood, and delivered up their charge: but when she
had once taken possession, she was soon disrobed by reason, and shone
out, in her original form, with native effulgence and resistless dignity.




No. 97. TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 1751.


  _Foecunda culpæ soecula nuptias_
  _Primum inquinavere, et genus, et domos._
    _Hoc fonte derivala clades_
      _In patriam populumque fluxit._
                                               HOR. Lib. iii Od. vi. 17.

  Fruitful of crimes, this age first stain'd
  Their hapless offspring, and profan'd
  The nuptial bed; from whence the woes,
  Which various and unnumber'd rose
  From this polluted fountain head,
  O'er Rome and o'er the nations spread.
                                                                FRANCIS.


The reader is indebted for this day's entertainment to an author from whom
the age has received greater favours, who has enlarged the knowledge of
human nature, and taught the passions to move at the command of virtue.


TO THE RAMBLER.

SIR,

When the Spectator was first published in single papers, it gave me so
much pleasure, that it is one of the favourite amusements of my age
to recollect it; and when I reflect on the foibles of those times,
as described in that useful work, and compare them with the vices
now reigning among us, I cannot but wish that you would oftener take
cognizance of the manners of the better half of the human species, that
if your precepts and observations be carried down to posterity, the
Spectators may show to the rising generation what were the fashionable
follies of their grandmothers, the Rambler of their mothers, and that
from both they may draw instruction and warning.

When I read those Spectators which took notice of the misbehaviour of
young women at church, by which they vainly hope to attract admirers,
I used to pronounce such forward young women Seekers, in order to
distinguish them, by a mark of infamy, from those who had patience and
decency to stay till they were sought.

But I have lived to see such a change in the manners of women, that I
would now be willing to compound with them for that name, although I then
thought it disgraceful enough, if they would deserve no worse; since now
they are too generally given up to negligence of domestick business, to
idle amusements, and to wicked rackets, without any settled view at all
but of squandering time.

In the time of the Spectator, excepting sometimes in appearance in the
ring, sometimes at a good and chosen play, sometimes on a visit at the
house of a grave relation, the young ladies contented themselves to
be found employed in domestick duties; for then routes, drums, balls,
assemblies, and such like markets for women, were not known.

Modesty and diffidence, gentleness and meekness, were looked upon as
the appropriate virtues and characteristick graces of the sex; and if
a forward spirit pushed itself into notice, it was exposed in print as
it deserved.

The churches were almost the only places where single women were to be
seen by strangers. Men went thither expecting to see them, and perhaps
too much for that only purpose.

But some good often resulted, however improper might be their motives.
Both sexes were in the way of their duty. The man must be abandoned
indeed, who loves not goodness in another; nor were the young fellows
of that age so wholly lost to a sense of right, as pride and conceit has
since made them affect to be. When therefore they saw a fair-one whose
decent behaviour and cheerful piety shewed her earnest in her first
duties, they had the less doubt, judging politically only, that she would
have conscientious regard to her second.

With what ardour have I seen watched for, the rising of a kneeling beauty;
and what additional charms has devotion given to her recommunicated
features?

The men were often the better for what they heard. Even a Saul was once
found prophesying among the prophets whom he had set out to destroy. To a
man thus put into good humour by a pleasing object, religion itself looked
more amiable. The Men Seekers of the Spectator's time loved the holy place
for the object's sake, and loved the object for her suitable behaviour
in it.

Reverence mingled with their love, and they thought that a young lady of
such good principles must be addressed only by the man who at least made
a shew of good principles, whether his heart was yet quite right or not.

Nor did the young lady's behaviour, at any time of the service, lessen
this reverence. Her eyes were her own, her ears the preacher's. Women are
always most observed when they seem themselves least to observe, or to
lay out for observation. The eye of a respectful lover loves rather to
receive confidence from the withdrawn eye of the fair-one, than to find
itself obliged to retreat.

When a young gentleman's affection was thus laudably engaged, he pursued
its natural dictates; keeping then was a rare, at least a secret and
scandalous vice, and a wife was the summit of his wishes. Rejection
was now dreaded, and pre-engagement apprehended. A woman whom he loved,
he was ready to think must be admired by all the world. His fears, his
uncertainties, increased his love.

Every inquiry he made into the lady's domestick excellence, which, when a
wife is to be chosen, will surely not be neglected, confirmed him in his
choice. He opens his heart to a common friend, and honestly discovers the
state of his fortune. His friend applies to those of the young lady, whose
parents, if they approve his proposals, disclose them to their daughter.

She perhaps is not an absolute stranger to the passion of the young
gentleman. His eyes, his assiduities, his constant attendance at a
church, whither, till of late, he used seldom to come, and a thousand
little observances that he paid her, had very probably first forced her
to regard, and then inclined her to favour him.

That a young lady should be in love, and the love of the young gentleman
undeclared, is an heterodoxy which prudence, and even policy, must not
allow. But, thus applied to, she is all resignation to her parents.
Charming resignation, which inclination opposes not.

Her relations applaud her for her duty; friends meet; points are adjusted;
delightful perturbations, and hopes, and a few lover's fears, fill up the
tedious space till an interview is granted; for the young lady had not
made herself cheap at publick places.

The time of interview arrives. She is modestly reserved; he is not
confident. He declares his passion; the consciousness of her own worth,
and his application to her parents, take from her any doubt of his
sincerity; and she owns herself obliged to him for his good opinion. The
inquiries of her friends into his character, have taught her that his
good opinion deserves to be valued.

She tacitly allows of his future visits; he renews them; the regard of
each for the other is confirmed; and when he presses for the favour of
her hand, he receives a declaration of an entire acquiescence with her
duty, and a modest acknowledgment of esteem for him.

He applies to her parents therefore for a near day; and thinks himself
under obligation to them for the cheerful and affectionate manner with
which they receive his agreeable application.

With this prospect of future happiness, the marriage is celebrated.
Gratulations pour in from every quarter. Parents and relations on both
sides, brought acquainted in the course of the courtship, can receive the
happy couple with countenances illumined, and joyful hearts.

The brothers, the sisters, the friends of one family, are the brothers,
the sisters, the friends of the other. Their two families, thus made one,
are the world to the young couple.

Their home is the place of their principal delight, nor do they ever
occasionally quit it but they find the pleasure of returning to it
augmented in proportion to the time of their absence from it.

Oh, Mr. Rambler! forgive the talkativeness of an old man! When I courted
and married my Lætitia, then a blooming beauty, every thing passed just
so! But how is the case now? The ladies, maidens, wives, and widows,
are engrossed by places of open resort and general entertainment, which
fill every quarter of the metropolis, and, being constantly frequented,
make home irksome. Breakfasting-places, dining-places, routes, drums,
concerts, balls, plays, operas, masquerades for the evening, and even for
all night, and lately, publick sales of the goods of broken housekeepers,
which the general dissoluteness of manners has contributed to make
very frequent, come in as another seasonable relief to these modern
time-killers.

In the summer there are in every country-town assemblies; Tunbridge, Bath,
Cheltenham, Scarborough! What expense of dress and equipage is required
to qualify the frequenters for such emulous appearance!

By the natural infection of example, the lowest people have places of
six-penny resort, and gaming-tables for pence. Thus servants are now
induced to fraud and dishonesty, to support extravagance, and supply
their losses.

As to the ladies who frequent those publick places, they are not ashamed
to shew their faces wherever men dare go, nor blush to try who shall
stare most impudently, or who shall laugh loudest on the publick walks.

The men who would make good husbands, if they visit those places,
are frighted at wedlock, and resolve to live single, except they are
bought at a very high price. They can be spectators of all that passes,
and, if they please, more than spectators, at the expense of others.
The companion of an evening and the companion for life, require very
different qualifications.

Two thousand pounds in the last age, with a domestick wife, would go
farther than ten thousand in this. Yet settlements are expected, that
often, to a mercantile man especially, sink a fortune into uselessness;
and pin-money is stipulated for, which makes a wife independent,
and destroys love, by putting it out of a man's power to lay any
obligation upon her, that might engage gratitude, and kindle affection.
When to all this the card-tables are added, how can a prudent man think
of marrying?

And when the worthy men know not where to find wives, must not the sex
be left to the foplings, the coxcombs, the libertines of the age, whom
they help to make such? And need even these wretches marry to enjoy the
conversation of those who render their company so cheap?

And what, after all, is the benefit which the gay coquette obtains by her
flutters? As she is approachable by every man without requiring, I will
not say incense or adoration, but even common complaisance, every fop
treats her as upon the level, looks upon her light airs as invitations,
and is on the watch to take the advantage: she has companions indeed, but
no lovers; for love is respectful and timorous; and where among all her
followers will she find a husband?

Set, dear Sir, before the youthful, the gay, the inconsiderate, the
contempt as well as the danger to which they are exposed. At one time or
other, women, not utterly thoughtless, will be convinced of the justice
of your censure, and the charity of your instruction.

But should your expostulations and reproofs have no effect upon those
who are far gone in fashionable folly, they may be retailed from their
mouths to their nieces, (marriage will not often have entitled these
to daughters,) when they, the meteors of a day, find themselves elbowed
off the stage of vanity by other flutterers; for the most admired women
cannot have many Tunbridge, many Bath seasons to blaze in; since even
fine faces, often seen, are less regarded than new faces, the proper
punishment of showy girls for rendering themselves so impolitickly cheap.

I am, Sir,

Your sincere admirer, &c.[56]

[Footnote 56: The writer of this paper was Richardson, the Novelist.
See Preface.]




No. 98. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 1751.


  _----Quæ nec Sarmentus iniquas_
  _Cæsaris ad mensas, nec vilis Galba talisset._
                                                         JUV. Sat. v. 3.

  Which not Sarmentus brook'd at Cæsar's board,
  Nor grov'ling Galba from his haughty Lord.
                                                             ELPHINSTON.


TO THE AUTHOR OF THE RAMBLER.

MR. RAMBLER,

You have often endeavoured to impress upon your readers an observation of
more truth than novelty, that life passes, for the most part, in petty
transactions; that our hours glide away in trifling amusements and slight
gratifications; and that there very seldom emerges any occasion that can
call forth great virtue or great abilities.

It very commonly happens that speculation has no influence on conduct.
Just conclusions, and cogent arguments, formed by laborious study, and
diligent inquiry, are often reposited in the treasuries of memory, as
gold in a miser's chest, useless alike to others and himself. As some are
not richer for the extent of their possessions, others are not wiser for
the multitude of their ideas.

You have truly described the state of human beings, but it may be doubted
whether you have accommodated your precepts to your description; whether
you have not generally considered your readers as influenced by the
tragick passions, and susceptible of pain or pleasure only from powerful
agents, and from great events.

To an author who writes not for the improvement of a single art, or
the establishment of a controverted doctrine, but equally intends the
advantage and equally courts the perusal of all the classes of mankind,
nothing can justly seem unworthy of regard, by which the pleasure of
conversation may be increased, and the daily satisfactions of familiar
life secured from interruption and disgust.

For this reason you would not have injured your reputation, if you had
sometimes descended to the minuter duties of social beings, and enforced
the observance of those little civilities and ceremonious delicacies,
which, inconsiderable as they may appear to the man of science, and
difficult as they may prove to be detailed with dignity, yet contribute
to the regulation of the world, by facilitating the intercourse between
one man and another, and of which the French have sufficiently testified
their esteem, by terming the knowledge and practice of them _Sçavoir
vivre_, The art of living.

Politeness is one of those advantages which we never estimate rightly
but by the inconvenience of its loss. Its influence upon the manners
is constant and uniform, so that, like an equal motion, it escapes
perception. The circumstances of every action are so adjusted to each
other, that we do not see where any errour could have been committed, and
rather acquiesce in its propriety than admire its exactness.

But as sickness shews us the value of ease, a little familiarity with
those who were never taught to endeavour the gratification of others, but
regulate their behaviour merely by their own will, will soon evince the
necessity of established modes and formalities to the happiness and quiet
of common life.

Wisdom and virtue are by no means sufficient, without the supplemental
laws of good-breeding, to secure freedom from degenerating to rudeness,
or self-esteem from swelling into insolence; a thousand incivilities may
be committed, and a thousand offices neglected, without any remorse of
conscience or reproach from reason.

The true effect of genuine politeness seems to be rather ease than
pleasure. The power of delighting must be conferred by nature, and cannot
be delivered by precept, or obtained by imitation; but though it be the
privilege of a very small number to ravish and to charm, every man may
hope by rules and caution not to give pain, and may, therefore, by the
help of good-breeding, enjoy the kindness of mankind, though he should
have no claim to higher distinctions.

The universal axiom in which all complaisance is included, and from
which flow all the formalities which custom has established in civilized
nations, is, _That no man shall give any preference to himself_. A rule
so comprehensive and certain, that, perhaps, it is not easy for the mind
to image an incivility, without supposing it to be broken.

There are, indeed, in every place some particular modes of the ceremonial
part of good-breeding, which, being arbitrary and accidental, can
be learned only by habitude and conversation; such are the forms
of salutation, the different gradations of reverence, and all the
adjustments of place and precedence. These, however, may be often
violated without offence, if it be sufficiently evident, that neither
malice nor pride contributed to the failure; but will not atone, however
rigidly observed, for the tumour of insolence, or petulance of contempt.

I have, indeed, not found among any part of mankind, less real and
rational complaisance, than among those who have passed their time in
paying and receiving visits, in frequenting publick entertainments,
in studying the exact measures of ceremony, and in watching all the
variations of fashionable courtesy.

They know, indeed, at what hour they may beat the door of an acquaintance,
how many steps they must attend him towards the gate, and what interval
should pass before his visit is returned; but seldom extend their care
beyond the exterior and unessential parts of civility, nor refuse their
own vanity any gratification, however expensive to the quiet of another.

Trypherus is a man remarkable for splendour and expense; a man, that having
been originally placed by his fortune and rank in the first class of the
community, has acquired that air of dignity, and that readiness in the
exchange of compliments, which courts, balls, and levees, easily confer.

But Trypherus, without any settled purposes of malignity, partly by his
ignorance of human nature, and partly by the habit of contemplating with
great satisfaction his own grandeur and riches, is hourly giving disgust
to those whom chance or expectation subjects to his vanity.

To a man whose fortune confines him to a small house, he declaims upon
the pleasure of spacious apartments, and the convenience of changing his
lodging-room in different parts of the year; tells him, that he hates
confinement; and concludes, that if his chamber was less, he should never
wake without thinking of a prison.

To Eucretas, a man of birth equal to himself, but of much less estate, he
shewed his services of plate, and remarked that such things were, indeed,
nothing better than costly trifles, but that no man must pretend to the
rank of a gentleman without them; and that for his part, if his estate
was smaller, he should not think of enjoying but increasing it, and would
inquire out a trade for his eldest son.

He has, in imitation of some more acute observer than himself, collected a
great many shifts and artifices by which poverty is concealed; and among
the ladies of small fortune, never fails to talk of frippery and slight
silks, and the convenience of a general mourning.

I have been insulted a thousand times with a catalogue of his pictures,
his jewels, and his rarities, which, though he knows the humble neatness
of my habitation, he seldom fails to conclude by a declaration, that
wherever he sees a house meanly furnished, he despises the owner's taste,
or pities his poverty.

This, Mr. Rambler, is the practice of Trypherus, by which he is become
the terrour of all who are less wealthy than himself, and has raised
innumerable enemies without rivalry, and without malevolence.

Yet though all are not equally culpable with Trypherus, it is scarcely
possible to find any man who does not frequently, like him, indulge his
own pride by forcing others into a comparison with himself when he knows
the advantage is on his side, without considering that unnecessarily
to obtrude unpleasing ideas, is a species of oppression; and that it is
little more criminal to deprive another of some real advantage, than to
interrupt that forgetfulness of its absence which is the next happiness
to actual possession.

I am, &c.

                                                              EUTROPIUS.




No. 99. TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 1751.


  _Scilicet ingeniis aliqua est concordia junctis,_
    _Et servat studii foedera quisque sui._
  _Rusticus agricolam, miles fera bella gerentem,_
    _Rectorem dubiæ navita puppis amat._
                                                    OVID, Ex Pon. v. 59.

  Congenial passions souls together bind,
  And ev'ry calling mingles with its kind;
  Soldier unites with soldier, swain with swain,
  The mariner with him that roves the main.
                                                               F. LEWIS.


It has been ordained by Providence, for the conservation of order in the
immense variety of nature, and for the regular propagation of the several
classes of life with which the elements are peopled, that every creature
should be drawn by some secret attraction to those of his own kind; and
that not only the gentle and domestick animals which naturally unite
into companies, or co-habit by pairs, should continue faithful to their
species; but even those ravenous and ferocious savages which Aristotle
observes never to be gregarious, should range mountains and deserts in
search of one another, rather than pollute the world with a monstrous
birth.

As the perpetuity and distinction of the lower tribes of the creation
require that they should be determined to proper mates by some uniform
motive of choice, or some cogent principle of instinct, it is necessary,
likewise, that man, whose wider capacity demands more gratifications, and
who feels in himself innumerable wants, which a life of solitude cannot
supply, and innumerable powers to which it cannot give employment, should
be led to suitable companions by particular influence; and among many
beings of the same nature with himself, he may select some for intimacy
and tenderness, and improve the condition of his existence, by
superadding friendship to humanity, and the love of individuals to that
of the species.

Other animals are so formed, that they seem to contribute very little to
the happiness of each other, and know neither joy, nor grief, nor love,
nor hatred, but as they are urged by some desire immediately subservient
either to the support of their own lives, or to the continuation of
their race; they therefore seldom appear to regard any of the minuter
discriminations which distinguish creatures of the same kind from one
another.

But if man were to feel no incentives to kindness, more than his
general tendency to congenial nature, Babylon or London, with all
their multitudes, would have to him the desolation of a wilderness; his
affections, not compressed into a narrower compass, would vanish, like
elemental fire, in boundless evaporation; he would languish in perpetual
insensibility, and though he might, perhaps, in the first vigour of
youth, amuse himself with the fresh enjoyments of life, yet, when
curiosity should cease, and alacrity subside, he would abandon himself to
the fluctuations of chance, without expecting help against any calamity,
or feeling any wish for the happiness of others.

To love all men is our duty, so far as it includes a general habit of
benevolence, and readiness of occasional kindness; but to love all
equally is impossible; at least impossible without the extinction of
those passions which now produce all our pains and all our pleasures;
without the disuse, if not the abolition, of some of our faculties, and
the suppression of all our hopes and fears in apathy and indifference.

The necessities of our condition require a thousand offices of tenderness,
which mere regard for the species will never dictate. Every man has
frequent grievances which only the solicitude of friendship will discover
and remedy, and which would remain for ever unheeded in the mighty heap
of human calamity, were it only surveyed by the eye of general benevolence
equally attentive to every misery.

The great community of mankind is, therefore, necessarily broken into
smaller independent societies; these form distinct interests, which are
too frequently opposed to each other, and which they who have entered
into the league of particular governments falsely think it virtue to
promote, however destructive to the happiness of the rest of the world.

Such unions are again separated into subordinate classes and combinations,
and social life is perpetually branched out into minuter subdivisions,
till it terminates in the last ramifications of private life.

That friendship may at once be fond and lasting, it has been already
observed in these papers, that a conformity of inclinations is necessary.
No man can have much kindness for him by whom he does not believe himself
esteemed, and nothing so evidently proves esteem as imitation.

That benevolence is always strongest which arises from participation of
the same pleasures, since we are naturally most willing to revive in our
minds the memory of persons, with whom the idea of enjoyment is connected.

It is commonly, therefore, to little purpose that any one endeavours to
ingratiate himself with such as he cannot accompany in their amusements
and diversions. Men have been known to rise to favour and to fortune,
only by being skilful in the sports with which their patron happened to
be delighted, by concurring with his taste for some particular species of
curiosities, by relishing the same wine, or applauding the same cookery.

Even those whom wisdom or virtue have placed above regard to such petty
recommendations, must nevertheless be gained by similitude of manners.
The highest and noblest enjoyment of familiar life, the communication
of knowledge, and reciprocation of sentiments, must always pre-suppose a
disposition to the same inquiry, and delight in the same discoveries.

With what satisfaction could the politician lay his schemes for the
reformation of laws, or his comparisons of different forms of government,
before the chemist, who has never accustomed his thoughts to any other
object than salt and sulphur? or how could the astronomer, in explaining
his calculations and conjectures, endure the coldness of a grammarian, who
would lose sight of Jupiter and all his satellites, for a happy etymology
of an obscure word, or a better explication of a controverted line?

Every man loves merit of the same kind with his own, when it is not
likely to hinder his advancement or his reputation; for he not only best
understands the worth of those qualities which he labours to cultivate,
or the usefulness of the art which he practises with success, but always
feels a reflected pleasure from the praises, which, though given to
another, belong equally to himself.

There is, indeed, no need of research and refinement to discover that
men must generally select their companions from their own state of
life, since there are not many minds furnished for great variety of
conversation, or adapted to multiplicity of intellectual entertainments.

The sailor, the academick, the lawyer, the mechanick, and the courtier,
have all a cast of talk peculiar to their own fraternity; have fixed
their attention upon the same events, have been engaged in affairs of the
same sort, and made use of allusions and illustrations which themselves
only can understand.

To be infected with the jargon of a particular profession, and to know
only the language of a single rank of mortals, is indeed sufficiently
despicable. But as limits must be always set to the excursions of the
human mind, there will be some study which every man more zealously
prosecutes, some darling subject on which he is principally pleased
to converse; and he that can most inform or best understand him, will
certainly be welcomed with particular regard.

Such partiality is not wholly to be avoided, nor is it culpable, unless
suffered so far to predominate as to produce aversion from every other
kind of excellence, and to shade the lustre of dissimilar virtues. Those,
therefore, whom the lot of life has conjoined, should endeavour constantly
to approach towards the inclination of each other, invigorate every
motion of concurrent desire, and fan every spark of kindred curiosity.

It has been justly observed, that discord generally operates in little
things; it is inflamed to its utmost vehemence by contrariety of taste,
oftener than of principles; and might therefore commonly be avoided by
innocent conformity, which, if it was not at first the motive, ought
always to be the consequence of indissoluble union.




No. 100. SATURDAY, MARCH 2, 1751.


  _Omne vafer vitium ridenti Flaccus amico_
  _Tangit, et admissus circum præcordia, ludit._
                                                   PERSIUS, Sat. i. 116.

  Horace, with sly insinuating grace,
  Laugh'd at his friend, and look'd him in the face;
  Would raise a blush, where secret vice he found,
  And tickle while he gently prob'd the wound.
  With seeming innocence the crowd beguild;
  But made the desperate passes when he smil'd.
                                                                 DRYDEN.


TO THE RAMBLER.

SIR,

As very many well-disposed persons, by the unavoidable necessity of their
affairs, are so unfortunate as to be totally buried in the country, where
they labour under the most deplorable ignorance of what is transacting
among the polite part of mankind, I cannot help thinking, that, as a
publick writer, you should take the case of these truly compassionable
objects under your consideration.

These unhappy languishers in obscurity should be furnished with such
accounts of the employments of people of the world, as may engage them
in their several remote corners to a laudable imitation; or, at least, so
far inform and prepare them, that if by any joyful change of situation
they should be suddenly transported into the gay scene, they may not gape,
and wonder, and stare, and be utterly at a loss how to behave and make a
proper appearance in it.

It is inconceivable how much the welfare of all the country towns in the
kingdom might be promoted, if you would use your charitable endeavours to
raise in them a noble emulation of the manners and customs of higher life.

For this purpose you should give a very clear and ample description of the
whole set of polite acquirements; a complete history of forms, fashions,
frolicks; of routs, drums, hurricanes, balls, assemblies, ridottos,
masquerades, auctions, plays, operas, puppet-shows, and bear-gardens;
of all those delights which profitably engage the attention of the
most sublime characters, and by which they have brought to such amazing
perfection the whole art and mystery of passing day after day, week after
week, and year after year, without the heavy assistance of any one thing
that formal creatures are pleased to call useful and necessary.

In giving due instructions through what steps to attain this summit of
human excellence, you may add such irresistible arguments in its favour,
as must convince numbers, who in other instances do not seem to want
natural understanding, of the unaccountable errour of supposing they
were sent into the world for any other purpose but to flutter, sport, and
shine. For, after all, nothing can be clearer than that an everlasting
round of diversion, and the more lively and hurrying the better, is the
most important end of human life.

It is really prodigious, so much as the world is improved, that there
should in these days be persons so ignorant and stupid as to think it
necessary to mispend their time, and trouble their heads about any thing
else than pursuing the present fancy; for what else is worth living for?

It is time enough surely to think of consequences when they come; and
as for the antiquated notions of duty, they are not to be met with in any
French novel, or any book one ever looks into, but derived almost wholly
from the writings of authors[57], who lived a vast many ages ago, and who,
as they were totally without any idea of those accomplishments which now
characterize people of distinction, have been for some time sinking apace
into utter contempt. It does not appear that even their most zealous
admirers, for some partisans of his own sort every writer will have, can
pretend to say they were ever at one ridotto.

In the important article of diversions, the ceremonial of visits, the
ecstatick delight of unfriendly intimacies and unmeaning civilities, they
are absolutely silent. Blunt truth, and downright honesty, plain clothes,
staying at home, hard work, few words, and those unenlivened with
censure or double meaning, are what they recommend as the ornaments and
pleasures of life. Little oaths, polite dissimulation, tea-table scandal,
delightful indolence, the glitter of finery, the triumph of precedence,
the enchantments of flattery, they seem to have had no notion of; and
I cannot but laugh to think what a figure they would have made in a
drawing-room, and how frighted they would have looked at a gaming-table.

The noble zeal of patriotism that disdains authority, and tramples on laws
for sport, was absolutely the aversion of these tame wretches.

Indeed one cannot discover any one thing they pretend to teach people, but
to be wise, and good; acquirements infinitely below the consideration of
persons of taste and spirit, who know how to spend their time to so much
better purpose.

Among other admirable improvements, pray, Mr. Rambler, do not forget to
enlarge on the very extensive benefit of playing at cards on Sundays,
a practice of such infinite use, that we may modestly expect to see it
prevail universally in all parts of this kingdom.

To persons of fashion, the advantage is obvious; because, as for some
strange reason or other, which no fine gentleman or fine lady has yet
been able to penetrate, there is neither play, nor masquerade, nor
bottled conjurer, nor any other thing worth living for, to be had on a
Sunday; if it were not for the charitable assistance of whist or bragg,
the genteel part of mankind must, one day in seven, necessarily suffer
a total extinction of being.

Nor are the persons of high rank the only gainers by so salutary a custom,
which extends its good influence, in some degree, to the lower orders of
people; but were it quite general, how much better and happier would the
world be than it is even now?

'Tis hard upon poor creatures, be they ever so mean, to deny them those
enjoyments and liberties which are equally open for all. Yet if servants
were taught to go to church on this day, spend some part of it in reading
or receiving instruction in a family way, and the rest in mere friendly
conversation, the poor wretches would infallibly take it into their
heads, that they were obliged to be sober, modest, diligent, and faithful
to their masters and mistresses.

Now surely no one of common prudence or humanity would wish their
domesticks infected with such strange and primitive notions, or laid
under such unmerciful restraints: all which may, in a great measure, be
prevented by the prevalence of the good-humoured fashion, that I would
have you recommend. For when the lower kind of people see their betters,
with a truly laudable spirit, insulting and flying in the face of those
rude, ill-bred dictators, piety and the laws, they are thereby excited
and admonished, as far as actions can admonish and excite, and taught
that they too have an equal right of setting them at defiance in such
instances as their particular necessities and inclinations may require;
and thus is the liberty of the whole human species mightily improved
and enlarged.

In short, Mr. Rambler, by a faithful representation of the numberless
benefits of a modish life, you will have done your part in promoting
what every body seems to confess the true purpose of human existence,
perpetual dissipation.

By encouraging people to employ their whole attention on trifles, and make
amusement their sole study, you will teach them how to avoid many very
uneasy reflections.

All the soft feelings of humanity, the sympathies of friendship, all
natural temptations to the care of a family, and solicitude about the
good or ill of others, with the whole train of domestick and social
affections, which create such daily anxieties and embarrassments, will
be happily stifled and suppressed in a round of perpetual delights; and
all serious thoughts, but particularly that of _hereafter_, be banished
out of the world; a most perplexing apprehension, but luckily a most
groundless one too, as it is so very clear a case, that nobody ever dies.

I am, &c.

                                                          CHARIESSA.[58]

[Footnote 57: In the original of this paper, written by Mrs. Carter, and
republished by her nephew and executor, the Rev. Montagu Pennington,
(Memoirs of Mrs. C. Vol. ii. Oct. 1816,) the following words occur, which
were unaccountably omitted by Dr. Johnson--"authors called, I think Peter
and Paul, who lived." &c.]

[Footnote 58: The second contribution of Mrs. Carter.]




No. 101. TUESDAY, MARCH 5, 1751.


  _Mella jubes Hyblæa tibi, vel Hymettia nasci;_
    _Et thyma Cecropiæ Corsica ponis api?_
                                                  MART. Lib. xi. Ep. 42.

  Alas! dear Sir, you try in vain,
  Impossibilities to gain;
  No bee from Corsica's rank juice,
  Hyblæan honey can produce.
                                                               F. LEWIS.


TO THE RAMBLER.

SIR,

Having by several years of continual study treasured in my mind a great
number of principles and ideas, and obtained by frequent exercise the
power of applying them with propriety, and combining them with readiness,
I resolved to quit the university, where I considered myself as a gem
hidden in the mine, and to mingle in the crowd of publick life. I was
naturally attracted by the company of those who were of the same age with
myself, and finding that my academical gravity contributed very little
to my reputation, applied my faculties to jocularity and burlesque. Thus,
in a short time, I had heated my imagination to such a state of activity
and ebullition, that upon every occasion it fumed away in bursts of
wit, and evaporations of gaiety. I became on a sudden the idol of the
coffee-house, was in one winter solicited to accept the presidentship
of five clubs, was dragged by violence to every new play, and quoted
in every controversy upon theatrical merit; was in every publick place
surrounded by a multitude of humble auditors, who retailed in other
places of resort my maxims and my jests, and was boasted as their
intimate and companion, by many, who had no other pretensions to my
acquaintance, than that they had drank chocolate in the same room.

You will not wonder, Mr. Rambler, that I mention my success with some
appearance of triumph and elevation. Perhaps no kind of superiority is
more flattering or alluring than that which is conferred by the powers
of conversation, by extemporaneous sprightliness of fancy, copiousness of
language, and fertility of sentiment. In other exertions of genius, the
greater part of the praise is unknown and unenjoyed; the writer, indeed,
spreads his reputation to a wider extent, but receives little pleasure
or advantage from the diffusion of his name, and only obtains a kind of
nominal sovereignty over regions which pay no tribute. The colloquial
wit has always his own radiance reflected on himself, and enjoys all
the pleasure which he bestows; he finds his power confessed by every one
that approaches him, sees friendship kindling with rapture, and attention
swelling into praise.

The desire which every man feels of importance and esteem, is so much
gratified by finding an assembly, at his entrance, brightened with
gladness and hushed with expectation, that the recollection of such
distinctions can scarcely fail to be pleasing whensoever it is innocent.
And my conscience does not reproach me with any mean or criminal effects
of vanity; since I always employed my influence on the side of virtue,
and never sacrificed my understanding or my religion to the pleasure
of applause.

There were many whom either the desire of enjoying my pleasantry, or the
pride of being thought to enjoy it, brought often into my company; but
I was caressed in a particular manner by Demochares, a gentleman of a
large estate, and a liberal disposition. My fortune being by no means
exuberant, inclined me to be pleased with a friend who was willing to be
entertained at his own charge. I became by daily invitations habituated
to his table, and, as he believed my acquaintance necessary to the
character of elegance, which he was desirous of establishing, I lived in
all the luxury of affluence, without expense or dependence, and passed my
life in a perpetual reciprocation of pleasure, with men brought together
by similitude of accomplishments, or desire of improvement.

But all power has its sphere of activity, beyond which it produces
no effect. Demochares, being called by his affairs into the country,
imagined that he should increase his popularity by coming among his
neighbours accompanied by a man whose abilities were so generally
allowed. The report presently spread through half the country that
Demochares was arrived, and had brought with him the celebrated Hilarius,
by whom such merriment would be excited, as had never been enjoyed or
conceived before. I knew, indeed, the purpose for which I was invited,
and, as men do not look diligently out for possible miscarriages,
was pleased to find myself courted upon principles of interest, and
considered as capable of reconciling factions, composing feuds, and
uniting a whole province in social happiness.

After a few days spent in adjusting his domestick regulations, Demochares
invited all the gentlemen of his neighbourhood to dinner, and did not
forget to hint how much my presence was expected to heighten the pleasure
of the feast. He informed me what prejudices my reputation had raised in
my favour, and represented the satisfaction with which he should see me
kindle up the blaze of merriment, and should remark the various effects
that my fire would have upon such diversity of matter.

This declaration, by which he intended to quicken my vivacity, filled me
with solicitude. I felt an ambition of shining which I never knew before;
and was therefore embarrassed with an unusual fear of disgrace. I passed
the night in planning out to myself the conversation of the coming day;
recollected all my topicks of raillery, proposed proper subjects of
ridicule, prepared smart replies to a thousand questions, accommodated
answers to imaginary repartees, and formed a magazine of remarks,
apophthegms, tales, and illustrations.

The morning broke at last in the midst of these busy meditations. I
rose with the palpitations of a champion on the day of combat; and,
notwithstanding all my efforts, found my spirits sunk under the weight of
expectation. The company soon after began to drop in, and every one, at
his entrance, was introduced to Hilarius. What conception the inhabitants
of this region had formed of a wit, I cannot yet discover; but observed
that they all seemed, after the regular exchange of compliments, to turn
away disappointed; and that while we waited for dinner, they cast their
eyes first upon me, and then upon each other, like a theatrical assembly
waiting for a show.

From the uneasiness of this situation, I was relieved by the dinner;
and as every attention was taken up by the business of the hour, I sunk
quietly to a level with the rest of the company. But no sooner were
the dishes removed, than, instead of cheerful confidence and familiar
prattle, an universal silence again shewed their expectation of some
unusual performance. My friend endeavoured to rouse them by healths and
questions, but they answered him with great brevity, and immediately
relapsed into their former taciturnity.

I had waited in hope of some opportunity to divert them, but could find
no pass opened for a single sally; and who can be merry without an object
of mirth? After a few faint efforts, which produced neither applause nor
opposition, I was content to mingle with the mass, to put round the glass
in silence, and solace myself with my own contemplations.

My friend looked round him; the guests stared at one another; and if now
and then a few syllables were uttered with timidity and hesitation, there
was none ready to make any reply. All our faculties were frozen, and
every minute took away from our capacity of pleasing, and disposition to
be pleased. Thus passed the hours to which so much happiness was decreed;
the hours which had, by a kind of open proclamation, been devoted to wit,
to mirth, and to Hilarius.

At last the night came on, and the necessity of parting freed us from the
persecutions of each other. I heard them, as they walked along the court,
murmuring at the loss of the day, and inquiring whether any man would pay
a second visit to a house haunted by a wit.

Demochares, whose benevolence is greater than his penetration, having
flattered his hopes with the secondary honour which he was to gain by
my sprightliness and elegance, and the affection with which he should
be followed for a perpetual banquet of gaiety, was not able to conceal
his vexation and resentment, nor would easily be convinced, that I had
not sacrificed his interest to sullenness and caprice, and studiously
endeavoured to disgust his guests, and suppressed my powers of delighting,
in obstinate and premeditated silence. I am informed that the reproach
of their ill reception is divided by the gentlemen of the country between
us; some being of opinion that my friend is deluded by an impostor, who,
though he has found some art of gaining his favour, is afraid to speak
before men of more penetration; and others concluding that I think only
London the proper theatre of my abilities, and disdain to exert my genius
for the praise of rusticks.

I believe, Mr. Rambler, that it has sometimes happened to others, who
have the good or ill fortune to be celebrated for wits, to fall under
the same censures upon the like occasions. I hope therefore that you
will prevent any misrepresentations of such failures, by remarking that
invention is not wholly at the command of its possessor; that the power
of pleasing is very often obstructed by the desire; that all expectation
lessens surprise, yet some surprise is necessary to gaiety; and that
those who desire to partake of the pleasure of wit must contribute to
its production, since the mind stagnates without external ventilation,
and that effervescence of the fancy, which flashes into transport, can
be raised only by the infusion of dissimilar ideas.




No. 102. SATURDAY, MARCH 9, 1751.


  _Ipsa quoque assiduo labuntur tempora motu,_
  _Non secus ac flumen. Neque enim consistere flumen,_
  _Nec levis hora potest: sed ut unda impellitur unda,_
  _Urgeturque prior veniente, urgetque priorem,_
  _Tempora sic fugiunt pariter, pariterque sequuntur._
                                                     OVID, Met. xv. 179.

  With constant motion as the moments glide.
  Behold in running life the rolling tide!
  For none can stem by art, or stop by pow'r,
  The flowing ocean, or the fleeting hour:
  But wave by wave pursued arrives on shore,
  And each impell'd behind impels before:
  So time on time revolving we descry;
  So minutes follow, and so minutes fly.
                                                             ELPHINSTON.


"Life," says Seneca, "is a voyage, in the progress of which we are
perpetually changing our scenes: we first leave childhood behind us,
then youth, then the years of ripened manhood, then the better and more
pleasing part of old age." The perusal of this passage having incited in
me a train of reflections on the state of man, the incessant fluctuation
of his wishes, the gradual change of his disposition to all external
objects, and the thoughtlessness with which he floats along the stream of
time, I sunk into a slumber amidst my meditations, and on a sudden, found
my ears filled with the tumult of labour, the shouts of alacrity, the
shrieks of alarm, the whistle of winds, and the dash of waters.

My astonishment for a time repressed my curiosity; but soon recovering
myself so far as to inquire whither we were going, and what was the cause
of such clamour and confusion, I was told that we were launching out into
the _ocean of life_; that we had already passed the streights of infancy,
in which multitudes had perished, some by the weakness and fragility of
their vessels, and more by the folly, perverseness, or negligence, of
those who undertook to steer them; and that we were now on the main sea,
abandoned to the winds and billows, without any other means of security
than the care of the pilot, whom it was always in our power to choose
among great numbers that offered their direction and assistance.

I then looked round with anxious eagerness; and first turning my eyes
behind me, saw a stream flowing through flowery islands, which every
one that sailed along seemed to behold with pleasure; but no sooner
touched, than the current, which, though not noisy or turbulent, was yet
irresistible, bore him away. Beyond these islands all was darkness, nor
could any of the passengers describe the shore at which he first embarked.

Before me, and on each side, was an expanse of waters violently agitated,
and covered with so thick a mist, that the most perspicacious eye could
see but a little way. It appeared to be full of rocks and whirlpools, for
many sunk unexpectedly while they were courting the gale with full sails,
and insulting those whom they had left behind. So numerous, indeed, were
the dangers, and so thick the darkness, that no caution could confer
security. Yet there were many, who, by false intelligence, betrayed their
followers into whirlpools, or by violence pushed those whom they found in
their way against the rocks.

The current was invariable and insurmountable; but though it was
impossible to sail against it, or to return to the place that was once
passed, yet it was not so violent as to allow no opportunities for
dexterity or courage, since, though none could retreat back from danger,
yet they might often avoid it by oblique direction.

It was, however, not very common to steer with much care or prudence; for
by some universal infatuation, every man appeared to think himself safe,
though he saw his consorts every moment sinking round him; and no sooner
had the waves closed over them, than their fate and their misconduct were
forgotten; the voyage was pursued with the same jocund confidence; every
man congratulated himself upon the soundness of his vessel, and believed
himself able to stem the whirlpool in which his friend was swallowed, or
glide over the rocks on which he was dashed: nor was it often observed
that the sight of a wreck made any man change his course: if he turned
aside for a moment, he soon forgot the rudder, and left himself again to
the disposal of chance.

This negligence did not proceed from indifference, or from weariness
of their present condition; for not one of those who thus rushed upon
destruction, failed, when he was sinking, to call loudly upon his
associates for that help which could not now be given him; and many spent
their last moments in cautioning others against the folly by which they
were intercepted in the midst of their course. Their benevolence was
sometimes praised, but their admonitions were unregarded.

The vessels in which we had embarked being confessedly unequal to the
turbulence of the stream of life, were visibly impaired in the course of
the voyage; so that every passenger was certain, that how long soever he
might, by favourable accidents, or by incessant vigilance, be preserved,
he must sink at last.

This necessity of perishing might have been expected to sadden the gay,
and intimidate the daring, at least to keep the melancholy and timorous
in perpetual torments, and hinder them from any enjoyment of the varieties
and gratifications which nature offered them as the solace of their
labours; yet, in effect, none seemed less to expect destruction than
those to whom it was most dreadful; they all had the art of concealing
their danger from themselves; and those who knew their inability to
bear the sight of the terrours that embarrassed their way, took care
never to look forward, but found some amusement for the present moment,
and generally entertained themselves by playing with Hope, who was the
constant associate of the voyage of life.

Yet all that Hope ventured to promise, even to those whom she favoured
most, was not that they should escape, but that they should sink last;
and with this promise every one was satisfied, though he laughed at
the rest for seeming to believe it. Hope, indeed, apparently mocked the
credulity of her companions; for, in proportion as their vessels grew
leaky, she redoubled her assurances of safety; and none were more busy
in making provisions for a long voyage, than they whom all but themselves
saw likely to perish soon by irreparable decay.

In the midst of the current of life was the _gulph of_ Intemperance, a
dreadful whirlpool, interspersed with rocks, of which the pointed crags
were concealed under water, and the tops covered with herbage, on which
Ease spread couches of repose, and with shades, where Pleasure warbled
the song of invitation. Within sight of these rocks all who sailed on the
ocean of life must necessarily pass. Reason, indeed, was always at hand to
steer the passengers through a narrow outlet by which they might escape;
but very few could, by her entreaties or remonstrances, be induced to put
the rudder into her hand, without stipulating that she should approach
so near unto the rocks of Pleasure, that they might solace themselves
with a short enjoyment of that delicious region, after which they always
determined to pursue their course without any other deviation.

Reason was too often prevailed upon so far by these promises, as to
venture her charge within the eddy of the gulph of Intemperance, where,
indeed, the circumvolution was weak, but yet interrupted the course of
the vessel, and drew it, by insensible rotations, towards the centre.
She then repented her temerity, and with all her force endeavoured to
retreat; but the draught of the gulph was generally too strong to be
overcome; and the passenger, having danced in circles with a pleasing
and giddy velocity, was at last overwhelmed and lost. Those few whom
Reason was able to extricate, generally suffered so many shocks upon the
points which shot out from the rocks of Pleasure, that they were unable
to continue their course with the same strength and facility as before,
but floated along timorously and feeble, endangered by every breeze, and
shattered by every ruffle of the water, till they sunk, by slow degrees,
after long struggles, and innumerable expedients, always repining at
their own folly, and warning others against the first approach of the
gulph of Intemperance.

There were artists who professed to repair the breaches and stop the leaks
of the vessels which had been shattered on the rocks of Pleasure. Many
appeared to have great confidence in their skill, and some, indeed, were
preserved by it from sinking, who had received only a single blow; but I
remarked that few vessels lasted long which had been much repaired, nor
was it found that the artists themselves continued afloat longer than
those who had least of their assistance.

The only advantage which, in the voyage of life, the cautious had above
the negligent, was, that they sunk later, and more suddenly; for they
passed forward till they had sometimes seen all those in whose company
they had issued from the streights in infancy, perish in the way, and
at last were overset by a cross breeze, without the toil of resistance,
or the anguish of expectation. But such as had often fallen against the
rocks of Pleasure, commonly subsided by sensible degrees, contended long
with the encroaching waters, and harassed themselves by labours that
scarce Hope herself could flatter with success.

As I was looking upon the various fate of the multitude about me, I was
suddenly alarmed with an admonition from some unknown Power, "Gaze not
idly upon others when thou thyself art sinking. Whence is this thoughtless
tranquillity, when thou and they are equally endangered?" I looked, and
seeing the gulph of Intemperance before me, started and awaked.




No. 103. TUESDAY, MARCH 12, 1751.


  _Scire volunt secreta domus atque inde timeri._
                                                     JUV. Sat. iii, 113.

  They search the secrets of the house, and so
  Are worshipp'd there, and fear'd for what they know.
                                                                 DRYDEN.


Curiosity is one of the permanent and certain characteristicks of a
vigorous intellect. Every advance into knowledge opens new prospects,
and produces new incitements to further progress. All the attainments
possible in our present state are evidently inadequate to our capacities
of enjoyment; conquest serves no purpose but that of kindling ambition,
discovery has no effect but of raising expectation; the gratification of
one desire encourages another; and after all our labours, studies, and
inquiries, we are continually at the same distance from the completion of
our schemes, have still some wish importunate to be satisfied, and some
faculty restless and turbulent for want of its enjoyment.

The desire of knowledge, though often animated by extrinsick and
adventitious motives, seems on many occasions to operate without
subordination to any other principle; we are eager to see and hear,
without intention of referring our observations to a farther end; we
climb a mountain for a prospect of the plain; we run to the strand in a
storm, that we may contemplate the agitation of the water; we range from
city to city, though we profess neither architecture nor fortification;
we cross seas only to view nature in nakedness, or magnificence in ruins;
we are equally allured by novelty of every kind, by a desert or a palace,
a cataract or a cavern, by every thing rude and every thing polished,
every thing great and every thing little; we do not see a thicket but
with some temptation to enter it, nor remark an insect flying before us
but with an inclination to pursue it.

This passion is, perhaps, regularly heightened in proportion as the powers
of the mind are elevated and enlarged. Lucan therefore introduces Cæsar
speaking with dignity suitable to the grandeur of his designs and the
extent of his capacity, when he declares to the high-priest of Egypt,
that he has no desire equally powerful with that of finding the origin
of the Nile, and that he would quit all the projects of the civil war for
a sight of those fountains which had been so long concealed. And Homer,
when he would furnish the Sirens with a temptation, to which his hero,
renowned for wisdom, might yield without disgrace, makes them declare,
that none ever departed from them but with increase of knowledge.

There is, indeed, scarce any kind of ideal acquirement which may not
be applied to some use, or which may not at least gratify pride with
occasional superiority; but whoever attends the motions of his own mind
will find, that upon the first appearance of an object, or the first
start of a question, his inclination to a nearer view, or more accurate
discussion, precedes all thoughts of profit, or of competition; and that
his desires take wing by instantaneous impulse, though their flight may
be invigorated, or their efforts renewed, by subsequent considerations.
The gratification of curiosity rather frees us from uneasiness than
confers pleasure; we are more pained by ignorance, than delighted
by instruction. Curiosity is the thirst of the soul; it inflames and
torments us, and makes us taste every thing with joy, however otherwise
insipid, by which it may be quenched.

It is evident that the earliest searchers after knowledge must have
proposed knowledge only as their reward; and that science, though perhaps
the nursling of interest, was the daughter of curiosity: for who can
believe that they who first watched the course of the stars, foresaw
the use of their discoveries to the facilitation of commerce, or the
mensuration of time? They were delighted with the splendour of the
nocturnal skies, they found that the lights changed their places; what
they admired they were anxious to understand, and in time traced their
revolutions.

There are, indeed, beings in the form of men, who appear satisfied with
their intellectual possessions, and seem to live without desire of
enlarging their conceptions; before whom the world passes without notice,
and who are equally unmoved by nature or by art.

This negligence is sometimes only the temporary effect of a predominant
passion: a lover finds no inclination to travel any path, but that
which leads to the habitation of his mistress; a trader can spare
little attention to common occurrences, when his fortune is endangered
by a storm. It is frequently the consequence of a total immersion in
sensuality; corporeal pleasures may be indulged till the memory of every
other kind of happiness is obliterated; the mind, long habituated to
a lethargick and quiescent state, is unwilling to wake to the toil of
thinking; and though she may sometimes be disturbed by the obtrusion of
new ideas, shrinks back again to ignorance and rest.

But, indeed, if we except them to whom the continual task of procuring the
supports of life, denies all opportunities of deviation from their own
narrow track, the number of such as live without the ardour of inquiry
is very small, though many content themselves with cheap amusements, and
waste their lives in researches of no importance.

There is no snare more dangerous to busy and excursive minds, than
the cobwebs of petty inquisitiveness, which entangle them in trivial
employments and minute studies, and detain them in a middle state,
between the tediousness of total inactivity, and the fatigue of laborious
efforts, enchant them at once with ease and novelty, and vitiate them
with the luxury of learning. The necessity of doing something, and the
fear of undertaking much, sinks the historian to a genealogist, the
philosopher to a journalist of the weather, and the mathematician to
a constructor of dials.

It is happy when those who cannot content themselves to be idle, nor
resolve to be industrious, are at least employed without injury to
others; but it seldom happens that we can contain ourselves long in
a neutral state, or forbear to sink into vice, when we are no longer
soaring towards virtue.

Nugaculus was distinguished in his earlier years by an uncommon liveliness
of imagination, quickness of sagacity, and extent of knowledge. When he
entered into life, he applied himself with particular inquisitiveness to
examine the various motives of human actions, the complicated influence
of mingled affections, the different modifications of interest and
ambition, and the various causes of miscarriage and success both in
public and private affairs.

Though his friends did not discover to what purpose all these observations
were collected, or how Nugaculus would much improve his virtue or his
fortune by an incessant attention to changes of countenance, bursts of
inconsideration, sallies of passion, and all the other casualties by
which he used to trace a character, yet they could not deny the study
of human nature to be worthy of a wise man; they therefore flattered his
vanity, applauded his discoveries, and listened with submissive modesty
to his lectures on the uncertainty of inclination, the weakness of
resolves, and the instability of temper, to his account of the various
motives which agitate the mind, and his ridicule of the modern dream of
a ruling passion.

Such was the first incitement of Nugaculus to a close inspection into the
conduct of mankind. He had no interest in view, and therefore no design
of supplantation; he had no malevolence, and therefore detected faults
without any intention to expose them; but having once found the art of
engaging his attention upon others, he had no inclination to call it back
to himself, but has passed his time in keeping a watchful eye upon every
rising character, and lived upon a small estate without any thought of
increasing it.

He is, by continual application, become a general master of secret
history, and can give an account of the intrigues, private marriages,
competitions, and stratagems, of half a century. He knows the mortgages
upon every man's estate, the terms upon which every spendthrift raises
his money, the real and reputed fortune of every lady, the jointure
stipulated by every contract, and the expectations of every family from
maiden aunts and childless acquaintances. He can relate the economy of
every house, knows how much one man's cellar is robbed by his butler,
and the land of another underlet by his steward; he can tell where the
manor-house is falling, though large sums are yearly paid for repairs;
and where the tenants are felling woods without the consent of the owner.

To obtain all this intelligence he is inadvertently guilty of a thousand
acts of treachery. He sees no man's servant without draining him of
his trust; he enters no family without flattering the children into
discoveries; he is a perpetual spy upon the doors of his neighbours; and
knows by long experience, at whatever distance, the looks of a creditor,
a borrower, a lover, and a pimp.

Nugaculus is not ill-natured, and therefore his industry has not hitherto
been very mischievous to others, or dangerous to himself: but since he
cannot enjoy this knowledge but by discovering it, and, if he had no
other motive to loquacity, is obliged to traffick like the chymists, and
purchase one secret with another, he is every day more hated as he is
more known; for he is considered by great numbers as one that has their
fame and their happiness in his power, and no man can much love him of
whom he lives in fear.

Thus has an intention, innocent at first, if not laudable, the intention
of regulating his own behaviour by the experience of others, by an
accidental declension of minuteness, betrayed Nugaculus, not only to a
foolish, but vicious waste of a life which might have been honourably
passed in publick services, or domestick virtues. He has lost his original
intention, and given up his mind to employments that engross, but do not
improve it.




No. 104. SATURDAY, MARCH 16, 1751.


  _----Nihil est, quod credere de se_
  _Non possit.----_
                                                       JUV. Sat. iv. 70.

  None e'er rejects hyperboles of praise.


The apparent insufficiency of every individual to his own happiness or
safety, compels us to seek from one another assistance and support. The
necessity of joint efforts for the execution of any great or extensive
design, the variety of powers disseminated in the species, and the
proportion between the defects and excellencies of different persons,
demand an interchange of help, and communication of intelligence, and
by frequent reciprocations of beneficence unite mankind in society and
friendship.

If it can be imagined that there ever was a time when the inhabitants of
any country were in a state of equality, without distinction of rank,
or peculiarity of possessions, it is reasonable to believe that every
man was then loved in proportion as he could contribute by his strength,
or his skill, to the supply of natural wants; there was then little
room for peevish dislike, or capricious favour; the affection admitted
into the heart was rather esteem than tenderness; and kindness was only
purchased by benefits. But when by force or policy, by wisdom or by
fortune, property and superiority were introduced and established, so
that many were condemned to labour for the support of a few, then they
whose possessions swelled above their wants, naturally laid out their
superfluities upon pleasure; and those who could not gain friendship by
necessary offices, endeavoured to promote their interest by luxurious
gratifications, and to create needs, which they might be courted to
supply.

The desires of mankind are much more numerous than their attainments, and
the capacity of imagination much larger than actual enjoyment. Multitudes
are therefore unsatisfied with their allotment; and he that hopes to
improve his condition by the favour of another, and either finds no room
for the exertion of great qualities, or perceives himself excelled by his
rivals, will, by other expedients, endeavour to become agreeable where
he cannot be important, and learn, by degrees, to number the _art of
pleasing_ among the most useful studies, and most valuable acquisitions.

This art, like others, is cultivated in proportion to its usefulness, and
will always flourish most where it is most rewarded; for this reason we
find it practised with great assiduity under absolute governments, where
honours and riches are in the hands of one man, whom all endeavour to
propitiate, and who soon becomes so much accustomed to compliance and
officiousness, as not easily to find, in the most delicate address, that
novelty which is necessary to procure attention.

It is discovered by a very few experiments, that no man is much pleased
with a companion, who does not increase, in some respect, his fondness
of himself; and, therefore, he that wishes rather to be led forward to
prosperity by the gentle hand of favour, than to force his way by labour
and merit, must consider with more care how to display his patron's
excellencies than his own; that whenever he approaches, he may fill the
imagination with pleasing dreams, and chase away disgust and weariness by
a perpetual succession of delightful images.

This may, indeed, sometimes be effected by turning the attention upon
advantages which are really possessed, or upon prospects which reason
spreads before hope; for whoever can deserve or require to be courted,
has generally, either from nature or from fortune, gifts, which he may
review with satisfaction, and of which, when he is artfully recalled to
the contemplation, he will seldom be displeased.

But those who have once degraded their understanding to an application
only to the passions, and who have learned to derive hope from any other
sources than industry and virtue, seldom retain dignity and magnanimity
sufficient to defend them against the constant recurrence of temptation
to falsehood. He that is too desirous to be loved, will soon learn to
flatter, and when he has exhausted all the variations of honest praise,
and can delight no longer with the civility of truth, he will invent
new topicks of panegyrick, and break out into raptures at virtues and
beauties conferred by himself.

The drudgeries of dependance would, indeed, be aggravated by hopelessness
of success, if no indulgence was allowed to adulation. He that will
obstinately confine his patron to hear only the commendations which he
deserves, will soon be forced to give way to others that regale him with
more compass of musick. The greatest human virtue bears no proportion
to human vanity. We always think ourselves better than we are, and are
generally desirous that others should think us still better than we
think ourselves. To praise us for actions or dispositions which deserve
praise, is not to confer a benefit, but to pay a tribute. We have always
pretensions to fame, which, in our own hearts, we know to be disputable,
and which we are desirous to strengthen by a new suffrage; we have always
hopes which we suspect to be fallacious, and of which we eagerly snatch
at every confirmation.

It may, indeed, be proper to make the first approaches under the conduct
of truth, and to secure credit of future encomiums, by such praise as
may be ratified by the conscience; but the mind once habituated to the
lusciousness of eulogy, becomes, in a short time, nice and fastidious,
and, like a vitiated palate, is incessantly calling for higher
gratifications.

It is scarcely credible to what degree discernment may be dazzled by the
mist of pride, and wisdom infatuated by the intoxication of flattery;
or how low the genius may descend by successive gradations of servility,
and how swiftly it may fall down the precipice of falsehood. No man can,
indeed, observe, without indignation, on what names, both of ancient and
modern times, the utmost exuberance of praise has been lavished, and by
what hands it has been bestowed. It has never yet been found, that the
tyrant, the plunderer, the oppressor, the most hateful of the hateful,
the most profligate of the profligate, have been denied any celebrations
which they were willing to purchase, or that wickedness and folly have
not found correspondent flatterers through all their subordinations,
except when they have been associated with avarice or poverty, and have
wanted either inclination or ability to hire a panegyrist.

As there is no character so deformed as to fright away from it the
prostitutes of praise, there is no degree of encomiastick veneration
which pride has refused. The emperors of Rome suffered themselves to be
worshipped in their lives with altars and sacrifices; and, in an age more
enlightened, the terms peculiar to the praise and worship of the Supreme
Being, have been applied to wretches whom it was the reproach of humanity
to number among men; and whom nothing but riches or power hindered those
that read or wrote their deification, from hunting into the toils of
justice, as disturbers of the peace of nature.

There are, indeed, many among the poetical flatterers, who must be
resigned to infamy without vindication, and whom we must confess to have
deserted the cause of virtue for pay; they have committed, against full
conviction, the crime of obliterating the distinctions between good and
evil, and, instead of opposing the encroachments of vice, have incited
her progress, and celebrated her conquests. But there is a lower class of
sycophants, whose understanding has not made them capable of equal guilt.
Every man of high rank is surrounded with numbers, who have no other rule
of thought or action, than his maxims, and his conduct; whom the honour
of being numbered among his acquaintance, reconciles to all his vices,
and all his absurdities; and who easily persuade themselves to esteem
him, by whose regard they consider themselves as distinguished and exalted.

It is dangerous for mean minds to venture themselves within the sphere
of greatness. Stupidity is soon blinded by the splendour of wealth, and
cowardice is easily fettered in the shackles of dependance. To solicit
patronage, is, at least, in the event, to set virtue to sale. None can
be pleased without praise, and few can be praised without falsehood;
few can be assiduous without servility, and none can be servile without
corruption.




No. 105. TUESDAY, MARCH 19, 1751.


  _----Animorum_
  _Impulsu, et cæcâ magnâque cupidine ducti._
                                                       JUV. Sat. x. 350.

  Vain man runs headlong, to caprice resign'd;
  Impell'd by passion, and with folly blind.


I was lately considering, among other objects of speculation, the new
attempt of an _universal register_, an office, in which every man
may lodge an account of his superfluities and wants, of whatever he
desires to purchase or to sell. My imagination soon presented to me the
latitude to which this design may be extended by integrity and industry,
and the advantages which may be justly hoped from a general mart of
intelligence, when once its reputation shall be so established, that
neither reproach nor fraud shall be feared from it: when an application
to it shall not be censured as the last resource of desperation, nor its
informations suspected as the fortuitous suggestions of men obliged not
to appear ignorant. A place where every exuberance may be discharged,
and every deficiency supplied; where every lawful passion may find
its gratifications, and every honest curiosity receive satisfaction;
where the stock of a nation, pecuniary and intellectual, may be brought
together, and where all conditions of humanity may hope to find relief,
pleasure, and accommodation; must equally deserve the attention of the
merchant and philosopher, of him who mingles in the tumult of business,
and him who only lives to amuse himself with the various employments
and pursuits of others. Nor will it be an uninstructing school to the
greatest masters of method and dispatch, if such multiplicity can be
preserved from embarrassment, and such tumult from inaccuracy.

While I was concerting this splendid project, and filling my thoughts with
its regulation, its conveniences, its variety, and its consequences, I
sunk gradually into slumber; but the same images, though less distinct,
still continued to float upon my fancy. I perceived myself at the gate
of an immense edifice, where innumerable multitudes were passing without
confusion; every face on which I fixed my eyes, seemed settled in the
contemplation of some important purpose, and every foot was hastened by
eagerness and expectation. I followed the crowd without knowing whither
I should be drawn, and remained a while in the unpleasing state of an
idler, where all other beings were busy, giving place every moment to
those who had more importance in their looks. Ashamed to stand ignorant,
and afraid to ask questions, at last I saw a lady sweeping by me, whom,
by the quickness of her eyes, the agility of her steps, and a mixture of
levity and impatience, I knew to be my long-loved protectress, Curiosity.
"Great goddess," said I, "may thy votary be permitted to implore thy
favour; if thou hast been my directress from the first dawn of reason,
if I have followed thee through the maze of life with invariable
fidelity, if I have turned to every new call, and quitted at thy nod
one pursuit for another, if I have never stopped at the invitations of
fortune, nor forgot thy authority in the bowers of pleasure, inform me
now whither chance has conducted me."

"Thou art now," replied the smiling power, "in the presence of Justice,
and of Truth, whom the father of gods and men has sent down to register
the demands and pretentions of mankind, that the world may at last be
reduced to order, and that none may complain hereafter of being doomed
to tasks for which they are unqualified, of possessing faculties for which
they cannot find employment, or virtues that languish unobserved for want
of opportunities to exert them, of being encumbered with superfluities
which they would willingly resign, or of wasting away in desires which
ought to be satisfied. Justice is now to examine every man's wishes, and
Truth is to record them; let us approach, and observe the progress of
this great transaction."

She then moved forward, and Truth, who knew her among the most faithful of
her followers, beckoned her to advance, till we were placed near the seat
of Justice. The first who required the assistance of the office, came
forward with a slow pace, and tumour of dignity, and shaking a weighty
purse in his hand, demanded to be registered by Truth, as the Mæcenas of
the present age, the chief encourager of literary merit, to whom men of
learning and wit might apply in any exigence or distress with certainty
of succour. Justice very mildly inquired, whether he had calculated the
expense of such a declaration? whether he had been informed what number of
petitioners would swarm about him? whether he could distinguish idleness
and negligence from calamity, ostentation from knowledge, or vivacity
from wit? To these questions he seemed not well provided with a reply,
but repeated his desire to be recorded as a patron. Justice then offered
to register his proposal on these conditions, that he should never suffer
himself to be flattered; that he should never delay an audience when he
had nothing to do; and that he should never encourage followers without
intending to reward them. These terms were too hard to be accepted;
for what, said he, is the end of patronage, but the pleasure of reading
dedications, holding multitudes in suspense, and enjoying their hopes,
their fears, and their anxiety, flattering them to assiduity, and, at
last, dismissing them for impatience? Justice heard his confession, and
ordered his name to be posted upon the gate among cheats and robbers, and
publick nuisances, which all were by that notice warned to avoid.

Another required to be made known as the discoverer of a new art of
education, by which languages and sciences might be taught to all
capacities, and all inclinations, without fear of punishment, pain
or confinement, loss of any part of the gay mein of ignorance, or any
obstruction of the necessary progress in dress, dancing, or cards.

Justice and Truth did not trouble this great adept with many inquiries;
but finding his address awkward and his speech barbarous, ordered him to
be registered as a tall fellow who wanted employment, and might serve in
any post where the knowledge of reading and writing was not required.

A man of very grave and philosophick aspect, required notice to be given
of his intention to set out, a certain day, on a submarine voyage, and
of his willingness to take in passengers for no more than double the
price at which they might sail above water. His desire was granted, and
he retired to a convenient stand, in expectation of filling his ship, and
growing rich in a short time by the secrecy, safety, and expedition of
the passage.

Another desired to advertise the curious, that he had, for the advancement
of true knowledge, contrived an optical instrument, by which those who
laid out their industry on memorials of the changes of the wind, might
observe the direction of the weather-cocks on the hitherside of the lunar
world.

Another wished to be known as the author of an invention, by which cities
or kingdoms might be made warm in winter by a single fire, a kettle, and
pipe. Another had a vehicle by which a man might bid defiance to floods,
and continue floating in an inundation, without any inconvenience, till
the water should subside. Justice considered these projects as of no
importance but to their authors, and therefore scarcely condescended to
examine them: but Truth refused to admit them into the register.

Twenty different pretenders came in one hour to give notice of an
universal medicine, by which all diseases might be cured or prevented,
and life protracted beyond the age of Nestor. But Justice informed them,
that one universal medicine was sufficient, and she would delay the
notification till she saw who could longest preserve his own life.

A thousand other claims and offers were exhibited and examined. I
remarked, among this mighty multitude, that, of intellectual advantages,
many had great exuberance, and few confessed any want; of every art there
were a hundred professors for a single pupil; but of other attainments,
such as riches, honours, and preferments, I found none that had too much,
but thousands and ten thousands that thought themselves entitled to a
larger dividend.

It often happened, that old misers, and women married at the close of
life, advertised their want of children; nor was it uncommon for those
who had a numerous offspring, to give notice of a son or daughter to
be spared; but, though appearances promised well on both sides, the
bargain seldom succeeded; for they soon lost their inclination to adopted
children, and proclaimed their intentions to promote some scheme of
publick charity: a thousand proposals were immediately made, among which
they hesitated till death precluded the decision.

As I stood looking on this scene of confusion, Truth condescended to ask
me, what was my business at her office? I was struck with the unexpected
question, and awaked by my efforts to answer it.


END OF VOL. II.


TALBOYS AND WHEELER.





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