The Rambler.: [pt.3]

NUMB. 78. SATURDAY, Decem. 15, 1750.

—Mors sola satetur Quantula sint hominum corpuscula.

JUV.

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 ha∣bit of carrying a burden we lose, at least in a 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, en∣cumbered

and oppressed, as he will find him∣self with the ancient panoply. Yet the heroes that over-run 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 pe∣culiar powers were conferred only by pecu∣liar 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 pre∣sent 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 gratifica∣tions are volatile, vagrant, and easily dissipat∣ed. The fragrance of the jessamine bower is lost after the enjoyment of a few moments, and the Indian wanders among his native odours without any sense of their exhalations. It is, indeed, not necessary to shew by many instances what every change of place is suffi∣cient to prove, and what all mankind confess, by an incessant call for variety, and a restless

pursuit of enjoyments, which they value only because unpossessed.

SOMETHING similar, or analogous, may be observed in those effects which are pro∣duced 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, over-looked and neglected.

THE manner in which external force acts upon the body is very little subject to the re∣gulation of the will; no man can at pleasure obtund, or invigorate his senses, prolong the agency of any impulse, or continue the pre∣sence 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 busi∣ness of wisdom and virtue, to select among the numberless objects which are every mo∣ment striving for our notice, such as may afford useful employment to the mind, by en∣abling 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 very judiciously represented the father of mankind seized with horror 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 slate, 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 sen∣tence, and unalterable allotment.

YET we to whom the shortness of life has given frequent occasions of contemplat∣ing 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 funereal pomp as a common spec∣tacle 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 consti∣tution of the world, that there must be a time for other thoughts; and a perpetual me∣ditation upon the last hour, however it may become the solitude of a monastery, is in∣consistent with many duties of common life. But surely the remembrance of death ought to predominate in our minds, as an habi∣tual and settled principle, always operating, though not always perceived; and our at∣tention 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, tho' we cannot appoint the time, we may secure the consequence.

YET, though every instance of death may justly awaken our fears, and quicken our vigilance, it seldom happens that we are much 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 bestow∣ing it.

IT is indeed impossible, without some mor∣tification of that desire which every man feels of being remembered and lamented, to remark how little concern is caused by the eternal de∣parture even of those who have passed their lives with publick honours, and been distin∣guished by superior qualities, or extraordinary

performances. It is not possible to be regard∣ed with tenderness except by a few. That merit which gives greatness and renown, dif∣fuses 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 either their tempers or their fortunes have hindered from intimate relations and tender intercourses, die often 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, be∣cause none had any particular interest in their lives, or was united to them by a reciprocation of benefits and endearments.

THUS we find it often happens, that those who in their lives have excited applause and admiration, are laid at last in the ground with∣out the common honour of a stone; because by those excellencies with which many have been delighted, none have 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 compa∣nion, 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 o∣thers, 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 sometime 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 be∣ing 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 exam∣ples 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 fu∣neral, to consider how soon we may be add∣ed to the number of those whose probation is past, and whose happiness or misery shall en∣dure for ever.