The Rambler.: [pt.6]

THE RAMBLER.

NUMB. 173. TUESDAY, Nov. 12, 1751.

Quo Virtus, quo ferat Error.

HOR.

AS any action or posture long conti∣nued, will distort and disfigure the limbs; so the mind likewise is crip∣pled and contracted by perpetual application to the same set of ideas. It is easy to guess the trade of an artizan by his knees, his fingers, or his shoulders; and there are few among men of the more liberal professions, whose minds do not carry the brand of their calling, or whose conversation does not quick∣ly discover to what class of the community they belong.

THESE peculiarities have been of great use, in the general hostility which every part of mankind exercises against the rest, to fur∣nish

insults and sarcasms. Every art has its dialect, uncouth and ungrateful to all whom custom has not reconciled to its sound, and which therefore becomes ridiculous by a slight misapplication, or unnecessary repetition.

THE general reproach with which igno∣rance revenges the superciliousness of learning, is that of pedantry; a censure which every man incurs, who has at any time the misfortune to talk to those who cannot understand him, and by which the modest and timorous are sometimes frighted from the display of their acquisitions, and the exertion of their powers.

THE name of a pedant is so formidable to young men when they first fally from their colleges, and is so liberally scattered by those who mean to boast their elegance of educa∣tion, easiness of manners, and knowledge of the world, that it seems to require particular consideration; since perhaps if it were once understood, many a heart might be freed from painful apprehensions, and many a tongue de∣livered from restraint.

PEDANTRY is the unseasonable ostenta∣tion of learning. It may be discovered either in the choice of a subject, or in the manner of treating it. He is undoubtedly guilty of pedantry, who, when he has made himself master of some abstruse and uncultivated part of knowledge, obtrudes his remarks and dis∣coveries upon those whom he believes unable to judge of his proficiency, and from whom as he cannot fear contradiction, he cannot pro∣perly expect applause.

TO this error the student is sometimes be∣trayed, by the natural recurrence of the mind to its common employment, by the pleasure which every man receives from the recollection of pleasing images, and the desire of dwelling upon topicks, on which he knows himself able to speak with justness. But, because we are seldom so far prejudiced in favour of each other as to search out for palliations of fail∣ings, this deviation from politeness is imputed always to vanity; and the harmless collegiate, who, perhaps, intended entertainment and in∣struction, or at worst only spoke without suffi∣cient reflection upon the character of his

hearers, is commonly censured as arrogant or overbearing, and eager to extend the reputa∣tion of his own accomplishments, in contempt of the convenience of society, and the laws of conversation.

ALL discourse of which others cannot par∣take, is not only an irksome usurpation of the time devoted to pleasure and entertainment, but, what never fails to excite very keen re∣sentment, an insolent assertion of superiority, and a triumph over less enlightened under∣standings. The pedant is, therefore, not on∣ly heard with weariness, but malignity; and those who conceive themselves insulted by his knowledge, never fail to tell with acrimony how injudiciously it was exerted.

TO avoid this dangerous imputation, and recommend themselves more effectually to the gay world, scholars sometimes divest them∣selves with too much haste of their academical formality, and in their endeavours to accom∣modate their notions and their stile to com∣mon conceptions, talk rather of any thing than of that which they understand, and sink

into insipidity of sentiment and meanness of expression.

THERE prevails among men of letters an opinion, that all appearance of science is par∣ticularly hateful to women; and that there∣fore whoever desires to be well received in fe∣male assemblies, must qualify himself by a to∣tal rejection of all that is serious, rational, or important; must consider argument or criti∣cism as perpetually interdicted; and devote all his attention to trifles, and all his eloquence to compliment.

STUDENTS often form their notions of the present generation from the writings of the past, and are not very early informed of those changes which the gradual diffusion of knowledge, or the sudden caprice of fashion produces in the world. Whatever might be the state of female literature in the last cen∣tury, there is now no longer any danger lest the scholar should want an adequate audience at the tea-table, and whoever thinks it neces∣sary to regulate his conversation by antiquated

rules, will be rather despised for his futility than caressed for his politeness.

TO talk intentionally in a manner above the comprehension of those whom we address, is unquestionable pedantry; but surely com∣plaisance requires, that no man should, with∣out proof, conclude his company incapable of following him to the highest elevation of his fancy, or the utmost extent of his knowledge. It is always safer to err in favour of others than of ourselves, and therefore we seldom ha∣zard much by endeavouring to excel.

IT ought at least to be the care of learning when she quits her exaltation, to descend with dignity. Nothing is more despicable than the airiness and jocularity of a man bred to severe science, and solitary meditation. To trifle agreeably, is a secret which schools cannot impart; that gay negligence and vivacious le∣vity, which charm down resistance wherever they appear, are never attainable by him who having spent his first years among the dust of libraries, enters late into the living world with an unpliant attention and established habits.

IT is observed in the panegyrick on Fabri∣cius the mechanist, that, though forced by publick employments into mingled conversa∣tion, he never lost the modesty and seriousness of the convent, nor drew ridicule upon him∣self by an affected imitation of fashionable life. To the same praise every man devoted to learning ought to aspire. If he attempts the softer arts of pleasing, and endeavours to learn the graceful bow and the familiar em∣brace, the insinuating accent and the general smile, he will lose the respect due to the cha∣racter of learning, without arriving at the en∣vied honour of doing nothing with elegance and facility.

THEOPHRASTUS was discovered not to be a native of Athens, by so strict an adhe∣rence to the Attic dialect as shewed that he had learned it not by custom but by rule. A man not early formed to habitual elegance, betrays in like manner the defects of his education, by an unnecessary anxiety of be∣haviour. It is possible to become pedantick by fear of pedantry, as to be troublesome by ill∣timed

civility. There is no kind of imperti∣nence more justly censurable, than his who is always labouring to level his thoughts to in∣tellects higher than his own; who apologizes for every word which his own narrowness of converse inclines him to think unusual; keeps the exuberance of his faculties under visible restraint; is solicitous to anticipate enquiries by needless explanations; and endeavours to shade his own abilities, lest weak eyes should be dazzled with their lustre.

NUMB. 174. SATURDAY, Nov. 15, 1751.

Foenum habet in cornu, longe fuge, dummodo risum Excutiat sibi, non hic cuiquam parcet amico.

HOR.

To the RAMBLER.

Mr. RAMBLER,

THE laws of social benevolence require, that every man should endeavour to assist others by his experience. He that ha••

at last escaped into port from the fluctuations of chance, and the gusts of opposition, ought to make some improvements in the chart of life, by marking the rocks on which he has been dashed, and the shallows where he has been stranded.

THE error into which I was betrayed, when custom first gave me up to my own di∣rection, is very frequently incident to the quick, the sprightly, the fearless and the gay; to all whose ardour hurries them into preci∣pitate execution of their designs, and impru∣dent declaration of their opinions; who sel∣dom count the cost of pleasure, or examine the distant consequences of any practice that flatters them with immediate gratification.

I CAME forth into the crouded world with the usual juvenile ambition, and desired no∣thing beyond the title of a wit. Money I con∣sidered as below my care; for I saw such multitudes grow rich without understanding, that I could not forbear to look on wealth as an acquisition easy to industry directed by ge∣nius, and therefore threw it aside as a secon∣dary convenience, to be procured when my

principal wish should be satisfied, and my claim to intellectual excellence universally ac∣knowledged.

WITH this view, I regulated my beha∣viour in publick, and exercised my medita∣tions in solitude. My life was divided be∣tween the care of providing topicks for the entertainment of my company, and that of collecting company worthy to be entertained; for I soon found, that wit like every other power, has its boundaries; that its success de∣pends upon the aptitude of others to receive impressions; and that as some bodies, indis∣soluble by heat, can set the furnace and cru∣cible at defiance, there are minds upon which the rays of fancy may be pointed without ef∣fect, and which no fire of sentiment can agi∣tate or exalt.

IT was, however, not long before I sitted myself with a set of companions, who knew how to laugh, and to whom no other recom∣mendation was necessary than the power of striking out a jest. Among those, I fixed my residence, and for a time enjoyed the felicity of disturbing the neighbours every night, with

the obstreperous applause which my sallies forced from the audience. The reputation of our club every day increased, and as my flights and remarks were circulated by my admirers, every day brought new solicitations for admis∣sion into our society.

TO support this perpetual fund of merri∣ment, I frequented every place of concourse, cultivated the acquaintance of all the fashion∣able race, and passed the day in a continual succession of visits, in which I collected a trea∣sure of pleasantry for the expences of the even∣ing. Whatever error of conduct I could dis∣cover, whatever peculiarity of manner I could observe, whatever weakness was betrayed by confidence, whatever lapse was suffered by neglect, all was drawn together for the diver∣sion of my wild companions, who, when they had been taught the art of ridicule, never fail∣ed to signalize themselves by a zealous imita∣tion, and filled the town on the ensuing day, with scandal and vexation, with merriment and shame.

I CAN scarcely believe, when I recollect my own practice, that I could have been so far

deluded with trivial praise, as to divulge the secrets of consultation, and to expose the levities of frankness; to waylay the walks of the cautious, and surprize the security of the thoughtless. Yet it is certain, that for many years I heard nothing but with design to tell it, and saw nothing with any other cu∣riosity than after some failure that might fur∣nish out a jest.

MY heart, indeed, acquits me of deliberate malignity, or interested insidiousness. I had no other purpose than to heighten the pleasure of laughter by communication, nor ever rais∣ed any pecuniary advantage from the calami∣ties of others. I led weakness and negligence into difficulties, only that I might divert my∣self with their perplexities and distresses; and violated every law of friendship with no other hope, than that of gaining the reputation of smartness and waggery.

I WOULD not be understood to charge my∣self with any crimes of the atrocious or de∣structive kind. I never betrayed an heir to gamesters, or a girl to debauchees, never in∣tercepted the kindness of a patron, or sported

away the reputation of innocence. My de∣light was only in petty mischief, and momen∣tary vexations; and my acuteness was em∣ployed not upon fraud and oppression which it had been meritorious to detect, but upon harmless ignorance or absurdity, prejudice or mistake.

THIS enquiry I pursued with so much di∣ligence and sagacity, that I was able to relate of every man whom I knew some blunder or miscarriage; to betray the most circumspect of my friends into follies, by a judicious flat∣tery of his predominant passion; or expose him to contempt, by placing him in circum∣stances which put his prejudices into action, brought to view his natural defects, or drew the attention of the company on his airs of affectation.

THE power had been possessed in vain if it had never been exerted; and it was not my custom to let any arts of jocularity remain unemployed. My impatience of applause brought me always early to the place of en∣tertainment; and I seldom failed to lay a

scheme with the small knot that first gathered round me, by which some of those whom we expected might be made subservient to our sport. Every man has some favourite topick of conversation, on which, by a feigned seri∣ousness of attention, he may be drawn to ex∣patiate without end. Every man has some habitual contortion of body, or establish∣ed mode of expression, which never fails to raise mirth if it be pointed out to notice. By premonitions of these particularities I se∣cured our pleasantry. Our companion en∣tered with his usual gaiety, and began to par∣take of our noisy chearfulness, when the con∣versation was imperceptibly diverted to a sub∣ject which pressed upon his tender part, and extorted the expected shrug, the customary exclamation, or the predicted remark. A ge∣neral clamour of joy then burst from all that were admitted to the stratagem. Our mirth was often encreased by the triumph of him that occasioned it; for as we do not hastily sorm conclusions against ourselves, seldom any one suspected, that he had exhilarated us otherwise than by his wit.

YOU will hear I believe with very little surprize, that by this conduct I had in a short time united mankind against me, and that every tongue was diligent in prevention or revenge. I soon perceived myself regarded with malevolence or distrust, but wondered what had been discovered in me either terri∣ble or hateful. I had invaded no man's pro∣perty; I had rivalled no man's claims; not had ever engaged in any of those attempts which provoke the jealousy of ambition, or the rage of faction. I had lived but to laugh, and make others laugh; and believed that I was loved by all who caressed, and favoured by all who applauded me. I never imagined, that he who in the mirth of a nocturnal revel, concurred in ridiculing his friend, would con∣sider in a cooler hour, that the same trick might be played against himself; or that, even where there is no sense of danger, the natural pride of human nature rises against him, who by general censures lays claim to general superiority.

I WAS convinced by a total desertion, of the impropriety of my conduct; every man avoided and cautioned others to avoid me. Wherever I came, I found silence and dejec∣tion, coldness and terror. No one would ven∣ture to speak, lest he should lay himself open to unfavourable representations; the compa∣ny however numerous dropped off at my en∣trance upon various pretences; and if I re∣tired to avoid the shame of being left, I heard confidence and mirth revive at my departure.

IF those whom I had thus offended, could have contented themselves with repaying one insult for another, and kept up the war only by a reciprocation of sarcasms, they might have perhaps vexed, but would never much have hurt me; for no man heartily hates him at whom he can laugh. But these wounds which they give me as they fly, are without cure; this alarm which they spread by their solicitude to escape me, excludes me from all friendship and from all pleasure: I am con∣demned to pass a long interval of my life in solitude, as a man suspected of infection is refused admission into cities; and must linger

in obscurity, till my conduct shall convince the world, that I may be approached with∣out hazard.

I am, &c. DICACULUS.

NUMB. 175. TUESDAY, Nov. 19, 1751.

Rari quippe boni, numero vix sunt totidem quot Thebarum portae, vel divitis ostia Nili.

JUV.

NONE of the axioms of wisdom which recommend the ancient sages to vene∣ration, seems to have required less extent of knowledge or perspicacity of penetration than the remark of Bias, that 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, the majority are wicked.

THE depravity of mankind is so easily dis∣coverable, that nothing but the desert or the cell can exclude it from notice. The know∣ledge of crimes intrudes uncalled and unde∣sired. They whom their abstraction from

common occurrences hinders from seeing ini∣quity, will quickly have their attention awakened by feeling it. Even he who ven∣tures not into the world, may learn its cor∣ruption in his closet. For what are treatises of morality, but persuasives to the practice of duties, for which no arguments would be ne∣cessary, but that we are continually tempted to violate or neglect them? What are all the records of history, but narratives of successive villanies, of treasons and usurpations, mas∣sacres and wars?

BUT, perhaps, the excellence of aphorisms consists not so much in the expression of some rare or abstruse sentiment, as in the compre∣hension of some obvious and useful truth in a few words. We frequently fall into error and folly, not because the true principles of action are not known, but because, for a time, they are not remembered; and he may there∣fore be justly numbered among the benefactors of mankind, who contracts the great rules of life into short sentences, that may be easily impressed on the memory, and taught by fre∣quent recollection to recur habitually to the mind.

HOWEVER those who have passed through half the life of man, may now wonder that any should require to be cautioned against corruption, they will find, that they have themselves purchased their conviction by ma∣ny disappointments and vexations, which an earlier knowledge would have spared them; and may see on every side some intangling themselves in perplexities, and some sinking into ruin, by ignorance or neglect of the maxim of Bias.

EVERY day sends out, in quest of pleasure and distinction, some heir fondled in igno∣rance, and flattered into pride. He comes forth with all the confidence of a spirit un∣acquainted with superiors, and all the bene∣volence of a mind not yet irritated by oppo∣sition, alarmed by fraud, or imbittered by cru∣elty. He loves all, because he imagines him∣self the universal favourite. Every exchange of salutation produces new acquaintance, and every acquaintance kindles into friend∣ship.

EVERY season brings a new flight of beau∣ties into the world, who have hitherto heard

only of their own charms, and imagine that the heart feels no passion but that of love. They are soon surrounded by admirers whom they credit, because they tell them only what is heard with delight. Whoever gazes upon them is a lover; and whoever forces a sigh, is pining in despair.

HE surely is an useful monitor, who incul∣cates to these thoughtless strangers, that the majority are wicked; who informs them, that the train which wealth and beauty draw after them, is lured only by the scent of prey; and that, perhaps, among all those who croud about them with professions and flatteries, there is not one who does not hope for some opportunity to devour or betray them, to glut himself by their destruction, or to share their spoils with a stronger savage.

VIRTUE presented singly to the imagina∣tion or the reason, is so well recommended by its own graces, and so strongly supported by arguments, that a good man wonders how any can be bad; and they who are yet igno∣rant of the force of passion and interest, who never observed the arts of seduction, the con∣tagion

of example, the gradual descent from one crime to another, or the insensible depra∣vation of the principles by loose conversation, naturally expect to find integrity in every bo∣som, and veracity on every tongue.

IT is indeed impossible not to hear from those who have lived longer, of wrongs and salshoods, of violence and circumvention; but such narratives are commonly regarded by the young, the heady, and the confident, as no∣thing more than the murmurs of peevishness, or the dreams of dotage; and notwithstand∣ing all the documents of hoary wisdom, we commonly plunge into the world fearless and credulous, without any foresight of danger, or apprehension of deceit.

I HAVE remarked in a former paper, that credulity is the common failing of unexpe∣rienced virtue; and that he who is spontane∣ously suspicious, may be justly charged with radical corruption; for if he has not known the preval••nce of dishonesty by information, no•• had ••••me to observe it with his own eyes, whence can he take his measures of judgment but from himself?

THEY who best deserve to escape the snares of artifice, are most likely to be entangled. He that endeavours to live for the good of others, must always be ex∣posed to the arts of them who live only for themselves, unless he is taught by timely pre∣cepts the caution required in common trans∣actions, and shown at a distance the pitfals of treachery.

TO youth, therefore, it should be carefully inculcated, that to enter the road of life without caution or reserve, in expectation of general fidelity and justice, is to laucnh on the wide ocean without the instruments of steer∣age, and to hope, that every wind will be prosperous, and that every coast will afford a harbour.

TO ennumerate the various motives to de∣ceit and injury, would be to count all the de∣sires that prevail among the sons of men; since there is no ambition however petty, no wish however absurd, that by indulgence will not be enabled to overpower the influ∣ence of virtue. Many there are, who openly and almost professedly regulate all their con∣duct

by their love of money; who have no reason for action or forbearance, for com∣pliance or refusal, than that they hope to gain more by one than by the other. These are indeed the meanest and cruelest of human beings, a race with whom, as with some pe∣stiferous animals, the whole creation seems to be at war; but who, however detested or scorned, long continue to add heap to heap, and when they have reduced one to beggary are still permitted to fasten on another.

OTHERS, yet less rationally wicked, pass their lives in mischief because they cannot bear the sight of success, and mark out every man for hatred, whose same or fortune they believe encreasing.

MANY, who have not advanced to these degrees of guilt, are yet wholly unqualified for friendship, and unable to maintain any constant or regular course of kindness. Hap∣piness may be destroyed not only by union with the man who is apparently the slave of interest, but with him whom a wild opinion of the dignity of perseverance in whatever

cause disposes to persue every injury with un∣wearied and perpetual resentment; with him whose vanity inclines him to consider every man as a rival in every pretension; with him whose airy negligence puts his friend's affairs or secrets in continual hazard, and who thinks his forgetfulness of others excused by his inat∣tention to himself; or with him whose incon∣stancy ranges without any settled rule of choice through varieties of friendship, and who adopts and dismisses favourites by the sudden impulse of caprice.

THUS numerous are the difficulties to which the converse of mankind exposes us, and which can be avoided only by prudent distrust. He therefore that remembering this salutary maxim learns early to withold his fondness from fair appearances, will have rea∣son to pay some honours to Bias of Priene, who enabled him to become wise without the cost of experience.

NUMB. 176. SATURDAY, Nov. 23, 1751.

—Naso suspendere adunco.

HOR.

THERE are many vexatious accidents and uneasy situations which raise lit∣tle compassion for the sufferer, and which no man but those whom they immediately di∣stress, can regard with seriousness. Petty mischiefs, that have no influence on futu∣rity, nor extend their effects to the rest of life, are always seen with a kind of malicious pleasure. A mistake or embarrasment, which for the present moment fills the face with blushes, and the mind with confusion, will have no other effect upon those who observe it than that of convulsing them with irre∣sistible laughter. Some circumstances of mi∣sery are so powerfully ridiculous, that neither kindness nor duty can withstand them; they bear down love, interest, and reverence, and force the friend, the dependent or the child, to give way to instantaneous motions of mer∣riment.

AMONG the principal of comick calami∣ties, may be reckoned the pain which an au∣thor, not yet hardened into insensibility, feels at the onset of a furious critick, whose age, rank or fortune gives him confidence to speak without reserve; who heaps one objection upon another, and obtrudes his remarks, and enforces his corrections without tenderness or awe.

THE author, full of the importance of his work, alarmed at the danger of his cha∣racter, and anxious for the justification of every syllable, starts and kindles at the slightest attack; the critick, eager to esta∣blish his superiority, triumphing in every dis∣covery of failure, and zealous to impress the cogency of his arguments, pursues him from line to line without cessation or remorse. The critick, who hazards little, proceeds with vehemence impetuosity and fearlessness; the author whose quiet and fame, and life and immortality are involved in the contro∣versy, tries every art of subterfuge and de∣fence; maintains modestly what he resolves never to yield, and yields unwillingly what

cannot be maintained. The critick's purpose is to conquer, the author only hopes to escape; the critick therefore knits his brow, and raises his voice, and rejoyces whenever he perceives any tokens of pain excited by the pressure of his assertions, or the point of his sarcasms. The author, whose endeavour is at once to mollify and elude his persecutor, composes his features, and softens his accent, breaks the force of assault by retreat, and ra∣ther steps aside than flies or advances.

AS it very seldom happens that the rage of extemporary criticism inflicts fatal or lasting wounds, I know not that the Laws of bene∣volence entitle this distress to much sympathy. The diversion of baiting an author has the sanction of all ages and nations, and is more lawful than the sport of teizing other ani∣mals, because for the most part he comes vo∣luntarily to the stake, furnished, as he ima∣gines, by the patron powers of literature with resistless weapons and impenetrable ar∣mour, with the mail of the boar of Ery∣manth, and the paws of the lion of Nemea.

BUT the works of genius are sometimes produced by other motives than vanity; and he whom necessity or duty enforces to write, is not always so well satisfied with himself as not to be discouraged by censorious impu∣dence. It may therefore be necessary to con∣sider by what measures they whom the pub∣lication of their names lays open to the in∣sults of such as their obscurity secures against reprisals, may extricate themselves from un∣expected encounters.

VIDA, a man of considerable skill in the politicks of literature, directs his pupil wholly to abandon his defence, and even when he can irrefragably refute all objections, to suffer tamely the exultations of his antagonist.

THIS rule may perhaps be just, when ad∣vice is asked and severity solicited, because no man tells his opinion so freely as when he imagines it received with implicit veneration; and critics ought never to be consulted but while errors may yet be rectified or insi∣pidity suppressed. But when the book has once been dismissed into the world, and can

be no more retouched, I know not whether a very different conduct should not be pre∣scribed, and whether firmness and spirit may not sometimes be of use to overpower arro∣gance and repel brutality. Softness, diffidence and moderation will often be mistaken for imbecillity and dejection; they lure cow∣ardice to the attack by the hopes of easy vic∣tory, and it will soon be found that he whom every man thinks he can conquer, shall never be at peace.

THE animadversions of criticks are com∣monly such as may easily provoke the sedatest writer to some quickness of resentment and asperity of reply. A man who by long con∣sideration has familiarised a subject to his own mind, carefully survey'd the series of his thoughts, and planned all the parts of his composition into a regular dependance on each other, will often start at the sinistrous interpretations, or absurd remarks of haste and ignorance, and wonder by what infatua∣tion they have been led away from the ob∣vious

sense, and upon what peculiar princi∣ples of judgment they decide against him.

THE eye of the intellect, like that of the body, is not equally perfect in all, nor equal∣ly adapted in any to all objects; the end of criticism is to supply its defects; rules are the instruments of mental vision, which may in∣deed assist our faculties when properly used, but produce confusion and obscurity by un∣skilful application.

SOME seem always to read with the mi∣croscope of criticism, and employ their whole attention upon minute elegance, or faults scarcely visible to common observation. The dissonance of a syllable, the recurrence of the same sound, the repetition of a particle, the smallest deviation from propriety, the slightest defect in construction or arrangement, swell before their eyes into enormities. As they discern with great exactness, they comprehend but a narrow compass, and know nothing of the justness of the design, the general spirit of the performance, the artifice of connection,

or the harmony of the parts; they never conceive how small a proportion that which they are busy in contemplating bears to the whole, or how the trivial inaccuracies with which they are offended, are absorbed and lost in general excellence.

OTHERS are furnished by criticism with a telescope. They see with great clearness whatever is too remote to be discovered by the rest of mankind, but are totally blind to all that lies immediately before them. They discover in every passage some secret mean∣ing, some remote allusion, some artful al∣legory, or some occult imitation which no other reader ever suspected; but they have no perception of the cogency of arguments, the contexture of narrations, the various co∣lours of diction, or the flowery embellish∣ments of fancy; of all that engages the at∣tention of others, they are totally insensible, while they pry into worlds of conjecture, and amuse themselves with phantoms in the clouds.

IN criticism, as in every other art, we fail sometimes by our weakness, but more

frequently by our fault. We are sometimes bewildered by ignorance, and sometimes by prejudice, but we seldom deviate far from the right, but when we deliver ourselves up to the direction of vanity.

NUMB. 177. TUESDAY, Nov. 26, 1751.

Turpe est difficiles haberc nugas.

MART.

To the RAMBLER.

SIR,

WHEN, after the usual time spent at the university, I was about to enter upon the profession to which my friends had destined me, being summoned by the death of my father, into the country, I found myself master of an unexpected sum of money, and of an estate, which, though not large, was, in my opinion, sufficient to support me in a condition far preferable to the fatigue, dependence, and uncertainty of any gainful occupation. I therefore, resolved

to devote the rest of my life wholly to curi∣osity, and without any confinement of my excursions or termination of my views, to wander over the boundless regions of general knowledge.

THIS scheme of life seemed pregnant with inexhaustible variety, and therefore, I could not forbear to congratulate myself upon the wisdom of my choice. I furnish'd a large room with all conveniencies for study; col∣lected books of every kind; quitted every science at the first perception of disgust; re∣turned to it again as soon as my former ar∣dour happened to revive; and having no ri∣val to depress me by comparison, nor any critic to alarm me with objections, I spent day after day in profound tranquility, with only so much complacence in my own im∣provements, as served to excite and animate my application.

THUS I lived for some years with com∣plete acquiescence in my own plan of con∣duct, rising early to read, and dividing the latter part of the day between oeconomy, exercise and reflection. But in time, I be∣gan

to find my mind contracted and stiffened by solitude. My ease and elegance were sen∣sibly impaired; I was no longer able to ac∣commodate myself with readiness to the ac∣cidental current of conversation; my notions grew particular and paradoxical; and my phraseology formal and unfashionable; I spoke, on common occasions, the language of books. My quickness of apprehension, and celerity of reply had entirely deserted me: When I delivered my opinion, or detailed my know∣ledge, I was bewildered by an unseasonable interrogatory, disconcerted by any trivial ob∣jection, and overwhelmed, and lost in de∣jection when the smallest advantage was gain∣ed against me in dispute. I became decisive and dogmatical, impatient of contradiction, perpetually jealous of my character, insolent to such as acknowledged my superiority, and sullen and malignant to all who refused to re∣ceive my dictates.

THIS I soon discovered to be one of those intellectual diseases which a wise man should make haste to cure. I therefore resolved for a time to shut my books, and learn again the

art of conversation; to defecate and clear my mind by brisker motions and stronger im∣pulses; and to unite myself once more to the living generation.

FOR this purpose I hasted to London, and entreated one of my academical acquain∣tances, to introduce me into some of the little societies of literature which are formed in ta∣verns and coffee-houses. He was pleased with an opportunity of shewing me to his friends, and soon obtained me admission among a select company of curious men, who met once a week to exhilarate their stu∣dies and compare their acquisitions.

THE eldest and most venerable of this so∣ciety was Hirsutus, who after the first civi∣lities of my reception, sound means to in∣troduce the mention of his favourite studies, by a severe censure of those who want the due regard for their native country. He in∣formed me, that he had early withdrawn his attention from foreign trifles, and that since he begun to addict his mind to serious and manly studies, he had very carefully amassed all the English books that were printed in

the black character. This search he had pur∣sued so diligently, that he was able to show the deficiencies of the best catalogues. He had long since completed his Caxton, had three sheets of Treveris unknown to the antiqua∣ries, and wanted to a perfect Pynson but two volumes, of which one was promised him as a legacy by its present possessor, and the other he was resolved to buy, at whatever price, when Quisquilius's library should be sold. Hirsutus had no other reason for the valuing or slighting a book, than that it was printed in the Roman or the Gothick letter, nor any ideas but such as his favourite volumes had supplied; when he was serious, he expatiated on the narratives of Johan de Trevisa, and, when he was merry, regaled us with a quo∣tation from the Shippe of Foles.

WHILE I was listening to this hoary stu∣dent, Ferratus entered in a hurry, and in∣formed us with the abruptness of extasy, that his set of half-pence was now complete; he had just received in a handful of change, the piece that he had so long been seeking,

and could now defy mankind to outgo his collection of English copper.

CHARTOPHYLAX then observed how fatally human sagacity was sometimes baffled, and how often the most valuable discoveries are made by chance. He had employed him∣self and his emissaries seven years at great ex∣pence, to perfect his series of Gazettes, but had long wanted a single paper, which, when he despaired of obtaining it, was sent him wrapped round a parcel of tobacco.

CANTILENUS turned all his thoughts upon old ballads, for he considered them as the genuine records of the national taste. He offered to shew me a copy of The Children in the Wood, which he firmly believed to be of the first edition, and by the help of which, the text might be freed from several corrup∣tions, if this age of barbarity had any claim to such favours from him.

MANY were admitted into this society, as inferior members, because they had collected old prints and neglected pamphlets, or pos∣sessed some fragment of antiquity, as the seal

of an antient corporation, the charter of a religious house, the genealogy of a family extinct, or a letter written in the reign of Elizabeth.

EVERY one of these virtuosos looked on all his associates as wretches of depraved taste and narrow notions. Their conversation was, therefore, fretful and waspish, their be∣haviour brutal, their merriment bluntly sar∣castick, and their seriousness gloomy and sus∣picious. They were totally ignorant of all that passes, or has lately passed, in the world; unable to discuss any question of religious, political, or military knowledge; equally strangers to science and politer learning, and without any wish to improve their minds, or any other pleasure than that of displaying ra∣rities, of which they would not suffer others to make the proper use.

HIRSUTUS graciously informed me, that the number of their society was limited, but that I might sometimes attend as an au∣ditor. I was pleased to find myself in no danger of an honour, which I could not have willingly accepted, nor gracefully re∣fused,

and left them without any intention of returning, for I soon found, that the sup∣pression of those habits with which I was vitiated, required association with men very different from this solemn race.

I am, SIR, &c. VIVACULUS.

IT is natural to feel grief or indignation, when any thing, necessary or useful, is wan∣tonly wasted, or negligently destroyed; and therefore, my correspondent cannot be blamed for looking with uneasiness on the waste of life. Leisure and curiosity might soon make great advances in useful knowledge, were they not diverted by trivial emulation and laborious trifles. It may, however, some∣what mollisy his anger to reflect, that per∣haps, none of the assembly which he de∣scribes, was capable of any nobler employ∣ment, and that he who does his best, how∣ever little, is always to be distinguished from

him who does nothing. Whatever busies the mind without corrupting it, has at least this use, that it rescues the day from idle∣ness, and he that is never idle will not often be vitious.

NUMB. 178. SATURDAY, Nov. 30, 1751.

Pars Sanitatis velle sanari fuit.

SENECA.

PYTHAGORAS is reported to have required from those whom he instructed in philosophy a probationary silence of five years. Whether this prohibition of speech extended to all the parts of this time, as seems generally to be supposed, or was to be observed only in the school or in the pre∣sence of their master, as is more probable, it was sufficient to discover the pupil's dis∣position; to try whether he was willing to pay the price of learning, or whether he was one of those whose ardour was rather violent

than lasting, and who expected to grow wise on other terms than those of patience and obedience.

MANY of the blessings universally de∣sired, are very frequently wanted, be∣cause most men, when they should labour, content themselves to complain, and rather linger in a state in which they cannot be at rest, than improve their condition by vigour and resolution.

PROVIDENCE has fixed the limits of hu∣man enjoyment by immoveable boundaries, and has set different gratifications at such a distance from each other, that no art or power can bring them together. This great law it is the business of every rational being to un∣derstand, that life may not pass away in an attempt to make contradictions consistent, to combine opposite qualities, and to unite things which the nature of their being must always keep asunder.

OF two objects tempting at a distance on contrary sides it is impossible to approach one

but by receding from the other; by long de∣liberation and dilatory projects, they may be both lost, but can never be both gained. It is, therefore, necessary to compare them, and when we have determined the preference, to withdraw our eyes and our thoughts at once from that which reason directs us to reject. This is more necessary, if that which we are forsaking has the power of delighting the senses, or firing the fancy. He that once turns aside to the allurements of unlawful pleasure, can have no security that he shall ever regain the paths of virtue.

THE philosophick goddess of Boethius, having related the story of Orpheus, who, when he had recovered his wife from the dominions of death, lost her again by looking back upon her in the consines of of light, concludes, with a very elegant and forcible application, Whoever you are that en∣deavour to elevate your minds to the illumina∣tions of Heaven, consider yourselves as repre∣sented in this fable; for he that is once so far overcome as to turn back his eyes towards the

infernal caverns, loses at the first sight all that influence which attracted him on high.

Vos haec fabula respicit, Quicunque in superum diem Mentem ducere quaeritis. Nam qui Tartareum in specus Victus lumina flexerit, Quidquid praecipuum trahit, Perdit, dum videt inferos.

IT may be observed in general, that the future is purchased by the present. It is not possible to secure distant or permanent hap∣piness but by the forbearance of some imme∣diate gratification. This is so evidently true with regard to the whole of our existence, that all the precepts of theology have no other tendency than to enforce a life of faith; a life regulated not by our senses but our belief; a life in which pleasures are to be refused for fear of invisible punishments, and calamities sometimes to be fought and always endured in hope of rewards that shall be ob∣tained in another state.

EVEN if we take into our view only that particle of our duration which is terminated by the grave, it will be found that we cannot enjoy one part of life beyond the common limitations of pleasure, but by anticipating some of the satisfaction which should exhila∣rate the following years. The heat of youth may spread happiness into wild luxuriance, but the radical vigour requisite to make it peren∣nial is exhausted, and all that can be hoped afterwards is languor and sterility.

THE reigning error of manking is, that we are not content with the conditions on which the goods of life are granted. No man is insensible of the value of knowledge, the advantages of health, or the convenience of plenty, but every day shews us those on whom their conviction is without effect.

KNOWLEDGE is praised and desired by multitudes whom her charms could never rouse from the couch of sloth; whom the faintest invitation of pleasure draws away from their studies; to whom any other me∣thod of wearing out the day is more eligible than the use of books, and who are more

easily engaged by any conversation than such as may rectify their notions or enlarge their comprehension.

EVERY man that has felt pain knows how little all other comforts can gladden him to whom health is denied. Yet who is there does not sometimes hazard it for the enjoyment of an hour? All assemblies of jollity, all places of publick entertainment exhibit examples of strength wasting in riot, and beauty wi∣thering in irregularity; nor is it easy to enter a house in which part of the family is not groaning in repentance of past intemperance, and part admitting discase by negligence, or soliciting it by luxury.

THERE is no pleasure which men of every age and sect have more generally agreed to mention with contempt, than the gratifica∣tions of the palate; an entertainment so far removed from intellectual happiness that scarcely the most shameless of the sensual herd have dared to defend it; yet even to this, the lowest of our delights, to this, though neither quick nor lasting, is health with all its activity and sprightliness daily sacrificed; and

for this are half the miseries endured which urge impatience to call on death.

THE whole world is put in motion by the wish for riches, and the dread of poverty. Who, then, would not imagine that such conduct as will inevitably destroy what all are thus labouring to acquire, must generally be avoided? That he who spends more than he receives, must in time become indigent cannot be doubted; but how evident soever this consequence may appear, the spendthrist moves in the whirl of pleasure with too much rapidity to keep it before his eyes, and in the intoxication of gaiety grows every day poorer without any such sense of approaching ruin as is sufficient to wake him into caution.

MANY complaints are made of the misery of life; and indeed it must be confessed that we are subject to calamities by which the good and bad, the diligent and slothful, the vigilant and heedless are equally afflicted. But surely though some indulgence may be al∣lowed to groans extorted by inevitable mise∣ry, no man has a right to repine at evils which, against warning, against experience,

he deliberately and leisurely brings upon his own head; or to consider himself as debarred from happiness by such obstacles as resolution may break, or dexterity may put aside.

GREAT numbers who quarrel with their condition have wanted not the power but the will to obtain a better state. They have never contemplated the difference between good and 〈◊〉〈◊〉 sufficiently to quicken aversion or invigorate desire; they have indulged a drowsy thoughtlessness or giddy levity; have committed the balance of choice to the ma∣nagement of caprice; and when they have long accustomed themselves to receive all that chance offered them without examination, lament at last that they find themselves de∣ceived.

NUMB. 179. TUESDAY, Dec. 3, 1751.

Perpetuo risu pulmonem agitare solebat.

JUV.

EVERY man, says Tully, has two cha∣racters; one which he partakes with all mankind, and by which he is distinguished from brute animals; another which discrimi∣nates him from the rest of his own species, and impresses on him a manner and temper peculiar to himself; this particular character, if it be not repugnant to the laws of general humanity, it is always his business to cultivate and preserve.

EVERY hour furnishes some confirmation of Tully's precept. It seldom happens, that any assembly of pleasure is so happily selected, but that some one finds admission, with whom the rest are deservedly offended; and it will appear on a close inspection, that scarce any man becomes eminently disagreeable but by affectation, by a departure from his real cha∣racter,

and an attempt at something for which nature or education have left him unqua∣lified.

IGNORANCE or dulness have indeed no power of affording delight, but they never give disgust except when they assume the dignity of knowledge, or ape the sprightli∣ness of wit. Aukwarkness and inelegance, have none of those attractions by which ease and politeness take possession of the heart; but ridicule and censure seldom rise against them, unless they appear associated with that confidence which belongs only to long ac∣quaintance with the modes of life, and to consciousness of unfailing propriety of beha∣viou••▪ Deformity itself is regarded with ten∣derne••••, rather than aversion, when it does not attempt to deceive the sight by dress and decoration, and to seize upon fictitious claims the prerogatives of beauty.

HE that stands to contemplate the crouds that fill the streets of a populous city, will see many ••assengers whose air and motion it will be difficult to behold without contempt and laughter; but if he examines what are

the appearances that thus powerfully excite his merriment, he will find among them nei∣ther poverty nor disease, nor any involuntary or painful defect. The disposition to derision and insult is awakened by the softness of fop∣pery, the swell of insolence, the liveliness of levity, or the solemnity of grandeur; by the sprightly trip, the stately stalk, the for∣mal strut, and the lofty mein; by gestures intended to catch the eye, and by looks ela¦borately formed as evidences of importance.

IT has, I think, been sometimes urged in favour of affectation, that it is only a mis¦take of the means to a good end, and that the Intention with which it is practised is al¦ways to please. If all attempts to innovate the constitutional or habitual character have really proceeded from public spirit and from love of others, the world has hitherto been sufficiently ungrateful, since no return but aversion and scorn has yet been made to the most difficult of all enterprizes, a contest with nature; nor has any pity been shown to the fatigues of labour which never succeeded, and the uneasiness of disguise by which nothing was concealed.

IT seems to be determined by the general suffrage of mankind that he who decks him∣self in adscititious qualities rather purposes to command applause than impart pleasure; and he is therefore treated as a man unreasonably ambitious of distinction who usurps a place in society to which he has no right. Praise is seldom paid with willingness even to incon∣testable merit, and it can be no wonder that he who calls for it without desert is repulsed with universal indignation.

AFFECTATION naturally counterfeits those excellencies which are placed at the greatest distance from possibility of attain∣ment. We are conscious of our own de∣fects, and eagerly endeavour to supply them by counterfeited excellence; nor would such efforts be wholly without excuse, were they not often excited by ornamental trifles, and unessential accomplishments, which he, that thus anxiously struggles for the reputation of possessing them, would not have been thought to want, had not his industry quickened ob∣servation.

GELASIMUS passed the first part of his life in academical privacy and rural retire∣ment, without any other conversation than that of scholars grave, studious, and ab∣stracted as himself. He cultivated the mathe∣matical sciences with undesatigable diligence, discovered many useful theorems, discussed with great accuracy the resistance of fluids, and, though his priority was not generally acknowledged, was the first who fully ex∣plained all the properties of the catenarian curve.

LEARNING, when it rises to eminence, will be observed in time, whatever mists may happen to surround it. Gelasimus, in his forty-ninth year being distinguished by those who have the rewards of knowledge in their hands, was called out of his obscurity to dis¦play his acquisitions for the honour of his coun∣try, and add dignity by his presence to phi¦losophical assemblies. As he did not suspect his unfitness for common affairs, he felt no reluctance to obey the invitation, and what he did not feel he had yet too much honesty to seign. He entered into the world as a larger and more populous college, where

his performances would be more public, and his renown farther extended; and imagined that he should find his reputation universally prevalent, and the influence of learning every where the same.

HIS merit introduced him to splendid ta∣bles and elegant acquaintance, but he did not find himself always qualified to join in the conversation. He was distressed by civi∣lities, which he knew not how to repay, and entangled in many ceremonial perplexi∣ties, from which his books and diagrams could not extricate him. He was sometimes unluckily engaged in disputes with ladies, with whom algebraick axioms had no great weight; and saw many whose favour and esteem he could not but desire, to whom he was very little recommended by his theo∣ries of the tides, or his approximations to the quadrature of the circle.

GELASIMUS did not want penetration to discover that no charm was more generally irresistible than that of easy facetiousness and

flowing hilarity. He saw that diversion was more frequently welcome than improvement, that authority and seriousness were rather feared than loved, and that the grave scholar was a kind of imperious ally, hastily dismissed when his assistance was no longer necessary. He therefore came to a sudden resolution of throwing off those cumbrous ornaments of learning, which, as he imagined, hindred his reception, and commenced a man of wit and jocularity. Utterly unacquainted with every topic of merriment, ignorant of the modes and follies, the vices and virtues of mankind, and unfurnished with any ideas but such as Pappus and Archimedes had given him, he began to silence all enquiries with a jest instead of a solution, extended his face with a grin, which he mistook for a smile, and in the place of a scientifick discourse, retailed in a new language formed between the college and the tavern, the intelligence of the news∣paper.

LAUGHTER, he knew, was a token of alacrity, and, therefore, whatever he said,

or heard, he was careful not to fail in that great duty of a wit. If he asked or told the hour of the day, if he complained of heat or cold, stirred the fire, or filled a glass, re∣moved his chair or snuffed a candle, he al∣ways found some occasion to laugh. The jest was indeed, generally a secret to all but himself, but his habitual confidence in his own discernment, hindered him from suspect∣ing any weakness or mistake. He wondered that his wit was so little understood, but ex∣pected that his audience would comprehend it by degrees, and persisted all his life to show by gross buffoonery, how little the strongest faculties can perform beyond the li∣mits of their own province.

NUMB. 180. SATURDAY, Dec. 7, 1751.

〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉

AUTOMEDOM.

IT is somewhere related by Le Clerc, that a wealthy trader of good understanding, having the common ambition to breed his son a scholar, carried him to an university, resolving to make use of his own judgment in the choice of a tutor. He had been taught, by whatever intelligence, the nearest way to the heart of an academick, and soon after his arrival opened his purse with so little reserve, and entertained all who came about him with such prosusion of plenty, that the professors were lured by the smell of his table from their books, and flocked round him with all the importunity of aukward complaisance. This eagerness completely an∣swered the merchant's purpose; he glutted them with delicacies, cheared them with wine, and softened them with caresses, till

by degrees, he prevailed upon one after ano∣ther to open his bosom, and make a full dis∣covery of his competitions, jealousies, and resentments. After having thus learned each man's character, partly from himself, and partly from his acquaintances, he at last resolved to find some other method of edu∣cating his son, and went away fully con∣vinced, that a scholastic life has no other tendency than to vitiate the morals, and con∣tract the understanding. Nor could he after∣wards hear with patience the praises of the ancient authors, being persuaded that scho∣lars of all ages must have been the same, and that Xenophon and Cicero were nothing more than professors of some former university, and were therefore mean and selfish, ignorant and servile, like those whom he had lately visited and forsaken.

ENVY, curiosity, and our sense of the im∣perfection of our present state, inclines us always to estimate the advantages which are in the possession of others above their real value. Every one must have remarked, what powers and prerogatives the vulgar ima∣gine to be conferred by learning. A man

of science is expected to excel the unlet∣tered and unenlightened, even on occasions where literature is of no use, and among weak minds, loses part of his reverence by discovering no superiority in those parts of life, in which all are unavoidably equal; as when a monarch makes a progress to the re∣moter provinces, the rusticks are said some∣times to wonder that they find him of the same size with themselves.

THESE demands of prejudice and folly can never be satisfied, and therefore, many of the imputations which learning suffers from dis∣appointed ignorance, are without reproach. Yet it cannot be denied, that there are some failures to which men of study are peculiarly exposed. Every condition has its disadvan∣tages. The circle of knowledge is too wide for the most active and diligent intellect, and while science is persued with ardour, other accomplishments of equal use, are necessarily neglected; as a small garrison must leave one part of an extensive fortress naked when an alarm calls them to another.

THE learned, however, might generally support their dignity with more success, if they suffered not themselves to be misled by the de∣sire of superfluous attainments, of qualifica∣tion which few can understand or value, and of skill which they may sink into the grave without any conspicuous opportunities of ex∣erting. Raphael in return to Adam's enquiries into the courses of the stars and the revolutions of heaven, counsels him to withdraw his mind from idle speculations, and instead of watch∣ing motions which he has no power to regu∣late, to employ his faculties upon nearer and more interesting objects, the survey of his own life, the subjection of his passions, the knowledge of duties which must daily be performed, and the detection of dangers which must daily be incurred.

THIS angelick counsel every man of letters should always have before him. He that de∣votes himself wholly to retired study, natu∣rally sinks from omission to forgetfulness of so∣cial duties, from which he must be sometimes awakened, and recalled to the general condi∣tion of mankind.

I AM far from any intention to limit curi∣osity, or consine the labours of learning to arts of immediate and necessary use. It is on∣ly from the various essays of experimental in∣dustry, and the vague excursions of minds sent out upon discovery, that any advancement of knowledge can be expected; and though many must be disappointed in their labours, yet they are not to be charged with having spent their time in vain; their example contributed to in∣spire emulation, and their miscarriages taught others the way to success.

BUT the distant hope of being one day use∣ful or eminent, ought not to mislead us too far from that knowledge, which is equally requi∣site to the great and mean, to the celebrated and obscure; the art of moderating the desires, of repressing the appetites, and of conciliating, or retaining the favour of mankind.

NO man can imagine the conduct of his own life unworthy his attention; yet among the sons of learning many may be found who seem to have thought of every thing rather

than of themselves, and have never conde∣scended to observe what passes daily before their eyes: Many who toil through the intri∣cacy of complicated systems, but are insupera∣bly embarrassed with the least perplexity in common affairs; and while they compare the actions, and ascertain the characters of ancient heroes, let their own days glide away without examination, and suffer vicious habits to en∣croach upon their minds without resistance or detection.

ONE of the most frequent reproaches of the scholastick race is the want of fortitude, of fortitude not martial but philosophick. Men bred in shades and silence, taught to im∣mure themselves at sunset, and accustomed to no other weapon than syllogism, may be al∣lowed to feel terror at personal danger, and to be disconcerted by tumult and alarm. But why should he whose life is spent in contempla∣tion, and whose business is only to discover truth, be unable to rectify the fallacies of ima∣gination, or contend successfully against preju∣dice and passion? To what end has he read

and meditated if he gives up his understanding to false appearances, and suffers himself at last, like the meanest of the vulgar, to be enslaved by fear of evils to which only folly or vanity can expose him, or elated by advantages which can add nothing to a wise man, and to which, as they are equally conferred upon the good and bad, no real dignity is annexed.

SUCH however is the state of the world, that the most obsequious of the slaves of pride, the most raptuous of the gazers upon wealth, the most officious of the whisperers of great∣ness, are collected from seminaries appropri∣ated to the study of wisdom and the contem∣plation of virtue, where it was intended, that appetite should learn to be content with little, and that hope should aspire only to honours which no human power can give or take away.

THE student, when he comes forth into the world, instead of congratulating himself upon his exemption from the errors and failures to which he sees those liable whose opinions have

been formed by accident or custom, and who live without any certain principles of conduct, is commonly in haste to shake from him all that distinguishes him from the rest of mankind, to mingle on equal terms with the multitude, and shew his sprightliness and duc∣tility by an expeditious compliance with fa∣shions, pleasures, or vices. The first smile of a man whose rank or fortune gives him power to reward his dependents commonly enchants him beyond resistance; the glare of equipage, the sweets of luxury, the liberality of general promises, the softness of habitual affability, strike his senses and fill his imagi∣nation; and he soon ceases to have any other wish than to be well received, or any mea∣sure of right and wrong but the opinion of his patron.

A MAN flattered and obeyed, soon learns to exact grosser adulation, and enjoin lower sub∣mission. Neither our virtues nor vices are all our own. If there were no cowardice, there would be little insolence; a man cannot grow proud to any great degree, but by the con∣currence

of blandishment or the sufferance of tameness. The wretch that would shrink and crouch before those that should dart their eyes upon him with the spirit of natural equality, quickly becomes capricious and tyrannical when he sees himself approached with a down∣cast look, and hears the soft address of awe and servility. To the folly of those who are wil∣ling to purchase favour and preferment by cringes and compliance, is to be imputed that general haughtiness of power that leaves no∣thing to be hoped by firmness and integrity.

IF instead of wandering after the meteors of philosophy which fill the world with splen∣dor for a while, and then sink and are forgot∣ten, the candidates of learning would fix their eyes only upon the permanent and immutable lustre of moral and religious truth, they would find a more certain direction to honour and hap∣piness. A little plausibility of discourse, and a little acquaintance with unnecessary specula∣tions, is dearly purchased when it excludes those instructions which fortify the heart with resolu∣tion and exalt the spirit to independence.

NUMB. 181. TUESDAY, Dec. 10, 1751.

—Neu fluitem dubiae spe pendulus horae.

HOR.

To the RAMBLER.

SIR,

AS I have passed much of my life in disquiet and suspense, and lost many op∣portunities of advantage by a passion which I have reason to believe prevalent in different degrees over a great part of mankind, I can∣not but think myself well qualified to warn those who are yet uncaptivated, of the danger which they incur by placing themselves within its influence.

I SERVED an apprenticeship to a linen-dra∣per with uncommon reputation for diligence and fidelity; and at the age of three and twen∣ty opened a shop for myself with a large stock, and such credit among all the merchants who were acquainted with my master that I could command whatever was imported curious or

valuable. For five years I proceeded with suc∣cess proportionate to close application and un∣tainted integrity; was a daring bidder at every sale; always paid my notes before they were due; and advanced so fast in commercial re∣putation, that I was proverbially marked out as the model of young traders, and every one expected that a few years would make me an alderman.

IN this course of even prosperity, I was one day persuaded to buy a ticket in the lottery. The sum was inconsiderable, the greater part was to be repaid though fortuen might fail to favour me, and therefore my established max∣ims of frugality did not restrain me from so trifling an experiment. The ticket lay almost forgotten till the time at which every man's fate was to be determined; nor did the affair even then seem of any importance, till I dis∣covered by the publick papers that the num∣ber next to mine had conferred the great prize.

MY heart leaped at the thought of such an approach to sudden riches, which I considered

myself, however contrarily to the laws of computation, as having missed by a single chance; and I could not forbear to revolve the consequences which such a bounteous allot∣ment would have produced, if it had hap∣pened to me. This dream of felicity, by de∣grees took possession of my imagination. The great delight of my solitary hours was to pur∣chase an estate, and form plantations with money which once might have been mine, and I never met my friends but I spoiled all their merriment by perpetual complaints of my ill luck.

AT length another lottery was opened, and I had now so heated my imagination with the prospect of a prize, that I should have pressed among the first purchasers, had not my ardour been with-held by deliberation upon the pro∣bability of success from one ticket rather than another. I hesitated long between even and odd; considered the square and cubick num∣bers through the lottery; examined all those to which good luck had been hitherto annex∣ed; and at last fixed upon one which by some

secret relation to the events of my life I thought predestined to make me happy. De∣lay in great affairs is often mischievous; the ticket was sold, and its possessor could not be found.

IRETURNED to my conjectures, and af∣ter many arts of prognostication, fixed upon another chance, but with less confidence. Ne∣ver did captive, heir, or lover feel so much vexation from the slow pace of time, as I suf∣fered between the purchase of my ticket and the distribution of the prizes. I solaced my uneasiness as I could, by frequent contem∣plations of approaching happiness; when the sun rose I knew it would set, and congra∣tulated myself at night that I was so much nearer to my wishes. At last the day came, my ticket appeared, and rewarded all my care and sagacity with a despicable prize of fifty pounds.

MY friends, who honestly rejoiced upon my success were very coldly received; I hid myself a fortnight in the country, that my chagrine might fume away without observa∣tion,

and then returning to my shop began to listen after another lottery.

WITH the news of a lottery I was soon gratified, and having now found the vanity of conjecture and inefficacy of computation, I resolved to take the prize by violence, and therefore bought forty tickets, not omitting however to divide them between the even and odd numbers that I might not miss the lucky class. Many conclusions did I form, and ma∣ny experiments did I try to determine from which of those tickets I might most reasona∣bly expect riches. At last, being unable to satisfy myself by any modes of reasoning, I wrote the numbers upon dice, and allotted five hours every day to the amusement of throwing them in a garret, and, examining the event by an exact register, found, on the evening before the lottery was drawn, that one of my numbers had been turned up five times more than any of the rest in three hun∣dred and thirty thousand throws.

THIS experiment was fallacious; the first day presented the hopeful ticket, a detestable blank. The rest came out with different for∣tune, and in conclusion I lost thirty pounds by this great adventure.

I HAD now wholly changed the cast of my behaviour and the conduct of my life. The shop was for the most part abandoned to my servants, and, if I entered it, my thoughts were so engrossed by my tickets, that I scarce∣ly heard or answered a question, but consider∣ed every customer as an intruder upon my meditations whom I was in haste to dispatch. I mistook the price of my goods, committed blunders in my bills, forgot to file my receipts, and neglected to regulate my books. My ac∣quaintances by degrees began to fall away, but I perceived the decline of my business with little emotion, because whatever deficiency there might be in my gains I expected the next lottery to supply.

MISCARRIAGE naturally produces diffi∣dence; I began now to seek assistance against

ill luck, by an alliance with those that had been more successful. I enquired diligently, at what office any prize had been sold, that I might purchase of a propitious vender; soli∣cited those who had been fortunate in former lotteries, to partake with me in my new tickets; and, whenever I met with one that had in any event of his life been eminently prosperous, I invited him to take a larger share. I had, by this rule of conduct, so dif∣fused my interest, that I had a fourth part of fifteen tickets, an eighth of forty, and a six∣teenth of ninety.

I WAITED for the decision of my fate with my former palpitations, and looked upon the business of my trade with the usual neg∣lect. The wheel at last was turned, and its revolutions brought me a long succession of sorrows and disappointments. I indeed often partook of a small prize, and the loss of one day was generally balanced by the gain of the next; but my desires yet remained unsatisfied, and when one of my chances had failed, all my expectation was suspended on those which

remained yet undetermined. At last a prize of five thousand pounds was proclaimed; I caught fire at the cry, and enquiring the num∣ber found it to be one of my own tickets, which I had divided among those on whose luck I depended, and of which I had retained only a sixteenth part.

YOU will easily judge, with what detesta∣tion of himself, a man thus intent upon gain reflected that he had sold a prize which was once in his possession. It was to no purpose, that I represented to my mind, the impossibi∣bility of recalling the past, or the folly of condemning an act, which only its event, an event which no human intelligence could fore∣see, proved to be wrong. The prize which though put in my hands had been suffered to slip from me filled me with anguish; and knowing that complaint would only expose me to ridicule, I gave myself up silently to grief, and lost by degrees my appetite and my rest.

MY indisposition soon became visible; I was visited by my friends, and among them

by Eumathes a clergyman whose piety and learning gave him such an ascendant over me, that I could not refuse to open my heart. There are, said he, few minds sufficiently firm to be trusted in the hands of chance. Whoever finds himself inclined to anticipate futurity, and exalt possibility to certainty, should avoid every kind of casual adventure, since his grief must be always proportionate to his hope. You have long wasted that time, which by a proper application, would have certainly though moderately encreased your fortune, in a laborious and anxious persuit of a species of gain, which no labour or anxiety, no art or expedient can secure or promote. You are now fretting away your life in re∣pentance of an act, against which repentance can give no caution, but to avoid the occasion of committing it. Rouse from this lazy dream of fortuitous riches, which, if obtained you could scarcely have enjoyed, because they could confer no consciousness of desert; re∣turn to rational and manly industry, and con∣sider the meer gift of luck as below the care of a wise man.

NUMB. 182. SATURDAY, Dec. 14, 1751.

—Dives qui fieri vult, Et cito vult fieri.

JUV.

IT has been observed in a late paper, that we are unreasonably desirous to separate the goods of life from those evils which pro∣vidence has connected with them, and to catch advantages without paying the price at which they are offered us. Every man wishes to be rich, but very few have the powers ne∣cessary to raise a sudden fortune, by new discoveries, or superiority of skill in any necessary employment; and among low∣er understandings many want the firmness and industry requisite to regular gain and gra∣dual acquisitions.

FROM the hope of enjoying affluence by methods more compendious than those of la∣bour, and more generally practicable than those of genius, proceeds the common incli∣nation to experiment and hazard, and that willingness to snatch all opportunities of

growing rich by chance, which, when it has once taken possession of the mind, is seldom driven out either by time or argument, but continues to waste life in perpetual delusion, and generally ends in wretchedness and want.

THE folly of untimely exultation and vi∣sionary prosperity, is by no means peculiar to the purchasers of tickets; there are multitudes whose life is nothing but a continual lottery; who are always within a few months of plen∣ty and happiness, and how often soever they are mocked with blanks, expect a prize from the next adventure.

AMONG the most resolute and ardent of the votaries of chance, may be numbered the mortals whose hope is to raise them∣selves by a wealthy match; who lay out all their industry on the assiduities of courtship, and sleep and wake with no other ideas than of treats, compliments, guardians, and rivals.

ONE of the most indefatigable of this class, is my old friend Leviculus, whom I have never known for thirty years without some matrimonial project of advantage. Leviculus

was bred under a merchant, and by the graces of his person, the sprightliness of his prattle, and the neatness of his dress, so much ena∣moured his master's second daughter, a girl of sixteen, that she declared her resolution to have no other husband. Her father, after having chidden her for undutifulness, consent∣ed to the match, not much to the satisfaction of Leviculus, who was sufficiently elated with his conquest to think himself entitled to a larger fortune. He was, however, soon rid of his perplexity, for his mistress died before their marriage.

LEVICULUS was so well satisfied with his own accomplishments, that he determined to commence fortune-hunter, and when his apprenticeship expired, instead of beginning, as was expected, to walk the exchange with a face of importance, or associating himself with those who were most eminent for their knowledge of the stocks, he at once threw off the solemnity of the counting-house, equipped himself with a modish wig, listned to wits in coffee houses, passed his evenings behind the scenes in the theatres, learned the names of beauties of quality, hummed the

last stanzas of fashionable songs, talked with familiarity of high play, boasted of his at∣chievements upon drawers and coachmen, was often brought to his lodgings at mid∣night in a chair, told with negligence and jo∣cularity of bilking a taylor, and now and then let fly a shrewd jest at a sober citizen.

THUS furnished with irresistible artillery, he turned his batteries upon the female world, and in the first warmth of self-approbation proposed no less than the possession of riches and beauty united. He therefore paid his ci∣vilities to Flavilla, the only daughter of a wealthy merchant, who not being accustomed to amorous blandishments, or respectful ad∣dresses, was delighted with the novelty of love, and easily suffered him to conduct her to the play, and to meet her where she vi∣sited. Leviculus did not doubt but her father, however offended by a clandestine marriage, would soon be reconciled by the tears of his daughter, and the merit of his son-in∣law, and was in haste to conclude the af∣fair. But the lady liked better to be courted than married, and kept him three years in

uncertainty and attendance. At last she fell in love with a young ensign at a ball, and having danced with him all night, married him in the morning.

LEVICULUS, to avoid the ridicule of his companions, took a journey to a small estate in the country, where, after his usual enquiries concerning the nymphs in the neigh∣bourhood, he found it proper to fall in love with Altilia, a maiden lady, twenty years older than himself, for whose favour fifteen nephews and nieces were in perpetual conten∣tion. They hovered round her with such jea∣lous officiousness, as scarcely left a moment vacant for a lover. Leviculus, nevertheless, dis∣covered his passion in a letter, and Altilia could not withstand the pleasure of hearing vows and sighs, and flatteries, and prote∣stations. She admitted his visits, enjoy∣ed, for five years, the happiness of keep∣ing all her expectants in perpetual alarms, and amused herself with the various strata∣gems which were practised to disengage her affections. Sometimes she was advised with great earnestness to travel for her health, and sometimes entreated to keep her brother's

house. Many stories were spread to the dis∣advantage of Leviculus, by which she com∣monly seemed affected for a time, but took care soon afterwards to express her conviction of their falshood. But being at last satiated with this ludicrous tyranny, she told her lover when he pressed for the reward of his ser∣vices, that she was very sensible of his merit, but was resolved not to impoverish an ancient family.

LEVICULUS then returned to the town, and soon after his arrival became ac∣quainted with Latronia, a lady distinguished by the elegance of her equipage, and the re∣gularity of her conduct. Her wealth was evi∣dent in her magnificence, and her prudence in her oeconomy, and therefore Leviculus who had scarcely confidence to solicit her fa∣vour, readily acquitted fortune of her former debts, when he found himself distinguished by her with such marks of preference as a wo∣man of modesty is allowed to give. He now grew bolder, and ventured to breathe out his impatience before her. She heard him with∣out resentment, in time permitted him to hope for happiness, and at last fixed the nup∣tial

day without any distrustful reserve of pin∣money, or sordid stipulations for jointure, and settlements.

LEVICULUS was triumphing on the eve of marriage, when he heard on the stairs the voice of Latronia's maid, whom frequent bribes had secured in his service. She soon burst into his room, and told him, that she could not suffer him to be longer deceived; that her mistress was now spending the last payment of her fortune, and was only sup∣ported in her expence by the credit of his estate. Leviculus shuddered to see himself so near a precipice, and found that he was in∣debted for his escape to the resentment of the maid, who having assisted Latronia to gain the conquest, quarrelled with her at last about the plunder.

LEVICULUS was now hopeless and dis∣consolate, till one sunday he saw a lady in the mall, whom her dress declared a widow, and whom, by the jolting prance of her gait, and the broad resplendence of her counte∣nance, he guessed to have lately buried some prosperous citizen. He followed her home,

and found her to be no less than the relict of Prune, the grocer, who, having no children, had bequeathed to her all his debts and dues, and his estates real and personal. No forma∣lity was necessary in addressing madam Prune, and therefore Leviculus went next morning without an introductor. His declaration was received with a loud laugh; she then collected her countenance, wondered at his impudence, asked if he knew to whom he was talking, then showed him the door, and again laughed to find him confused. Leviculus discovered that this coarseness was nothing more than the coquetry of Cornhill, and next day re∣turned to the attack. He soon grew familiar to her dialect, and in a few weeks heard with∣out any emotion, hints of gay cloaths with empty pockets; concurred in many sage re∣marks on the regard due to people of pro∣perty; and agreed with her in detestation of the ladies at the other end of the town, who pinched their bellies to buy fine laces, and then pretended to laugh at the city.

HE sometimes presumed to mention mar∣riage; but was always answered with a slap, a hoot, and a slounce. At last he began to

press her closer, and thought himself more favourably received; but going one morning, with a resolution to trifle no longer, he found her gone to church with a young journey-man from the neighbouring shop, of whom she had become enamoured at her window.

IN these, and a thousand intermediate ad∣ventures, has Leviculus spent his time, till he is now grown grey with age, fatigue, and disappointment. He begins at last to find, that success is not to be expected, and being unfit for any employment that might improve his fortune, and unfurnished with any arts that might amuse his leisure, is condemned to wear out a tasteless life in narratives which few will hear, and complaints which none will pity.

NUMB. 183. TUESDAY, Dec. 17, 1751.

Nulla fides regni sociis, omnisque Potestas Impatiens consortis erat.

LUCAN.

THE hostility perpetually exercised be∣tween one man and another is caus∣ed by the desire of many for that which only few can possess. Every man would be rich, powerful, and famous; yet same, power, and riches, are only the names of relative con∣ditions, which imply the obscurity, depend∣ance, and poverty of greater numbers.

THIS universal and incessant competition, produces injury and malice by two motives, interest, and envy; the prospect of adding to our possessions what we can take from others, and the hope of alleviating the sense of our disparity by lessening others, though we gain nothing to ourselves.

OF these two malignant and destructive powers, it seems probable at the first view, that interest has the strongest and most ex∣tensive

influence. It is easy to conceive that opportunities to seize what has been long wanted, may excite desires almost irresistible; but surely, the same eagerness cannot be kind∣led by an accidental power of destroying that which gives happiness to another. It must be more natural to rob for gain, than to ravage only for mischief.

YET I am inclined to believe, that the great law of mutual benevolence is oftener violated by envy than by interest, and that most of the misery which the defamation of blame∣less actions, or the obstruction of honest en∣deavours brings upon the world, is inflicted by men that propose no advantage to them∣selves but the satisfaction of poisoning the banquet which they cannot taste, and blast∣ing the harvest which they have no right to reap.

INTEREST can diffuse itself but to a nar∣row compass. The number is never large of those who can hope to fill the posts of de∣graded power, catch the fragments of shat∣tered fortune, or succeed to the honours of depreciated beauty. But the empire of envy,

has no limits, as it requires to its influence very little help from external circumstances. Envy may always be produced by idleness and pride, and in what place will not they be found?

INTEREST requires some qualities not universally bestowed. The ruin of another will produce no profit to him, who has not discernment to mark his advantage, cou∣rage to seize, and activity to pursue it; but the cold malignity of envy may be exerted in a torpid and quiescent state, amidst the gloom of stupidity, in the coverts of cowardice. He that falls by the attacks of interest, is torn by hungry tigers; he may discover and resist his enemies. He that perishes in the ambushes of envy, is destroyed by unknown and invi∣sible assailants, and dies like him who is suf∣focated by a poisonous vapour, without know∣ledge of his danger, or possibility of contest.

INTEREST is seldom pursued but at some hazard. He that hopes to gain much, has commonly something to lose, and when he ventures to attack superiority, if he fails to conquer, is irrecoverably crushed. But envy

may act without expence, or danger. To spread suspicion, to invent calumnies, to pro∣pagate scandal, requires neither labour nor courage. It is easy for the author of a lye however malignant to escape detection, and infamy needs very little industry to assist its circulation.

ENVY is almost the only vice which is practicable at all times, and in every place, the only passion which can never lie quiet for want of irritation; its effects therefore are every where discoverable, and its attempts al∣ways to be dreaded.

IT is impossible to mention a name which any advantageous distinction has made emi∣nent, but some latent animosity will burst out. The wealthy trader, however he may abstract himself from publick affairs, will never want those who hint with Shylock, that ships are but boards, and that no man can properly be termed rich whose fortune is at the mercy of the winds. The beauty, adorned only with the unambitious graces of innocence and mo∣desty, provokes, whenever she appears, a thousand murmurs of detraction and whispers

of suspicion. The genius, even when he endeavours only to entertain with pleasing images of nature, or instruct by uncontested principles of science, yet suffers persecution from innumerable criticks, whose acrimony is excited merely by the pain of seeing others pleased, and of hearing applauses which an∣other enjoys.

THE frequency of envy makes it so fami∣liar, that it escapes our notice; nor do we often reflect upon its turpitude or malignity, till we happen to feel its influence. When he that has given no provocation to malice, but by attempting to excel in some useful art, finds himself pursued by multitudes whom he never saw with all the implacability of per∣sonal resentment; when he perceives clamour and malice let loose upon him as a publick enemy, and incited by every stratagem of de∣famation; when he hears the misfortunes of his family, or the follies of his youth exposed to the world; and every failure of conduct, or desect of nature aggravated and ridiculed; he then learns to abhor those artifices, at which he only laughed before, and discovers how much the happiness of life would be ad∣vanced

by the eradication of envy from the human heart.

ENVY is, indeed, a stubborn weed of the mind, and seldom yields to the culture of philosophy. There are, however, conside∣rations, which if carefully implanted and di∣ligently propagated, might in time over power and repress it, since no one can nurse it for the sake of pleasure, as its effects are only shame, anguish, and perturbation.

IT is above all other vices inconsistent with the character of a social being, because it sa∣crifices truth and kindness to very weak temp∣tations. He that plunders a wealthy neigh∣bour, gains as much as he takes away, and improves his own condition in the same pro∣portion as he impairs another's; but he that blasts a flourishing reputation, must be con∣tent with a small dividend of additional fame, so small as can afford very little consolation to balance the guilt by which it is obtained.

I HAVE hitherto avoided that dangerous and empirical morality, which cures one vice by means of another. But envy is so base

and detestable, so vile in its original, and so pernicious in its effects, that the predomi∣nance of almost any other quality is to be desired. It is one of those lawless enemies of society, against which poisoned arrows may honestly be used. Let it, therefore, be constantly remembered, that whoever envies another, confesses his superiority, and let those be reformed by their pride who have lost their virtue.

IT is no slight aggravation of the injuries which envy incites, that they are committed against those, who have given no intentional provocation; and that the sufferer is marked out for ruin, not because he has failed in any duty, but because he has dared to do more than was required.

ALMOST every other crime is practised by the help of some quality which might have produced esteem or love, if it had been well employed; but envy is mere unmixed and genuine evil; it pursues a hateful end by despicable means, and desires not so much its own happiness as another's misery. To avoid depravity like this, it is not necessary that any

one should aspire to heroism or sanctity, but only, that he should resolve not to quit the rank which nature assigns him, and wish to maintain the dignity of a human being.

NUMB. 184. SATURDAY, Dec. 21, 1751.

Permittes ipsis expendere Numinibus, quid Conveniat nobis, Rebusque sit utile nostris.

JUV.

AS every scheme of life, so every form of writing has its advantages and in∣conveniencies, though not mingled in the same proportions. The writer of essays, escapes many embarrassments to which a large work would have exposed him; he sel∣dom harrasses his reason with long trains of consequence, dims his eyes with the perusal of antiquated volumes, or burthens his me∣mory with great accumulations of prepara∣tory knowledge. A careless glance upon a favourite author, or transient survey of the varieties of life, is generally sufficient to sup∣ply

the first hint or seminal idea, which en∣larged by the gradual accretion of matter stored in the mind, is by the warmth of fancy easily expanded into flowers, and sometimes ripened into fruit.

THE most frequent difficulty, by which the authors of these petty compositions are distressed, arises from the perpetual demand of novelty and change. The compiler of a system of science lays his invention at rest, and employs only his judgment, the faculty exerted with least fatigue. Even the relator of feigned adventures, when once the prin∣cipal characters are established, and the great events regularly connected, finds incidents and episodes crouding upon his mind; every change opens new views, and the latter part of the story grows without labour out of the former. But he that attempts to entertain his reader with unconnected pieces, finds the irksomeness of his task rather encreased than lessened by every production. The day calls a fresh upon him for a new topick, and he is again obliged to choose without any principle to regulate his choice.

IT is indeed true, that there is seldom any necessity of looking far, or enquiring long for a proper subject. Every diversity of art or nature, every public blessing or calamity, eve∣ry domestick pain or gratification, every sally of caprice, blunder of absurdity, or stratagem of affectation may supply matter to him whose only rule is to avoid uniformity. But it of∣ten happens that plenty is the cause of pe∣nury; the judgment is distracted with bound∣less multiplicity, the imagination ranges from one design to another, and the hours pass im∣perceptibly away till the composition can be no longer delayed, and necessity enforces the use of those thoughts which then happen to be at hand. The mind rejoicing at delive∣rance on any terms from perplexity and sus∣pense, applies herself vigorously to the work before her, collects embellishments and illu∣strations, and sometimes finishes with great elegance and happiness what in a state of ease and leisure she never had begun.

IT is not commonly observed, how much, even of actions considered as particularly sub∣ject to choice is to be attributed to accident, or some cause out of our own power, by

whatever name it be distinguished. To close tedious deliberations with hasty resolves, and af∣ter long consultations with reason to refer the question to caprice, is by no means peculiar to the essayist. Let him that peruses this paper, review the series of his life, and enquire how he was placed in his present condition. He will find that of the good or ill which he has experienced, a great part came unexpected, without any visible gradations of approach; that every event has been influenced by causes acting without his intervention or concur∣rence; and that whenever he pretended to the prerogative of foresight, he was mortified with new conviction of the shortness of his views.

THE busy, the ambitious, the inconstant, and the adventurous, may be said to throw themselves by design into the arms of fortune, and voluntarily to quit the power of governing themselves; they engage in a course of life in which little can be ascertained by pre∣vious measures; the most enlightened wis∣dom must be satisfied with such obscure conjectures, as the comparison of probabi∣lities will afford; nor is it any wonder that

their time is past between elation and despon∣dency, hope and disappointment.

SOME there are who appear to walk the road of life with more circumspection, and make no step till they think themselves secure from the hazard of a precipice; when neither pleasure nor profit can tempt them from the beaten path; who refuse to climb lest they should fall, or to run lest they should stumble, and move slowly forward without any compliance with those passions by which the heady and vehe∣ment are seduced and betrayed.

YET even the timorous prudence of this judicious class is far from exempting them from the dominion of chance, a subtle and insidious power, who will intrude upon pri∣vacy and embarrass caution. No course of life is so prescribed and limited, but that many actions must result from arbitrary elec∣tion. Every one must form the general plan of his conduct by his own reflections; he must resolve whether he will endeavour at riches or at content; whether he will exercise private or publick virtues; whether he will labour for the general benefit of mankind,

or contract his beneficence to his family and dependents.

THIS is a question which has long exer∣cised the schools of philosophy, but remains yet undecided; and what hope is there that a young man, unacquainted with the argu∣ments on either side, should determine his own destiny otherwise than by chance.

WHEN chance has given him a partner of his bed, whom he prefers to all other wo∣men without any proof of superior desert, chance must again direct him in the edu∣cation of his children; for who was ever able to convince himself by arguments, that he had chosen for his son that mode of in∣struction to which his understanding was best adapted, or by which he would most easily be made wise or virtuous?

WHOEVER shall enquire by what motives he was determined on these important occa∣sions, will find them such, as his pride will scarcely suffer him to confess; some sudden ardour of desire, some uncertain glimpse of

advantage, some trivial competition, some inaccurate conclusion, or some example im∣plicitly reverenced. Such are often the first causes of our resolves; for it is necessary to act, but impossible to know the consequences of action, or to discuss all the reasons which offer themselves on every part to inquisitive∣ness and solicitude.

SINCE life itself is uncertain, nothing which has life for its basis, can boast much stability. Yet this is but a small part of our perplexity. We set out on a tempe∣stuous sea, in quest of some port, where we expect to find rest, but where we are not sure of admission; we are not only in danger of sinking in the way, but of being misled by meteors mistaken for stars, of being driven from our course by the changes of the wind, and of losing it by unskilful steerage; yet it sometimes happens, that cross winds blow us to a safer coast, that meteors draw us aside from whirlpools, and that negligence or error contributes to our escape from mischiefs to which a direct course would have exposed us. Of those that by precipitate conclusions, involve themselves in calamities, without

guilt, very few however they may reproach themselves, can be certain that other mea∣sures would have been more successful.

IN this state of universal uncertainty, where a thousand dangers hover about us, and none can tell whether the good that he pursues is not evil in disguise, or whether the next step will lead him to safety or de∣struction, nothing can afford any rational tranquility, but the conviction, that, how∣ever we amuse ourselves with unideal sounds, nothing in reality is governed by chance, but that the universe is under the perpetual su∣perintendence of him who created it; that our being is in the hands of omnipotent goodness, by whom what appears casual to us is directed for ends ultimately kind and merciful; and that nothing can finally hurt him who debars not himself from the divine favour.

NUMB. 185. TUESDAY, Dec. 24, 1751.

At vindicta bonum vita jucundius ipsa, Nempe hoc indocti.— Chrysippus non dicit idem, nec mite Thaletis Ingenium, dulcique senex vicinus Hymetto, Qui partem acceptae saeva inter vincla Cicutae Accusatori nollet dare.—Quippe minuti Semper, & infirmi est Animi, exiguique Voluptas Ultio.

JUV.

NO vitious dispositions of the mind more obstinately resist both the coun∣sels of philosophy and the injunctions of religion, than those which are complicated with an opinion of dignity; and which we cannot dismiss without leaving in the hands of opposition some advantage iniquitously ob∣tained, or suffering from our own prejudices some imputation of pusillanimity.

FOR this reason scarcely any law of our re∣deemer is more openly transgressed, or more in∣dustriously evaded, than that by which he com∣mands his followers to forgive injuries, and

prohibits under the sanction of eternal mi∣sery, the gratification of the desire which every man feels to return pain upon him that inflicts it. Many who could have conquered their anger, are unable to com∣bat against pride, and pursue offences to ex∣tremity of vengeance, lest they should be insulted by the triumph of an enemy.

BUT certainly no precept could better be∣come him, at whose birth peace was proclaim∣ed to the earth. For what would so soon de∣stroy all the order of society, and deform life with violence and ravage, as a permis∣sion to every one to judge his own cause, and to apportion his own recompence for imagined injuries.

IT is difficult for a man of the strictest ju∣stice not to favour himself too much in the calmest moments of solitary meditation. Every one wishes for the distinctions for which thou∣sands are wishing at the same time, in their own opinion, with better claims. He that, when his reason operates in its full force, can thus, by the mere prevalence of self-love, prefer himself to his fellow beings, is very

unlikely to judge equitably when his passions are agitated by a sense of wrong, and his attention wholly engrossed by pain, in∣terest, or danger. Whoever arrogates to himself the right of vengeance shows how little he is qualified to decide his own claims, since he certainly demands what he would think unfit to be granted to another.

NOTHING is more apparent than that, however injured or however provoked, some must at last be contented to forgive. For it can never be hoped, that he who first commits an injury, will contentedly acquiesce in the penalty required: the same haughtiness of contempt and vehemence of desire, that prompt the act of injustice, will more strong∣ly incite its justification: and resentment can never so exactly balance the punishment with the fault, but there will remain an over∣plus of vengeance which even he who con∣demns his first action will think himself en∣titled to retaliate, What then can ensue but a continual exacerbation of hatred, an unex∣tinguishable feud, and incessant reciprocation of mischief, a mutual vigilance to entrap, and eagerness to destroy.

SINCE then the imaginary right of ven∣geance must be at last remitted, because it is impossible to live in perpetual hostility, and equally impossible that of two enemies, either should first think himself obliged by justice to submission, it is surely eligible to forgive early. Every passion is more easily subdued before it has been long accustomed to posses∣sion of the heart; every idea is obliterated with less difficulty as it has been more slightly impressed, and less frequently renewed. He who has often brooded over his wrongs, pleas∣ed himself with schemes of malignity, and glutted his pride with the fancied supplications of humbled enmity, will not easily open his bosom to amity and reconciliation, or indulge the gentle sentiments of benevolence and peace.

IT is easiest to forgive, while there is yet little to be forgiven. A single injury may be soon dismissed from the memory; but a long succession of ill offices by degrees associates itself with every idea, a long contest involves so many circumstances, that every place and action will recal it to the mind, and fresh

remembrance of vexation must still enkindle rage, and irritate revenge.

A WISE man will make haste to forgive, be∣cause he knows the true value of time, and will not suffer it to pass away in unnecessary pain. He that willingly suffers the corrosions of in∣veterate hatred, and gives up his days and nights to the gloom of malice, and perturba∣tions of stratagem, cannot surely be said to consult his ease. Resentment is a union of sorrow with malignity, a combination of a passion which all endeavour to avoid, with a passion which all concur to detest. The man who retires to meditate mischief, and to ex∣asperate his own rage; whose thoughts are employed only on means of distress and con∣trivances of ruin; whose mind never pauses from the remembrance of his own sufferings, but to indulge some hope of enjoying the calamities of another, may justly be number∣ed among the most miserable of human beings, among those who are guilty without reward, who have neither the gladness of prosperity, nor the calm of innocence.

WHOEVER considers the weakness both of himself and others will not long want per∣suasives to forgiveness. We know not to what degree of malignity any injury is to be imputed; or how much its guilt, if we were to inspect the mind of him that committed it, would be extenuated by mistake, precipi∣tance, or negligence; we cannot be certain how much more we feel than was intended to be inflicted, or how much we encrease the mischief to ourselves by voluntary aggrava∣tions. We may charge to design the effects of accident; we may think the blow violent only because we have made ourselves delicate and tender; we are on every side in danger of error and of guilt, which we are certain to avoid only by speedy forgiveness.

FROM this pacifick and harmless temper, thus propitious to others and ourselves, to do∣mestick tranquility and to social happiness, no man is with-held but by pride, by the fear of being insulted by his adversary or despised by the world.

IT may be laid down as an unfailing and universal axiom, that, "all pride is abject

and mean." It is always an ignorant, lazy, or cowardly acquiescence in a false appearance of excellence, and proceeds not from consci∣ousness of our attainments but insensibility of our wants.

NOTHING can be great which is not right. Nothing which reason condemns can be suit∣able to the dignity of the human mind. To be driven by external motives from the path which our own heart approves, to give way to any thing but conviction, to suffer the opi∣nion of others to rule our choice, or over-power our resolves, is to submit tamely to the lowest and most ignominious slavery, and to resign the right of directing our own lives.

THE utmost excellence at which humanity can arrive, is a constant and determinate pur∣suit of virtue, without regard to present dan∣gers or advantage; a continual reference of every action to the divine will; an habitual appeal to everlasting justice; and an unvaried elevation of the intellectual eye to the reward which perseverance only can obtain. But that pride which many who presume to boast of generous sentiments, allow to regu∣late

their measures, has nothing nobler in view than the approbation of men, of beings whose superiority we are under no obligation to acknowledge, and who, when we have courted them with the utmost assiduity, can confer no valuable or permanent reward; of beings who ignorantly judge of what they do not understand, or partially determine what they never have examined; and whose sen∣tence is therefore of no weight till it has received the ratification of our own con∣science.

HE that can descend to bribe suffrages like these at the price of his innocence; he that can suffer the delight of such acclamations to with-hold his attention from the commands of the universal sovereign, has little reason to congratulate himself upon the greatness of his mind; whenever he awakes to serious∣ness and reflection, he must become despica∣ble in his own eyes, and shrink with shame from the remembrance of his cowardice and folly.

OF him that hopes to be forgiven it is in∣dispensibly required, that he forgive. It is

therefore superfluous to urge any other mo∣tive. On this great duty eternity is suspend∣ed, and to him that refuses to practise it, the throne of mercy is inaccessible, and the SA∣VIOUR of the world has been born in vain.

NUMB. 186. SATURDAY, Dec. 28, 1751.

Pone me, pigris ubi nulla campis Arbor aestivâ recreatur Aurâ— Dulce ridentem Lalagen amabo, Dulce loquentem.

HOR.

OF the happiness and misery of our pre∣sent state, part arises from our sensa∣tions, and part from our opinions; part is di∣stributed by nature, and part is in a great measure apportioned by ourselves. Positive pleasure we cannot always obtain, and posi∣tive pain we often cannot remove. No man can give to his own plantations the fragrance of the Indian groves; nor will any precepts of philosophy enable him to withdraw his at∣tention from wounds or diseases. But the ne∣gative

infelicity which proceeds, not from the pressure of sufferings, but the absence of en∣joyments, will always yield to the remedies of reason.

ONE of the great arts of escaping su∣perfluous uneasiness is to free our minds from the habit of comparing our condition with that of others on whom the blessings of life are more bountifully bestowed, or with imagi∣nary states of delight and security perhaps un∣attainable by mortals. Few are placed in a situation so gloomy and distresful, as not to see every day beings yet more forlorn and mi∣serable from whom they may learn to rejoice in their own lot.

No inconvenience is less superable by art or diligence than the inclemency of climates, and therefore, none affords more proper ex∣ercise for this philosophical abstraction. A native of England, pinched with the frosts of December, may lessen his affection for his own country, by suffering his imagination to wan∣der in the vales of Asia, and sport among woods that are always green, and streams that always murmur; but if he turns his thoughts

towards the polar regions, and considers the nations to whom a great portion of the year is darkness, and who are condemned to pass weeks and months amidst mountains of snow, he will soon recover his tranquility, and while he stirs his fire, or throws his cloak about him, reflect how much he owes to provi∣dence, that he is not placed in Greenland or Siberia.

THE barrenness of the earth, and the seve∣rity of the skies in these dreary countries are such as might be expected to confine the mind wholly to the contemplation of necessity and distress, so that the care of escaping death from cold and hunger, should leave no room for those passions, which, in lands of plenty, fluence conduct, or diversify characters; but the summer should be spent only in pro∣viding for the winter, and the winter in long∣ing for the summer.

YET learned curiosity is known to have found its way into these abodes of poverty and gloom: Lapland and Iceland have their historians, their criticks, and their poets, and love, that extends his dominion wherever hu∣manity

can be found, perhaps exerts the same power in the Greenlander's hut, as in the pa∣laces of eastern monarchs.

IN one of the large caves to which the families of Greenland retire together to pass the cold months, and which may be termed their villages or cities, a youth and maid who came from different parts of the country, were so much distinguished for their beauty, that they were called by the rest of the inha∣bitants Anningait and Ajut, from a supposed resemblance to their ancestors of the same names, who had been transformed of old into the sun and moon.

ANNINGAIT, for some time heard the praises of Ajut with little emotion, but at last by frequent interviews became sensible of her charms, and first made a discovery of his af∣fection, by inviting her with her parents to a feast, where he placed before Ajut the tail of a whale. Ajut seemed not much delighted by this gallantry, yet, however, from that time, was observed rarely to appear, but in a vest made of the skin of a white deer; she used frequently to renew the black dye upon her

hands and forehead, to adorn her sleeves with coral and shells, and to braid her hair with great exactness.

THE elegance of her dress, and the judi∣cious disposition of her ornaments, had such an effect upon Anningait, that he could no longer be restrained from a declaration of his love. He therefore composed a poem in her praise, in which, among other heroick and tender sentiments he protested, that "She was beautiful as the vernal willow, and fragrant as thyme upon the mountains; that her fingers were white as the teeth of the morse, and her smile grateful as the dissolution of the ice; that he would pur∣sue her, though she should pass the snows of the midland cliffs, or seek shelter in the caves of the eastern canibals; that he would tear her from the embraces of the genius of the rocks, snatch her from the paws of Amarce, and rescue her from the ravine of Hafgufa;" he concluded with a wish, that, "whoever shall attempt to hin∣der his union with Ajut, might be buried without his bow, and that in the land of souls his skull might serve for no other use

than to catch the droppings of the starry lamps."

THIS ode being universally applauded, it was expected that Ajut would soon yield to such fervour and accomplishments; but Ajut, with the natural haughtiness of beauty, ex∣pected the usual forms of courtship; and before she would confess herself conquer∣ed, the sun returned, the ice broke, and the season of labour called all to their em∣ployments.

ANNINGAIT and Ajut for a time al∣ways went out in the same boat, and divided whatever was caught. Anningait, in the sight of his mistress, lost no opportunity of signa∣lizing his courage; he attacked the sea-horses on the ice; pursued the seals into the water; and leaped upon the back of the whale, while he was yet struggling with the remains of life. Nor was his diligence less to accumulate all that could be necessary to make winter comfortable; he dried the roe of fishes, and the flesh of seals; he entrapped deer and foxes, and dressed their skins to adorn his

bride; he feasted her with eggs from the rocks; and strewed her tent with flowers.

IT happened that a tempest drove the fish to a distant part of the coast before Anningait had compleated his store; he therefore en∣treated Ajut, that she would at last grant him her hand, and accompany him to that part of the country, whither he was now summoned by necessity. Ajut thought him not yet en∣titled to such condescension, but proposed, as a trial of his constancy, that he should return at the end of summer to the cavern where their acquaintance commenced, and there ex∣pect the reward of his assiduities. "O virgin, beautiful as the sun shining on the water, consider," said Anningait, "what thou hast required. How easily may my return be precluded by a sudden frost or unexpected fogs; then must the night be past without my Ajut. We live not, my fair, in those fabled countries, which lying strangers so wantonly describe; where the whole year is divided into short days and nights; where the same habitation serves for summer and winter; where they raise houses in rows above the ground; dwell together from

year to year, with flocks of tame animals grazing in the fields about them; can tra∣vel at any time from one place to another through ways enclosed with trees, or over walls raised upon the inland waters; and direct their course through wide countries by the sight of green hills or scattered build∣ings. Even in summer we have no means of crossing the mountains, whose snows are never dissolved; nor can remove to any distant residence, but in our boats coasting the bays. Consider, Ajut; a few summer days, and a few winter nights, and the life of man is at an end. Night is the time of ease, and festivity, of revels and gaiety; but what will be the flaming lamp, the de∣licious seal, or the soft oil, without the smile of Ajut?"

THE eloquence of Anningait was vain; the maid continued inexorable, and they parted with ardent promises to meet again before the night of winter.

NUMB. 187. TUESDAY, Dec. 31, 1751.

Non illum nostri possunt mutare Labores, Non si Frigoribus mediis Hebrumque bibamus, Sithoniasque Nives Hiemis subeamus aquosae— Omnia vincit Amor.

VIRG.

ANNINGAIT, however discomposed by the dilatory coyness of Ajut, was yet resolved to omit no tokens of amorous respect, and therefore, presented her at his departure with the skins of seven white fawns, of five swans and eleven seals, with three mar∣ble lamps, ten vessels of seal oil, and a large kettle of brass, which he had purchased from a ship, at the price of half a whale and two horns of sea unicorns.

AJUT was so much affected by the fondness of her lover, or so much overpower∣ed by his magnificence, that she followed him to the seaside, and, when she saw him enter the boat, wished aloud, that he might return with plenty of skins and oil; that neither the mermaids might snatch him into the deeps,

nor the spirits of the rocks confine him in their caverns.

SHE stood a while to gaze upon the de∣parting vessel, and then returning to her hut silent and dejected, laid aside, from that hour, her white deer skin, suffered her hair to spread unbraided on her shoulders, and forbore to mix in the dances of the maidens. She en∣deavoured to divert her thoughts by continual application to feminine employments, gather∣ed moss for the winter lamps, and dried grass to line the boots of Anningait. Of the skins which he had bestowed upon her she made a fishing coat, a small boat, and tent, all of exquisite manufacture, and while she was thus busied, solaced her labours with a song, in which she prayed, "that her lover might have hands stronger than the paws of the bear, and feet swifter than the feet of the raindeer; that his dart might never err, and that his boat might never leak; that he might never stumble on the ice, nor faint in the water; that the seal might rush on his harpoon, and the wounded whale might dash the waves in vain."

THE large boats in which the Greenlanders transport their families are always rowed by women, for a man will not debase himself by work, which requires neither skill nor cou∣rage. Anningait was therefore exposed by idleness to the ravages of passion. He went thrice to the stern of the boat, with an intent to leap into the water, and swim back to his mistress; but recollecting the misery which they must endure in the winter without oil for the lamp, or skins for the bed, he resolved to employ the weeks of absence in provision for a night of plenty and felicity. He then composed his emotions as he could, and ex∣pressed in wild numbers and uncouth images, his hopes, his sorrows, and his fears. "O life," says he, "srail and uncertain! where shall wretched man find thy resemblance but in ice floating on the ocean? It towers on high, it sparkles from afar, while the storms drive and the waters beat it, the sun melts it above and the rocks shatter it below. What art thou deceitful pleasure, but a sudden blaze streaming from the north, which plays a moment on the eye, mocks the traveller with the hopes of light, and then vanishes forever? What,

love, art thou but a whirlpool, which we approach without knowledge of our dan∣ger, drawn on by imperceptible degrees, till we have lost all power of resistance and escape? Till I fixed my eyes on the graces of Ajut, while I had yet not called her to the banquet, I was careless as the sleeping morse, I was merry as the singers in the stars. Why, Ajut, did I gaze upon thy graces? why, my fair, did I call thee to the banquet? Yet, be faithful, my love, remember Anningait, and meet my return with the smile of virginity. I will chase the deer, I will subdue the whale, resistless as the frost of darkness, and unwearied as the summer sun. In a few weeks, I shall return prosperous and wealthy; then shall the rocfish and the porpoise, feast thy kin∣dred; the fox and hare shall cover thy couch; the tough hide of the seal shall shelter thee from cold; and the fat of the whale illuminate thy dwelling."

ANNINGAIT having with these senti∣ments consoled his grief and animated his in∣dustry, found that they had now coasted the headland, and saw the whales spouting at a

distance. He therefore placed himself in his fishing boat, called his associates to their se∣veral employments, plied his oar and harpoon with incredible courage and dexterity, and, by dividing his time between the chace and fishery, suspended the miseries of absence and suspicion.

AJUT, in the mean time, notwithstand∣ing her neglected dress, happened as she was drying some skins in the sun, to catch the eye of Norngsuk, on his return from hunting. Norngsuk was of birth truly illustrious. His mother had died in childbirth, and his father, the most expert fisher of Greenland, had pe∣rished by too close pursuit of the whale. His dignity was equalled by his riches; he was master of four mens and two womens boats, had ninety tubs of oil in his winter habita∣tion, and five and twenty seals buried in the snow against the season of darkness. When he saw the beauty of Ajut, he immediately threw over her the skin of a deer that he had taken, and soon after presented her with a branch of coral. Ajut refused his gifts, and determined to admit no lover in the place of Anningait.

NORNGSUK, thus rejected, had re∣course to stratagem. He knew that Ajut would consult an Angekkok, or diviner, con∣cerning the fate of her lover, and the felicity of her future life. He therefore applied him∣self to the most celebrated Angekkok of that part of the country, and by a present of two seals and a marble kettle, obtained a promise that when Ajut should consult him, he would declare that her lover was in the land of souls. Ajut, in a short time, brought him a coat made by herself, and enquired what events were to befal her, with assurances of a much larger reward at the return of Anningait if the prediction should flatter her desires. The Angekkok knew the way to riches, and fore∣told that Anningait, having already caught two whales, would soon return home with a large boat laden with provisions.

THIS prognostication she was ordered to keep secret, and Norngsuk depending upon his artifice renewed his addresses with greater confidence; but finding his suit still unsuccess∣ful, applied himself to her parents with gifts and promises. The wealth of Greenland is too powerful for the virtue of a Greenlander;

they forgot the merit and the presents of An∣ningait, and decreed Ajut to the embrace of Norngsuk. She entreated; she remonstrated; she wept, and raved; but finding riches irre∣sistible, fled away into the uplands, and lived in a cave upon such berries as she could ga∣ther, and the birds or hares which she had the fortune to ensnare, taking care at an hour when she was not likely to be found, to view the sea every day, that her lover might not miss her at his return.

AT last she saw the great boat in which Anningait had departed, stealing slow and heavy laden along the coast. She ran with all the impatience of affection to catch her lover in her arms, and relate her constancy and sufferings. When the company reached the land they informed her, that Anningait, after the fishery was ended, being unable to support the slow passage of the vessel of car∣riage, had set out before them in his fishing boat, and they expected at their arrival to have found him on shore.

AJUT, distracted at this intelligence, was about to fly again into the hills without

knowing why, though she was now in the hands of her parents, who forced her back to their own hut, and endeavoured to comfort her; but when at last they retired to rest, Ajut went down to the beach, where finding a fishing boat, she entered it without hesitation, and telling those who wondered at her rash∣ness, that she was going in search of An∣ningait, rowed away with great swiftness, and was seen no more.

THE fate of these lovers gave occasion to various fictions and conjectures. Some are of opinion that they were changed into stars; others imagine that Anningait was seized in his passage by the genius of the rocks, and that Ajut was transformed into a mermaid, and still continues to seek her lover in the de∣sarts of the sea. But the general persuasion is, that they are both in that part of the land of souls where the sun never sets, where oil is always fresh, and provisions always warm. The virgins sometimes throw a thimble, and a needle into the bay, from which the hapless maid departed; and when a Greenlander would praise any couple for virtuous affection, he de∣clares, that they love like Anningait and Ajut.

NUMB. 188. SATURDAY, Jan. 4, 1752.

—Si te colo, Sexte, non amabo.

MART.

NONE of the desires dictated by vanity is more general or less blamable than that of being distinguished for the arts of con∣versation. Other accomplishments may be possessed without opportunity of exerting them, or wanted without danger that the de∣sect can often be remarked; but as no man can live otherwise than in an hermitage, without hourly pleasure or vexation from the fondness or neglect of those about him, the faculty of giving pleasure is of continual use. Few are more frequently envied than those who have the power of forcing attention wherever they come, whose entrance is con∣sidered as a promise of selicity, and whose de∣parture is lamented, like the recess of the sun from northern climates, as a privation of all that enlivens fancy or inspirits gaiety.

IT is apparent, that to excellence in this valuable art some peculiar qualifications are necessary; for every one's experience will in∣form him, that the pleasure which men are able to give in conversation, holds no stated proportion to their knowledge or their virtue. Many find their way to the tables and the parties of those who never consider them as of the least importance in any other place; we have all, at one time or other, been content to love those whom we could not esteem, and been persuaded to try the dangerous experi∣ment of admitting him for a companion, whom we knew to be too ignorant for a counsellor, and too treacherous for a friend.

I QUESTION whether some abatement of character is not almost necessary to general acceptance. Few spend their time with much satisfaction under the eye of uncontested su∣periority, and therefore, among those who are received with universal welcome, and whose presence is courted at assembles of jollity, there are seldom ••ound men eminently distinguished for powers of nature or acqui∣sitions of study. The wit whose vivacity con∣demns ••lower tongues to silence, the scholar

whose knowledge allows no man to fansy that he instructs him, the critick who suffers no fallacy to pass undetected, the reasoner who condemns idleness to thought and neg∣ligence to attention, are generally praised and seared, reverenced and avoided.

HE that would please must rarely aim at such excellence as depresses his hearers in their own opinion, or debars them from the hope of contributing reciprocally to the entertain∣ment of the company. Merriment extorted by sallies of imagination, sprightliness of re∣mark, or quickness of reply, is too often what the Latins call, the Sardinian Laughter, a distortion of the face without gladness of heart.

FOR this reason, no stile of conversation is more extensively acceptable than the nar∣rative. He who has stored his memory with slight anecdotes, private incidents, and per∣sonal particularities, seldom fails to find his audience favourable. Almost every man listens with eagerness to contemporary history; for almost every man has some real or imaginary

connection with a celebrated character, some desire to advance, or oppose a rising name. Vanity often co-operates with curiosity. He that is a hearer in one place qualifies him∣self to become a speaker in another; for though he cannot comprehend a series of ar∣gument, or transport the volatile spirit of wit with evaporation, he yet thinks himself able to treasure up the various incidents of a story, and pleases his hopes with the information which he shall give to some inferior society.

NARRATIVES are for the most part heard without envy, because they are not supposed to imply any intellectual qualities above the common rate. To be acquainted with facts not yet ecchoed by plebeian mouths, may happen to one man as well as to another, and to relate them when they are known, has in appearance so little difficulty, that every one concludes himself equal to the task.

BUT it is not easy, and in some situations not possible, to accumulate such a stock of materials, as may support the expence of continual narration; and it frequently hap∣pens, that they who attempt this method of

ingratiating themselves, please only at the first interview, and, for want of new supplies of intelligence, wear out their stories by conti∣nual repetition.

THERE would be, therefore, little hope of obtaining the praise of a good companion, were it not to be gained by more compen∣dious methods; but such is the kindness of mankind to all except those who aspire to real merit and rational dignity, that every under∣standing may find some way to benevolence, and whoever is not envied may learn the art of procuring love. We are willing to be pleased, but we are not willing to admire; we favour the mirth or officiousness that solicits our re∣gard, but oppose the worth or spirit that en∣forces it.

THE first place among those that please because they desire only to please, is due to the merry fellow, whose laugh is loud, and whose voice is strong; who is ready to eccho every jest with obstreperous approbation, and countenance every frolick with vociferations of applause. It is not necessary to a merry

fellow to have in himself any fund of jocu∣larity, or force of conception; it is sufficient that he always appears in the highest exalta∣tion of gladness, for the greater part of man∣kind are gay or serious by infection, and fol∣low without resistance the attraction of ex∣ample.

NEXT to the merry fellow is the good-natured man, a being generally without bene∣volence or any other virtue than such as in∣dolence and insensibility confer. The cha∣racteristick of a good-natured man is to bear a joke; to sit unmoved and unaffected amidst noise and turbulence, profaneness and obsceni∣ty; to hear every tale without contradiction; to endure insult without reply; and to follow the stream of folly whatever course it shall happen to take. The good-natured man is commonly the darling of the petty wits, with whom they exercise themselves in the rudi∣ments of raillery; for he never takes advan∣tage of failings, nor disconcerts a puny satirist with unexpected sarcasms, but while the glass continues to circulate contentedly bears the

expence of uninterrupted laughter, and re∣tires rejoicing at his own importance.

THE modest man is a companion of a yet lower rank, whose only power of giving plea∣sure is not to interrupt it. The modest man satisfies himself with peaceful silence, which all his companions are candid enough to con∣sider as proceeding not from inability to speak, but willingness to hear.

MANY without being able to attain any general character of excellence, have some single art of entertainment which serves them as a passport through the world. One I have known for fifteen years the darling of a week∣ly club, because every night precisely at ele∣ven, he begins his favourite song, and during the vocal performance by correspondent mo∣tions of his hand chalks out a giant upon the wall. Another has endeared himself to a long succession of acquaintances by sitting among them with his wig reversed; another by contriving to smut the nose of any stranger who was to be initiated in the club; another by purring like a cat, and then pretending to be frighted; and another by yelping like a

hound, and calling to the drawers to drive out the dog.

SUCH are the arts by which cheerfulness is promoted, and sometimes friendship esta∣blished; arts, which those who despise them, should not rigorously blame, except when they are practised at the expence of innocence; for it is always necessary to be loved, but not always necessary to be reverenced.

NUMB. 189. TUESDAY, Jan. 7, 1752.

Quod tam grande sophos clamat tibi Turba togata, Non tu, Pomponi, coena diserta tua est.

MART.

THE world scarcely affords opportunities of making any observation more fre∣quently, than on false claims to praise and re∣putation. Almost every man wastes part of his life in attempts to display qualities which

he does not possess, and to gain applause which he cannot keep; nor is it possible to enter any assembly without seeing one part offended or diverted by the ostentation of the other.

OF these pretenders it is fit to distinguish those who endeavour to deceive from them who are deceived; those who by designed im∣postures promote their interest or gratify their pride, from them who mean only to force into regard their latent excellencies and neg∣lected virtues; who believe themselves quali∣fied to instruct or please, and therefore invite the notice of mankind.

THE artful and fraudulent usurpers of distinction deserve greater severities than ridicule and contempt, since they are sel∣dom content with empty praise, but are insti∣gated by passions more pernicious than vanity. They consider the reputation which they en∣deavour to establish as necessary to the accom∣plishment of some subsequent design, and va∣lue praise only as it may conduce to the success of avarice or ambition.

THE commercial world is very frequently put into confusion by the bankrupcy of mer∣chants, that assumed the splendour of wealth only to obtain the privilege of trading with the stock of other men, and of contracting debts which nothing but lucky casualties could enable them to pay; till after having support∣ed their appearance awhile by a tumultuary magnificence of boundless traffick, they sink at once, and drag down into poverty those whom their equipages had induced to trust them.

AMONG wretches that place their happi∣ness in the favour of beings whom only high titles or large estates set above themselves, no∣thing is more common than to boast of con∣fidence which they do not enjoy; to sell pro∣mises which they know their interest unable to perform; and to reimburse the tribute which they pay to some prosperous slave, from the contributions of meaner dependents, whom they can amuse with tales of their influence and hopes of their solicitation.

YET among some too thoughtless or vo∣latile for avarice or ambition, may be found

a species of falshood more detestable than the levee or exchange can shew. There are men that boast of debaucheries, of which they ne∣ver had address to be guilty; ruin by lewd tales the characters of women to whom they are scarcely known, or by whom they have been rejected; destroy in a drunken frolick the happiness of families; blast the bloom of beauty; and intercept the reward of virtue.

OTHER artifices of falshood, though ut∣terly unworthy of an ingenuous mind, are yet not to be ranked with flagitious enormi∣ties, nor is it necessary to incite the ven∣geance of sanguinary justice against them, since they may be adequately punished by detection and laughter. The traveller who describes cities which he has never seen; the squire who at his return from London, tells of his intimacy with nobles to whom he has only bowed in the park or coffee-house; the author who entertains his admirers with stories of the assistance which he gives to wits of a higher rank; the city dame who is careful to introduce the mention of her visits at great houses where she happens to know the cook∣maid,

are surely such harmless animals as truth herself may be content to despise with∣out desiring to hurt them.

BUT of the multitudes who struggle in vain for distinction, and display their own merits only to feel more acutely the sting of neglect, a great part are wholly innocent of deceit, and are betrayed by infatuation and credulity to that scorn with which the univer∣sal love of praise incites us all to drive feeble competitors out of our way.

FEW men survey themselves with so much severity, as not to admit prejudices in their own favour, which an artful flatterer may gradually strengthen, till wishes for a par∣ticular qualification are improved to hopes of attainment, and hopes of attainment to belief of possession. Such flatterers every one will find who has power to reward their assiduities. Wherever there is wealth, there will be de∣pendance and expectation, and wherever there is dependance, there will be an emulation of servility.

MANY of the follies which provoke gene∣ral censure are the effects of such vanity, as however it might have wantoned in the ima∣gination, would scarcely have dared the pub∣lick eye, had it not been animated and em∣boldened by flattery. Whatever difficulty there may be in the knowledge of ourselves, scarcely any one fails to suspect his own im∣perfections, till he is elevated by others to confidence. Almost every man is naturally modest and timorous, but fear and shame are uneasy sensations, and whosoever helps to re∣move them is received with kindness.

TURPICULA was born the heiress of a large estate, and having lost her mother in her infancy, was committed to the care of a go∣verness, whom misfortunes had reduced to accept any terms on which she could be de∣cently supported. The fondness of Turpicu∣la's father would not suffer him to trust her at a publick school, but he took care to hire domestick teachers, and bestowed on her all the accomplishments which wealth could pur∣chase. But how many things are necessary to happiness which money cannot obtain? Being by this scheme of education, se∣cluded

from all with whom she might con∣verse on terms of equality, she heard none of those intimations of her defects, which envy petulance or anger produce among children, where they are not afraid of telling what they think.

TURPICULA saw nothing but obsequi∣ousness, and heard nothing but commenda∣tions; because few approached her who did not consider it as their interest to please. None are so little acquainted with the ruling passions of the heart, as not to know that wo∣man's first wish is to be handsome, and that consequently the readiest method of obtain∣ing her kindness is to praise her beauty. Tur∣picula had a distorted shape and a dark com∣plexion, yet the impudence of adulation ven∣tured to tell her of the commanding dignity of her motion, and the soft enchantment of her smile. She was easily convinced that she was the delight or torment of every eye, and that all who ventured to gaze upon her, felt the fire of envy or love. She therefore neg∣lected the culture of an understanding which might have supplied the defects of her form, and applied all her care to the decoration of

her person; for she considered that more could judge of beauty than of wit, and was, like the rest of human beings, in haste to be ad∣mired. The desire of conquest naturally led her to the lists in which beauty signalizes her power. She glittered at court, fluttered in the park, and talked loud in the front∣box; but after a thousand experiments of her charms, was at last convinced that she had been flattered, and that her glass was honester than her maid.

NUMB. 190. SATURDAY, Jan. 11, 1752.

Ploravere suis non respondere favorem Quaesitum meritis.

HOR.

AMONG the emirs and visiers, the sons of valour and of wisdom, that stand at the corners of the Indian throne, to assist the counsels or conduct the wars of the po∣sterity of Timur, the first place was long held by Morad the son of Hanuth. Morad having signalized himself in many battles and sieges,

was rewarded with the government of a pro∣vince, from which the fame of his wisdom and moderation was wafted to the pinacles of Agra, by the prayers of those whom his administration made happy. The emperor called him into his presence, and gave into his hand the keys of riches, and the sabre of command. The voice of Morad was heard from the cliffs of Taurus to the Indian ocean, every tongue faultered in his presence, and every eye was cast down before him.

MORAD lived many years in prospe∣rity; every day encreased his wealth, and extended his influence. The sages repeated his maxims, the captains of thousands waited his commands. Competition withdrew into the cavern of envy, and discontent trembled at her own murmurs. But human greatness is short and transitory, as the odour of in∣cense in the fire. The sun grew weary of gilding the palaces of Morad, the clouds of sorrow gathered round his head, and the tem∣pest of hatred roared about his dwelling.

MORAD saw ruin hastily approaching. The first that forsook him were his poets;

their example was followed by all those whom he had rewarded for contributing to his plea∣sures, and only a few, whose virtue had enti∣tled them to favour, were now to be seen in his hall or chambers. He felt his danger, and prostrated himself at the foot of the throne. His accusers were confident and loud, his friends stood contented with frigid neutrality, and the voice of truth was overborn by cla∣mour. He was divested of his power, de∣prived of his acquisitions, and condemned to pass the rest of his life on his hereditary estate.

MORAD had been so long accustomed to crouds and business, supplicants and flat∣tery, that he knew not how to fill up his hours in solitude; he saw with regret the sun rise to force a new day on his eye for which he had no use; and envied the savage that wanders in the desart, because he has no time vacant from the calls of nature, but is always chasing his prey, or sleeping in his den.

HIS discontent in time vitiated his consti∣tution, and a slow disease seized upon him.

He refused physick, neglected exercise, and lay down on his couch peevish and restless, rather afraid to dye than desirous to live. His domesticks for a time redoubled their assidui∣ties, but finding that no officiousness could sooth nor exactness satisfy, soon gave way to negligence and sloth, and he that once com∣manded nations, often languished in his cham∣ber without an attendant.

IN this melancholy state, he commanded messengers to recal his eldest son Abouzaid from the army. Abouzaid was alarmed at the account of his father's sickness, and hasted by long journeys to his place of residence. Mo∣rad was yet living, and felt his strength return at the embraces of his son, then commanding him to sit down at his bedside, "Abouzaid," says he, "thy father has no more to hope or fear from the inhabitants of the earth, the cold hand of the angel of death is now upon him, and the voracious grave howls for his prey. Hear therefore the precepts of an∣cient experience, let not my last instruc∣tions issue forth in vain. Thou hast seen me happy and calamitous, thou hast beheld my exaltation and my fall. My power is

in the hands of my enemies, my treasures have rewarded my accusers; but my inhe∣ritance the clemency of the emperor has spared, and my wisdom his anger could not take away. Cast thine eyes round thee, whatever thou beholdest will in a few hours be thine; apply thine ear to my dictates, and these possessions will promote thy hap∣piness. Aspire not to publick honours, en∣ter not the palaces of kings; thy wealth will set thee above insult, let thy modera∣tion keep below envy. Content thyself with private dignity, diffuse thy riches among thy friends, let every day extend thy beneficence, and suffer not thy heart to be at rest till thou art loved by all to whom thou art known. In the height of my power, I said to defamation, who will hear thee? and to artifice, what canst thou perform? But my son, despise not thou the malice of the weakest, remember that venom supplies the want of strength, and that the lion may perish by the puncture of an asp."

MORAD expired in a few hours. Abou∣zaid, after the months of mourning, deter∣mined

to regulate his conduct by his father's precepts, and cultivate the love of mankind by every art of kindness and endearment. He wisely considered, that domestick happiness was first to be secured, and that none have so much power of doing good or hurt, as those who are present in the hour of negligence, hear the bursts of thoughtless merriment, and observe the 〈◊〉〈◊〉 of unguarded passion. He therefore augmented the pay of all his at∣tendants, and requited every exertion of un∣common diligence by supernumerary gra∣tuities. While he congratulated himself upon the fidelity and affection of his family, he was in the night alarmed by robbers, who, being pursued and taken, declared, that they had been admitted by one of his servants; the servant immediately confessed, that he unbarred the door, because another not more worthy of confidence was entrusted with the keys.

ABOUZAID was thus convinced that a dependant could not easily be made a friend; and that while many were soliciting for the first rank of favour, all those would be alie∣nated whom he disappointed. He therefore

resolved to associate with a few equal compa∣nions selected from among the chief men of the province. With these he lived happily for a time, till familiarity set them free from re∣straint, and every man thought himself at li∣berty to indulge his own caprice, and ad∣vance his own opinions. They then disturbed each other with contrariety of inclinations, and difference of sentiments, and Abouzaid was necessitated to offend one party by con∣currence, or both by indifference.

HE afterwards determined to avoid a close union with beings so discordant in their na∣ture, and to diffuse himself in a larger circle. He practised the smile of universal courtesy, and invited all to his table, but admitted none to his retirements. Many who had been re∣jected in his choice of friendship now refused to accept his acquaintance; and of those whom plenty and magnificence drew to his table, every one pressed forward toward inti∣macy, thought himself overlooked in the croud, and murmured because he was not distinguished above the rest. By degrees all made advances, and all resented repulse. The table was then covered with delicacies in

vain; the musick sounded in empty rooms; and Abouzaid was left to form in solitude some new scheme of pleasure or security.

RESOLVING now to try the force of gra∣titude, he enquired for men of science, whose merit was obscured by poverty. His house was soon crouded with poets, sculptors, pain∣ters, and designers, who wantoned in unex∣perienced plenty, and employed their powers in celebration of their patron. But in a short time they forgot the distress from which they had been rescued, and began to consider their deliverer as a wretch of narrow capacity, who was growing great by works which he could not perform, and whom they overpaid by condescending to accept his bounties. Abou∣zaid heard their murmurs and dismissed them, and from that hour continued blind to colours, and deaf to panegyrick.

AS the sons of art departed muttering threats of perpetual infamy, Abouzaid, who stood at the gate, called to him Hamet the poet. "Hamet," said he, "thy ingratitude has put an end to my hopes and experiments; I

have now learned the vanity of those la∣bours, which hope to be rewarded by hu∣man benevolence; I shall henceforth do good and avoid evil without respect to the opinion of men; and resolve to solicit only the approbation of that being whom alone we are sure to please by endeavouring to please him."

NUMB. 191. TUESDAY, Jan. 14, 1752.

Cercus in Vitium flecti, Monitoribus asper.

HOR.

To the RAMBLER.

Dear Mr. RAMBLER,

I HAVE been four days confined to my chamber by a cold, which has already kept me from three plays, nine sales, five shows, and six card-tables, and put me se∣venteen visits behind hand; and the doctor tells my mamma, that if I fret and cry, it will settle in my head, and I shall not be sit

to be seen these six weeks. But, dear Mr. Rambler, how can I help it? at this very time Melissa is dancing with the prettiest gen∣tleman;—she will breakfast with him to-mor∣row, and then run to two auctions, and hear compliments, and have presents; then she will be drest, and visit, and get a ticket to the play; then go to cards, and win, and come home with two flambeaus before her chair. Dear Mr. Rambler, who can bear it?

MY aunt has just brought me a bundle of your papers for my amusement. She says, you are a philosopher, and will teach me to moderate my desires, and look upon the world with indifference. But, dear sir, I do not wish nor intend to moderate my desires, nor can I think it proper to look upon the world with indifference, till the world looks with indifference on me. I have been forced, how∣ever, to sit this morning a whole quarter of an hour with your paper before my face; but just as my aunt came in, Phyllida had brought me a letter from Mr. Trip, which I put with∣in the leaves, and read about absence and in∣consolableness, and ardour, and irresistible pas∣sion, and eternal constancy, while my aunt

imagined, that I was puzzling myself with your philosophy, and often cried out, when she saw me look confused, "If there is any word that you do not understand, child, I will explain it."

DEAR soul! how old people that think themselves wise may be imposed upon! But it is fit that they should take their turn, for I am sure, while they can keep poor girls close in the nursery, they tyrannise over our under∣standing in a very shameful manner, and fill our imaginations with tales of terror, only to make us live in quiet subjection, and fansy that we can never be fase but by their pro∣tection.

I HAVE a mamma and two aunts, who have all been formerly celebrated for wit and beauty, and are still generally admired by those that value themselves upon their understand∣ing, and love to talk of vice and virtue, na∣ture and simplicity, and beauty, and proprie∣ty; but if there was not some hope of meeting me, scarcely a creature would come near them that wears a fashionable coat. These ladies, Mr. Rambler, have had me under their go∣vernment

fifteen years and a half, and have all that time been endeavouring to deceive me by such representations of life as I cannot yet find to be true, but which I knew not whether I ought to impute to ignorance or malice, as it is possible the world may be much changed since they mingled in general conversation.

BEING desirous that I should love books, they told me, that nothing but knowledge could make me an agreeable companion to men of sense, or qualify me to distinguish the superficial glitter of vanity from the solid me∣rit of understanding; and that a habit of reading would enable me to fill up the vacui∣ties of life without the help of trivial or dan∣gerous amusements, and preserve me from the snares of idleness and the inroads of temp∣tation.

BUT their principal intention seems to have been to make me afraid of men, in which they succeeded so well for a time, that I durst not look in their faces, or be left alone with them in a parlour; for they made me fansy, that no man ever spoke but to deceive, or looked but to allure; that the

girl who suffered him that had once squeezed her hand, to approach her a second time was on the brink of ruin; and that she who an∣swered a billet, without consulting her rela∣tions, gave love such power over her, that she would certainly become either poor or in∣famous.

FROM the time that my leading-strings were taken off, I scarce heard any mention of my beauty but from the milliner, the man∣tua-maker, and my own maid; for my mam∣ma never said more when she heard me com∣mended, but "The girl is very well," and then endeavoured to divert my attention by some enquiry after my needle, or my book.

IT is now three months since I have been suffered to pay and receive visits, to dance at publick assemblies, to have a place kept for me in the boxes, and to play at lady Racket's rout; and you may easily imagine what I think of those who have so long cheat∣ed me with false expectations, disturbed me with sictitious terrors, and concealed from me all that I have found to make the happiness of woman.

I AM so far from perceiving the usefulness or necessity of books, that if I had not dropped all pretensions to learning I should have lost Mr. Trip, whom I once frighted into an∣other box, by retailing some of Dryden's re∣marks upon a tragedy; for Mr. Trip declares that he hates nothing like hard words, and I am sure, there is not a better partner to be found; his very walk is a dance. I have talked once or twice among ladies about prin∣ciples and ideas, but they put their fans before their faces, and told me, I was too wise for them, who for their part, never pretended to read any thing but the play-bill, and then asked me the price of my best head.

THOSE vacancies of time which are to be filled up with books, I have never yet obtain∣ed; for, consider, Mr. Rambler, I go to bed late, and therefore cannot rise early; as soon as I am up, I dress for the gardens; then walk in the park; then always go to some sale or show, or entertainment at the little theatre; then must be dressed for dinner; then must pay my visits; then walk in the park; then hurry to the play; and from thence to the card-table. This is the general course of

the day when there happens nothing extraor∣dinary; but sometimes I ramble into the coun∣try and come back again to a ball; sometimes I am engaged for a whole day and part of the night. If, at any time, I can gain an hour by not being at home, I have so many things to do, so many orders to give to the milliner, so many alterations to make in my cloaths, so many visitants names to read over, so many invitations to accept or refuse, so many cards to write, and so many fashions to consider, that I am lost in confusion, forced at last to let in company or step into my chair, and leave half my affairs to the direction of my maid.

THIS is the round of my day; and when shall I either stop my course, or so change it as to want a book? I suppose it cannot be imagined that any of these diversions will be soon at an end, There will always be gar∣dens, and a park, and auctions, and shows, and playhouses, and cards; visits will always be paid, and cloaths always be worn; and how can I have time unemployed upon my hands.

BUT I am most at a loss to guess for what purpose they related such tragick stories of the cruelty, perfidy, and artifices of men, who, if they ever were so malicious and destructive, have certainly now reformed their manners. I have not since my entrance into the world found one who does not profess himself de∣voted to my service, and ready to live or die as I shall command him. They are so far from intending to hurt me, that their only contention is, who shall be allowed most close∣ly to attend, and most frequently to treat me; when different places of entertainment or schemes of pleasure are mentioned, I can see the eyes sparkle and the cheeks glow of him whose proposals obtain my approbation; he then leads me off in triumph, adores my con∣descention, and congratulates himself that he has lived to the hour of felicity. Are these, Mr. Rambler, creatures to be seared? Is it likely that any injury will be done me by those who can enjoy life only while I favour them with my presence?

AS little reason can I yet find to suspect them of stratagems and fraud. When I play at cards, they never take advantage of my

mistakes, nor exact from me a rigorous obser∣vation of the laws of the game. Even Mr. Shuffle, a grave gentleman, who has daugh∣ters older than myself, plays with me so neg∣ligently, that I am sometimes inclined to be∣lieve he loses his money by design, and yet he is so fond of play, that he says, he will one day take me to his house in the country; that we may try by ourselves who can conquer. I have not yet promised him, but when the town grows a little empty, I shall think upon it, for I want some trinkets, like Letitia's, to my watch. I do not doubt my luck, but must study some means of amusing my re∣lations.

FOR all these distinctions I find myself in∣debted to that beauty which I was never suf∣fered to hear praised, and of which therefore, I did not before know the full value. This concealment was certainly an intentional fraud, for my aunts have eyes like other people, and I am every day told, that no∣thing but blindness can escape the influence of my charms. Their whole account of that world which they pretend to know so well, has been only one fiction entangled with an∣other;

and though the modes of life oblige me to continue some appearances of respect, I cannot think that they, who have been so clearly detected in ignorance or imposture, have any right to the esteem, veneration, or obedience of,

SIR, Yours, BELLARIA.

NUMB. 192. SATURDAY, Jan. 18, 1752.

〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉

ANACREON.

To the RAMBLER.

SIR,

I AM the son of a gentleman, whose an∣cestors, for many ages, held the first rank in the county; till at last one of them, too

desirous of popularity, set his house open to all that would enter it, kept a table covered with continual profusion, and distributed his beef and ale to such as chose rather to live upon the folly of others than their own la∣bour with such thoughtless liberality, that he left a third part of his estate mortgaged. His successor a man of spirit, scorned to impair his dignity by parsimonious retrenchments, or to admit by a sale of his lands any participa∣tion of the rights of his manor; he therefore made another mortgage to pay the interest of the former, and pleased himself with the re∣flection, that his son would have the heredi∣tary estate without the diminution of an acre.

NEARLY resembling this, was the prac∣tice of my wise progenitors for many ages. Every man boasted the antiquity of his fa∣mily, resolved to support the dignity of his birth, and lived in splendor and plenty at the expence of his heir, who, sometimes by a wealthy marriage, and sometimes by lucky legacies, discharged part of the incumbrances, and thought himself entitled to contract new debts, and to leave to his children the same inheritance of embarrasment and distress.

THUS the estate perpetually decayed; the woods were felled by one, the park ploughed by another, the fishery let to farmers by a third; at last the old hall was pulled down to spare the cost of reparation, and part of the materials sold to build a small house with the rest. We were now openly degraded from our original rank, and my father's brother was allowed with less reluctance to serve an ap∣prenticeship, though we never reconciled our∣selves heartily to the sound of haberdasher, but always talked of warehouses and a mer∣chant, and when the wind happened to blow loud affected to pity the hazards of com∣merce, and to sympathize with the solicitude of my poor uncle, who had the true retailer's terror of adventure, and never exposed him∣self or his property to any wider water than the Thames.

IN time, however, by continual profit and small expences he grew rich, and began to turn his thoughts towards rank. He hung the arms of the family over his parlour-chim∣ney; pointed at a chariot decorated only with a cypher; became of opinion that money could not make a gentleman; resented the

petulance of upstarts; told stories of alder∣man Puff's grandfather the porter; wonder∣ed that there was no better method for regu∣lating precedence; wished for some dress pe∣culiar to men of fashion; and when his ser∣vant presented a letter, always enquired whe∣ther it came from his brother the esquire.

MY father was careful to send him game by every carrier, which, though the convey∣ance often cost more than the value, was well received, because it gave him an opportunity of calling his friends together, describing the beauty of his brother's seat, and lamenting his own folly, whom no remonstrances could with-hold from polluting his fingers with a shop-book.

THE little presents which we sent were al∣ways returned with great munificence. He was desirous of being the second founder of his family, and could not bear that we should be any longer outshone by those whom we considered as climbers upon our ruins, and usurpers of our fortune. He furnished our house with all the elegance of fashionable expence, and was careful to conceal his boun∣ties,

lest the poverty of his family should be suspected.

AT length it happened that by misconduct like our own, a large estate, which had been purchased from us, was again exposed to the best bidder. My uncle delighted with an op∣portunity of reinstating the family in their pos∣sessions, came down with treasures scarcely to be imagined in a place where commerce has not made large sums familiar, and at once drove all the competitors away, expedited the writings, and took possession. He now con∣sidered himself as superior to trade, disposed of his stock, and as soon as he had settled his oeconomy, began to show his rural sovereign∣ty, by breaking the hedges of his tenants in hunting, and seizing the guns or nets of those whose fortunes did not qualify them for sportsmen. He soon afterwards solicited the office of sheriff, from which all his neigh∣bours were glad to be reprieved, but which he regarded as a resumption of ancestral claims, and a kind of restoration to blood after the attainder of a trade.

MY uncle, whose mind was so filled with this change of his condition, that he found no want of domestick entertainment, de∣clared himself too old to marry, and resolved to let the newly purchased estate fall into the regular channel of inheritance. I was there∣fore considered as heir apparent, and courted with officiousness and caresses, by the gentle∣men who had hitherto coldly allowed me that rank which they could not refuse, depressed me with studied neglect, and irritated me with ambiguous insults.

I FELT not much pleasure from the civi∣lities for which I knew myself indebted to my uncle's industry, till by one of the invi∣tations which every day now brought me, I was induced to spend a week with Lucius, whose daughter Flavilla I had often seen, and admired like others, without any thought of nearer approaches. The inequality which had hitherto kept me at a distance being now levelled, I was received with every evidence of respect; Lucius told me the fortune which he intended for his favourite, his lady detailed her virtues, many odd accidents obliged us to be often together without company, and I

soon began to find that they were spreading for me the nets of matrimony.

FLAVILLA was all softness and com∣plaisance. I who had been excluded by a nar∣row fortune from much acquaintance with the world, and never been honoured before with the notice of so fine a lady, was easily ena∣moured. Lucius either perceived my passion, or Flavilla betrayed it; care was taken that our private meetings should be less frequent, and my charmer confessed by her eyes how much pain she suffered from our restraint. I renewed my visit upon every pretence, but was not allowed one interview without wit∣ness, at last I declared my passion to Lucius, who received me as a lover worthy of his daughter, and told me that nothing was want∣ing to his consent, but that my uncle should settle his estate upon me. I objected the in∣decency of encroaching on his life, and the danger of provoking him by such an unsea∣sonable demand. Lucius seemed not to think decency of much importance, but admitted the danger of displeasing, and concluded that as he was now old, and sickly, we might without any inconvenience wait for his death.

WITH this resolution I was better con∣tented, as it procured me the company of Flavilla, in which the days passed away amidst continual rapture; but in time, I be∣gan to be ashamed of sitting idle, in expecta∣tion of growing rich by the death of my benefactor, and proposed to Lucius many schemes of raising my own fortune by such assistance as I knew my uncle willing to give me. Lucius afraid lest I should change my affection in absence, diverted me from my de∣sign by dissuasives to which my passion easily listened. At last my uncle died, and consi∣dering himself as neglected by me, from the time that Flavilla took possession of my heart, left his estate to my younger brother, who was always hovering about his bed, and re∣lating stories of my pranks and extravagance, my contempt of the commercial dialect, and my impatience to be selling stock.

MY condition was soon known, and I was no longer admitted by the father of Flavilla. I repeated the protestations of regard, which had been formerly returned with so much ar∣dour, in a letter which she received privately, but returned by her father's footman. Con∣tempt

has driven out my love, and I am con∣tent to have purchased by the loss of fortune an escape from a harpy who has joined the artifices of age to the allurements of youth. I am now going to pursue my former projects with a legacy which my uncle bequeathed me, and if I succeed, shall expect to hear of the repentance of Flavilla. I am,

SIR, Yours, &c. CONSTANTIUS.

NUMB. 193. TUESDAY, Jan. 21, 1752.

Laudis amore tumes? sunt certa piacula quae te Ter purè lecto poterunt recreare Libello.

HOR.

WHATEVER is universally desired, will be sought by industry and arti∣fice, by merit and crimes, by means good and bad, rational and absurd, according to the prevalence of virtue or vice, of wisdom or

folly. Some will always mistake the degree of their own desert, and some will desire that others may mistake it. The cunning will have recourse to stratagem, and the powerful to violence for the attainment of their wishes; some will stoop to theft, and others venture upon plunder.

PRAISE is so pleasing to the mind of man, that it is the original motive of almost all our actions. The desire of commendation, as of every thing else, is varied indeed by innumera∣ble differences of temper, capacity, and know∣ledge; some have no higher wish than for the applause of a club; some expect the ac∣clamations of a county; and some have hoped to fill the mouths of all ages and na∣tions with their names. Every man pants for the highest eminence within his view; none, however mean, ever sinks below the hope of being distinguished by his fellow-beings, and very few have, by magnanimity or piety, been so raised above it, as to act wholly with∣out regard to human censure or opinion.

TO be praised, therefore, every man re∣solves, but resolutions will not execute them∣selves.

That which all think too parsimoni∣ously distributed to their own claims, they will not gratuitously squander upon others, and some expedient must be tried by which praise may be gained before it can be en∣joyed.

AMONG the innumerable bidders for praise some are willing to purchase at the highest rate, and offer ease and health, fortune and life. Yet even of these only a small part have gained what they so earnestly desired; the student wastes away in meditation, and the soldier perishes on the ramparts, but unless some accidental advantage co-operates with merit, neither perseverance nor adventure at∣tract the attention of mankind, and learning and bravery sink into the grave without ho∣nour or remembrance.

BUT ambition and vanity generally expect to be gratified on easier terms. It has been long observed, that what is procured by skill or labour to the first possessor, may be after∣wards transferred for money; and that the man of wealth may partake all the acquisi∣tions of courage without hazard, and all the

products of industry without fatigue. It was easily discovered, that riches would obtain praise among other conveniencies, and that he whose pride was unluckily associated with laziness, ignorance, or cowardice, needed only to pay the hire of a panegyrist, and he might be regaled with periodical eulogies; might determine, at leisure, what virtue or science he would be pleased to appropriate, and be lulled in the evening with soothing fe∣renades, or waked in the morning by spright∣ly gratulations.

THE happiness which mortals receive from the celebration of beneficence which never re∣lieved, or eloquence which never persuaded, dignity which never awed, or elegance which never pleased, ought not to be envied or di∣sturbed, when they are known honestly to pay for their entertainment. But there are un∣merciful exactors of adulation, who with-hold the wages of venality; retain their encomiast from year to year by general promises and am∣biguous blandishments; and when he has run through the whole compass of flattery dismiss him with contempt, because his vein of fic∣tion is exhausted.

A CONTINUAL feast of commendation is only to be obtained by merit or by wealth; many are therefore obliged to content them∣selves with single morsels, and recompense the infrequency of their enjoyment by excess and riot, whenever fortune sets the banquet be∣fore them. Hunger is never delicate; they who are seldom gorged to the full with praise, may be safely fed with gross compliments, for the appetite must be satisfied before it is disgusted.

IT is generally easy to find the moment at which vanity is eager for sustenance, and all that impudence or servility can offer will be well received. When any one com∣plains of the want of what he is known to possess in an uncommon degree, he certainly waits with impatience to be contradicted. When the trader pretends anxiety about the payment of his bills, or the beauty remarks how frightfully she looks, then is the lucky moment to talk of riches or of charms, of the death of lovers, or the honour of a merchant.

OTHERS there are yet more open and artless, who instead of suborning a flatterer are content to supply his place, and, as some animals impregnate themselves, swell with the praises which they hear from their own tongues. Recte is dicitur laudare sese cui nemo alius contigit laudator. "It is right, says Erasmus, that he, whom no one else will commend, should bestow commendations on himself." Of all the sons of vanity, these are sure the happiest and greatest; for what is greatness or happiness but indepen∣dence on external influences, exemption from hope or fear, and the power of supplying every want from the common stores of na∣ture which can neither be exhausted nor pro∣hibited. Such is the wise man of the stoicks; such is the divinity of the epicureans; and such is the flatterer of himself. Every other enjoyment malice may destroy; every other panegyrick envy may with-hold; but no hu∣man power can deprive the boaster of his own encomiums. Infamy may hiss, or contempt may growl, the hirelings of the great may sol∣low fortune, and the votaries of truth may at∣tend on virtue; but his pleasures still remain the same; he can always listen with rapture to

himself, and leave those who dare not repose upon their own attestation, to be elated or depressed by chance, and toil on in the hope∣less task of fixing caprice, and propitiating malice.

THIS art of happiness has been long prac∣tised by periodical writers, with little apparent violation of decency. When we think our excellencies overlooked by the world, or de∣sire to recall the attention of the publick to some particular performance, we sit down with great composure and write a letter to ourselves. The correspondent whose charac∣ter we assume always addresses us with the deference due to a superior intelligence; pro∣poses his doubts with a proper sense of his own inability; offers an objection with trem∣bling diffidence; and at last has no other pre∣tensions to our notice than his profundity of re∣spect, and sincerity of admiration, his submis∣sion to our dictates, and zeal for our success. To such a reader it is impossible to refuse re∣gard, nor can it easily be imagined with how much alacrity we snatch up the pen which in∣dignation or despair had condemned to inacti∣vity,

when we find such candour and judg∣ment yet remaining in the world.

A LETTER of this kind I had lately the honour of perusing, in which, though some of the periods were negligently closed, and some expressions of familiarity were used, which I thought might teach others to address me with too little reverence, I was so much delighted with the passages in which mention was made of—universal learning—unbound∣ed genius—soul of Homer, Pythagoras, and Plato—solidity of thought—accuracy of di∣stinction—elegance of combination—vigour of fancy—strength of reason—and regula∣rity of composition—that I had once deter∣mined to lay it before the publick. Three times I sent it to the printer, and three times I fetched it back. My modesty, with which I had hitherto contended, was on the point of yielding, when reflecting that I was about to waste panegyricks on myself which might be more profitably reserved for my patron, I locked it up for a better hour, in compliance with the farmer's principle, who never eats at home what he can carry to the market.

NUMB. 194. SATURDAY, Jan. 25, 1752.

Si damnosa Senem juvat alea, ludit et Haeres Bullatus, parvoque eadem quatit arma Fritillo.

JUV.

To the RAMBLER.

SIR,

THAT vanity which keeps every man important in his own eyes, inclines me to believe, that neither you nor your rea∣ders have yet forgotten the name of Eumathes, who sent you a few months ago an account of his arrival at London with a young nobleman his pupil. I shall therefore continue my nar∣rative without preface or recapitulation.

MY pupil, in a very short time, by his mother's countenance and direction, ac∣complished himself with all those qualifica∣tions which constitute puerile politeness. He became in a few days a perfect master of his hat, which with a careless nicety, he could put off or on without any need to adjust it

by a second motion. This was not attained but by frequent consultations with his dan∣cing-master, and constant practice before the glass, for he had some rustick habits to over∣come; but what will not time and industry perform? A fortnight more furnished him with all the airs and forms of familiar and re∣spectful salutation, from the clap on the shoul∣der to the humble bow; he practises the stare of strangeness, and the smile of condescen∣sion, the solemnity of promise, and the gra∣ciousness of encouragement, as if he had been nursed at a levee; and pronounces, with no less propriety than his father, the monosylla∣bles of coldness, and sonorous periods of re∣spectful profession.

HE immediately lost the reserve and timi∣dity which solitude and study are apt to im∣press upon the most courtly genius; was able to enter a crouded room with airy civility; to meet the glances of a hundred eyes with∣out perturbation; and address those whom he never saw before with ease and confidence. In less than a month, his mother declared her satisfaction at his proficiency by a triumphant

observation, that she believed, nothing would make him blush.

THE silence with which I was contented to hear my pupil's praises, gave the lady rea∣son to suspect me not much delighted with his acquisitions; but she attributed my dis∣content to the diminution of my influence, and my fears of losing the patronage of the family; and though she thinks favourably of my learning and morals, she considers me as wholly unacquainted with the customs of the polite part of mankind, and therefore not qualified to form the manners of a young no∣bleman, or communicate the knowledge of the world. This knowledge she comprises in the rules of visiting, the history of the pre∣sent hour, an early intelligence of the change of fashions, an extensive acquaintance with the names and faces of persons of rank, and a frequent appearance in places of resort.

ALL this my pupil persues with great ap∣plication. He is twice a day in the mall, where he studies the dress of every man splen∣did enough to attract his notice, and never comes home without some observation upon

sleeves, button-holes, and embroidery. At his return from the theatre, he can give an account of the gallantries, glances, whispers, smiles, sighs, flirts, and blushes of every box, so much to his mother's satisfaction, that when I attempted to resume my character, by enquiring his opinion of the sentiments and diction of the tragedy, she at once repressed my criticism, by telling me, that she hoped he did not go to lose his time in attending to the crea∣tures on the stage.

BUT his acuteness was most eminently sig∣nalized at the masquerade, where he disco∣vered his acquaintance through their disguises, with such wonderful facility, as has afforded the family an inexhaustible topick of conver∣sation. Every new visitor is informed how one was detected by his gait, and another by the swing of his arms, a third by the toss of his head, and another by his favourite phrase; nor can you doubt but these performances re∣ceive their just applause, and a genius thus hastening to maturity, is promoted by every art of cultivation.

SUCH have been his endeavours, and such his assistances, that every trace of literature was soon obliterated. He has changed his language with his dress, and instead of en∣deavouring at purity or propriety, has no other care than to catch the reigning phrase and current exclamation, till by copying whatever is peculiar in the talk of all whose birth or fortune entitle them to imitation, he has collected every fashionable barbarism of the present winter, and speaks a dialect not to be understood among those who form their stile by poring upon authors.

TO this copiousness of ideas, and felicity of language, he has joined such eagerness to lead the conversation, that he is celebrated among the ladies as the prettiest gentleman that the age can boast of, except that some who love to talk themselves think him too forward, and others lament that with so much wit and knowledge he is not taller.

HIS mother listens to his observations with her eyes sparkling and her heart beating, and can scarcely contain in the most numerous assemblies the expectations which she has

formed of his future eminence. Women, by whatever fate; always judge absurdly of the intellects of boys. That vivacity and confi∣dence which attract female admiration, are seldom produced in the early part of life, but by ignorance at least, if not by stupidity; for they proceed not from confidence of right, but fearlesness of wrong. Whoever has a clear apprehension, must have quick sensibi∣lity, and where he has no sufficient reason to trust his own judgment, will proceed with doubt and caution, because he perpetually dreads the disgrace of error. The pain of miscarriage is naturally proportionate to the defire of excellence, and, therefore, till men are hardened by long familiarity with re∣proach, or have attained by frequent strug∣gles the art of concealing or suppressing their emotions, diffidence is found the inseparable associate of understanding.

BUT so little distrust has my pupil of his own abilities, that he has for some time pro∣fessed himself a wit, and tortures his imagina∣tion all occasions for burlesque and jocularity. How he supports a character, which, perhaps, no man ever assumed without repentance,

may be easily conjectured. Wit, you know, is the unexpected copulation of ideas, the dis∣covery of some occult relation between images in appearance remote from each other; an ef∣fusion of wit therefore presupposes an accu∣mulation of knowledge; a memory stored with notions, which the imagination may cull out to compose new assemblages. Whatever may be the native vigour of the mind, she can never form many combinations from few ideas, as many changes can never be rung upon a few bells. Accident may indeed, sometimes produce a luckly parallel or a strik∣ing contrast; but these gifts of chance are not frequent, and he that has nothing of his own, and yet condemns himself to needless expences, must live upon loans or theft.

THE indulgence which his youth has hi∣therto obtained, and the respect which his rank secures, have hitherto supplied the want of intellectual qualifications, and he imagines, that all admire who applaud, and that all who laugh are pleased. He therefore returns every day to the charge with encrease of courage, though not of strength, and practises all the tricks by which wit is counterfeited. He lays

trains for a quibble; he contrives blunders for his footman; he adapts old stories to present characters; he mistakes the question, that he may return a smart answer; he anticipates the argument, that he may plausibly object; when he has nothing to reply, he repeats the last words of his antagonist, then says, "your humble servant," and concludes with a laugh of triumph.

THESE mistakes I have honestly attempted to correct, but what can be expected from reason unsupported by fashion, splendour, or authority. He hears me indeed, or appears to hear me, but is soon rescued from the lec∣ture by more pleasing avocations; and shows, diversions and caresses drive my precepts from his remembrance.

HE at last imagines himself qualified to en∣ter the world, and has met with adventures in his first sally, which I shall by your paper communicate to the publick.

I am, &c. EUMATHES.

NUMB. 195. TUESDAY, Jan. 28, 1752.

—Nescit equo rudis Haerere ingenuus Puer, Venarique timet; ludere doctior Seu Graeco jubeas trocho, Seu malis vetità legibus aleâ.

HOR.

To the RAMBLER.

SIR,

FAVOURS of every kind are doubled when they are speedily conferred. This is particularly true of the gratification of curi∣osity: He that long delays any story which he has promised, and suffers his auditor to tor∣ment himself with expectation, will seldom be able to recompense the uneasiness, or equal the hope which he suffers to be raised.

FOR this reason, I have already sent you the continuation of my pupil's history, which, though it contains no events very uncommon, may be of use to other young men who are in too much haste to trust their own prudence,

and quit the wing of protection before they are able to shift for themselves.

WHEN he first settled in London, he was so much bewildered in the enormous extent of the town, so confounded by incessant noise, and crowds, and hurry, and so terrified by rural narratives of the arts of sharpers, the rudeness of the populace, malignity of porters, and treachery of coachmen, that he was afraid to go beyond the door without an attendant, and imagined his life in danger if he was obliged to pass the streets at night in any ve∣hicle but his mother's chair.

HE was therefore contented for a time, that I should accompany him in all his excursions. But his fear abated as he grew more familiar with its objects, and the contempt to which his rusticity exposed him from such of his companions as had accidentally known the town longer, obliged him to dissemble his re∣maining terrors.

HIS desire of liberty made him now wil∣ling to spare me the trouble of observing his motions, but knowing how much his igno∣rance

exposed him to mischief, I thought it cruel to abandon him to the fortune of the town. We went together every day to a coffee-house, where he met wits, heirs, and fops, airy, ignorant, and thoughtless as him∣self, with whom he had become acquainted at card tables, and whom he considered as the only beings to be envied or admired. What were their topics of conversation I could never discover, for so much was their vivacity de∣pressed by my intrusive seriousness, that they seldom proceeded beyond the exchange of nods and shrugs, an arch grin, or a broken hint, except when they could retire, while I was looking on the papers, to a corner of the room, where they seemed to disburden their imaginations, and commonly vented the su∣perfluity of their sprightliness in a peal of laughter. When they had tittered themselves into negligence, I could sometimes overhear a few syllables, such as,—solemn rascal;—aca∣demical airs;—smoke the tutor;—company for gentlemen!—and other broken phrases, by which I did not suffer my quiet to be di∣sturbed, for they never proceeded to avowed indignities, but contented themselves to mur∣mur

in secret, and, whenever I turned my eye upon them, shrunk into stilness.

HE was, however, desirous of withdrawing from the subjection which he could not ven∣ture to break, and made a secret appointment to assist his companions in the persecution of a play. His footman privately procured him a catcal, on which he practised in a back∣garret for two hours in the afternoon. At the proper time, a chair was called; he pre∣tended an engagement at lady Flutter's, and hastened to the place where his critical asso∣ciates had assembled. They hurried away to the theatre, full of malignity and denuncia∣tions against a man whose name they had ne∣ver heard, and a performance which they could not understand; for they were resolved to judge for themselves, and would not suffer the town to be imposed upon by scribblers. In the pit they exerted themselves with great spirit and vivacity; called out for the tunes of obscene songs, talked loudly at intervals of Shakespear and Johnson, played on their cat∣cals a short prelude of terror, clamoured ve∣hemently for the prologue, and clapped with

great dexterity at the first entrance of the players.

TWO scenes they heard without attempting interruption, but being no longer able to re∣strain their impatience, they then began to exert themselves in groans and hisses, and plied their catcals with incessant diligence; so that they were soon considered by the audience as disturbers of the house, and some who sat near them, either provoked at the obstruction of their entertainment, or desirous to preserve the author from the mortification of seeing his hopes destroyed by children, snatched away their instruments of criticism, and by the sea∣sonable vibration of a stick, subdued them in∣stantaneously to decency and silence.

TO exhilarate themselves after this vexa∣tious deseat they posted to a tavern, where they recovered their alacrity, and, after two hours of obstreperous jollity, burst out big with enterprize, and panting for some occa∣sion to signalize their prowess. They pro∣ceeded vigorously through two streets, and with very little opposition dispersed a rabble of drunkards less daring than themselves, then

rolled two watchmen in the kennel, and broke the windows of a tavern in which the fugi∣tives took shelter. At last it was determined to march up to a row of chairs, and demolish them for standing on the pavement; the chair∣men formed a line of battle, and blows were exchanged for a time with equal courage on both sides. At last the assailants were over∣powered, and the chairmen when they knew their captives, brought them home by force.

THE young gentleman next morning hung his head, and was so much ashamed of his outrages and defeat, that perhaps he might have been checked in his first follies, had not his mother, partly in pity of his dejection, and partly in approbation of his spirit, re∣lieved him from his perplexity, by paying the damages privately, and discouraging all ani∣madversion and reproof.

THIS indulgence could not wholly preserve him from the remembrance of his disgrace, nor at once restore his confidence and elation. He was for three days silent, modest, and compliant, and thought himself neither too wise for instruction, nor too manly for re∣straint.

But his levity overcame this salutary sorrow; he began to talk with his former rap∣tures of masquerades, taverns and frolicks; blustered when his wig was not combed with exactness; and threatened destruction to a taylor who had mistaken his directions about the pocket.

I KNEW that he was now rising again above controul, and that this inflation of spi∣rits would burst out into some mischievous absurdity. I therefore watched him with great attention, but one evening, having at∣tended his mother at a visit, he withdrew himself, unsuspected, while the company was engaged at cards. His vivacity and officious∣ness were soon missed, and his return impa∣tiently expected; supper was delayed, and conversation suspended; every coach that rat∣tled through the street was expected to bring him, and every servant that entered the room was examined concerning his departure. At last the lady returned home, and was with great difficulty preserved from fits by spirits and cordials. The family was dispatched a thousand ways without success, and the house was filled with distraction, till, as we were

deliberating what farther measures to take, he returned from a petty gaming-table, with his coat torn, and his head broken; without his sword, snuff-box, sleeve-buttons, and watch.

OF this loss or robbery, he gave little ac∣count; but, instead of sinking into his former shame, endeavoured to support himself by surliness and asperity, "He was not the first that had played away a few trifles, and of what use were birth and fortune if they would not admit some sallies and ex∣pences." His mamma was so much pro∣voked by the cost of this prank, that she would neither palliate nor conceal it, and his father, after some threats of rustication which his fondness would not suffer him to execute, reduced the allowance of his pocket, that he might not be tempted by plenty to prosusion. This method would have succeeded in a place where there are no pandars to folly and ex∣travagance, but was now likely to have pro∣duced pernicious consequences; for we have discovered a treaty with a broker, whose daughter he seems disposed to marry, on con∣dition that he shall be supplied with present

money, for which he is to repay thrice the value at the death of his father.

THERE was now no time to be lost. A domestick consultation was immediately held, and he was doomed to pass two years in the country; but his mother, touched with his tears, declared, that she thought him too much a man to be any longer confined to his book, and he therefore begins his travels to∣morrow under a French governor.

I am, &c. EUMATHES.

NUMB. 196. SATURDAY, Feb. 1, 1752.

Multa ferunt anni venientes commoda secum Multa recedentes adimunt.—

HOR.

BAXTER, in the narrative of his own life, has enumerated several opinions, which, though he thought them evident and incontestable at his first entrance into the

world, time and experience disposed him to change.

WHOEVER reviews the state of his own mind from the dawn of manhood to its de∣cline, and considers what he pursued or dread∣ed, slighted or esteemed at different periods of his age, will have no reason to imagine such changes of sentiment peculiar to any station or character. Every man, however careless and inattentive, has conviction forced upon him; the lectures of time obtrude themselves upon the most unwilling or dissipated auditor; and by comparing our past with our present thoughts, we perceive that we have changed our minds, though perhaps we cannot discover when the alteration happened, or by what causes it was produced.

THIS revolution of sentiments occasions a perpetual contest between the old and young. They who imagine themselves entitled to ve∣neration and obedience by the prerogative of longer life, are generally inclined to treat the notions of those whose conduct they superin∣tend with superciliousness and contempt, for want of considering that the future and the

past have different appearances; that the dis∣proportion will always be great between ex∣pectation and enjoyment, between new pos∣session and satiety; that the truth of many maxims of age, gives too little pleasure to be allowed till it is felt; and that the miseries of life would be encreased beyond all human power of endurance, if we were to enter the world with the same opinions as we carry from it.

WE naturally indulge those ideas that please us. Hope will predominate in every mind, till it has been suppressed by frequent disap∣pointments. The youth who has not disco∣vered how many evils are continually hovering about us, when he is set free from the shackles of discipline looks abroad into the world with rapture; he sees an elysian region open before him, so variegated with beauty, and so stored with pleasure, that his care is rather to accu∣mulate good, than to shun evil; he stands di∣stracted by different forms of delight, and has no other doubt than which path to follow of those which all lead equally to the bowers of happiness.

HE who has seen only the superficies of life believes every thing to be what it ap∣pears, and rarely suspects that external splen∣dor conceals any latent sorrow or vexation. He never imagines that there may be greatness without safety, affluence without content, jol∣lity without friendship, and solitude without peace. He fancies himself permitted to cull the blessings of every condition, and to leave its inconveniencies to the idle and the igno∣rant. He is inclined to believe no man mise∣rable but by his own fault, and seldom looks with much pity upon failings or miscarriages, because he thinks them willingly admitted or negligently incurred.

IT is impossible without pity and contempt, to hear a youth of generous sentiments and warm imagination, declaring in the mo∣ment of openness and confidence his designs and expectations. Because long life is possi∣ble, he considers it as certain, and therefore promises himself all the changes of happiness, and provides gratifications for every desire. He is, for a time, to give himself wholly to frolick and diversion, to range the world in search of pleasure, to delight every eye, to gain every heart, and to be celebrated equally for his

pleasing levities and solid attainments, his deep reflections, and his sparkling repartees. He then elevates his views to nobler enjoyments, and finds all the scattered excellencies of the female world united in a woman, who prefers his addresses to wealth and titles; he is after∣wards to engage in business, to dissipate dif∣ficulty, and over-power opposition; to climb by the mere force of merit to fame and great∣ness; and reward all those who countenanced his rise, or paid due regard to his early excel∣lence. At last he will retire in peace and ho∣nour; contract his views to domestick plea∣sures; form the manners of children like him∣self; observe how every year expands the beauty of his daughters, and how his sons catch ardour from their father's history; he will give laws to the neighbourhood; dictate axioms to posterity; and leave the world an example of wisdom and of happiness.

WITH hopes like these, he sallies jocund into life; to little purpose is he told, that the condition of humanity admits no pure and unmingled happiness; that the exuberant gaie∣ty of youth ends in poverty or disease; that uncommon qualifications and contrarieties of

excellence, produce envy equally with ap∣plause; that whatever admiration and fond∣ness may promise him, he must marry a wife like the wives of others, with some virtues and some faults, and be as often disgusted by her vices, as delighted by her elegance; that if he adventures into the circle of action, he must expect to encounter men as artful, as daring, as resolute as himself; that of his children, some may be deformed, and others vicious; some may disgrace him by their fol∣lies, some offend him by their insolence, and some exhaust him by their profusion. He hears all this with obstinate incredulity, and wonders by what malignity old age is influ∣enced, that it cannot forbear to fill his ears with predictions of misery.

AMONG other pleasing errors of young minds, is the opinion of their own impor∣tance. He that has not yet remarked, how little attention his contemporaries can spare from their own affairs, conceives all eyes turned upon himself, and imagines every one that approaches him to be an enemy or a follower, an admirer or a spy. He there∣fore lives in perpetual constraint, and considers

his fame as involved in the event of every action. Many of the virtues and vices of youth proceed from this quick sense of repu∣tation. This it is that gives firmness and constancy, fidelity and disinterestedness, and it is this that kindles resentment for slight in∣juries, and dictates all the principles of san∣guinary honour.

BUT as time brings him forward into the world, he soon discovers that he only shares fame or reproach with innumerable partners; that he is left unmarked in the obscurity of the croud; and that what he does, whether good or bad, though it may produce a short com∣motion, soon gives way to new objects of regard. He then easily sets himself free from the anxieties of reputation, and considers praise or censure as a transient breath, which, while he hears it, is passing away, without any lasting mischief or advantage.

IN youth, it is common to measure right and wrong by the opinion of the world, and in age to act without any measure but inte∣rest, and to lose shame without substituting virtue.

SUCH is the condition of life, that some∣thing is always wanting to happiness. In youth we have warm hopes which are soon blasted by rashness and negligence, and great designs which are defeated by inexperience. In age we have knowledge and prudence without spirit to exert, or motives to prompt them; we are able to plan schemes and re∣gulate measures, but have not time remaining to bring them to completion.

NUMB. 197. TUESDAY, Feb. 4, 1752.

Cujus Vulturis hoc erit cadaver?

MART.

To the RAMBLER.

SIR,

I BELONG to an order of mankind, con∣siderable at least for their number, to which your notice has never been formally ex∣tended, though we seem equally entitled to regard with those triflers, who have supplied

you with topicks of amusement or instruction. I am, Mr. Rambler, a legacy-hunter; and as every man is willing to think well of the tribe in which his name is registered, you will for∣give my vanity if I remind you that the le∣gacy-hunter, however degraded by an ill∣compounded appellation in our barbarous language, was known, as I am told, in an∣cient Rome, by the sonorous titles of Cap∣tator and Haeredipeta.

MY father was an attorney in the country, who married his master's daughter, in hopes of a fortune which he did not obtain, having been, as he afterwards discovered, chosen by her only because she had no better offer, and was afraid of service. I was the first offspring of a marriage thus reciprocally fraudulent, and therefore could not be expected to inherit much dignity or generosity, and if I had not from nature, was not likely ever to attain them; for in the years which I spent at home I never heard any reason for action or for∣bearance but that we should gain money or lose it, nor was taught any other stile of com∣mendation, than that Mr. Sneaker is a warm

man, Mr. Gripe has done his business and needs care for no-body.

MY parents, though otherwise not great philosophers, knew the force of early educa∣tion, and took care that the blank of my un∣derstanding should be filled with impressions of the value of money. My mother, used, upon all occasions, to inculcate some salutary axioms, such as might incite me to keep what I had, and get what I could; she informed me that we were in a world, where all must catch that catch can; and as I grew up, stored my memory with deeper observations; restrained me from the usual puerile expences, by re∣marking that many a little made a mickle; and, when I envied the finery of any of my neigh∣bours, told me, that brag was a good dog, but holdfast was a better.

I WAS soon fagacious enough to discover that I was not born to great wealth, and, having heard no other name for happiness, was sometimes inclined to repine at my con∣dition. But my mother always relieved me, by saying, that there was money enough in the family, that it was good to be of kin to

means, that I had nothing to do but to please my friends and I might come to hold up my head with the best squire in the country.

THESE splendid expectations arose from our alliance to three persons of considerable fortune. My mother's aunt had attended on a lady, who, when she died, rewarded her officiousness and fidelity with a large legacy. My father had two relations, of whom one had broken his indentures and ran to sea, from whence after an absence of thirty years, he returned with ten thousand pounds; and the other had lured an heiress out of a window, who dying of her first child, had left him her estate, on which he lived without any other care than to collect his rents, and preserve from poachers that game which he could not kill himself.

THESE hoarders of money were visited and courted by all who had any pretence to approach them, and received presents and compliments from cousins who could scarcely tell the degree of their relation. But we had peculiar advantages which encouraged us to hope, that we should by degrees easily sup∣plant

our competitors. My father, by his profession, made himself necessary in their affairs; for the sailor and the chambermaid, he enquired out mortgages and securities, and wrote bonds and contracts; and had endeared himself to the old woman, who once rashly lent a hundred pounds without consulting him, by informing her, that her debtor was on the point of bankrupcy, and posting so expedi∣tiously with an execution, that all the other creditors were defrauded.

TO the squire he was a kind of steward, and had distinguished himself in his office by his address in raising the rents, his inflexibility in distressing the tardy tenants, and his acute∣ness in fetting the parish free from burthen∣some inhabitants, by shifting them off to some other settlement.

BUSINESS made frequent attendance ne∣cessary; trust soon produced intimacy; and success gave a claim to kindness; so that we had opportunity to practise all the arts of flat∣tery and endearment. My mother, who could not support the thought of losing any thing, determined, that all their fortunes should cen∣ter

in me; and in the prosecution of her schemes took care to inform me that nothing costs less than good words, and that it is com∣fortable to leap into an estate which another has got.

SHE trained me by these precepts to the utmost ductility of obedience, and the closest attention to profit. At an age when other boys are sporting in the fields, or murmuring in the school, I was contriving some new me∣thod of paying my court; enquiring the age of my future benefactors; or considering how I should employ their legacies.

IF our eagerness of money could have been satisfied with the possessions of any one of my relations, they might perhaps have been ob∣tained; but as it was impossible to be always present with all three, our competitors were busy to efface any trace of affection which we might have left behind; and since there was not on any part such superiority of merit as could enforce a constant and unshaken preference, whoever was the last that flattered or obliged had for a time the ascendant.

MY relations maintained a regular ex∣change of courtesy, took care to miss no oc∣casion of condolence or congratulation, and sent presents at stated times, but had in their hearts not much esteem for one another. The seaman looked with contempt upon the squire as a milksop and a landman, who had lived without knowing the points of the compass, or seeing any part of the world beyond the county-town; and, whenever they met, would talk of longitude and latitude, and circles and tropicks, would scarcely tell him the hour without some mention of the horizon and meridian, nor shew him the news without de∣tecting his ignorance of the situation of other countries.

THE squire considered the sailor as a rude uncultivated savage with little more of human than his form, and diverted himself with his ignorance of all common objects and affairs; when he could persuade him to go into the field, he always exposed him to the sportsmen, by sending him to look for game in improper places; and once prevailed upon him to be present at the races, only that he might show the gentlemen how a sailor sat upon a horse.

THE old gentlewoman thought herself wiser than both, for she lived with no servant but a maid, and saved her money. The others were indeed sufficiently frugal, but the squire could not live without dogs and horses, and the sailor never suffered the day to pass but over a bowl of punch, to which, as he was not critical in the choice of his compa∣ny, every man was welcome that could roar out a catch, or tell a story.

ALL these, however, I was to please; an arduous task, but what will not youth and avarice undertake? I had an unresisting sup∣pleness of temper, and an insatiable wish for riches; I was perpetually instigated by the ambition of my parents, and assisted occasion∣ally by their instructions. What these advan∣tages enabled me to perform, shall be told in the next letter of,

Yours, &c. CAPTATOR.

NUMB. 198. SATURDAY, Feb. 8, 1752.

Nil mihi das vivus, dicis post fata daturum, Si non insanis, scis, Maro, quid cupiam.

MART.

To the RAMBLER.

SIR,

YOU, who must have observed the in∣clination which almost every man, how∣ever unactive or insignificant, discovers of re∣presenting his life as distinguished by extraor∣dinary events,-will not wonder that Captator thinks his narrative important enough to be continued. Nothing is more common than for these to tease their companions with their history, who have neither done nor suffered any thing that can excite curiosity, or afford instruction.

AS I was taught to flatter with the first es∣says of speech, and had very early lost every other passion in the desire of money, I began my pursuit with omens of success; for I di∣vided

my officiousness so judiciously among my relations, that I was equally the favourite of all. When any of them entered the door, I went to welcome him with raptures, when he went away I hung down my head, and some∣times entreated to go with him with so much importunity, that I very narrowly escaped a consent which I dreaded in my heart. When at an annual entertainment they were all to∣gether I had a harder task, but plied them so impartially with caresses, that none could charge me with neglect, and when they were wearied with my fondness and civilities, I was always dismissed with money to buy play∣things.

LIFE cannot be kept at a stand, the years of innocence and prattle were soon at an end, and other qualifications were necessary to re∣commend me to continuance of kindness. It luckily happened, that none of my friends had high notions of book-learning. The sailor hated to see tall boys shut up in a school, when they might more properly be seeing the world and making their fortunes; and was of opi∣nion, that when the first rules of arithmetick were known, all that was necessary to make a

man complete might be learned on ship-board. The squire only insisted, that so much scholar∣ship was indispensably necessary, as might confer ability to draw a lease and read the court-hands; and the old chambermaid de∣clared loudly her contempt of books, and her opinion that they only took the head off the main chance.

TO unite as well as we could all their sy∣stems, I was bred at home. Each was taught to believe, that I followed his directions, and I gained likewise, as my mother observed, this advantage that I was always in the way, for she had known many favourite children sent to schools or academies and forgotten.

AS I grew fitter to be trusted to my own discretion, I was often dispatched upon va∣rious pretences to visit my relations, which di∣rections from my parents how to ingratiate myself and drive away competitors.

I WAS, from my infancy, considered by the sailor as a promising genius, because I liked punch better than wine; and I took care to improve this prepossession by continual enqui∣ries

about the art of navigation, the degree of heat and cold in different climates, the profits of trade, and the dangers of shipwreck. I ad∣mired the courage of the seamen, and gained his heart by importuning him for a recital of his adventures; and a sight of his foreign cu∣riosities. I listened with an appearance of close attention to stories which I could already repeat, and at the close never failed to express my resolution to visit distant countries, and my contempt of the cowards and drones that spend all their lives in their native parish; though I had in reality no desire of any thing but money, nor ever felt the stimulations of curiosity or ardour of adventure, but would contentedly have passed the years of Nestor in receiving rents, and lending upon mortgages.

THE squire I was able to please with less hypocrisy, for I really thought it pleasant enough to kill the game and eat it. Some arts of falshood however the hunger of gold persuaded me to practise, by which, though no other mischief was produced, the purity of my thoughts was vitiated, and the reverence for truth gradually destroyed. I sometimes purchased fish and pretended to have caught

them; I hired the countrymen to show me partridges, and then gave my uncle intelli∣gence of their haunt; I learned the seats of hares at night, and discovered them in the morning with sagacity that raised the wonder and envy of old sportsmen. One only ob∣struction to the advancement of my reputation I could never fully surmount; I was naturally a coward, and was therefore always left shamefully behind, when there was a necessity to leap a hedge, to swim a river, or force the horses to their utmost speed; but as these exi∣gencies did not frequently happen, I main∣tained my honour with sufficient success, and was never left out of a hunting party.

THE old chambermaid was not so certainly nor so easily pleased, for she had no predomi∣nant passion but avarice, and was therefore cold and inaccessible. She had no conception of any virtue in a young man but that of saving his money. When she heard of my exploits in the field, she would shake her head, and enquire how much I should be the richer for all my performances, and lament, that so much should be spent upon dogs and horses. If the sailor told her of my inclina∣tion

to travel, she was sure there was no place like England, and could not imagine why any man that can live in his own country should leave it. This sullen and frigid being I found means however to propitiate by frequent commendations of frugality, and perpetual care to avoid expence.

FROM the sailor was our first and most con∣siderable expectation; for he was richer than the chambermaid, and older than the squire. He was so aukward and bashful among wo∣men, that we concluded him secure from ma∣trimony, and the noisy fondness with which he used to welcome me to his house, made us imagine that he would look out for no other heir, and that we had nothing to do but wait patiently for his death. But in the midst of our triumph my uncle saluted us one morning with a cry of transport, and clapping his hand hard on my shoulder, told me, I was a happy fellow to have a friend like him in the world, for he came to fit me out for a voyage with one of his old acquaintances. I turned pale and trembled; my father told him, that he believed my constitution not fitted to the sea; and my mother bursting into tears, cried out,

that her heart would break if she lost me. All this had no effect, the sailor was wholly in∣susceptive of the softer passions, and without regard to tears or arguments persisted in his resolution to make me a man.

WE were obliged to comply in appear∣ance, and preparations were accordingly made. I took leave of my friends, with great ala∣crity, proclaimed the beneficence of my uncle with the highest strains of gratitude; and re∣joiced at the opportunity now put into my hands of gratifying my thirst of knowledge. But a week before the day appointed for my departure, I fell sick by my mother's direc∣tion, and refused all food but what she pri∣vately brought me; whenever my uncle vi∣sited me I was lethargick or delirious, but took care in my raving fits to talk incessantly of travel and merchandize. The room was kept dark; the table was filled with vials and gallipots; my mother was with difficulty persuaded not to endanger her life with noc∣turnal attendance; my father lamented the loss of the profits of the voyage; and such superfluity of artifice was employed, as per∣haps might have discovered the cheat to a man

of penetration. But the sailor unacquainted with subtilties and stratagems was easily de∣luded, and as the ship could not stay for my recovery, sold the cargo, and left me to re∣establish my health at leisure.

I WAS sent to regain my flesh in a purer air lest it should appear never to have been wasted, and in two months returned to de∣plore my disappointment. My uncle pitied my dejection, and bid me prepare myself against next year, for no land-lubber should ever touch his money.

AREPRIEVE however was obtained, and perhaps some new stratagem might have suc∣ceeded another spring; but my uncle unhap∣pily made amorous advances to my mother's maid, who to promote so advantageous a match, discovered the secret with which only she had been entrusted. He stormed, and ra∣ved, and declaring that he would have heirs of his own, and not give his substance to cheats and cowards, married the girl in two days, and has now four children.

COWARDICE is always scorned, and de∣ceit universally detested. I found my friends, if not wholly alienated, at least cooled in their affection; the squire, though he did not whol∣ly discard me, was less fond, and often en∣quired when I would go to sea. I was obliged to bear his insults, and endeavoured to rekin∣dle his kindness by assiduity and respect, but all my care was vain; he died without a will, and the estate devolved to the legal heir.

THUS has the folly of my parents con∣demned me to spend in flattery and attendance those years in which I might have been quali∣fied to place myself above hope or fear. I am arrived at manhood without any useful art or generous sentiment, and, if the old woman should likewise at last deceive me, am in dan∣ger at once of beggary and ignorance.

I am, &c. CAPTATOR.

NUMB. 199. TUESDAY, Feb. 11, 1752.

Decolor, obscurus, vilis, non ille repexam Cesariem Regum, nec candida virginis ornat Colla, nec insigni splendet per cingula morsu; Sed nova si nigri videas miracula Saxi, Tunc superat pulchros cultus, & quicquid Eois Indus Littoribus rubra scrutatur in alga.

CLAUDIANUS.

To the RAMBLER.

SIR,

THOUGH you have seldom digressed from moral subjects, I suppose you are not so rigorous or cynical as to deny the value or usefulness of natural philosophy; or to have lived in this age of enquiry and experi∣ment, without any attention to the wonders every day produced by the pokers of magne∣tism and the wheels of electricity. At least, I may be allowed to hope that since no∣thing is more contrary to moral excellence than Envy, you will not refuse to promote

the happiness of others, merely because you cannot partake of their enjoyments.

IN confidence therefore that your igno∣rance has not made you an enemy to know∣ledge, I offer you the honour of introducing an adept to the notice of the publick; an adept, who having long laboured for the be∣nefit of mankind is not willing, like too ma∣ny of his predecessors, to conceal his secrets in the grave.

MANY have signalized themselves by melt∣ing their estates in crucibles. I was born to no fortune, and therefore had only my mind and body to devote to knowledge, and the gratitude of posterity will attest, that neither mind nor body have been spared. I have sat whole weeks without sleep by the side of an athanor, to watch the moment of projection; I have made the first experiment in nineteen diving engines of new construction; I have fallen eleven times speechless under the shock of electricity; I have twice dislocated my limbs, and once fractured my skull in essay∣ing to fly; and four times endangered my life by submitting to the transfusion of blood.

IN the first period of my studies, I exerted the powers of my body more than those of my mind, and was not without hopes that fame might be purchased by a few broken bones without the toil of thinking; but having been shattered by some violent experiments, and constrained to confine myself to my books, I passed six and thirty years in searching the treasures of ancient wisdom, but am at last amply recompensed for all my perseverance.

THE curiosity of the present race of phi∣losophers, after having been long exercised upon electricity, has been lately transferred to Magnetism; the qualities of the loadstone have been investigated, if not with much ad∣vantage, yet with great applause; and as the highest praise of art is to imitate nature, I hope no man will think the makers of arti∣ficial magnets celebrated or reverenced above their deserts.

I HAVE for some time employed myself in the same practice, but with deeper know∣ledge and more extensive views. While my contemporaries were touching needles and raising weights, or busying themselves with

inclination and variation, I have been exa∣mining those qualities of magnetism which may be applied to the accommodation and happiness of common life. I have left to in∣ferior Understandings the care of conducting the sailor through the hazards of the ocean, and reserved to myself the more difficult and illustrious province of preserving the connu∣bial compact from violation, and setting man∣kind free for ever from the danger of suppo∣sititious children, and from the torments of fruitless vigilance and anxious suspicion.

TO defraud any man of his due praise is unworthy of a philosopher. I shall therefore openly confess, that I owe the first hint of this inestimable secret to the rabbi Abraham Ben Hannase, who in his treatise of precious stones, has left this account of the magnet 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, &c. "The calamita or load-stone that attracts iron produces many bad fantasies in man. Women fly from this stone. If therefore any husband be di∣sturbed with jealousy, and fear lest his wife converses with other men, let him lay this stone upon her while she is asleep. If she be pure, she will, when she wakes, clasp

her husband fondly in her arms, but if she be guilty, she will fall out of bed and run away."

WHEN first I read this wonderful passage, I could not easily conceive why it had remain∣ed hitherto unregarded in such a zealous com∣petition for magnetical fame. It would surely be unjust to suspect that any of the candidates are strangers to the name or works of rabbi Abraham, or to conclude from a late edict of the royal society in favour of the English lan∣guage, that philosophy and literature are no longer to act in concert. Yet how should a quality so useful, escape promulgation but by the obscurity of the language in which it was delivered? Why are footmen, and chamber∣maids paid on every side for keeping secrets, which no caution nor expence could secure from the all-penetrating magnet? Or why are so many witnesses summoned, and so ma∣ny artifices practised to discover what so easy an experiment would infallibly reveal?

FULL of this perplexity, I read the lines of Abraham to a friend, who advised me not to expose my life by a mad indulgence of the

love of fame; he warned me by the fate of Orpheus, what knowledge or genius could give no protection to the invader of female prerogatives; assured me that neither the ar∣mour of Achilles, nor the antidote of Mithri∣dates, would be able to preserve me; and counselled me, if I could not live without renown, to attempt the acquisition of uni∣versal empire, in which the honour would perhaps be equal, and the danger certainly be less.

I, a solitary student, pretend not to much knowledge of the world, but am unwilling to think it so generally corrupt, as that a scheme for the detection of incontinence, should bring any danger upon its inventor. My friend has indeed told me, that all the women will be my enemies, and that how∣ever I flatter myself with hopes of defence from the men, I shall certainly find myself deserted in the hour of danger. Of the young men, said he, some will be afraid of sharing the disgrace of their mothers; and some the danger of their mistresses, of those who are married, part are already convinced of the falshood of their wives, and part shut

their eyes to avoid conviction; few ever sought for virtue in marriage, and therefore few will try whether they have found it. Al∣most every man is careless or timorous, and to trust is safer than to examine.

THESE observations discouraged me, till I began to consider what reception I was like∣ly to find among the ladies, whom I have re∣viewed under the three classes of maids, wives, and widows, and cannot but hope that I may obtain some countenance among them. The single ladies I suppose universally ready to patronize my method, by which connubial wickedness may be detected, since no woman marries with a previous design to be un∣faithful to her husband. And to keep them stea∣dy in my cause, I promise never to sell one of my magnets to a man who steals a girl from school; marries a woman forty years younger than himself; or employs the authority of parents to obtain a wife without her own consent.

AMONG the married ladies, notwithstand∣ing the insinuations of slander, I yet resolve to believe, that the greater part are my

friends, and am at least convinced, that they who demand the test and appear on my side, will supply by their spirit the deficiency of their numbers, and that their enemies will shrink and quake at the sight of a magnet, as the slaves of Scythia fled from the scourge.

THE widows will be confederated in my favour by their curiosity, if not by their vir∣tue; for it may be observed, that women who have out-lived their husbands, always think themselves entitled to superintend the conduct of young wives; and as they are themselves in no danger from this magnetick trial, I shall expect them to be eminently and unanimously zealous in recommending it.

WITH these hopes I shall, in a short time, offer to sale magnets armed with a par∣ticular metallick composition, which con∣centrates their virtue, and determines their agency. It is known that the efficacy of the magnet in common operations depends much upon its armature, and it cannot be imagined, that, a stone, naked or cased only in the common manner, will discover the vir∣tues ascribed to it by rabbi Abraham. The

secret of this metal I shall carefully conceal, and, therefore, am not afraid of imitators, nor shall trouble the offices with solicitations for a patent.

I SHALL sell them of different sizes, and various degrees of strength. I have some of a bulk proper to be hung at the bed's head, as scare-crows, and some so small that they may be easily concealed. Some I have ground into oval forms to be hung at watches; and some for the curious, I have set in wedding∣rings, that ladies may never want an attesta∣tion of their innocence. Some I can pro∣duce so sluggish and inert, that they will not act before the third failure; and others so vi∣gorous and animated, that they exert their influence against unlawful wishes, if they have been willingly and deliberately indulged. As it is my practice, honestly to tell my cu∣stomers the properties of my magnets, I can judge by their choice of the delicacy of their sentiments. Many have been contented to spare cost by purchasing only the lowest de∣gree of efficacy, and all have started with terror from those which operate upon the thoughts. One young lady only sitted on a

ring of the strongest energy, and declared, that she scorned to separate her wishes from her acts, or allow herself to think what she was forbidden to practise.

I am, &c. HERMETICUS.

NUMB. 200. SATURDAY, Feb. 15, 1752.

Nemo petit modicis quae mittebantur amicis A Seneca, quae Piso bonus, quae Cotta solebat Largiri, nempe et titulis et fascibus olim Major habebatur donandi gloria; solum Poscimus ut caenes civiliter; hoc face, et esto Esto, ut nunc multi, dives tibi, pauper amicis.

JUV.

To the RAMBLER.

Mr. RAMBLER,

SUCH is the tenderness or infirmity of many minds, that when any affliction oppresses them, they have immediate recourse

to lamentation and complaint, which, though it can only be allowed reasonable when evils admit of remedy, and then only when ad∣dressed to those from whom the remedy is ex∣pected, yet seems even in hopeless and incu∣rable distresses to be natural, since those by whom it is not indulged, imagine that they give a proof of extraordinary fortitude by suppressing it.

I AM one of those who, with the Sancho of Cervantes, leave to higher characters the merit of suffering in silence, and give vent without scruple to any sorrow that swells in my heart. It is therefore to me a severe aggravation of a calamity, when it is such as in the common opinion will not justify the acerbity of excla∣mation, or support the solemnity of vocal grief. Yet many pains are incident to a man of delicacy, which the unfeeling world can∣not be persuaded to pity, and which, when they are separated from their peculiar and per∣sonal circumstances, will never be considered as important enough to claim attention, or deserve redress.

OF this kind will appear to gross and vul∣gar apprehensions, the miseries which I en∣dured in a morning visit to Prospero, a man lately raised by a lucky project to wealth and grandeur, and too much intoxicated by sudden elevation, or too little polished by thought and conversation to enjoy his present fortune with elegance and decency.

WE set out in the world together; and for a long time mutually assisted each other in our exigencies, as either happened to have money or influence beyond his immediate necessities. You know that nothing generally endears men so much as participation of dangers and mis∣fortunes, I therefore always considered Pros∣pero as united with me in the strongest league of kindness, and imagined that our friendship was only to be broken by the hand of death. I felt at his sudden shoot of success an honest and disinterested joy, but as I want no part of his superfluities, am not willing to descend from that equality in which we hitherto have lived.

OUR intimacy was regarded by me as a dispensation from ceremonial visits; and it

was so long before I saw him at his new house, that he gently complained of my neg∣lect, and obliged me to come on a day ap∣pointed. I kept my promise, but found that the impatience of my friend arose not from any desire to communicate his happiness, but to enjoy his superiority.

WHEN I told my name at the door; the footman went to see if his master was at home, and, by the tardiness of his return, gave me reason to suspect that time was taken to deliberate. He then informed me, that Prospero desired my company and showed the staircase carefully secured by mats from the pollution of my feet. The best apartments were ostentatiously set open, that I might have a distant view of the magnificence which I was not permitted to approach, and my old friend receiving me with all the insolence of condescension at the top of the stairs, con∣ducted me to a back room, where he told me he always breakfasted when he had not great company.

ON the floor where we sat, lay a carpet covered with a cloth, of which Prospero or∣dered

his servant to lift up a corner, that I might contemplate the brightness of the co∣lours, and the elegance of the texture, and asked me whether I had ever seen any thing so fine before. I did not gratify his folly with any outcries of admiration, but coldly bad the footman let down the cloth.

WE then sat down, and I began to hope that pride was glutted with persecution, when Prospero desired that I would give the servant leave to adjust the cover of my chair, which was slipt a little aside to show the damask; he informed me that he had bespoke ordinary chairs for common use, but had been disap∣pointed by his tradesman. I put the chair aside with my foot, and drew another so ha∣stily that I was entreated not to rumple the carpet.

BREAKFAST was at last set, and as I was not willing to indulge the peevishness that be∣gan to seize me, I commended the tea; Pros∣pero then told me, that another time I should taste his sinest sort, but that he had only a very small quantity remaining, and reserved

it for those whom he thought himself obliged to treat with particular respect.

WHILE we were conversing upon such subjects as imagination happened to suggest, he frequently digressed into directions to the servant that waited, or made a slight enquiry after the jeweller or silversmith; and once as I was pursuing an argument with some de∣gree of earnestness, he started from his po∣sture of attention, and ordered, that if lord Lofty called on him that morning, he should be shewn into the best parlour.

MY patience was not yet wholly subdued. I was willing to promote his satisfaction, and therefore observed, that the figures on the china were eminently pretty. Prospero had now an opportunity of calling for his Dresden china, which, says he, I always associate with my chased tea-kettle. The cups were brought; I was once disposed not to have looked upon them, but my curiosity prevailed. When I had examined them a little, Prospero desired me to set them down, for they who were accustomed only to common dishes, seldom handled china with much care. You will,

I hope, commend my philosophy, when I tell you that I did not dash his baubles to the ground.

HE was now so much elevated with his own greatness, that he thought some humi∣lity necessary to avert the glance of envy, and therefore told me with an air of soft compo∣sure, that I was not to estimate life by exter∣nal appearance, that all these shining acqui∣sitions had added little to his happiness, that he still remembered with pleasure the days in which he and I were upon the level, and had often in the moment of reflection been doubt∣ful, whether he should lose much by changing his condition for mine.

I BEGAN now to be afraid lest his pride should, by silence and submission, be embolden∣ed to insults that could not easily be born, and, therefore, cooly considered, how I should re∣press it without such bitterness of repoof as I was yet unwilling to use. But he interrupted my meditation by asking leave to be dressed, and told me, that he had promised to attend some ladies in the park, and, if I was going the same way, would take me in his chariot.

I had no inclination to any other favours, and, therefore, left him without any inten∣tion of seeing him again, unless some mis∣fortune should restore his understanding.

I am, &c. ASPER.

THOUGH I am not wholly insensible of the provocations which my correspondent has received, I cannot altogether commend the keenness of his resentment, nor encourage him to persist in his resolution of breaking off all commerce with his old acquaintance. One of the golden precepts of Pythagoras di∣rects that a friend should not be hated for little faults; and surely, he, upon whom nothing worse can be charged, than that he mats his stairs, and covers his carpet, and sets out his finery to show before those whom he does not admit to use it, has yet committed nothing that should exclude him from common de∣grees of kindness. Such improprieties often proceed rather from stupidity than malice. Those who thus shine only to dazzle, are in∣fluenced merely by custom and example, and neither examine, nor are qualified to exa∣mine,

the motives of their own practice, or to state the nice limits between elegance and ostentation. They are often innocent of the pain which their vanity produces, and insult others when they have no worse purpose than to please themselves.

HE that too much refines his delicacy will always endanger his quiet. Of those with whom nature and virtue oblige us to converse, some are ignorant of the arts of pleasing, and offend when they design to caress; some are negligent, and gratify themselves without re∣gard to the quiet of another; some, perhaps, are malicious, and feel no greater satisfaction in prosperity, than that of raising envy and trampling inferiority. But whatever be the motive of insult, it is always best to over∣look it, for folly scarcely can deserve resent∣ment, and malice is punished by neglect.

NUMB. 201. TUESDAY, Feb. 18, 1752.

—Sanctus haberi Promissique tenax dictis factisque mercris? Agnosco Procerem.

JUV.

IT is observed in the writings of Boyle, that the excellency of manufactures, and the facility of labour, would be much pro∣moted, if the various expedients and contri∣vances which lie concealed in private hands, were by reciprocal communications made ge∣nerally known; for there are few operations that are not performed by one or other with some peculiar advantages, which though sing∣ly of little importance, would by conjunction and concurrence open new inlets to know∣ledge, and give new powers to diligence.

THERE are in like manner several moral excellencies distributed among the various classes of mankind, which he that converses in the world should endeavour to assemble in himself. It was said by the learned Cujacius, that he never read more than one book, by

which he was not instructed; and he that shall enquire after virtue with ardour and at∣tention, will seldom find a man by whose example or sentiments he may not be im∣proved.

EVERY profession has some effential and appropriate Virtue, without which there can be no hope of honour or success, and which as it is more or less cultivated, confers within its sphere of activity different degrees of me∣rit and reputation. As the astrologers range the subdivisions of mankind under the planets which they suppose to influence their lives, the moralist may distribute them according to the virtues which they necessarily practise, and consider them as distinguished by prudence or fortitude, diligence or patience.

So much are the modes of excellence set∣tled by time and place, that men may be heard boasting in one street of that which they would anxiously conceal in another. The grounds of scorn and esteem, the to∣picks of praise and satire are varied according to the several virtues or vices which the course of our lives has disposed us to admire or ab∣hor;

but he who is solicitous for his own im∣provement, must not suffer his endeavours to be limited by local reputation, but select from every tribe of mortals their characteristical virtues, and constellate in himself the scat∣tered graces which shine single in other men.

THE chief praise to which a trader gene∣rally aspires is that of punctuality, or an ex∣act and rigorous observance of commercial promises and engagements; nor is there any vice of which he so much dreads the impu∣tation, as of negligence and instability. This is a quality which the interest of mankind re∣quires to be diffused through all the ranks of life, but which, however useful and valuable, many seem content to want; it is considered as a vulgar and ignoble virtue, below the am∣bition of greatness or attention of wit, scarce∣ly requisite among men of gaiety and spirit, and sold at its highest rate when it is sacrificed to a frolick or a jest.

EVERY man has daily occasion to remark what vexations and inconveniences arise from this privilege of deceiving one another. The active and vivacious have so long disdained

the restraints of truth, that promises and ap∣pointments have lost their cogency, and both parties neglect their stipulations, because each concludes that they will be broken by the other.

NEGLIGENCE is first admitted in trivial affairs, and strengthened by petty indulgencies. He that is not yet hardened by custom ven∣tures not on the violation of important en∣gagements, but thinks himself bound by his word in cases of property or danger, though he allows himself to forget at what time he is to meet ladies in the park, or at what tavern his friends are expecting him.

THIS laxity of honour would be more to∣lerable if it could be restrained to the play-house, the ball-room, or the card-table; yet even there it is sufficiently troublesome, and darkens those moments with expectation, sus∣pense, uncertainty, and resentment, which are set aside for the softer pleasures of life, and from which we naturally hope for un∣mingled enjoyment, and total relaxation. But he that suffers the slightest breach in his mo∣rality, can seldom tell what shall enter it, or

how wide it shall be made; when a passage is opened, the influx of corruption is every mo∣ment wearing down opposition, and by slow degrees deluges the heart.

ALIGER entered the world a youth of lively imagination, extensive views, and un∣tainted principles. His curiosity incited him to range from place to place, and try all the varieties of conversation; his elegance of ad∣dress and fertility of ideas, gained him friends wherever he appeared; or at least he found the general kindness of reception always shown to a young man whose birth and fortune give him a claim to notice, and who has neither by vice or folly destroyed his privileges. Aliger was pleased with this general smile of man∣kind, and being naturally gentle and flexible was industrious to preserve it by compliance and officiousness, but did not suffer his desire of pleasing to vitiate his integrity. It was his established maxim, that a promise is never to be broken; nor was it without long reluc∣tance that he once suffered himself to be drawn away from a festal engagement by the impor∣tunity of another company.

HE spent the evening, as is usual in the rudiments of vice, with perturbation and im∣perfect enjoyment, and met his disappointed friends in the morning, with confusion and excuses. His companions not accustomed to such scrupulous anxiety, laughed at his unea∣siness, compounded the offence for a bottle, gave him courage to break his word again, and again levied the penalty. He ventured the same experiment upon another society, and found them equally ready to consider it as a venial fault, always incident to a man of quickness and gaiety; till by degrees, he be∣gan to think himself at liberty to follow the last invitation, and was no longer shocked at the turpitude of falshood. He made no dif∣ficulty to promise his presence at distant places, and if listlesness happened to creep upon him, would sit at home with great tranquility, and has often, while he sunk to sleep in a chair, held ten tables in continual expectations of his entrance.

HE found it so pleasant to live in perpetual vacancy, that he soon dismissed his attention as an useless incumbrance, and resigned him∣self to carelesness and dissipation, without any

regard to the future or the past, or any other motive of action than the impulse of a sudden desire, or the attraction of immediate plea∣sure. The absent were immediately forgotten, and the hopes or fears of others, had no in∣fluence upon his conduct. He was in specu∣lation compleatly just, but never kept his promise to a creditor; he was benevolent, but always deceived those friends whom he undertook to patronize or assist; he was pru∣dent, but suffered his affairs to be embarrassed for want of settling his accounts at stated times. He courted a young lady, and when the settlements were drawn, took a ramble into the country on the day appointed to sign them. He resolved to travel, and sent his chests on shipboard, but delayed to follow them till he lost his passage. He was sum∣moned as an evidence in a cause of great im∣portance, and loitered on the way till the trial was past. It is said, that when he had with great expence formed an interest in a borough, his opponent contrived by some agents, who knew his temper, to lure him away on the day of election.

HIS benevolence draws him into the com∣mission of a thousand crimes, which others less kind or civil, would escape. His courtesy invites application, his promises produce de∣pendence; he has his pockets filled with pe∣titions, which he intends some time to deliver and enforce, and his table covered with letters of request, with which he purposes to com∣ply; but time slips imperceptibly away, while he is either idle or busy; his friends lose their opportunities, and charge upon him their mis∣carriages and calamities.

THIS character however contemptible, is not peculiar to Aliger. They whose activity of imagination is often shifting the scenes of expectation, are frequently subject to such sal∣lies of caprice as make all their actions for∣tuitous, destroy the value of their friendship, obstruct the efficacy of their virtues, and set them below the meanest of those that persist in their resolutions, execute what they design, and perform what they have promised.

NUMB. 202. SATURDAY, Feb. 22, 1752.

〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉

CALLIMACHUS.

AMONG those who have endeavoured the promotion of learning, and the rectification of judgment, it has been long customary to complain of the abuse of words, which are often admitted to signify things so different, that, instead of assisting the under∣standing as vehicles of knowledge, they pro∣duce error, dissention, and perplexity, because what is affirmed in one sense, is received in another.

IF this ambiguity sometimes embarrasses the most solemn controversies, and obscures the demonstrations of science, it may well be expected to infest the pompous periods of declaimers, whose purpose is often only to amuse with fallacies, and change the co∣lours

of truth and falshood; or the musical compositions of poets, whose stile is professed∣ly figurative, and whose art is imagined to consist in distorting words from their original meaning.

THERE are few words, of which more readers believe themselves to know the import than of poverty, yet whoever studies the poets and philosophers, will find such an account of the condition expressed by that term as his experience or observation will not easily dis∣cover to be true. Instead of the meanness, distress, complaint, anxiety, and dependance which have hitherto been combined in his ideas of poverty, he will read of content, innocence, and chearfulness, of health, and safety, tranquility, and freedom; of pleasures not known but to men unencumbered with possessions; and of sleep that sheds his bal∣samick anodynes only on the cottage. Such are the blessings to be obtained by the resigna∣tion of riches, that kings might descend from their thrones, and generals retire from a tri∣umph, only to slumber undisturbed in the cly∣sium of poverty.

IF these authors do not deceive us, nothing can be more absurd than that perpetual con∣test for wealth which keeps the world in com∣motion, and fills almost every mind with stra∣tagems and competition; nor can any com∣plaints be more justly censured than those which proceed from want of the gifts of for∣tune, which we are taught by the great ma∣sters of moral wisdom to consider as golden shackles, by which the wearer is at once dis∣abled and adorned; as luscious poisons which may for a time please the palate, but soon betray their malignity by languor and by pain.

IT is the great privilege of poverty to be happy unenvied, to be healthful without phy∣sic, and secure without a guard; to obtain from the bounty of nature, what the great and wealthy are compelled to procure by the help of artists and attendants, of flatterers and spies.

BUT it will be found upon a nearer view, that they who extol the happiness of poverty, do not mean the same state with those who deplore its miseries. Poets have their imagi∣nations

filled with ideas of magnificence; and being accustomed to contemplate the downfal of empires, or to contrive forms of lamenta∣tion for monarchs in distress, rank all the classes of mankind in a state of poverty, who make no approaches to the dignity of crowns. To be poor in the epick language, is only not to command the wealth of nations, not to have fleets and armies in pay.

VANITY has perhaps contributed to this impropriety of stile. He that wishes to be∣come a philosopher at a cheap rate, easily gra∣tifies his ambition by submitting to poverty when he does not feel it, and by boasting his contempt of riches, when he has already more than he enjoys. He who would show the extent of his views, and grandeur of his conceptions, or discover his acquaintance with splendor and magnificence, may talk like Cowley of an humble station and quiet ob∣scurity, of the paucity of nature's wants, and the inconveniencies of superfluity, and at last, like him, limit his desires to five hundred pounds a year: A fortune indeed not exube∣rant when we compare it with the expences of pride and luxury, but to which it little be∣comes

a philosopher to affix the name of po∣verty, since no man can with any propriety be termed poor, who does not see the greater part of mankind richer than himself.

AS little is the general condition of human life understood by panegyrists and historians, who amuse us with accounts of the poverty of heroes and sages. Riches are of no value in themselves, their use is discovered only in that which they procure. They are not co∣veted, unless by a few narrow understandings which confound the means with the end, but for the sake of power, influence, and esteem; or, by some of less elevated and refined senti∣ments, as necessary to sensual enjoyment.

THE pleasures of luxury, many have, without uncommon virtue, been able to de∣spise, even when affluence and idleness have concurred to tempt them; and therefore he who feels nothing from indigence but the want of gratifications which he could not in any other condition make consistent with in∣nocence, has given no proof of eminent pa∣tience. Esteem and influence every man de∣sires, but they are equally pleasing, and equal∣ly

valuable, by whatever means they are ob∣tained; and whoever has found the art of securing them without the help of money, ought, in reality, to be accounted rich, since he has all that riches can purchase to a wise man. Cincinnatus, though he lived upon a few acres cultivated by his own hand, was sufficiently removed from all the evils gene∣rally comprehended under the name of po∣verty, when his reputation was such that the voice of his country called him from his farm to take absolute command into his hand; nor was Diogenes much mortified by his residence in a tub, where he was honoured with the visit of Alexander the great.

THE same fallacy has conciliated venera∣tion to the religious orders. When we be∣hold a man abdicating the hope of terrestrial possessions, and precluding himself by an ir∣revocable vow from the pursuit and acquisi∣tion of all that his fellow beings consider as worthy of wishes and endeavours, we are immediately struck with the purity, abstrac∣tion, and firmness of his mind, and regard him as wholly employed in securing the inte∣rests of futurity, and devoid of any other care

than to gain at whatever price the surest pas∣sage to eternal rest.

YET what can the votary be justly said to have lost of his present happiness. If he re∣sides in a convent, he converses only with men whose condition is the same with his own; he has from the munificence of the founder all the necessaries of life, and is safe from that destitution, which Hooker declares to be such an impediment to virtue as, till it be removed, suffereth not the mind of man to ad∣mit any other care. All temptations to envy and competition are shut out from his re∣treat; he is not pained with the sight of un∣attainable dignity, nor insulted with the blu∣ster of insolence, or the smile of forced fa∣miliarity. If he wanders abroad, the sancti∣ty of his character amply compensates all other distinctions, he is never seen but with reverence, nor heard but with obedience.

IT has been remarked, that death, though often desied in the field, seldom fails to ter∣rify when it approaches the bed of sickness in its natural horror; so poverty may easily

be endured, while associated with dignity and reputation, but will always be shunned and dreaded, when it is accompanied with igno∣miny and contempt.

NUMB. 203. TUESDAY, Feb. 25, 1752.

Cum volet illa dies, quae nil nisi corporis hujus Jus habet, incerti Spatium mihi finiat aevi.

OVID.

IT seems to be the fate of man to seek all his consolations in futurity. The time present is seldom able to fill desire or imagi∣nation with immediate enjoyment, and we are forced to supply its deficiences by recol∣lection or anticipation.

EVERY one has so often detected the fal∣laciousness of hope, and the inconvenience of teaching himself to expect what a thousand accidents may preclude, that, when time has abated the confidence with which youth rushes out to take possession of the world, we en∣deavour,

or wish, to find entertainment in the review of life, and to repose upon real facts, and certain experience. This is per∣haps one reason among many, why age de∣lights in narratives.

BUT so full is the world of calamity, that every source of pleasure is polluted, and eve∣ry retirement of tranquillity disturbed. When time has supplied us with events sufficient to employ our thoughts, it has mingled them with so many disasters, that we shrink from their remembrance, dread their intrusion up∣on our minds, and fly from them to company and diversions.

No man past the middle point of life can sit down to feast upon the pleasures of youth without finding the banquet imbittered by the cup of sorrow. Many days of harmless fro∣lick, or nights of honest festivity will per∣haps recur; he may revive lucky accidents, and pleasing extravagancies; or, if he has been engaged in scenes of action, and ac∣quainted with affairs of difficulty and vicissi∣tudes of fortune, may enjoy the nobler plea∣sure of looking back upon distress firmly sup∣ported,

danger resolutely encountered, and opposition artfully defeated. Eneas properly comforts his companions, when after the hor∣rors of a storm they have landed on an un∣known and desolate country, with the hope that their miseries will be at some distant time recounted with delight. There are few higher gratifications than that of reflection on sur∣mounted evils, when they were not incurred nor protracted by our fault, and neither re∣proached us with cowardice, nor guilt.

BUT this felicity is almost always abated by the reflection, that they, with whom we should be most pleased to share it, are now in the grave. A few years make such havock in human generations, that we soon see our∣selves deprived of those with whom we enter∣ed the world, and whom the participation of pleasures or fatigues endeared to our remem∣brance. The man of enterprise, recounts his adventures and expedients, but is forced at the close of the relation to pay a sign to the names of those that contributed to his success; he that passes his life among the gayer part of mankind, has quickly his remembrance stored with remarks and repartees of wits, whose

sprightliness and merriment are now lost in perpetual silence; the trader whose industry has supplied the want of inheritance, when he sits down to enjoy his fortune, repines in solitary plenty at the absence of companions with whom he had planned out amusements for his latter years; and the scholar whose merit, after a long series of efforts raises him from obscurity, looks round in vain from his exaltation for his old friends or enemies, whose applause or mortification would heighten his triumph.

AMONG Martial's requisites to happiness is, Res non parta labore sed relicta, an estate not gained by industry but left by inheritance. It is necessary to the completion of every good, that it be timely obtained, for what∣ever comes at the close of life, will come too late to give much delight. Yet all human happiness, has its imperfections. Of what we do not gain for ourselves we have only a faint and imperfect fruition, because we can∣not compare the difference between want and possession, or at least can derive from it no conviction of our own abilities, nor any en∣crease of self esteem; what we acquire by

bravery or science, by mental or corporeal di∣ligence, comes at last when we cannot com∣municate, and therefore cannot enjoy it.

THUS every period of life is obliged to borrow its happiness from the time to come. In youth we have nothing past to entertain us, and in age, we derive little from retrospect but hopeless sorrow. Yet the future likewise has its limits, which the imagination dreads to approach, but which we know to be not far distant. The loss of our friends and companions, impresses hourly upon us the ne∣cessity of our own departure: We know that the schemes of man are quickly at an end, that we must soon lie down in the grave with the forgotten multitudes of former ages, and yield our place to others, who, like us, shall be driven awhile by hope or fear about the sur∣face of the earth, and then like us be lost in the shades of death.

BEYOND this termination of our corporeal existence, we are therefore obliged to extend our hopes, and almost every man indulges his imagination with something, which is not to happen till he has changed his manner of ex∣istence:

Some amuse themselves with entails and settlements, provide for the encrease and perpetuation of families and honours, or con∣trive to obviate the dissipation of the fortunes, which it has been their business to accumu∣late: Others more refined or exalted congra∣tulate their own hearts upon the future ex∣tent of their reputation, the reverence of di∣stant nations, and the gratitude of unpreju∣diced posterity.

THEY whose souls are so chained down to coffers and tenements, that they cannot conceive a state in which they shall look upon them with less solicitude, are seldom atten∣tive to remonstrance, or flexible to argu∣ments; but the votaries of fame are capa∣ble of reflection, and, therefore, may be fitly called to reconsider the probability of their expectations.

WHETHER to be remembered in remote times be worthy of a wise man's wish, has not yet been satisfactorily decided, and in∣deed, to be long remembered, can happen to so small a number, that the bulk of mankind has very little interest in the question. There

is never room in the world for more than a certain quantity, or measure of renown. The necessary business of life, the immediate plea∣sures or pains of every condition, leave us not leisure beyond a fixed proportion for contem∣plations which do not forcibly influence our present welfare. When this vacuity is filled no characters can be admitted into the circu∣lation of fame, but by occupying the place of some that must be thrust into oblivion. The eye of the mind, like that of the body, can only extend its view to new objects, by losing sight of those which are now be∣fore it.

REPUTATION is therefore a meteor which blazes a while and disappears for ever; and if we except a few transcendent and invincible names, which no revolutions of opinion or length of time is able to suppress; all those that engage our thoughts, or diversify our conversation, are every moment hasting to obscurity, as new favourites are adopted by fashion.

IT is not therefore from this world that any ray of comfort can procede, to cheer the

gloom of the last hour. But futurity has still its prospects; there is yet happiness in re∣serve, which, if we transfer our attention to it, will support us in the pains of disease, and the languor of decay. This happiness we may expect with confidence, because it is out of the power of chance, and may be attained by all that sincerely desire and earnestly pur∣sue it. On this therefore every mind ought finally to rest. Hope is the chief blessing of man, and that hope only is rational, of which we are certain that it cannot deceive us.

NUMB. 204. SATURDAY, Feb. 29, 1752.

Nemo tam divos habuit faventes, Crastinum ut possit sibi polliceri.

SENECA.

SEGED lord of Ethiopia, to the inhabi∣tants of the world: To the sons of pre∣sumption, humility, and fear, and to the daugh∣ters of sorrow, content and acquiescence.

THUS in the twenty-seventh year of his reign, spoke Seged, the monarch of forty na∣tions, the distributer of the waters of the Nile. "At length, Seged, thy toils are at an end, thou hast reconciled disaffection, thou hast suppressed rebellion, thou hast pacified the jealousies of thy courtiers, thou hast chased war from thy confines, and erected for∣tresses in the lands of thy enemies. All who have offended thee, tremble in thy presence, and wherever thy voice is heard, it is obeyed. Thy throne is surrounded by armies, numerous as the locusts of the summer, and resistless as the blasts of pesti∣lence. Thy magazines are stored with ammunition, thy treasuries overflow with the tribute of conquered kingdoms. Plen∣ty waves upon thy fields, and opulence glitters in thy cities. Thy nod is as the earthquake that shakes the mountains, and thy smile as the dawn of the vernal day. In thy hand is the strength of thousands, and thy health is the health of millions. Thy palace is gladdened by the song of praise, and thy path perfumed by the breath of benediction. Thy subjects gaze upon thy greatness, and think of danger or mi∣sery

no more. Why, Seged, wilt not thou partake the blessings thou bestowest? Why shouldst thou only forbear to rejoice in this general felicity? Why should thy heart be heavy with fear, or thy face cloud∣ed with anxiety, when the meanest of those who call thee sovereign, gives the day to festivity, and the night to peace. At length, Seged, reflect and be wise. What is the gift of conquest but safety, why are riches collected but to purchase happiness?"

SEGED then ordered his house of plea∣sure, built in an island of the lake Dambia to be prepared for his reception. "I will retire, says he, for ten days from tumult and care, from counsels and decrees. Long quiet is not the lot of the governors of na∣tions, but a cessation of ten days cannot be denied me. This short interval of happi∣ness, may surely be secured from the inter∣ruption of fear or perplexity, sorrow on disappointment. I will exclude all trouble from my abode, and remove from my thoughts whatever may confuse the harmo∣ny of the concert, or abate the sweetness

of the banquet. I will fill the whole capa∣city of my soul with enjoyment, and try what it is to live without a wish unsa∣tisfied."

IN a few days the orders were performed, and Seged hasted to the palace of Dambia, which stood in an island cultivated only for pleasure, planted with every flower that spreads its colours to the sun, and every shrub that sheds fragrance in the air. In one part of this extensive garden, were open walks for excursions in the morning, in another, thick groves, and silent arbours, and bubbling foun∣tains for repose at noon. All that could so∣lace the sense, or flatter the fancy, all that industry could extort from nature, or wealth furnish to art, all that conquest could seize, or beneficence attract, was collected together, and every perception of delight was excited and gratified.

INTO this delicious region Seged summoned all the persons of his court, who seemed emi∣nently qualified to receive, or communicate pleasure. His call was readily obeyed; the young, the fair, the vivacious, and the witty,

were all in haste to be sated with felicity. They sailed jocund over the lake, which seemed to smooth its surface before them: Their passage was cheered with musick, and their hearts dilated with expectation.

SEGED landing here with his band of pleasure, determined from that hour to break off all acquaintance with discontent, to give his heart for ten days to ease and jollity, and then fall back to the common state of man, and suffer his life to be diversified, as before, with joy and sorrow.

HE immediately entered his chamber, to consider where he should begin his circle of happiness. He had all the artists of delight before him, but knew not whom to call, since he could not enjoy one, but by delaying the performance of another. He chose and re∣jected, he resolved and changed his resolu∣tion, till his faculties were harrassed, and his thoughts confused; then returned to the ap∣partment where his presence was expected, with languid eyes and clouded countenance, and spread the infection of uneasiness over the whole assembly. He observed their depression,

and was offended, for he found his vexation en∣creased by those whom he expected to dissipate and relieve it. He retired again to his private chamber, and sought for consolation in his own mind; one thought flowed in upon ano∣ther; a long succession of images seized his attention; the moments crept imperceptibly away through the gloom of pensiveness, till having recovered his tranquility, he lifted up his head, and saw the lake brightened by the setting sun. "Such, said Seged sighing, is the longer day of human existence: Be∣fore we have learned to use it, we find it at an end."

THE regret, which he felt for the loss of so great a part of his first day, took from him all inclination to enjoy the evening; and, af∣ter having endeavoured for the sake of his attendants to force an air of gaiety, and ex∣cite that mirth which he could not share, he resolved to refer his hopes to the next morn∣ing, and lay down upon his bed, to partake with the slaves of labour and poverty the bles∣sing of sleep.

HE rose early the second morning, and re∣solved now to be happy. He therefore fixed

upon the gate of the palace an edict im∣porting, that whoever, during nine days, should appear in the presence of the king with dejected countenance, or utter any ex∣pression of discontent or sorrow, should be driven for ever from the palace of Dambia.

THIS edict was immediately made known in every chamber of the court, and bower of the gardens. Mirth was frighted away, and they who were before dancing in the lawns, or singing in the shades, were at once en∣gaged in the care of regulating their looks, that Seged might find his will punctually obey∣ed, and see none among them liable to ba∣nishment.

SEGED now met every face settled in a smile; but a smile that betrayed solicitude, timidity, and constraint. He accosted his fa∣vourites with familiarity and softness; but they durst not speak without premeditation, lest they should be convicted of discontent or sorrow. He proposed diversions, to which no objection was made, because objection would have implied uneasiness; but they were regarded with indifference by the courtiers,

who had no other desire than to signalize themselves by clamorous exultation. He of∣fered various topics of conversation, but ob∣tained only forced jests, and laborious laugh∣ter, and after many attempts to animate them to confidence and alacrity, was obliged to confess to himself the impotence of command, and resign another day to grief and disappoint∣ment.

HE at last relieved his companions from their terrors, and shut himself up in his cham∣ber to ascertain, by some different measures, the felicity of the succeeding days. At length, he threw himself on the bed and closed his eyes, but imagined in his sleep, that his pa∣lace and gardens were overwhelmed by an inundation, and waked with all the terrors of a man struggling in the water. He composed himself again to rest, but was disturbed by an imaginary irruption into his kingdom, and striving, as is usual in dreams, without abi∣lity to move, fancied himself betrayed to his enemies, and again started up with horror and indignation.

IT was now day, and fear was so strongly impressed on his mind, that he could sleep no more. He rose, but his thoughts were filled with the deluge and invasion, nor was he able to disengage his attention, or mingle with vacancy or ease in any amusement. At length his perturbation gave way to reason, and he resolved no longer to be harrassed by a dream; but before this resolution could be completely formed, half the day had elapsed: He felt a new conviction of the uncertainty of all human schemes, and could not forbear to bewail the frailty and weakness of that being, whose quiet could be interrupted by vapours of the fancy. Having been first dis∣turbed by a dream, he was afterwards grieved that a dream could disturb him. He at last discovered, that his terrors and grief were equally vain, and, that to lose the present in lamenting the past, was voluntarily to pro∣tract a melancholy vision. The third day was now declining, and Seged again resolved to be happy on the morrow.

NUMB. 205. TUESDAY, March 3, 1752.

—Volat ambiguis Mobilis alis hora, nec ulli Praestat velox Fortuna fidem.

SEN.

ON the fourth morning Seged rose early, refreshed with sleep, vigorous with health, and eager with expectation. He en∣tered the garden attended by the princes and ladies of his court, and seeing nothing about him but airy cheerfulness, began to say to his heart, "This day shall be a day of pleasure." The sun played upon the water, the birds warbled in the groves, and the gales quivered among the branches. He roved from walk to walk as chance directed him, and sometimes listened to the songs, sometimes mingled with the dancers, sometimes let loose his imagi∣nation in flights of merriment; and some∣times uttered grave reflections, and senten∣tious maxims, and feasted on the admiration with which they were received.

THUS the day rolled on, without any ac∣cident of vexation or intrusion of melancholy thoughts. All that beheld him caught glad∣ness from his looks, and the sight of happi∣ness conferred by himself filled his heart with satisfaction: But having passed three hours in this harmless luxury, he was alarmed on a sudden by an universal scream among the wo∣men, and turning back, saw the whole assem∣bly flying in confusion. A young crocodile had risen out of the lake, and was ranging the garden in wantonness or hunger. Seged beheld him with indignation, as a disturber of his felicity, and chased him back into the lake, but could not persuade his retinue to stay, or free their hearts from the terror which had seized upon them. The princesses in∣closed themselves in the palace, and could yet scarcely believe themselves in safety. Eve∣ry attention was fixed upon the late danger and escape, and no mind was any longer at lei∣sure for gay sallies or careless prattle.

SEGED had now no other employment than to contemplate the innumerable casual∣ties which lie in ambush on every side to in∣tercept the happiness of man, and break in

upon the hour of delight and tranquility. He had however, the consolation of thinking, that he had not been now disappointed by his own fault, and that the accident, which had blasted the hopes of the day, might easily be prevented by future caution.

THAT he might provide for the pleasure of the next morning, he resolved to repeal his penal edict, since he had already found that discontent and melancholy were not to be frighted away by the threats of authority, and that pleasure would only reside where she was exempted from control. He therefore invited all the companions of his retreat to unbounded pleasantry, by proposing prizes for those who should on the following day distin∣guish themselves by any festive performances; the tables of the antichamber were covered with gold and pearls, and robes and garlands, decreed the rewards of those who could refine elegance or heighten pleasure.

AT this display of riches every eye imme∣diately sparkled, and every tongue was busied in celebrating the bounty and magnificence of the emperor. But when Seged entered in

hopes of uncommon entertainment from uni∣versal emulation, he found that any passion too strongly agitated, puts an end to that tranquility which is necessary to mirth, and that the mind, that is to be moved by the gentle ventilations of gaiety, must be first smoothed by a total calm. Whatever we ar∣dently wish to gain, we must in the same de∣gree be afraid to lose, and fear and pleasure cannot dwell together.

ALL was now care and solicitude. No∣thing was done or spoken, but with so visible an endeavour at perfection, as always failed to delight, though it sometimes forced admira∣tion: And Seged could not but observe with sorrow, that his prizes had more influence than himself. As the evening approached, the contest grew more earnest, and those who were forced to allow themselves excelled, be∣gan to discover the malignity of defeat, first by angry glances, and at last by contemptu∣ous murmurs. Seged likewise shared the anxiety of the day, for considering himself as obliged to distribute with exact justice the prizes which had been so zealously sought, he durst never remit his attention, but passed

his time in balancing different kinds of me∣rit, and adjusting the claims of all the com∣petitors.

AT last knowing, that no exactness could fatisfy those whose hopes he should disappoint, and thinking that on a day set apart for hap∣piness, it would be cruel to oppress any heart with sorrow, he declared that all had pleased him alike, and dismissed all with presents of equal value.

SEGED saw that his caution had not been able to avoid offence. They who had believed themselves secure of the highest prizes, were not pleased to be levelled with the crowd; and though by the liberality of the king, they received more than his promise had intitled them to expect, they departed un∣satisfied, because they were honoured with no distinction, and wanted an opportunity to triumph in the mortification of their oppo∣nents. "Behold here, said Seged, the con∣dition of him who places his happiness in the happiness of others." He then retired to meditate, and, while the courtiers were

repining at his distributions, saw the fifth sun go down in discontent.

THE next dawn renewed his resolution to be happy. But having learned how little he could effect by settled schemes or preparatory measures, he thought it best to give up one day entirely to chance, and left every one to please and be pleased his own way.

THIS relaxation of regularity diffused a general complacence through the whole court, and the emporor imagined, that he had at last found the secret of obtaining an interval of felicity. But as he was roving in this care∣less assembly with equal carelessness, he over∣heard one of his courtiers in a close arbour murmuring to himself: "What merit has Seged above us, that we should thus fear and obey him, a man, whom, whatever he may have formerly performed, his luxury now shews to have the same weakness with ourselves." This charge affected him the more, as it was uttered by one whom he had always observed among the most abject of his flatterers. At first his indignation prompted him to severity; but reflecting that what

was spoken, without intention to be heard, was to be considered as only thought, and was perhaps but the sudden burst of casu∣al and temporary vexation, he invented some decent pretence to send him away, that his retreat might not be tainted with the breath of envy, and after the struggle of de∣liberation was past, and all desire of revenge utterly suppressed, passed the evening not only with tranquillity, but triumph, though none but himself was conscious of the victory.

THE remembrance of this clemency cheer∣ed the beginning of the seventh day, and no∣thing happened to disturb the pleasure of Seged till looking on the tree that shaded him, he recollected, that under a tree of the same kind he had passed the night after his defeat in the kingdom of Goiama. The reflection on his loss, his dishonour, and the miseries which his subjects suffered from the invader, filled him with sadness. At last he shook off the weight of sorrow, and began to solace him∣self with his usual pleasures, when his tran∣quillity was again disturbed by jealousies which the late contest for the prizes had produced, and which having in vain tried to pacify

them by persuasion, he was forced to silence by command.

ON the eighth morning Seged was awa∣kened early by an unusual hurry in the apart∣ments, and enquiring the cause, was told, that the princess Balkis was seized with sick∣ness. He rose, and calling the physicians found that they had little hope of her reco∣very. Here was an end of jollity: All his thoughts were now upon his daughter, whose eyes he closed on the tenth day.

SUCH were the days which Seged of Ethio∣pia had appropriated to a short respiration from the fatigues of war and the cares of government. This narrative he has bequeath∣ed to future generations, that no man here∣after may presume to say, "This day shall be a day of happiness."

NUMB. 206. SATURDAY, March 7, 1752.

—Propositi nondum pudet, atque eadem est mens, Ut bona summa putes, aliena vivere quadra.

JUV.

WHEN Diogenes was once asked, what kind of wine he liked best? He an∣swered; "That which is drunk at the cost of others."

THOUGH the character of Diogenes has never excited any general zeal of imitation, there are many who resemble him in his taste of wine; many who are frugal, though not abstemious; whose appetites, though too powerful for reason, are kept under restraint by avarice; and to whom all delicacies lose their flavour, when they cannot be obtained but at their own expence.

NOTHING produces more singularity of manners and inconstancy of life, than the conslict of opposite vices in the same mind.

He that uniformly pursues any purpose, whe∣ther good or bad, has a settled principle of action, and as he may always find associates who are travelling the same way, is counte∣nanced by example, and sheltered in the mul∣titude; but he that is actuated at once by contrary desires must move in a direction pe∣culiar to himself, and suffer that reproach which we are naturally inclined to bestow on those who differ from the rest of the world, even without enquiring whether they are worse or better.

YET this conflict of desires sometimes pro∣duces wonderful efforts. To riot in far-setch'd dishes, or surfeit with unexhausted variety, and yet practise the most rigid oeconomy, is surely an art which may justly draw the eyes of mankind upon them whose industry or judgment, has enabled them to attain it. To him, indeed, who is content to break open the chests, or mortgage the manors of his ancestors, that he may hire the ministers of excess at the highest price, gluttony is an easy science; yet we often hear the votaries of luxury, boasting of the elegance which they owe to the taste of others, relating with rap∣ture

the succession of dishes with which their cooks and caterers supply them; and expect∣ing their share of praise with the discoverers of arts and the civilizers of nations. But to shorten the way to convivial happiness, by eating without cost, is a secret hitherto in few hands, but which certainly deserves the curiosity of those whose principal enjoyment is their dinner, and who see the sun rise with no other hope than that they shall fill their bellies before it sets.

OF them that have within my know∣ledge attempted this scheme of happiness, the greater part have been immediately obliged to desist; and some, whom their first attempts flattered with success, were reduced by degrees to a few tables, from which they were at last chased to make way for others, and having long habituated themselves to superfluous plen∣ty, growled away their latter years in discon∣tented competence.

NONE enter the regions of luxury with higher expectations than men of wit, who imagine, that they shall never want a wel∣come to that company whose ideas they can

enlarge, or whose imaginations they can ele∣vate, and believe themselves able to pay for their wine with the mirth which it qualifies them to produce. Full of this opinion they crowd, with little invitation, wherever the smell of a feast allures them, but are seldom encouraged to repeat their visits, being dread∣ed by the pert as rivals, and hated by the dull as disturbers of the company.

No man has been so happy in gaining and keeping the privilege of living at luxurious houses as Gulosulus, who, after thirty years of continual revelry, I as now established by un∣controverted prescription his claim to partake of every entertainment, and whose presence they who aspire to the praise of a sumptuous table, are careful to procure on a day of im∣portance, by sending the invitation a fortnight before.

GULOSULUS entered the world with∣out any eminent degree of merit; but was careful to frequent houses, where persons of rank resorted. By being often seen, he be∣came in time known; and from sitting in the same room, was suffered to mix in idle con∣versation,

or assisted to fill up a vacant hour, when better amusement was not readily to be had. From the coffee-house he was some∣times taken away to dinner; and, as no man refuses the acquaintance of him, whom he sees admitted to familiarity by others of equal dignity, when he had been met at a few ta∣bles, he with less difficulty found the way to more, till at last he was regularly expected to appear wherever preparations are made for a feast, within the circuit of his acquaintance.

WHEN he was thus by accident initiated in luxury, he felt in himself no inclination to retire from a life of so much pleasure, and therefore very seriously considered how he might continue it. Great qualities or un∣common accomplishments he did not find necessary to his design; for he had already seen that they whose merit is allowed ra∣ther enforce respect than attract fondness; and as he thought no folly greater than that of losing a dinner for any other gratification, he often congratulated himself, that he had none of that disgusting excellence which impresses awe upon greatness, and condemns its posses∣sors

to the society of those who are wise or brave and indigent as themselves.

GULOSULUS having never allotted much of his time to books or meditation had no opinion in philosophy or politicks, and was not in danger of injuring his interest by dogmatical positions or violent contradiction. If a dispute arose, he took care to listen with earnest attention, and when either speaker grew vehement and loud turned towards him with eager quickness, and uttered a short phrase of admiration, as if surprised by such cogency of argument as he had never known before. By this silent concession, he gene∣rally preserved in either controvertist such a conviction of his own superiority as inclined him rather to pity than irritate his adversary, and prevented those outrages which are some∣times produced by the rage of defeat or petu∣lance of triumph.

GULOSULUS was never embarrassed but when he was required to declare his sen∣timents before he had been able to discover to which side the master of the house in∣clined,

for it was his invariable rule to adopt the notions of those that invited him.

IT sometimes happens that the insolence of wealth breaks into contemptuousness, or the turbulence of wine requires a vent; and Gulo∣sulus seldom fails of being singled out on such emergencies, as one on whom any experi∣ment of ribaldry may be safely tryed. Some∣times his lordship finds himself inclined to ex∣hibit a specimen of raillery for the diversion of his guests, and Gulosulus always supplies him with a subject of merriment. But he has learned to consider rudeness and indignities as familiarities that entitle him to greater free∣dom: He comforts himself, that those who treat and insult him pay for their laughter, and observes that he keeps his money, and they enjoy their jest.

HIS chief policy consists in selecting some dish from every course, and recommending it to the company, with an air so decisive, that no one ventures to contradict him. By this practice he acquires at a feast a kind of dicta∣torial authority; his taste becomes the stand∣ard of pickles and seasoning, and he is vene∣rated by the professors of epicurism, as the only man who understands the niceties of cookery.

WHENEVER a new sauce is imported, or any innovation made in the culinary system, he procures the earliest intelligence, and the most authentick receipt; and, by communi∣cating his knowledge under proper injunctions of secrecy, gains a right of tasting his own dish whenever it is prepared, that he may tell whether his directions have been fully under∣stood.

BY this method of life Gulosulus has so im∣pressed on his imagination the dignity of feast∣ing that he has no other topic of talk, or sub∣ject of meditation. Others may prate of tro∣picks and the zodiac, his calendar is a bill of fare; he measures the year by successive dain∣ties. The only common places of his memo∣ry are his meals; and if you ask him at what time an event happened, he considers whether he heard it after a dinner of turbot, or veni∣son. He knows, indeed, that those who va∣lue themselves upon sense, learning, or piety, speak of him with contempt; but he considers them as wretches envious or ignorant, who do not know his happiness, or wish to supplant him, and declares to his friends, that he is fully satisfied with his own conduct, since he has fed every day on twenty dishes, and yet doubled his estate.

NUMB. 207. TUESDAY, March 10, 1752.

Solve senescentem mature sanus equum, ne Peccet ad extrenum ridendus.

HOR.

SUCH is the emptiness of human enjoy∣ment, that we are always impatient of the present. Attainment is followed by neg∣lect, and possession by disgust; and the mali∣cious remark of the Greek epigrammatist on marriage may be applied to every other course of life, that its two days of happiness are the first and the last.

FEW moments are more pleasing than those in which the mind is concerting measures for a new undertaking. From the first hint that wakens the fancy to the hour of actual execu∣tion, all is improvement and progress, tri∣umph and felicity. Every hour brings addi∣tions to the original scheme, suggests some new expedient to secure success, or discovers consequential advantages not hitherto foreseen. While preparations are made and materials accumulated, day glides after day through ely∣sian prospects, and the heart dances to the song of hope.

SUCH is the pleasure of projecting, that many content themselves with a succession of

visionary schemes, and wear out their allotted time in the calm amusement of contriving what they never attempt or hope to execute.

OTHERS, not able to feast their imagina∣tion with pure ideas, advance somewhat nearer to the grossness of action, with great diligence collect whatever is requisite to their design, and, after a thousand researches and consulta∣tions, are snatched away by death, as they stand in procinctu waiting for a proper oppor∣tunity to begin.

IF there were no other end of life, than to find some adequate solace for every day, I know not whether any condition could be preferred to that of the man who involves himself in his own thoughts, and never suffers experience to shew him the vanity of speculation; for no sooner are notions reduced to practice, than tranquility and confidence forsake the breast; every day brings its task, and often without bringing abilities to perform it: Difficulties embarrass, uncertainty perplexes, opposition retards, censure exasperates, or neglect de∣presses. We proceed, because we have be∣gun; we complete our design, that the labour already spent may not be vain: but as expec∣tation gradually dies away, the gay smile of

alacrity disappears, we are necessitated to im∣plore severer powers, and trust the event to patience and constancy.

WHEN once our labour has begun, the comfort that enables us to endure it is the prospect of its end; for though in every long work there are some joyous intervals of self∣applause, when the attention is recreated by unexpected facility, and the imagination sooth∣ed by incidental excellencies not comprised in the first plan, yet the toil with which perform∣ance struggles after idea, is so irksome and disgusting, and so frequent is the necessity of resting below that perfection which we ima∣gined within our reach, that seldom any man obtains more from his endeavours than a pain∣ful conviction of his defects, and a continual resuscitation of desires which he feels himself unable to gratify.

SO certainly is weariness and vexation the concomitant of our undertakings, that every man, in whatever he is engaged, consoles him∣self with the hope of change. He that has made his way by assiduity and vigilance to pub∣lick employment, talks among his friends of nothing but the delight of retirement: He, whom the necessity of solitary application se∣cludes

from the world, listens with a beating heart to its distant noises, longs to mingle with living beings, and resolves, when he can regu∣late his hours by his own choice, to take his fill of merriment and diversions, or to display his abilities on the universal theatre, and enjoy the pleasure of distinction and applause.

EVERY desire, however innocent or natu∣ral, grows dangerous as by long indulgence it becomes ascendent in the mind. When we have been much accustomed to consider any thing as capable of giving happiness, it is not easy to restrain our ardour, or to forbear some precipitation in our advances, and irregularity in our persuits. He that has long cultivated the tree, watched the swelling bud, and open∣ing blossom, and pleased himself with compu∣ting how much every sun and shower added to its growth, scarcely stays till the fruit has ob∣tained its maturity, but defeats his own cares by eagerness to reward them. When we have diligently laboured for any purpose, we are willing to believe that we have attained it, and, because we have already done much, too sud∣denly conclude that no more is to be done.

ALL attraction is encreased by the approach of the attracting body. We never find our∣selves

so desirous to finish, as in the latter part of our work, or so impatient of delay, as when we know that delay cannot be long. Part of this unseasonable importunity of dis∣content may be justly imputed to languor and weariness, which must always oppress us more as our toil has been longer continued; but the greater part usually proceeds from frequent contemplation of that ease which we now consider as near and certain, and which, when it has once flattered our hopes, we can∣not suffer to be longer withheld.

THE criticks remark, that in some of the noblest compositions of with the conclusion falls below the vigour and spirit of the first books; and as a genius is not to be degraded by the imputation of human failings, the cause of this declension is commonly sought in the structure of the work, and plausible reasons are given why in the defective part less ornament was necessary, or less could be ad∣mitted. But, perhaps, if the author had been consulted, he would have confessed, that his fancy was tired, and his perseverance broken; that he knew his design to be unfinished, but that, when he saw the end so near, he could no longer refuse to be at rest.

AGAINST the instillations of this frigid opiate, it is necessary to secure the heart by all the considerations which once concurred to kindle the ardour of enterprise. Whatever motive first incited action, has still greater force to stimulate resolution; since he that might have lain still at first in blameless obscu∣rity, cannot afterwards desist but with infamy and reproach. He, whom a doubtful promise of distant good, could encourage to set diffi∣culties at defiance, ought not to remit his vi∣gour, when he has almost obtained his recom∣pence. To faint or loiter, when only the last efforts are required, is to steer the ship through tempests, and abandon it to the winds in sight of land; it is to break the ground and scatter the seed, and at last to neglect the harvest.

THE masters of rhetorick direct, that the most forcible arguments be produced in the lat∣ter part of an oration, lest they should be ef∣faced or perplexed by supervenient images. This precept may be justly extended to the series of life: Nothing is ended with honour, which does not conclude better than it begun. It is not sufficient to maintain the first vigour; for excellence loses its effect upon the mind by custom, as light after a time ceases to dazzle.

Admiration must be continued by that novelty which first produced it, and how much soever is given, there must always be reason to ima∣gine that more remains.

WE not only are naturally most sensible of the last impressions, but such is the unwilling∣ness of mankind to admit supereminent and transcendent merit, that, though it be difficult to obliterate the reproach of faults or miscar∣riages by any subsequent atchievement, how∣ever illustrious, or any course of virtue, how∣ever uniform, yet the reputation, which a long course of success has contributed to raise, may be finally ruined by a single failure, for weak∣ness or error will be always remembered by that malice vanity and envy which it gratifies.

FOR the prevention of that disgrace, which lassitude and negligence may bring at last upon the greatest performances, it is necessary to proportion carefully our labour to our strength. If the design consists of many parts, equally essential, and therefore not to be separated, the only time for caution is before we engage; we must then impartially estimate our powers, and remember, that not to complete our plan, is not to have begun it; and, that nothing is done, while any thing is omitted.

BUT if the task consists in the repetition of single acts, no one of which derives its effi∣cacy from the rest, it may be attempted with less scruple, because there is always opportu∣nity to retreat with honour. The danger is only lest we may expect from the world the indulgence with which most are disposed to treat themselves, and, in the hour of listless∣ness imagine that the diligence of one day will attone for the idleness of another, and that applause begun by approbation will be continued by habit.

HE that is himself weary, will soon weary the public. Let him therefore lay down his employment, whatever it be, who can no longer exert his former activity or attention; let him not endeavour to struggle with cen∣sure, or obstinately crowd the stage till a ge∣neral hiss commands him to depart.

NUMB. 208. SATURDAY, Mar. 14, 1752.

〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 DIOG. LAERT.

TIME, which puts an end to all human pleasures and sorrows, has likewise con∣cluded the labours of the RAMBLER. Having supported for two years the anxious employ∣ment of a periodical writer, and multiplied my essays to six volumes, I have now deter∣mined to desist.

THE reasons of this resolution it is of lit∣tle importance to declare, since justification is unnecessary when no objection is made. I am far from supposing, that the cessation of my performances will raise any inquiry, for I have never been much a favourite of the publick, nor can boast that, in the progress of my un∣dertaking, I have been animated by the re∣wards of the liberal, the caresses of the great, or the praises of the eminent.

I HAVE however no intention to gratify pride by submission, or malice by lamentation; nor think it reasonable to complain of neglect

from those whose regard I never solicited. If I have not been distinguished by the distributers of literary honours, I have seldom descended to the arts by which favour is obtained. I have seen the meteros of fashion rise and fall, with∣out any attempt to add a moment to their du∣ration; I have never complied with temporary curiosity, nor enabled my readers to discuss the topic of the day; I have rarely exemplified my assertions by living characters, so that in my papers no man could look either for censures of his enemies, or praises of himself, and they only were expected to peruse them, whose pas∣sions left them leisure for the contemplation of abstracted truth, and whom virtue could please by her native dignity.

TO some, however, I am indebted for en∣couragement, and to others for assistance; the number of my friends was never great, but they have been such as would not suffer me to think that I was writing in vain, and I there∣fore felt little dejection from the want of po∣pularity.

MY obligations having not been frequent, my acknowledgements may be soon dispatched. I can restore to all my correspondents their productions, with little diminution of the bulk

of my volumes, though not without the loss of some pieces to which particular honours have been paid.

THE parts from which I claim no other praise than that of having given them an op∣portunity of appearing, are the four billets in the tenth paper, the second letter in the fif∣teenth, the thirtieth, the forty-fourth, the ninety-seventh, and the hundredth papers, and the second letter in the hundred and seventh.

HAVING thus deprived myself of many ex∣cuses which candor might have admitted for the inequality of my compositions, being no longer able to allege the necessity of gratifying correspondents, the importunity with which publication was solicited, or obstinacy with which correction was rejected, I must remain accountable for all my faults, and submit with∣out subterfuge to the censures of criticism, which, however, I shall not endeavour to sof∣ten by a formal deprecation, or to overbear by the influence of a patron. The supplications of an author never yet reprieved him a moment from oblivion; and, though greatness has some∣times sheltered guilt, it can afford no protection to ignorance or dulness. Having hitherto at∣tempted only the propagation of truth, I will

not at last violate it by the confession of terrors which I do not feel: Having laboured to main∣tain the dignity of virtue, I will not now de∣grade it by the meanness of dedication.

THE seeming vanity with which I have sometimes spoken of myself, would perhaps re∣quire an apology, were it not extenuated by the example of those who have published essays before me, and by the privilege which a name∣less writer has been hitherto allowed. "A mask," says Castiglione, "confers a right of acting and speaking with less restraint, even when the wearer happens to be known." He that is discovered without his own consent, may claim some indulgence, and cannot be ri∣gorously called to justify those sallies or frolicks which his disguise may prove him desirous to conceal.

BUT I have been cautious lest this offence should be frequently or grossly committed; for as one of the philosophers directs us to live with a friend, as with one that is sometime to become an enemy, I have always thought it the duty of an anonymous author to write, if he expected to be hereafter known.

I AM willing to flatter my self with hopes, that, by collecting these papers, I am not pre∣paring

for my future life either shame or repen∣tance. That all are happily imagined, or ac∣curately polished, that the same sentiments will not sometimes recur, or the same expres∣sions be too frequently repeated, I have not confidence in my abilities sufficient to promise. He that condemns himself to compose on a stated day, will often bring to his task an at∣tention dissipated, a memory overwhelmed, an imagination embarrassed, a mind distracted with anxieties, a body languishing with dis∣ease: He will sometimes labour on a barren topic, till it is too late to change it; and some∣times, in the ardour of invention, diffuse his thoughts into wild exuberance, which the pressing hour of publication cannot suffer judg∣ment to examine or reduce.

WHATEVER shall be the final sentence of mankind, I have at least endeavoured to de∣serve their kindness. I have laboured to refine our language to grammatical purity, and to clear it from colloquial barbarisms, licentious idioms, and irregular combinations. Some∣thing perhaps I have added to the elegance of its construction, and something to the har∣mony of its cadence. When common words were less pleasing to the ear or less distinct in their signification, I have familiarized the terms

of philosophy by applying them to known objects and popular ideas, but have rarely ad∣mitted any word not authorized by former writers; for I believe that whoever knows the English tongue in its present extent, will be able to express his thoughts without farther help from other nations.

AS it has been my principal design to incul∣cate wisdom or piety, I have allotted few pa∣pers to the idle sports of imagination; and though some, perhaps, may be found, of which the highest excellence is harmless merriment, yet scarcely any man is so steadily serious, as not rather to complain, that the severity of dictatorial instruction is too seldom relieved, and that he has been often driven by the stern∣ness of my philosophy to more chearful and airy companions.

NEXT to the excursions of fancy are the disquisitions of criticism, which, in my opinion, is only to be ranked among the subordinate and instrumental arts. Arbitrary decision and general exclamation I have carefully avoided by asserting nothing without a reason, and esta∣blishing all my principles of judgment on un∣alterable and evident truth.

IN the pictures of life I have never been so studious of novelty or surprize, as to depart

wholly from all resemblance; a fault which writers deservedly celebrated frequently com∣mit, that they may raise, as the occasion re∣quires, either mirth or abhorrence. Some en∣largement may be allowed to declamation, and some exaggeration to burlesque; but as they deviate farther from reality they become less useful, because their lessons will fail of ap∣plication. The mind of the reader is carried away from the contemplation of his own man∣ners; he finds in himself no likeness to the phantom before him, and though he laughs or rages is not reformed.

THE essays professedly serious, if I have been able to execute my own intentions, will be found exactly conformable to the precepts of christianity, without any accommodation to the licentiousness and levity of the present age. I therefore look back on this part of my work with pleasure, which no blame or praise of man shall diminish or augment; I shall never envy the honours which wit and learning ob∣tain in any other cause, if I can be numbered among the writers, who have given ardour to virtue, and confidence to truth.

〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉

FINIS.