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The Works of Samuel Johnson, in Sixteen Volumes. Volume 04

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Title: The Works of Samuel Johnson, in Sixteen Volumes. Volume 04

Author: Samuel Johnson


        
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THE WORKS OF SAMUEL JOHNSON
IN SIXTEEN VOLUMES
VOLUME IV


THE RAMBLER

BY SAMUEL JOHNSON


CONTENTS

No.
171 Misella's description of the life of a prostitute.
172 The effect of sudden riches upon the manners.
173 Unreasonable fears of pedantry.
174 The mischiefs of unbounded raillery.  History of Dicaculus
175 The majority are wicked.
176 Directions to authors attacked by criticks.  The various
    degrees of critical perspicacity.
177 An account of a club of antiquaries.
178 Many advantages not to be enjoyed together.
179 The awkward merriment of a student.
180 The study of life not to be neglected for the sake of books.
181 The history of an adventurer in lotteries.
182 The history of Leviculus, the fortune-hunter.
183 The influence of envy and interest compared.
184 The subject of essays often suggested by chance.
    Chance equally prevalent in other affairs
185 The prohibition of revenge justifiable by reason.  The
    meanness of regulating our conduct by the opinions of men
186 Anningait and Ajut; a Greenland history
187 The history of Anningait and Ajut concluded
188 Favour often gained with little assistance from understanding.
189 The mischiefs of falsehood.  The character of Turpicula.
190 The history of Abouzaid, the son of Morad.
191 The busy life of a young lady.
192 Love unsuccessful without riches.
193 The author's art of praising himself.
194 A young nobleman's progress in politeness..
195 A young nobleman's introduction to the knowledge of the town.
196 Human opinions mutable.  The hopes of youth fallacious.
197 The history of a legacy-hunter.
198 The legacy-hunter's history concluded.
199 The virtues of Rabbi Abraham's magnet.
200 Asper's complaint of the insolence of Prospero
    Unpoliteness not always the effect of pride.
201 The importance of punctuality.
202 The different acceptations of poverty.  Cynicks and Monks not poor.
203 The pleasures of life to be sought in prospects of futurity.
    Future fame uncertain.
204 The history of ten days of Seged, emperour of Ethiopia.
205 The history of Seged concluded.
206 The art of living at the cost of others.
207 The folly of continuing too long upon the stage.
208 The Rambler's reception.  His design.


THE ADVENTURER

NO.
34 Folly of extravagance.  The story of Misargyrus.
39 On sleep.
41 Sequel of the story of Misargyrus.
45 The difficulty of forming confederacies.
50 On lying.
53 Misargyrus' account of his companions in the Fleet.
58 Presumption of modern criticism censured.
   Ancient poetry necessarily obscure.  Examples from Horace.
62 Misargyrus' account of his companions concluded.
67 On the trades of Londo.
69 Idle hope.
74 Apology for neglecting officious advice.
81 Incitement to enterprise and emulation.
   Some account of the admirable Crichton.
84 Folly of false pretences to importance.  A journey in a stage coach.
85 Study, composition and converse equally necessary
   to intellectual accomplishment.
92 Criticism on the Pastorals of Virgil.
95 Apology for apparent plagiarism.  Sources of literary variety.
99 Projectors injudiciously censured and applauded.
102 Infelicities of retirement to men of business.
107 Different opinions equally plausible.
108 On the uncertainty of human things.



THE WORKS OF SAMUEL JOHNSON
IN SIXTEEN VOLUMES
VOLUME IV


THE RAMBLER

BY SAMUEL JOHNSON





No. 171. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 1751

 Toeet coeli convexa tueri.    VIRG. AEn. iv. 451.
 Dark is the sun, and loathsome is the day.

TO THE RAMBLER.

SIR,

MISELLA now sits down to continue her
narrative.  I am convinced that nothing would
more powerfully preserve youth from irregularity,
or guard inexperience from seduction, than a just
description of the condition into which the wanton
plunges herself; and therefore hope that my letter
may be a sufficient antidote to my example.

After the distraction, hesitation, and delays which
the timidity of guilt naturally produces, I was
removed to lodgings in a distant part of the town,
under one of the characters commonly assumed upon
such occasions.  Here being by my circumstances
condemned to solitude, I passed most of my hours
in bitterness and anguish.  The conversation of the
people with whom I was placed was not at all capable
of engaging my attention, or dispossessing the
reigning ideas.  The books which I carried to my
retreat were such as heightened my abhorrence of
myself; for I was not so far abandoned as to sink
voluntarily into corruption, or endeavour to conceal
from my own mind the enormity of my crime.

My relation remitted none of his fondness, but
visited me so often, that I was sometimes afraid
lest his assiduity should expose him to suspicion.
Whenever he came he found me weeping, and was
therefore less delightfully entertained than he
expected.  After frequent expostulations upon the
unreasonableness of my sorrow, and innumerable
protestations of everlasting regard, he at last found
that I was more affected with the loss of my
innocence, than the danger of my fame, and that he
might not be disturbed by my remorse, began to
lull my conscience with the opiates of irreligion.
His arguments were such as my course of life has
since exposed me often to the necessity of hearing,
vulgar, empty, and fallacious; yet they at first
confounded me by their novelty, filled me with doubt
and perplexity, and interrupted that peace which I
began to feel from the sincerity of my repentance,
without substituting any other support.  I listened
a while to his impious gabble, but its influence was
soon overpowered by natural reason and early education,
and the convictions which this new attempt
gave me of his baseness completed my abhorrence.
I have heard of barbarians, who, when tempests
drive ships upon their coast, decoy them to the rocks
that they may plunder their lading, and have always
thought that wretches, thus merciless in their
depredations, ought to be destroyed by a general
insurrection of all social beings; yet how light is this
guilt to the crime of him, who, in the agitations of
remorse, cuts away the anchor of piety, and, when
he has drawn aside credulity from the paths of
virtue, hides the light of heaven which would direct
her to return.  I had hitherto considered him as a man
equally betrayed with myself by the concurrence of
appetite and opportunity; but I now saw with horrour
that he was contriving to perpetuate his gratification,
and was desirous to fit me to his purpose,
by complete and radical corruption.

To escape, however, was not yet in my power.  I
could support the expenses of my condition only
by the continuance of his favour.  He provided all
that was necessary, and in a few weeks congratulated
me upon my escape from the danger which
we had both expected with so much anxiety.  I
then began to remind him of his promise to restore
me with my fame uninjured to the world.  He promised
me in general terms, that nothing should be
wanting which his power could add to my happiness,
but forbore to release me from my confinement.
I knew how much my reception in the world
depended upon my speedy return, and was therefore
outrageously impatient of his delays, which I
now perceived to be only artifices of lewdness.  He
told me at last, with an appearance of sorrow, that
all hopes of restoration to my former state were for
ever precluded; that chance had discovered my
secret, and malice divulged it; and that nothing
now remained, but to seek a retreat more private,
where curiosity or hatred could never find us.

The rage, anguish, and resentment, which I felt
at this account are not to be expressed.  I was in so
much dread of reproach and infamy, which he represented
as pursuing me with full cry, that I yielded
myself implicitly to his disposal and was removed,
with a thousand studied precautions, through by-
ways and dark passages to another house, where I
harassed him with perpetual solicitations for a small
annuity that might enable me to live in the country
in obscurity and innocence.

This demand he at first evaded with ardent
professions, but in time appeared offended at my
importunity and distrust; and having one day
endeavoured to sooth me with uncommon expressions
of tenderness, when he found my discontent
immoveable, left me with some inarticulate murmurs
of anger.  I was pleased that he was at last roused
to sensibility, and expecting that at his next visit
he would comply with my request, lived with great
tranquillity upon the money in my hands, and was
so much pleased with this pause of persecution, that
I did not reflect how much his absence had exceeded
the usual intervals, till I was alarmed with
the danger of wanting subsistence.  I then suddenly
contracted my expenses, but was unwilling to
supplicate for assistance.  Necessity, however, soon
overcame my modesty or my pride, and I applied to
him by a letter, but had no answer.  I writ in terms
more pressing, but without effect.  I then sent an
agent to inquire after him, who informed me, that
he had quitted his house, and was gone with his
family to reside for some time on his estate in
Ireland.

However shocked at this abrupt departure, I was
yet unwilling to believe that he could wholly abandon
me, and therefore, by the sale of my clothes, I
supported myself, expecting that every post would
bring me relief.  Thus I passed seven months
between hope and dejection, in a gradual approach to
poverty and distress, emaciated with discontent, and
bewildered with uncertainty.  At last my landlady,
after many hints of the necessity of a new lover,
took the opportunity of my absence to search my
boxes, and missing some of my apparel, seized the
remainder for rent, and led me to the door.

To remonstrate against legal cruelty, was vain; to
supplicate obdurate brutality, was hopeless.  I went
away I knew not whither, and wandered about without
any settled purpose, unacquainted with the usual
expedients of misery, unqualified for laborious
offices, afraid to meet an eye that had seen me
before, and hopeless of relief from those who were
strangers to my former condition.  Night came on
in the midst of my distraction, and I still continued
to wander till the menaces of the watch obliged me
to shelter myself in a covered passage.

Next day, I procured a lodging in the backward
garret of a mean house, and employed my landlady
to inquire for a service.  My applications were
generally rejected for want of a character.  At length
I was received at a draper's, but when it was known
to my mistress that I had only one gown, and that
of silk, she was of opinion that I looked like a thief,
and without warning hurried me away.  I then tried
to support myself by my needle; and, by my landlady's
recommendation obtained a little work from
a shop, and for three weeks lived without repining;
but when my punctuality had gained me so much
reputation, that I was trusted to make up a head of
some value, one of my fellow-lodgers stole the lace,
and I was obliged to fly from a prosecution.

Thus driven again into the streets, I lived upon
the least that could support me, and at night
accommodated myself under pent-houses as well as I
could.  At length I became absolutely pennyless,
and having strolled all day without sustenance, was,
at the close of evening, accosted by an elderly man,
with an invitation to a tavern.  I refused him with
hesitation; he seized me by the hand, and drew me
into a neigbouring house, where, when he saw my
face pale with hunger, and my eyes swelling with
tears, he spurned me from him, and bade me cant
and whine in some other place; he for his part would
take care of his pockets.

I still continued to stand in the way, having
scarcely strength to walk further, when another soon
addressed me in the same manner.  When he saw
the same tokens of calamity, he considered that I
might be obtained at a cheap rate, and therefore
quickly made overtures, which I no longer had
firmness to reject.  By this man I was maintained four
months in penurious wickedness, and then abandoned
to my former condition, from which I was
delivered by another keeper.

In this abject state I have now passed four years,
the drudge of extortion and the sport of drunkenness;
sometimes the property of one man, and
sometimes the common prey of accidental lewdness;
at one time tricked up for sale by the mistress of a
brothel, at another begging in the streets to be
relieved from hunger by wickedness; without any
hope in the day but of finding some whom folly or
excess may expose to my allurements, and without
any reflections at night, but such as guilt and terrour
impress upon me.

If those who pass their days in plenty and
security, could visit for an hour the dismal receptacles
to which the prostitute retires from her nocturnal
excursions, and see the wretches that lie crowded
together, mad with intemperance, ghastly with
famine, nauseous with filth, and noisome with disease;
it would not be easy for any degree of abhorrence
to harden them against compassion, or to
repress the desire which they must immediately feel
to rescue such numbers of human beings from a state
so dreadful.

It is said, that in France they annually evacuate
their streets, and ship their prostitutes and vagabonds
to their colonies.  If the women that infest this city
had the same opportunity of escaping from their
miseries, I believe very little force would be
necessary; for who among them can dread any change?
Many of us indeed are wholly unqualified for any
but the most servile employments, and those perhaps
would require the care of a magistrate to hinder
them from following the same practices in another
country; but others are only precluded by infamy
from reformation, and would gladly be delivered on
any terms from the necessity of guilt, and the
tyranny of chance.  No place but a populous city,
can afford opportunities for open prostitution; and
where the eye of justice can attend to individuals,
those who cannot be made good may be restrained
from mischief.  For my part, I should exult at the
privilege of banishment, and think myself happy in
any region that should restore me once again to
honesty and peace.

I am, Sir, &c.

MISELLA.



No. 172. SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 1751

 Saepe rogare soles, qualis sim, Prisce, futurus,
     Si fiam locuples, simque repente potens.
 Quemquam poss putas mores narrare futuros?
     Dic mihi, si tu leo, qualis eris?

MART. Lib. xii. Ep. 93.


 Priseus, you've often ask'd me how I'd live,
 Should fate at once both wealth and honour give.
 What soul his future conduct can foresee?
 Tell me what sort of lion you would be.  F. LEWIS.

NOTHING has been longer observed, than that
a change of fortune causes a change of manners;
and that it is difficult to conjecture from the
conduct of him whom we see in a low condition,
how he would act, if wealth and power were put
into his hands.  But it is generally agreed, that few
men are made better by affluence or exaltation;
and that the powers of the mind, when they are
unbound and expanded by the sunshine of felicity,
more frequently luxuriate into follies, than blossom
into goodness.

Many observations have concurred to establish
this opinion, and it is not likely soon to become
obsolete, for want of new occasions to revive it.  The
greater part of mankind are corrupt in every condition,
and differ in high and in low stations, only
as they have more or fewer opportunities of gratifying
their desires, or as they are more or less
restrained by human censures.  Many vitiate their
principles in the acquisition of riches; and who can
wonder that what is gained by fraud and extortion
is enjoyed with tyranny and excess?

Yet I am willing to believe that the depravation
of the mind by external advantages, though certainly
not uncommon, yet approaches not so nearly
to universality, as some have asserted in the
bitterness of resentness, or heat of declamation.

Whoever rises above those who once pleased
themselves with equality, will have many malevolent
gazers at his eminence.  To gain sooner than
others that which all pursue with the same ardour,
and to which all imagine themselves entitled, will
for ever be a crime.  When those who started with
us in the race of life, leave us so far behind, that we
have little hope to overtake them, we revenge our
disappointment by remarks on the arts of supplantation
by which they gained the advantage, or on
the folly and arrogance with which they possess it.
Of them, whose rise we could not hinder, we solace
ourselves by prognosticating the fall.

It is impossible for human purity not to betray
to an eye, thus sharpened by malignity, some stains
which lay concealed and unregarded, while none
thought it their interest to discover them; nor can
the most circumspect attention, or steady rectitude,
escape blame from censors, who have no inclination
to approve.  Riches therefore, perhaps, do not so
often produce crimes as incite accusers.

The common charge against those who rise above
their original condition, is that of pride.  It is
certain that success naturally confirms us in a
favourable opinion of our own abilities.  Scarce any man
is willing to allot to accident, friendship, and a
thousand causes, which concur in every event without
human contrivance or interposition, the part
which they may justly claim in his advancement.
We rate ourselves by our fortune rather than our
virtues, and exorbitant claims are quickly produced
by imaginary merit.  But captiousness and jealousy
are likewise easily offended, and to him who
studiously looks for an affront, every mode of behaviour
will supply it; freedom will be rudeness, and reserve
sullenness; mirth will be negligence, and seriousness
formality; when he is received with ceremony, distance
and respect are inculcated; if he is treated
with familiarity, he concludes himself insulted by
condescensions.

It must however be confessed, that as all sudden
changes are dangerous, a quick transition from
poverty to abundance can seldom be made with safety.
He that has long lived within sight of pleasures
which he could not reach, will need more than
common moderation, not to lose his reason in unbounded
riot, when they are first put into his power.

Every possession is endeared by novelty; every
gratification is exaggerated by desire.  It is difficult
not to estimate what is lately gained above its real
value; it is impossible not to annex greater happiness
to that condition from which we are unwillingly
excluded, than nature has qualified us to
obtain.  For this reason, the remote inheritor of an
unexpected fortune, may be generally distinguished
from those who are enriched in the common course
of lineal descent, by his greater haste to enjoy his
wealth, by the finery of his dress, the pomp of
his equipage, the splendour of his furniture, and the
luxury of his table.

A thousand things which familiarity discovers to
be of little value, have power for a time to seize
the imagination.  A Virginian king, when the Europeans
had fixed a lock on his door, was so delighted
to find his subjects admitted or excluded with such
facility, that it was from morning to evening his
whole employment to turn the key.  We, among
whom locks and keys have been longer in use, are
inclined to laugh at this American amusement; yet
I doubt whether this paper will have a single reader
that may not apply the story to himself, and
recollect some hours of his life in which he has been
equally overpowered by the transitory charms of
trifling novelty.

Some indulgence is due to him whom a happy
gale of fortune has suddenly transported into new
regions, where unaccustomed lustre dazzles his eyes,
and untasted delicacies solicit his appetite.  Let him
not be considered as lost in hopeless degeneracy,
though he for a while forgets the regard due to
others, to indulge the contemplation of himself,
and in the extravagance of his first raptures
expects that his eye should regulate the motions of
all that approach him, and his opinion be received
as decisive and oraculous.  His intoxication will give
way to time; the madness of joy will fume
imperceptibly away; the sense of his insufficiency will
soon return; he will remember that the co-operation
of others is necessary to his happiness,
and learn to conciliate their regard by reciprocal
beneficence.

There is, at least, one consideration which ought
to alleviate our censures of the powerful and rich.
To imagine them chargeable with all the guilt and
folly of their own actions, is to be very little
acquainted with the world.

 De l'absolu pouvoir vous ignorez l'yvresse,
 Et du lache flateur la voix enchanteresse.

 Thou hast not known the giddy whirls of fate,
 Nor servile flatteries which enchant the great.  MISS A. W.


He that can do much good or harm, will not find
many whom ambition or cowardice will suffer to
be sincere.  While we live upon the level with the
rest of mankind, we are reminded of our duty by
the admonitions of friends and reproaches of
enemies; but men who stand in the highest ranks of
society, seldom hear of their faults; if by any
accident an opprobrious clamour reaches their ears,
flattery is always at hand to pour in her opiates, to
quiet conviction, and obtund remorse.

Favour is seldom gained but by conformity in
vice.  Virtue can stand without assistance, and
considers herself as very little obliged by countenance
and approbation: but vice, spiritless and timorous,
seeks the shelter of crowds, and support of
confederacy.  The sycophant, therefore, neglects the good
qualities of his patron, and employs all his art on
his weaknesses and follies, regales his reigning vanity,
or stimulates his prevalent desires.

Virtue is sufficiently difficult with any
circumstances, but the difficulty is increased when reproof
and advice are frighted away.  In common life, reason
and conscience have only the appetites and
passions to encounter; but in higher stations, they
must oppose artifice and adulation.  He, therefore,
that yields to such temptations, cannot give those
who look upon his miscarriage much reason for
exultation, since few can justly presume that from the
same snare they should have been able to escape.



No. 173. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 1751

 Quo virtus, quo ferat error.  HOR. De Ar. Poet. 308.

 Now say, where virtue stops, and vice begins?

AS any action or posture, long continued, will
distort and disfigure the limbs; so the mind
likewise is crippled 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 quickly 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 furnish 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 ignorance
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 sally from their colleges, and
is so liberally scattered by those who mean to boast
their elegance of education, 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 delivered
from restraint.

Pedantry is the unseasonable ostentation 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
discoveries upon those whom he believes unable to
judge of his proficiency, and from whom, as he
cannot fear contradiction, he cannot properly expect
applause.

To this error the student is sometimes betrayed
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, this failure
of politeness is imputed always to vanity; and the
harmless collegiate, who, perhaps, intended
entertainment and instruction, or at worst only spoke
without sufficient reflection upon the character of
his hearers, is censured as arrogant or overbearing,
and eager to extend his renown, in contempt of the
convenience of society and the laws of conversation.

All discourse of which others cannot partake, is
not only an irksome usurpation of the time devoted
to pleasure and entertainment, but what never fails
to excite very keen resentment, an insolent assertion
of superiority, and a triumph over less enlightened
understandings.  The pedant is, therefore, not only
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, scholars
sometimes divest themselves with too much haste
of their academical formality, and in their
endeavours to accommodate their notions and their style
to common 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 particularly hateful
to women; and that therefore, whoever desires to
be well received in female assemblies, must qualify
himself by a total rejection of all that is serious,
rational, or important; must consider argument or
criticism, 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
century, there is now no longer any danger lest the
scholar should want an adequate audience at the
tea-table; and whoever thinks it necessary 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 complaisance requires,
that no man should, without 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
hazard 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 levity, which charm down resistance
whenever they appear, are never attainable by him
who, having spent his first years among the dust
of libraries, enters late into the gay world with an
unpliant attention and established habits.

It is observed in the panegyrick on Fabricus the
mechanist, that, though forced by publick employments
into mingled conversation, he never lost the
modesty and seriousness of the convent, nor drew
ridicule upon himself 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 embrace, the
insinuating accent and the general smile, he will
lose the respect due to the character of learning,
without arriving at the envied honour of doing any
thing with elegance and facility.

Theophrastus was discovered not to be a native
of Athens, by so strict an adherence to the Attick
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 effects of his
education, by an unnecessary anxiety of behaviour.
It is as possible to become pedantick, by fear of
pedantry, as to be troublesome by ill-timed civility.
There is no kind of impertinence more justly
censurable than his who is always labouring to level
thoughts to intellects 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 inquiries by
needless explanations; and endeavours to shade his
own abilities, lest weak eyes should be dazzled with
their lustre.



No. 174. SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 1751

 Faenum habet vn cornu, longe fuge; dummodo risum
 Excutiat sibi, non hic cuiquam parcet amico.

HOR. Lib. i. Sat. iv. 34.


 Yonder he drives--avoid that furious beast:
 If he may have his jest, he never cares
 At whose expense; nor friend nor patron spares.  FRANCIS.


TO THE RAMBLER.

MR. RAMBLER,

THE laws of social benevolence require, that
every man should endeavour to assist others
by his experience.  He that has at last escaped into
port from the fluctuations of chances 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 errour into which I was betrayed, when
custom first gave me up to my own direction, is very
frequently incident to the quick, the sprightly, the
fearless, and the gay; to all whose ardour hurries
them into precipitate execution of their designs,
and imprudent declaration of their opinions; who
seldom count the cost of pleasure, or examine the
distant consequences of any practice that flatters
them with immediate gratification.

I came forth into the crowded world with the
usual juvenile ambition, and desired nothing
beyond the title of a wit.  Money I considered 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 genius, and therefore threw it aside as
a secondary convenience, to be procured when my
principal wish should be satisfied, and the claim to
intellectual excellence universally acknowledged.

With this view I regulated my behaviour in
publick, and exercised my meditations in solitude.  My
life was divided between 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 depends
upon the aptitude of others to receive impressions;
and that as some bodies, indissoluble by heat, can
set the furnace and crucible at defiance, there are
minds upon which the rays of fancy may be pointed
without effect, and which no fire of sentiment can
agitate or exalt.

It was, however, not long before I fitted myself
with a set of companions who knew how to laugh,
and to whom no other recommendation 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 admission into our society.

To support this perpetual fund of merriment, I
frequented every place of concourse, cultivated the
acquaintance of all the fashionable race, and passed
the day in a continual succession of visits, in which
I collected a treasure of pleasantry for the expenses
of the evening.  Whatever errour of conduct I could
discover, 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 diversion of my wild
companions, who when they had been taught the
art of ridicule, never failed to signalize themselves
by a zealous imitation, 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
petty praise, as to divulge the secrets of trust, and
to expose the levities of frankness; to waylay the
walks of the cautious, and surprise 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 curiosity than after some
failure that might furnish 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 raised any pecuniary
advantage from the calamities of others.  I led weakness
and negligence into difficulties, only that I might
divert myself 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 myself with
any crimes of the atrocious or destructive kind.  I
never betrayed an heir to gamesters, or a girl to
debauchees; never intercepted the kindness of a
patron, or sported away the reputation of innocence.
My delight was only in petty mischief, and momentary
vexations, and my acuteness was employed not
upon fraud and oppression, which it had been
meritorious to detect, but upon harmless ignorance or
absurdity, prejudice or mistake.

This inquiry I pursued with so much diligence
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 flattery of his predominant passion;
or expose him to contempt, by placing him in
circumstances 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 entertainment; 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 seriousness of attention,
he may be drawn to expatiate without end.  Every
man has some habitual contortion of body, or
established mode of expression, which never fails to raise
mirth if it be pointed out to notice.  By premonitions
of these particularities I secured our pleasantry.  Our
companion entered with his usual gaiety, and began
to partake of our noisy cheerfulness, when the
conversation was imperceptibly diverted to a subject
which pressed upon his tender part, and extorted
the expected shrug, the customary exclamation, or
the predicted remark.  A general clamour of joy
then burst from all that were admitted to the
stratagem.  Our mirth was often increased by the triumph
of him that occasioned it; for as we do not hastily
form conclusions against ourselves, seldom any one
suspected, that he had exhilarated us otherwise than
by wit.

You will hear, I believe, with very little surprise,
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
terrible or hateful.  I had invaded no man's property;
I had rivalled no man's claims: nor 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 consider, 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 dejection, coldness and terrour.
No one would venture to speak, lest he should lay
himself open to unfavourable representations; the
company, however numerous, dropped off at my
entrance upon various pretences; and, if I retired
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 have much 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 condemned 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
without hazard.

I am, &c.

DICACULUS.



No. 175. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 1751

 Rari quippe boni, numerus vix est totidem quot
 Thebarum portoe, vel divitis ostia Nili.  JUV. Sat. xiii. 26.

 Good men are scarce, the just are thinly sown:
 They thrive but ill, nor can they last when grown.
 And should we count them, and our store compile,
 Yet Thebes more gates could shew, more mouths the Nile.

CREECH.


NONE of the axioms of wisdom which recommend
the ancient sages to veneration, seem to
have required less extent of knowledge or
perspicacity of penetration, than the remarks of Bias,
that <gr> oi pleones cacoioe, "The majority are wicked."

The depravity of mankind is so easily
discoverable, that nothing but the desert or the cell can
exclude it from notice.  The knowledge of crimes
intrudes uncalled and undesired.  They whom their
abstraction from common occurrences hinders from
seeing iniquity, will quickly have their attention
awakened by feeling it.  Even he who ventures not
into the world, may learn its corruption in his closet.
For what are treatises of morality, but persuasives
to the practice of duties, for which no arguments
would be necessary, 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, massacres
and wars?

But, perhaps, the excellence of aphorisms
consists not so much in the expression of some rare
and abstruse sentiment, as in the comprehension of
some obvious and useful truths in a few words.  We
frequently fall into errour and folly, not because
the true principles of action are not known, but
because, for a time, they are not remembered;
and he may therefore 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 frequent
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 many disappointments and vexations
which an earlier knowledge would have spared them;
and may see, on every side, some entangling 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 ignorance, and
flattered into pride.  He comes forth with all the
confidence of a spirit unacquainted with superiors, and
all the benevolence of a mind not yet irritated by
opposition, alarmed by fraud, or embittered by
cruelty.  He loves all, because he imagines himself
the universal favourite.  Every exchange of salutation
produces new acquaintance, and every acquaintance
kindles into friendship.

Every season brings a new flight of beauties 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 a useful monitor, who inculcates 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 crowd 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 imagination 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 ignorant of the force of passion and interest,
who never observed the arts of seduction, the
contagion of example, the gradual descent from one
crime to another, or the insensible depravation
of the principles by loose conversation, naturally
expect to find integrity in every bosom, and
veracity on every tongue.

It is, indeed, impossible not to hear from those
who have lived longer, of wrongs and falsehoods,
of violence and circumvention; but such narratives
are commonly regarded by the young, the heady,
and the confident, as nothing more than the murmurs
of peevishness, or the dreams of dotage; and,
notwithstanding 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 unexperienced virtue; and
that he who is spontaneously suspicious, may be
justly charged with radical corruption; for, if he has
not known the prevalence of dishonesty by information,
nor had time 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 exposed to the arts of them who live only
for themselves, unless he is taught by timely
precepts the caution required in common transactions,
and shewn at a distance the pitfalls 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 launch on the wide ocean without the
instruments of steerage, and to hope that every wind
will be prosperous, and that every coast will afford
a harbour.

To enumerate the various motives to deceit and
injury, would be to count all the desires 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
influence of virtue.  Many there are, who openly and
almost professedly regulate all their conduct by their
love of money; who have no other reason for action
or forbearance, for compliance or refusal, than that
they hope to gain more by one than by the other.
These are indeed the meanest and cruellest of human
beings, a race with whom, as with some pestiferous
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
fame or fortune they believe increasing.

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.  Happiness may be destroyed
not only by union with the man who is apparently
the slave of interest, but with whom a wild opinion
of the dignity of perseverance, in whatever cause,
disposes to pursue every injury with unwearied 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 inattention to himself; and with him whose
inconstancy 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 dangers 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
withhold his fondness from fair appearances, will
have reason to pay some honours to Bias of Priene,
who enabled him to become wise without the cost
of experience.



No. 176. SATURDAY. NOVEMBER 23, 1751

 --------Naso suspendis adunco.

HOR. Lib. i. Sat. vi. 5.


 On me you turn the nose.--------

THERE are many vexatious accidents and uneasy
situations which raise little compassion for
the sufferer, and which no man but those whom
they immediately distress can regard with
seriousness.  Petty mischiefs, that have no influence on
futurity, nor extend their effects to the rest of life,
are always seen with a kind of malicious pleasure.
A mistake or embarrassment, 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
irresistible laughter.  Some circumstances of misery
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 merriment.

Among the principal of comick calamities, may
be reckoned the pain which an author, 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,
and anxious for the justification of every syllable,
starts and kindles at the slightest attack; the
critick, eager to establish his superiority, triumphing
in every discovery 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 controversy, tries every art of
subterfuge and defence; 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 rejoices 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 rather 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 benevolence 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 teasing
other animals, because, for the most part, he
comes voluntarily to the stake, furnished, as he
imagines, by the patron powers of literature, with
resistless weapons, and impenetrable armour, with
the mail of the boar of Erymanth, 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 impudence.  It may therefore be necessary
to consider, how they whom publication lays open
to the insults of such as their obscurity secures
against reprisals, may extricate themselves from
unexpected 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 advice is
asked, and severity solicited, because no man tells
his opinion so freely as when he imagines it received
with implicit veneration; and criticks ought never
to be consulted, but while errours may yet be rectified
or insipidity 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 prescribed, and whether
firmness and spirit may not sometimes be of use to
overpower arrogance and repel brutality.  Softness,
diffidence, and moderation, will often be mistaken
for imbecility and dejection; they lure cowardice
to the attack by the hopes of easy victory, 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 commonly
such as may easily provoke the sedatest writer to
some quickness of resentment and asperity of reply.
A man, who by long consideration has familiarized
a subject to his own mind, carefully surveyed 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 infatuation they have been led
away from the obvious sense, and upon what peculiar
principles of judgment they decide against him.

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

Some seem always to read with the microscope
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 petty 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 meaning,
some remote allusion, some artful allegory,
or some occult imitation, which no other reader
ever suspected; but they have no perception of the
cogency of arguments, the force of pathetick sentiments,
the various colours of diction, or the flowery
embellishments of fancy; of all that engages the
attention 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.



No. 177. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 1751

 Turpe est difficiles habere nugas.

MART. Lib. ii. Ep. lxxxvi. 9.


 Those things which now seem frivolous and slight,
 Will be of serious consequence to you,
 When they have made you once ridiculous.  ROSCOMMON.


TO THE RAMBLER.

SIR,

WHEN I was, at the usual time, 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, dependance, and uncertainty of any
gainful occupation.  I therefore resolved to devote
the rest of my life wholly to curiosity, 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 furnished a large room with all
conveniencies for study; collected books of every kind;
quitted every science at the first perception of disgust;
returned to it again as soon as my former ardour
happened to revive; and having no rival to
depress me by comparison, nor any critick to alarm
me with objections, I spent day after day in profound
tranquillity, with only so much complaisance
in my own improvements, as served to excite and
animate my application.

Thus I lived for some years with complete
acquiescence in my own plan of conduct, rising early
to read, and dividing the latter part of the day
between economy, exercise, and reflection.  But, in
time, I began to find my mind contracted and
stiffened by solitude.  My ease and elegance were
sensibly impaired; I was no longer able to accommodate
myself with readiness to the accidental 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 knowledge,
I was bewildered by an unseasonable interrogatory,
disconcerted by any slight opposition, and
overwhelmed and lost in dejection, when the smallest
advantage was gained 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 receive
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 impulses; and to unite myself once more
to the living generation.

For this purpose I hasted to London, and
entreated one of my academical acquaintances to
introduce me into some of the little societies of
literature which are formed in taverns 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 studies,
and compare their acquisitions.

The eldest and most venerable of this society was
Hirsutus, who, after the first civilities of my
reception, found means to introduce the mention of his
favourite studies, by a severe censure of those who
want the due regard for their native country.  He
informed me, that he had early withdrawn his
attention from foreign trifles, and that since he began
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 pursued so diligently, that he was able to
shew the deficiencies of the best catalogues.  He had
long since completed his Caxton, had three sheets
of Treveris unknown to the antiquaries, 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 Gothic 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 quotation from the "Shippe of Foles."

While I was listening to this hoary student,
Ferratus entered in a hurry, and informed us with
the abruptness of ecstasy, that his set of halfpence
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 himself and his emissaries seven years
at great expense 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
corruptions, 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 possessed some fragment
of antiquity, as the seal of an ancient 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 behaviour brutal, their merriment
bluntly sarcastick, and their seriousness gloomy and
suspicious.  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
rarities, 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 auditor.  I was pleased to
find myself in no danger of an honour, which I could
not have willingly accepted, nor gracefully refused,
and left them without any intention of returning;
for I soon found that the suppression 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 wantonly 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 minute emulation
and laborious trifles.  It may, however, somewhat
mollify his anger to reflect, that perhaps none of the
assembly which he describes, was capable of any
nobler employment, and that he who does his best,
however 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 idleness, and he that is never
idle will not often be vicious.



No. 178. SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 1751

 Pars sanitatis velle sanari fuit.  SENECA.

 To yield to remedies is half the cure.

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
presence of their master, as is more probable, it was
sufficient to discover the pupil's disposition; 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 desired, are
very frequently wanted, because 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 human
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 understand, 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 deliberation 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 confines
of light, concludes with a very elegant and forcible
application.  "Whoever you are that endeavour to
elevate your minds to the illuminations of Heaven,
consider yourselves as represented 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
instant or permanent happiness but by the forbearance
of some immediate 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
sought, and always endured, in hope of rewards
that shall be obtained 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 exhilarate the following years.  The heat of
youth may spread happiness into wild luxuriance,
but the radical vigour requisite to make it perennial
is exhausted, and all that can be hoped afterwards
is languor and sterility.

The reigning errour of mankind 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 the 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
method 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 public entertainment,
exhibit examples of strength wasting in riot, and
beauty withering 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 disease 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 gratifications 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 the 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 spendthrift 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 allowed to groans extorted by
inevitable misery, 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 evil sufficiently to
quicken aversion, or invigorate desire; they have
indulged a drowsy thoughtlessness or giddy levity;
have committed the balance of choice to the
management 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 deceived.



No. 179. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 3, 1751

 Perpetuo risu pulmonem agitare solebat.  JUV. Sat. x. 33.

 Democritus would feed his spleen, and shake
 His sides and shoulders till he felt them ake.  DRYDEN.


EVERY man, says Tully, has two characters;
one which he partakes with all mankind, and
by which he is distinguished from brute animals;
another which discriminates 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 an 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 a departure from his real character, and
an attempt at something for which nature or
education have left him unqualified.

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 sprightliness of wit.  Awkwardness 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 acquaintance with the
modes of life, and to consciousness of unfailing
propriety of behaviour.  Deformity itself is regarded
with tenderness 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 crowds that
fill the streets of a populous city, will see many
passengers 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 risibility, he will find among them
neither poverty nor disease, nor any involuntary or
painful defect.  The disposition to derision and insult
is awakened by the softness of foppery, the swell
of insolence, the liveliness of levity, or the solemnity
of grandeur; by the sprightly trip, the stately stalk,
the formal strut, the lofty mien; by gestures
intended to catch the eye, and by looks elaborately
formed as evidences of importance.

It has, I think, been sometimes urged in favour
of affectation, that it is only a mistake of the means
to a good end, and that the intention with which it
is practised is always to please.  If all attempts to
innovate the constitutional or habitual character
have really proceeded from public spirit and love of
others, the world has hitherto been sufficiently
ungrateful, since no return but scorn has yet been
made to the most difficult of all enterprises, 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 therefore to be determined by the
general suffrage of mankind, that he who decks
himself in adscititious qualities rather purposes to
command applause than impart pleasure: and he is
therefore treated as a man who, by an unreasonable
ambition, usurps the place in society to which he
has no right.  Praise is seldom paid with willingness
even to incontestable 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 attainment.  We are conscious of our
own defects, and eagerly endeavour to supply them
by artificial excellence; nor would such efforts be
wholly without excuse, were they not often excited
by ornamental trifles, which he, that thus anxiously
struggles for the reputation of possessing them,
would not have been known to want, had not his
industry quickened observation.

Gelasimus passed the first part of his life in
academical privacy and rural retirement, without any
other conversation than that of scholars, grave,
studious, and abstracted as himself.  He cultivated
the mathematical sciences with indefatigable 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 explained 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, was
distinguished by those who have the rewards of
knowledge in their hands, and called out to display
his acquisitions for the honour of his country, and
add dignity by his presence to philosophical
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 feign.  He entered into the world
as a larger and more populous college, where his
performances would be more publick, and his
renown further 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 tables and
elegant acquaintance; but he did not find himself
always qualified to join in the conversation.  He was
distressed by civilities, which he knew not how to
repay, and entangled in many ceremonial perplexities,
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 theories 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 came to a sudden resolution of throwing off
those cumbrous ornaments of learning which
hindered his reception, and commenced a man of wit
and jocularity.  Utterly unacquainted with every
topick of merriment, ignorant of the modes and
follies, the vices and virtues of mankind, and
unfurnished with any ideas but such as Pappas and
Archimedes had given him, he began to silence all inquiries
with a jest instead of a solution, extended his face
with a grin, which he mistook for a smile, and in the
place of scientifick discourse, retailed in a new
language, formed between the college and the tavern,
the intelligence of the newspaper.

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,
removed his chair, or snuffed a candle, he always found
some occasion to laugh.  The jest was indeed a secret
to all but himself; but habitual confidence in his
own discernment hindered him from suspecting any
weakness or mistake.  He wondered that his wit was
so little understood, but expected that his audience
would comprehend it by degrees, and persisted all
his life to shew by gross buffoonery, how little the
strongest faculties can perform beyond the limits of
their own province.

No. 180. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 7. 1751

 <gr> Ta<u?>t' eidwoes isqi, mathn d' 'Epicouron eason
 <gr> Ho<u?> tooe cen<ooen zhte<i?>n, caioe tines ai monades.
AUTOMEDON.

 On life, on morals, be thy thoughts employ'd;
 Leave to the schools their atoms and their void.

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 use 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 at his arrival entertained all
who came about him with such profusion, that the
professors were lured by the smell of his table from
their books, and flocked round him with all the
cringes of awkward complaisance.  This eagerness
answered the merchant's purpose: he glutted them
with delicacies, and softened them with caresses,
till he prevailed upon one after another to open his
bosom, and make a discovery of his competitions,
jealousies, and resentments.  Having thus learned
each man's character, partly from himself, and partly
from his acquaintances, he resolved to find some
other education for his son, and went away convinced,
that a scholastick life has no other tendency
than to vitiate the morals and contract the
understanding: nor would he afterwards hear with patience
the praises of the ancient authors, being persuaded
that scholars of all ages must have been the same,
and that Xenophon and Cicero were professors of
some former university, and therefore mean and
selfish, ignorant and servile, like those whom he had
lately visited and forsaken.

Envy, curiosity, and a sense of the imperfection
of our present state, incline us 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 imagine
to be conferred by learning.  A man of science is
expected to excel the unlettered 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 remoter
provinces, the rustics are said sometimes 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 disappointed ignorance,
are without reproach.  But there are some failures,
to which men of study are peculiarly exposed.  Every
condition has its disadvantages.  The circle of
knowledge is too wide for the most active and diligent
intellect, and while science is pursued, other
accomplishments are 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 desire of superfluous
attainments.  Raphael, in return to Adam's inquiries
into the courses of the stars, and the revolutions of
heaven, counsels him to withdraw his mind from
idle speculations, and 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 devotes himself
to retired study naturally sinks from omission to
forgetfulness of social duties; he must be therefore
sometimes awakened and recalled to the general
condition of mankind.

I am far from any intention to limit curiosity, or
confine the labours of learning to arts of immediate
and necessary use.  It is only from the various
essays of experimental industry, 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 inspire emulation, and their miscarriages taught
others the way to success.

But the distant hope of being one day useful or
eminent, ought not to mislead us too far from that
study which is equally requisite 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 course of his own life,
or the conduct of the world around him, unworthy
his attention; yet, among the sons of learning,
many seem to have thought of every thing rather
than of themselves, and to have observed every
thing but what passes before their eyes: many who
toil through the intricacy of complicated systems,
are insuperably embarrassed with the least perplexity
in common affairs; many who compare the
actions, and ascertain the characters of ancient
heroes, let their own days glide away without
examination, and suffer vicious habits to encroach upon
their minds without resistance or detection,

The most frequent reproach of the scholastick race
is the want of fortitude, not martial but philosophick.
Men bred in shades and silence, taught to immure
themselves at sunset, and accustomed to no
other weapon than syllogism, may be allowed to
feel terrour at personal danger, and to be
disconcerted by tumult and alarm.  But why should he
whose life is spent in contemplation, and whose
business is only to discover truth, be unable to
rectify the fallacies of imagination, or contend
successfully against prejudice and passion?  To what
end has he read and meditated, if he gives up his
understanding to false appearances, and suffers
himself to be enslaved by fear of evils to which
only folly or vanity can expose him, or elated
by advantages to which, as they are equally
conferred upon the good and the 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
rapturous of the gazers upon wealth, the most
officious of the whisperers of greatness, are collected
from seminaries appropriated to the study of wisdom
and 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[a].


 [a] "Such are a sort of sacrilegious ministers in the temple of
intellect.  They profane its shew-bread to pamper the palate, its
everlasting lamp they use to light unholy fires within their
breast, and show them the way to the sensual chambers of sense
and worldliness."  IRVING.


The student, when he comes forth into the world,
instead of congratulating himself upon his exemption
from the errours of those whose opinions have
been formed by accident or custom, and who live
without any certain principles of conduct, is
commonly in haste to mingle with the multitude, and
shew his sprightliness and ductility by an
expeditious compliance with fashions or vices.  The first
smile of a man, whose fortune gives him power to
reward his dependants, commonly enchants him
beyond resistance; the glare of equipage, the sweets
of luxury, the liberality of general promises, the
softness of habitual affability, fill his imagination;
and he soon ceases to have any other wish than to
be well received, or any measure of right and wrong
but the opinion of his patron.

A man flattered and obeyed, learns to exact
grosser adulation, and enjoin lower submission.
Neither our virtues nor vices are all our own.  If
there were no cowardice, there would be little
insolence; pride cannot rise to any great degree, but
by the concurrence of blandishment or the sufferance
of tameness.  The wretch who would shrink
and crouch before one that should dart his eyes
upon him with the spirit of natural equality, becomes
capricious and tyrannical when he sees himself
approached with a downcast look, and hears the soft
address of awe and servility.  To those who are willing
to purchase favour by cringes and compliance,
is to be imputed the haughtiness that leaves nothing
to be hoped by firmness and integrity.

If, instead of wandering after the meteors of
philosophy, which fill the world with splendour for
a while, and then sink and are forgotten, the
candidates of learning fixed their eyes upon the
permanent lustre of moral and religious truth, they would
find a more certain direction to happiness.  A little
plausibility of discourse, and acquaintance with
unnecessary speculations, is dearly purchased, when
it excludes those instructions which fortify the heart
with resolution, and exalt the spirit to independence.



No. 181. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 10, 1751

 ----Neu fluitem dubiae spe pendulus horae.
HOR. Lib. i. Ep. xviii. 110.

 Nor let me float in fortune's ponv'r,
 Dependent on the future hour.  FRAXCIS.


TO THE RAMBLER.

SIR,

AS I have passed much of my life in disquiet and
suspense, and lost many opportunities of advantage
by a passion which I have reason to believe
prevalent in different degrees over a great part of
mankind, I cannot 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-draper, with
uncommon reputation for diligence and fidelity;
and at the age of three-and-twenty 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 success proportionate to close application
and untainted integrity; was a daring bidder at every
sale; always paid my notes before they were due,
and advanced so fast in commercial reputation, 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, part was to be repaid though
fortune might fail to favour me, and therefore my
established maxims 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 discovered by
the publick papers that the numbers 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 as
bounteous allotment would have produced, if it had
happened to me.  This dream of felicity, by degrees,
took possession of my imagination.  The great delight
of my solitary hours was to purchase 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 withheld
by deliberation upon the probability of success from
one ticket rather than another.  I hesitated long
between even and odd; considered the square and
cubick numbers through the lottery; examined all
those to which good luck had been hitherto annexed;
and at last fixed upon one, which, by some
secret relation to the events of my life, I thought
predestined to make me happy.  Delay in great
affairs is often mischievous; the ticket was sold,
and its possessor could not be found.

I returned to my conjectures, and after many arts
of prognostication, fixed upon another chance, but
with less confidence.  Never did captive, heir, or
lover, feel so much vexation from the slow pace of
time, as I suffered between the purchase of my
ticket and the distribution of the prizes.  I solaced
my uneasiness as well as I could, by frequent
contemplation of approaching happiness; when the sun
rose I knew it would set, and congratulated 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 chagrin might
fume away without observation, 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 many experiments did I try, to determine from
which of those tickets I might most reasonably
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 hundred and thirty
thousand throws.

This experiment was fallacious; the first day
presented the hopeful ticket, a detestable blank.  The
rest came out with different fortune, 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 scarcely heard or answered a
question, but considered every customer as an intruder
upon my meditations, whom I was in haste to
despatch.  I mistook the price of my goods,
committed blunders in my bills, forgot to file my
receipts, and neglected to regulate my books.  My
acquaintances by degrees began to fall away; but I
perceived the decline of my business with little
emotion, because whatever deficience there might
be in my gains, I expected the next lottery to
supply.

Miscarriage naturally produces diffidence; I
began now to seek assistance against ill luck, by an
alliance with those that had been more successful.
I inquired diligently at what office any prize had
been sold, that I might purchase of a propitious
vender; solicited 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 diffused my interest, that I had a
fourth part of fifteen tickets, an eighth of forty, and
a sixteenth 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 neglect.  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 inquiring the number, 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 detestation 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 impossibility of recalling the past, or
the folly of condemning an act, which only its
event, an event which no human intelligence could
foresee, 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, 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, increased
your fortune, in a laborious and anxious pursuit 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 repentance 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; return
to rational and manly industry, and consider the
mere gift of luck as below the care of a wise man.



No. 182. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 14, 1751

 ----Dives qui fieri vult,
 Et cito vult fieri.----     JUV. Sat. xiv. 176.

 The lust of wealth can never bear delay.

IT has been observed in a late paper, that we are
unreasonably desirous to separate the goods of
life from those evils which Providence 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
necessary to raise a sudden fortune, either by
new discoveries, or by superiority of skill, in any
necessary employment; and among lower
understandings, many want the firmness and industry
requisite to regular gain and gradual acquisitions.

From the hope of enjoying affluence by methods
more compendious than those of labour, and more
generally practicable than those of genius, proceeds
the common inclination 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 visionary
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 plenty 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 themselves 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
enamoured 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, consented 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.

He was now 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, listened 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 achievements upon drawers and coachmen,
was often brought to his lodgings at midnight in a
chair, told with negligence and jocularity of bilking
a tailor, 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 civilities to Flavilla, the only
daughter of a wealthy shopkeeper, who not being
accustomed to amorous blandishments, or respectful
addresses, was delighted with the novelty of love,
and easily suffered him to conduct her to the play,
and to meet her where she visited.  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 affair.  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 inquiries concerning the
nymphs in the neighbourhood, 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 contention.
They hovered round her with such jealous officiousness,
as scarcely left a moment vacant for a lover.
Leviculus, nevertheless, discovered his passion in a
letter, and Altilia could not withstand the pleasure
of hearing vows and sighs, and flatteries and
protestations.  She admitted his visits, enjoyed for five
years the happiness of keeping all her expectants in
perpetual alarms, and amused herself with the various
stratagems 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 disadvantage of Leviculus,
by which she commonly seemed affected for a
time, but took care soon afterwards to express her
conviction of their falsehood.  But being at last
satiated with this ludicrous tyranny, she told her
lover, when he pressed for the reward of his services,
that she was very sensible of his merit, but was
resolved not to impoverish an ancient family.

He then returned to the town, and soon after his
arrival, became acquainted with Latronia, a lady
distinguished by the elegance of her equipage, and
the regularity of her conduct.  Her wealth was
evident in her magnificence, and her prudence in her
economy, and therefore Leviculus, who had scarcely
confidence to solicit her favour, readily acquitted
fortune of her former debts, when he found himself
distinguished by her with such marks of preference
as a woman of modesty is allowed to give.  He now
grew bolder, and ventured to breathe out his
impatience before her.  She heard him without
resentment, in time permitted him to hope for happiness,
and at last fixed the nuptial 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 supported in her
expense by the credit of his estate.  Leviculus
shuddered to see himself so near a precipice, and found
that he was indebted 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 disconsolate, 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 countenance, 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 formality 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 shewed
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 returned to the attack.  He soon grew
familiar to her dialect, and in a few weeks heard,
without any emotion, hints of gay clothes with
empty pockets; concurred in many sage remarks
on the regard due to people of property, 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 marriage;
but was always answered with a slap, a hoot, and a
flounce.  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
journeyman from the neighbouring shop, of whom
she had become enamoured at her window.

In these, and a thousand intermediate
adventures, 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.



No. 183. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 17, 1751

 Nulla fides regni sociis, omnisque potestas
 Impatiens consortis erit.   LUCAN, Lib. i. 92.

 No faith of partnership dominion owns;
 Still discord hovers o'er divided thrones.

THE hostility perpetually exercised between
one man and another, is caused by the desire
of many for that which only few can possess.
Every man would be rich, powerful, and famous;
yet fame, power, and riches are only the names of
relative conditions, which imply the obscurity,
dependance, 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 extensive 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 kindled 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 blameless actions, or the obstruction
of honest endeavours, brings upon the world,
is inflicted by men that propose no advantage to
themselves but the satisfaction of poisoning the
banquet which they cannot taste, and blasting the
harvest which they have no right to reap.

Interest can diffuse itself but to a narrow
compass.  The number is never large of those who can
hope to fill the posts of degraded power, catch the
fragments of shattered 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 they not 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, courage 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 invisible assailants, and dies like
a man suffocated by a poisonous vapour, without
knowledge 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 expense or
danger.  To spread suspicion, to invent calumnies,
to propagate scandal, requires neither labour nor
courage.  It is easy for the author of a lie, 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 always to be dreaded.

It is impossible to mention a name which any
advantageous distinction has made eminent, 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.  The beauty,
adorned only with the unambitious graces of innocence
and modesty, provokes, whenever she appears,
a thousand murmurs of detraction.  The genius,
even when he endeavours only to entertain or
instruct, yet suffers persecution from innumerable
criticks, whose acrimony is excited merely by the
pain of seeing others pleased, and of hearing
applauses which another enjoys.

The frequency of envy makes it so familiar, 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, finds himself
pursued by multitudes whom he never saw, with
all the implacability of personal resentment; when
he perceives clamour and malice let loose upon him
as a publick enemy, and incited by every stratagem
of defamation; when he hears the misfortunes of
his family, or the follies of his youth, exposed to
the world; and every failure of conduct, or defect
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 advanced 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, considerations, which, if carefully
implanted and diligently propagated, might in time
overpower 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 sacrifices truth
and kindness to very weak temptations.  He that
plunders a wealthy neighbour gains as much as he
takes away, and may improve his own condition in
the same proportion as he impairs another's; but he
that blasts a flourishing reputation, must be content
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 predominance of almost any other quality is to
be preferred.  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 often 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.



No. 184. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 21, 1751

 Permittes ipsis expendere numinibus, quid
 Conveniat nobis, rebusque sit utile nostris.

JUV. Sat. x. 347.


 Intrust thy fortune to the pow'rs above;
 Leave them to manage for thee, and to grant
 What their unerring wisdom sees thee want.  DRYDEN.

AS every scheme of life, so every form of writing,
has its advantages and inconveniences, though
not mingled in the same proportions.  The writer of
essays escapes many embarrassments to which a
large work would have exposed him; he seldom
harasses his reason with long trains of consequences,
dims his eyes with the perusal of antiquated volumes,
or burthens his memory with great accumulations
of preparatory knowledge.  A careless glance upon
a favourite author, or transient survey of the
varieties of life, is sufficient to supply the first hint
or seminal idea, which, enlarged 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 principal
characters are established, and the great events
regularly connected, finds incidents and episodes
crowding 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 increased than
lessened by every production.  The day calls afresh
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 inquiring long for a proper
subject.  Every diversity of art or nature, every
publick blessing or calamity, every 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 often happens, that the judgment is distracted
with boundless multiplicity, the imagination
ranges from one design to another, and the hours
pass imperceptibly 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 deliverance on any terms from
perplexity and suspense, applies herself vigorously
to the work before her, collects embellishments and
illustrations, 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 subject 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 after 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 inquire 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;
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 previous measures; nor is it any wonder that
their time is passed between elation and despondency,
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
vehement 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 privacy and embarrass caution.
No course of life is so prescribed and limited, but
that many actions must result from arbitrary
election.  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 dependants.

This question has long exercised the schools of
philosophy, but remains yet undecided; and what
hope is there that a young man, unacquainted with
the arguments 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 women, without any
proof of superior desert, chance must again direct
him in the education of his children; for, who was
ever able to convince himself by arguments, that
he had chosen for his son that mode of instruction
to which his understanding was best adapted, or
by which he would most easily be made wise or
virtuous?

Whoever shall inquire by what motives he was
determined on these important occasions, will find
them such as his pride will scarcely suffer him to
confess; some sudden ardour of desire, some
uncertain glimpse of advantage, some petty
competition, some inaccurate conclusion, or some example
implicitly 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 inquisitiveness 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 tempestuous 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 errour
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
measures 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 destruction, nothing can afford any
rational tranquillity, but the conviction that,
however we amuse ourselves with unideal sounds,
nothing in reality is governed by chance, but that
the universe is under the perpetual superintendance
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.



No. 185. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 24, 1751

 At vindicta bonum vita jucundius ipsa,
 Nempe hoc indocti.------------
 Chrysippus non dicet idem, nec mite Thaletis
 Ingenium, dulcique senex vicinus Hymetto,
 Qui partem adceptae saeva inter vincla Cicutoe
 Adcusatori nollet dare.----
 ----------------Quippe minuti
 Semper et infirmi est animi exiguique voluptas
 Ultio.                 JUV. Sat. xiii. 180.

 BUT O! REVENGE IS SWEET.
 Thus think the crowd; who, eager to engage,
 Take quickly fire, and kindle into rage.
 Not so mild Thales nor Chrysippus thought,
 Nor that good man, who drank the poisonous draught
 With mind serene; and could not wish to see
 His vile accuser drink as deep as he:
 Exalted Socrates! divinely brave!
 Injur'd he fell, and dying he forgave!
 Too noble for revenge; which still we find
 The weakest frailty of a feeble mind.  DRYDEN

NO vicious dispositions of the mind more
obstinately resist both the counsels 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
obtained, or suffering from our own prejudices some
imputation of pusillanimity.

For this reason scarcely any law of our Redeemer
is more openly transgressed, or more industriously
evaded, than that by which he commands his followers
to forgive injuries, and prohibits, under the
sanction of eternal misery, 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 combat pride, and pursue
offences to extremity of vengeance, lest they should
be insulted by the triumph of an enemy.

But certainly no precept could better become
him, at whose birth PEACE was proclaimed TO THE EARTH.
For, what would so soon destroy all the order of
society, and deform life with violence and ravage, as
a permission to every one to judge his own cause,
and to apportion his own recompense for imagined
injuries?

It is difficult for a man of the strictest justice not
to favour himself too much, in the calmest moments
of solitary meditation.  Every one wishes for the
distinctions for which thousands 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, interest, or danger.  Whoever arrogates to
himself the right of vengeance, shews 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, or vehemence of desire,
that prompt the act of injustice, will more strongly
incite its justification; and resentment can never so
exactly balance the punishment with the fault, but
there will remain an overplus of vengeance which
even he who condemns his first action will think
himself entitled to retaliate.  What then can ensue
but a continual exacerbation of hatred, an
unextinguishable feud, an incessant reciprocation of
mischief, a mutual vigilance to entrap, and eagerness to
destroy.

Since then the imaginary right of vengeance 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 possession
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, pleased 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 recall it to the mind,
and fresh remembrance of vexation must still enkindle
rage, and irritate revenge.

A wise man will make haste to forgive, because
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 inveterate hatred, and
gives up his days and nights to the gloom of malice,
and perturbations of stratagem, cannot surely be
said to consult his ease.  Resentment is an 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 exasperate his own rage; whose
thoughts are employed only on means of distress
and contrivances 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 numbered 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 persuasives 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, precipitance,
or negligence; we cannot be certain how
much more we feel than was intended to be inflicted,
or how much we increase the mischief to ourselves
by voluntary aggravations.  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 errour
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 domestick
tranquillity and to social happiness, no man is
withheld 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 consciousness of our attainments, but
insensibility of our wants.

Nothing can be great which is not right.  Nothing
which reason condemns can be suitable 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 opinion of others to rule our choice, or
overpower 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 pursuit of
virtue, without regard to present dangers 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 regulate
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 sentence
is therefore of no weight till it has received
the ratification of our own conscience.

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 withhold 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
seriousness and reflection, he must become despicable
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
indispensably required that he forgive.  It is therefore
superfluous to urge any other motive.  On this great
duty eternity is suspended, and to him that refuses
to practise it, the Throne of mercy is inaccessible,
and the Saviour of the world has been born in vain.



No. 186. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 28, 1751

 Pone me, pigris ubi nulla campis
 Arbor aestiva recreatur aura----
 Dulce ridentem Lagagen amabo

Dulce loquentem.   HOR. Lib. i. Ode xxii. 17.


 Place me where never summer breeze
 Unbinds the glebe, or warms the trees;
 Where ever lowering clouds appear,
 And angry Jove deforms th' inclement year:
 Love and the nymph shall charm my toils,
 The nymph, who sweetly speaks and sweetly smiles.

FRANCIS.


OF the happiness and misery of our present state,
part arises from our sensations, and part from
our opinions; part is distributed by nature, and part
is in a great measure apportioned by ourselves.
Positive pleasure we cannot always obtain, and positive
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 attention from wounds or
diseases.  But the negative infelicity which proceeds,
not from the pressure of sufferings, but the absence
of enjoyments, will always yield to the remedies
of reason.

One of the great arts of escaping superfluous
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 imaginary states of delight and security,
perhaps unattainable by mortals.  Few are placed in
a situation so gloomy and distressful, as not to see
every day beings yet more forlorn and miserable,
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 exercise 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 wander in the vales of Asia, and sport among
the woods that are always green, and streams that
always murmur; but if he turns his thought 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
tranquillity, and, while he stirs his fire, or throws his
cloak about him, reflect how much he owes to Providence,
that he is not placed in Greenland or Siberia.

The barrenness of the earth and the severity 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, influence conduct, or diversify characters;
the summer should be spent only in providing for
the winter, and the winter in longing 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 humanity can be found, perhaps exerts
the same power in the Greenlander's hut as in the
palaces 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
inhabitants 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 affection, 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 judicious
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 the 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 pursue her, though she should pass the
snows of the midland cliffs, or seek shelter in the
caves of the eastern cannibals: that he would tear
her from the embraces of the genius of the rocks,
snatch her from the paws of Amarock, and rescue
her from the ravine of Hafgufa."  He concluded
with a wish, that "whoever shall attempt to hinder
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, expected all the forms of
courtship; and before she would confess herself
conquered, the sun returned, the ice broke, and the
season of labour called all to their employments.

Anningait and Ajut for a time always went out
in the same boat, and divided whatever was caught.
Anningait, in the sight of his mistress, lost no
opportunity of signalizing 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
completed his store; he therefore entreated 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 entitled 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 expect
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 passed 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 travel at
any time from one place to another, through ways
inclosed 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
buildings.  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 delicious 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.



No. 187. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 31, 1751

 Non illuwm nostri possunt mutare labores;
 Non si frigoribus mediis Hebrumque bibamus,
 Sithoniasque nives hyemis subeamus aquosae:----
     Omnia vincit amor. VIRG. Ec. x. 64.

 Love alters not for us his hard decrees,
 Not though beneath the Thracian clime we freeze,
 Or the mild bliss of temperate skies forego,
 And in mid winter tread Sithonian snow:----
 Love conquers all.----

DRYDEN.


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 marble 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 overpowered by his magnificence,
that she followed him to the sea-side; 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 departing
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 endeavoured to divert her thoughts,
by continual application to feminine employments,
gathered 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 reindeer;
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 courage.  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 expressed, in wild numbers and uncouth
images, his hopes, his sorrows, and his fears.  "O
life!" says he, "frail 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 for ever?  What,
love, art thou but a whirlpool, which we approach
without knowledge of our danger, 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 not yet called her to
the banquet, I was careless as the sleeping morse,
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 un-
wearied as the summer sun.  In a few weeks I shall
return prosperous and wealthy; then shall the roe-
fish and the porpoise feast thy kindred; 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 sentiments consoled
his grief, and animated his industry, 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
several 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, notwithstanding 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 child-birth,
and his father, the most expert fisher of Greenland,
had perished by too close pursuit of the whale.  His
dignity was equalled by his riches; he was master
of four men's and two women's boats, had ninety
tubs of oil in his winter habitation, 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 recourse to stratagem.
He knew that Ajut would consult an Angekkok,
or diviner, concerning the fate of her lover,
and the felicity of her future life.  He therefore
applied himself 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 inquired what events were to befall 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 foretold 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 unsuccessful, 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
Anningait, and decreed Ajut to the embraces of
Norngsuk.  She entreated; she remonstrated; she
wept, and raved; but finding riches irresistible, fled
away into the uplands, and lived in a cave upon
such berries as she could gather, 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 carriage,
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 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 rashness, that
she was going in search of Anningait, 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 deserts 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 declares that they love like
Anningait and Ajut.



No. 188. SATURDAY, JANUARY 4, 1751

 ----Si te colo, Sexte, non amabo.

MART. Lib. ii. Ep. iv. 33.


 The more I honour thee, the less I love.

ONE of the desires dictated by vanity is more
general, or less blamable, than that of being
distinguished for the arts of conversation.  Other
accomplishments may be possessed without opportunity
of exerting them, or wanted without danger
that the defect 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 considered as a promise of felicity, and
whose departure 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 inform 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 experiment 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 necessary to general acceptance.  Few spend
their time with much satisfaction under the eye of
uncontestable superiority; and therefore, among
those whose presence is courted at assemblies of
jollity, there are seldom found men eminently
distinguished for powers or acquisitions.  The wit whose
vivacity condemns slower tongues to silence, the
scholar whose knowledge allows no man to fancy
that he instructs him, the critick who suffers no
fallacy to pass undetected, and the reasoner who
condemns the idle to thought, and the negligent
to attention, are generally praised and feared,
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 entertainment of the company.
Merriment, extorted by sallies of imagination,
sprightliness of remark, 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 style of conversation is more
extensively acceptable than the narrative.  He who
has stored his memory with slight anecdotes, private
incidents, and personal peculiarities, 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
connexion 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 himself to become a speaker in
another; for though he cannot comprehend a series
of argument, or transport the volatile spirit of wit
without evaporation, he yet thinks himself able to
treasure up the various incidents of a story, and
please 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 echoed 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 of life
not possible, to accumulate such a stock of
materials as may support the expense of continual
narration; and it frequently happens, 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 continual repetition.

There would be, therefore, little hope of
obtaining the praise of a good companion, were it not
to be gained by more compendious methods; but
such is the kindness of mankind to all, except
those who aspire to real merit and rational dignity,
that every understanding may find some way to
excite benevolence; and whoever is not envied may
learn the art of procuring love.  We are willing to be
pleased, but are not willing to admire: we favour the
mirth or officiousness that solicits our regard, but
oppose the worth or spirit that enforces 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 echo 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 jocularity, or
force of conception; it is sufficient that he always
appears in the highest exaltation of gladness, for
the greater part of mankind are gay or serious by
infection, and follow without resistance the attraction
of example.

Next to the merry fellow is the GOOD-NATURED
MAN, a being generally without benevolence, or any
other virtue, than such as indolence and insensibility
confer.  The characteristick of a good-natured
man is to bear a joke; to sit unmoved and unaffected
amidst noise and turbulence, profaneness and
obscenity; 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 rudiments of raillery; for he never
takes advantage of failings, nor disconcerts a puny
satirist with unexpected sarcasms; but while the
glass continues to circulate, contentedly bears the
expense of an uninterrupted laughter, and retires
rejoicing at his own importance.

The MODEST MAN is a companion of a yet lower
rank, whose only power of giving pleasure is not to
interrupt it.  The modest man satisfies himself with
peaceful silence, which all his companions are candid
enough to consider 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 weekly club, because every night,
precisely at eleven, he begins his favourite song, and
during the vocal performance, by corresponding
motions 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[b].


 [b] Mrs. Piozzi, in her Anecdotes, informs us, that the man who
sung, and, by corresponding motions of his arm, chalked out a
giant on the wall, was one Richardson, an attorney: the ingenious
imitator of a cat, was one Busby, a proctor in the Commons: and
the father of Dr. Salter, of the Charter-House, a friend of
Johnson's, and a member of the Ivy-Lane Club, was the person who
yelped like a hound, and perplexed the distracted waiters.--Mr.
Chalmers, in his preface to the Rambler observes, that the
above-quoted lively writer was the only authority for these
assignments.  She is certainly far too hasty and negligent to be
relied on, when unsupported by other testimony.--See Preface.


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



No. 189. TUESDAY, JANUARY 7, 1752

 Quod tam grande Sophos clamat tibi turba togata;
 Non tu, Pomponi; caena diserta tua est.

MART. Lib. vi. Ep. xlviii.


 Resounding plaudits though the crowd have rung
 Thy treat is eloquent, and not thy tongue.  F. Lewis.

THE world scarcely affords opportunities of
making any observation more frequently, than on
false claims to commendation.  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; so that scarcely can two persons
casually meet, but one is 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 impostures promote
their interest, or gratify their pride, from them who
mean only to force into regard their latent excellencies
and neglected virtues; who believe themselves
qualified 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 seldom content with empty
praise, but are instigated by passions more pernicious
than vanity.  They consider the reputation which
they endeavour to establish as necessary to the
accomplishment of some subsequent design, and value
praise only as it may conduce to the success of avarice
or ambition.

The commercial world is very frequently put into
confusion by the bankruptcy of merchants, 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
supported their appearance a while by tumultuous
magnifience 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 happiness in the
favour of the great, of beings whom only high titles
or large estates set above themselves, nothing is
more common than to boast of confidence which they
do not enjoy; to sell promises which they know their
interest unable to perform; and to reimburse the
tribute which they pay to an imperious master, from
the contributions of meaner dependants, whom they
can amuse with tales of their influence, and hopes
of their solicitation.

Even among some, too thoughtless and volatile
for avarice or ambition, may be found a species of
falsehood more detestable than the levee or exchange
can shew.  There are men that boast of debaucheries,
of which they never 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 falsehood, though utterly
unworthy of an ingenuous mind, are not yet to be
ranked with flagitious enormities, nor is it necessary
to incite 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 talks 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 without 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 universal 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 particular 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 dependance
and expectation, and wherever there is dependance,
there will be an emulation of servility.

Many of the follies which provoke general
censure, are the effects of such vanity as, however it
might have wantoned in the imagination, would
scarcely have dared the publick eye, had it not been
animated and emboldened by flattery.  Whatever
difficulty there may be in the knowledge of
ourselves, scarcely any one fails to suspect his own
imperfections, till he is elevated by others to
confidence.  We are almost all naturally modest and
timorous; but fear and shame are uneasy sensations,
and whosoever helps to remove them is received
with kindness.

Turpicula was the heiress of a large estate, and
having lost her mother in infancy, was committed
to a governess, whom misfortunes had reduced to
suppleness and humility.  The fondness of Turpicula's
father would not suffer him to trust her at a
publick school, but he hired domestick teachers,
and bestowed on her all the accomplishments that
wealth could purchase.  But how many things are
necessary to happiness which money cannot obtain!
Thus secluded from all with whom she might converse
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 obsequiousness, and
heard nothing but commendations.  None are so
little acquainted with the heart, as not to know that
woman's first wish is to be handsome, and that
consequently the readiest method of obtaining her
kindness is to praise her beauty.  Turpicula had a distorted
shape and a dark complexion; yet, when the impudence
of adulation had ventured 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 gazed upon her felt the fire of
envy or love.  She therefore neglected 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 admired.
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
aloud 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.



No. 190. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 11, 1752

 Ploravere suis non respondere favorem
 Speratum meritis.----  HOR. Lib. ii. Ep. i. 9.

 Henry and Alfred----
 Clos'd their long glories with a sigh, to find
 Th' unwilling gratitude of base mankind.    POPE.

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 posterity 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 province, from which the fame of his
wisdom and moderation was wafted to the pinnacles
of Agra, by the prayers of those whom his
administration made happy.  The emperour 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 faltered in his
presence, and every eye was cast down before him.

Morad lived many years in prosperity; every
day increased 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 his own murmurs.  But human greatness
is short and transitory, as the odour of incense
in the fire.  The sun grew weary of gilding the
palaces of Morad, the clouds of sorrow gathered
round his head, and the tempest 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 pleasures, and only a few, whose
virtue had entitled 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 overborne by clamour.  He was divested of his
power, deprived of his acquisitions, and condemned
to pass the rest of his life on his hereditary estate.

Morad had been so long accustomed to crowds and
business, supplicants and flattery, that he knew not
how to fill up his hours in solitude; he saw with
regret the sun rise to force on his eye a new day for
which he had no use; and envied the savage that
wanders in the desert, 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 constitution,
and a slow disease siezed upon him.  He refused
physick, neglected exercise, and lay down on his
couch peevish and restless, rather afraid to die than
desirous to live.  His domesticks, for a time,
redoubled their assiduities; but finding that no
officiousness could soothe, nor exactness satisfy, they
soon gave way to negligence and sloth; and he that
once commanded nations, often languished in his
chamber without an attendant.

In this melancholy state, he commanded
messengers to recall 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.  Morad 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 is howling for his prey.  Hear,
therefore, the precepts of ancient experience, let not my
last instructions 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 inheritance the clemency of the
emperour has spared, and my wisdom his anger
could not take away.  Cast thine eyes around thee;
whatever thou beholdest will, in a few hours, be
thine: apply thine ear to my dictates, and these
possessions will promote thy happiness.  Aspire not to
public honours, enter not the palaces of kings; thy
wealth will set thee above insult, let thy moderation
keep thee 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.  Abouzaid, after
the months of mourning, determined 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 starts of unguarded passion.  He therefore
augmented the pay of all his attendants, and
requited every exertion of uncommon diligence by
supernumerary gratuities.  While he congratulated
himself upon the fidelity and affection of his family,
he was in the night alarmed with 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 alienated whom he disappointed.
He therefore resolved to associate with a few equal
companions selected from among the chief men of
the province.  With these he lived happily for a time,
till familiarity set them free from restraint, and
every man thought himself at liberty to indulge
his own caprice, and advance 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
concurrence, or both by indifference.

He afterwards determined to avoid a close union
with beings so discordant in their nature, 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 rejected 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 intimacy,
thought himself overlooked in the crowd, 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 gratitude, he
inquired for men of science, whose merit was
obscured by poverty.  His house was soon crowded
with poets, sculptors, painters, and designers, who
wantoned in unexperienced 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.  Abouzaid 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 labours that wish to be rewarded
by human 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."



No. 191. TUESDAY, JANUARY 14, 1752

 Cereus in vitium flecti, monitoribus asper.

HOR. Art. Poet. 163.


 The youth----
 Yielding like wax, th' impressive folly bears
 Rough to reproof, and slow to future cares. FRANCIS.


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 seventeen 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 fit 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 gentleman;--she will breakfast
with him to-morrow, 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
flambeaux 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, however, 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
within the leaves and read about ABSENCE and
INCONSOLABLENESS, and ARDOUR, and IRRESISTIBLE PASSION, 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 tyrannize
over us in a very shameful manner, and fill our
imaginations with tales of terrour, only to make us
live in quiet subjection, and fancy that we can never
be safe but by their protection.

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 understanding, and love to talk of vice
and virtue, nature and simplicity, and beauty and
propriety; 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 government fifteen
years and a half, and have all that time been
endeavouring to deceive me by such representations
of life as I now find not to be true; but I know not
whether I ought to impute them 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 merit of understanding; and that a habit
of reading would enable me to fill up the vacuities
of life without the help of silly or dangerous
amusements, and preserve me from the snares of idleness
and the inroads of temptation.

But their principal intention was 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
fancy, 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 answered a billet, without consulting her relations,
gave love such power over her, that she would
certainly become either poor or infamous.

From the time that my leading-strings were
taken off, I scarce heard any mention of my beauty
but from the milliner, the mantua-maker, and my
own maid; for my mamma never said more, when
she heard me commended, but "the girl is very
well," and then endeavoured to divert my attention
by some inquiry 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 Racker's rout; and you may
easily imagine what I think of those who have so
long cheated me with false expectations, disturbed
me with fictitious terrours, 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 another box, by
retailing some of Dryden's remarks 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 principles 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 obtained; 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
extraordinary; but sometimes I ramble into the
country, 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 clothes, 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 soon be at an end.  There
will always be gardens, and a park, and auctions,
and shows, and playhouses, and cards; visits will
always be paid, and clothes 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 devoted 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 closely to attend,
and most frequently to treat me; when different
places of entertainment, or schemes of pleasure are
mentioned, I can see the eye sparkle and the cheeks
glow of him whose proposals obtain my approbation;
he then leads me of in triumph, adores my
condescension, and congratulates himself that he
has lived to the hour of felicity.  Are these, Mr.
Rambler, creatures to be feared?  Is it likely that
an 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 observation of the game.  Even
Mr. Shuffle, a grave gentleman, who has daughters
older than myself, plays with me so negligently,
that I am sometimes inclined to believe 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 relations.

For all these distinctions I find myself indebted
to that beauty which I was never suffered to hear
praised, and of which, therefore, I did not before
know the full value.  The concealment was certainly
an intentional fraud, for my aunts have eyes like
other people, and I am every day told, that nothing
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 another; 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.



No. 192. SATURDAY, JANUARY 18, 1752

 <gr> Genos ouoedeoen eioes Erwta<.S>>
 <gr> Sofih, tropos pate<i?>tai<.S>>
 <gr> Monon arguron Blepousin>.
 <gr> 'Apoloito pr<w?>tos a<uoetooes
 <gr> "O tooen arguron filhsas.
 <gr> Dtaoe to<u?>ton ouoec aoedelfooes,
 <gr> Dtaoe to<u?>ton ouoe toc<h?>es><.S>
 <gr> Polemoi, fonoi dioe auoeton.
 <gr> Tooe deoe Ce<i?>ton, ooellumesqa>
 <gr> Dtaoe touoeton oi filo<u?>ntes>.  ANACREON. <gr> ODAI,
M<s>. 5.

 Vain the noblest birth would prove,
 Nor worth or wit avail in love;
 'Tis gold alone succeeds--by gold
 The venal sex is bought and sold.
 Accurs'd be he who first of yore
 Discover'd the pernicious ore!
 This sets a brother's heart on fire,
 And arms the son against the sire;
 And what, alas! is worse than all,
 To this the lover owes his fall.  F. LEWIS.


TO THE RAMBLER

SIR,

I AM the son of a gentleman, whose ancestors, for
many ages, held the first rank in the country;
till at last one of them, too desirous of popularity,
set his house open, 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 labour, 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 participation of the rights
of his manour; he therefore made another mortgage
to pay the interest of the former, and pleased himself
with the reflection, that his son would have the
hereditary estate without the diminution of an acre.

Nearly resembling this was the practice of my
wise progenitors for many ages.  Every man boasted
the antiquity of his family, resolved to support the
dignity of his birth, and lived in splendour and
plenty at the expense 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
embarrassment 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 apprenticeship,
though we never reconciled ourselves heartily
to the sound of haberdasher, but always talked of
warehouses and a merchant, and when the wind
happened to blow loud, affected to pity the hazards
of commerce, and to sympathize with the solicitude
of my poor uncle, who had the true retailer's terrour
of adventure, and never exposed himself or his
property to any wider water than the Thames.

In time, however, by continual profit and small
expenses, he grew rich, and began to turn his thoughts
towards rank.  He hung the arms of the family over
his parlour-chimney; 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 alderman Puff's
grandfather the porter; wondered that there was
no better method for regulating precedence; wished
for some dress peculiar to men of fashion; and
when his servant presented a letter, always inquired
whether it came from his brother the esquire.

My father was careful to send him game by every
carrier, which, though the conveyance 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 withhold from polluting his fingers
with a shop-book.

The little presents which we sent were always
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 expense, and was careful to conceal his
bounties, 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 opportunity of reinstating
the family in their possessions, 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 considered
himself as superior to trade, disposed of his stock,
and as soon as he had settled his economy, began
to shew his rural sovereignty, 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 neighbours
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, declared himself too old
to marry, and resolved to let the newly-purchased
estate fall into the regular channel of inheritance.
I was therefore considered as heir apparent, and
courted with officiousness and caresses, by the
gentlemen 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 civilities for
which I knew myself indebted to my uncle's industry,
till, by one of the invitations 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
daughter; 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 complaisance.  I, who
had been excluded by a narrow fortune from much
acquaintance with the world, and never been honoured
before with the notice of so fine a lady, was
easily enamoured.  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 witness; at last I declared my passion
to Lucius, who received me as a lover worthy of his
daughter, and told me that nothing was wanting to
his consent, but that my uncle should settle his estate
upon me.  I objected the indecency of encroaching
on his life, and the danger of provoking him by such
an unseasonable 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 in
convenience, wait for his death.

With this resolution I was better contented, as
it procured me the company of Flavilla, in which
the days passed away amidst continual rapture; but
in time I began to be ashamed of sitting idle, in
expectation 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 design by dissuasives to which my passions
easily listened.  At last my uncle died, and considering
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 relating 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 ardour, in a letter which she
received privately, but returned by her father's
footman.  Contempt has driven out my love, and I am
content 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.


No. 193. TUESDAY, JANUARY 21, 1752

 Laudis amore tumes? sunt certa piacula, quoe te
 Ter pure lecto poterunt recreare libella.

HON. Lib. i. Ep. i. 36.


 Or art thou vain? books yield a certain spell
 To stop thy tumour; you shall cease to swell
 When you have read them thrice, and studied well.

CREECH.


WHATEVER is universally desired, will be
sought by industry and artifice, 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 innumerable differences of temper,
capacity, and knowledge; some have no higher wish
than for the applause of a club; some expect the
acclamations of a county; and some have hoped to fill
the mouths of all ages and nations 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 without regard to
censure or opinion.

To be praised, therefore, every man resolves;
but resolutions will not execute themselves.  That
which all think too parsimoniously 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
enjoyed.

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 attracts attention, and
learning and bravery sink into the grave, without
honour 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 afterwards transferred for money;
and that the man of wealth may partake all the
acquisitions of courage without hazard, and all the
products of industry without fatigue.  It was easily
discovered, that riches would obtain praise among
other conveniences, 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 serenades, or waked in the
morning by sprightly gratulations.

The happiness which mortals receive from the
celebration of beneficence which never relieved,
eloquence which never persuaded, or elegance which
never pleased, ought not to be envied or disturbed,
when they are known honestly to pay for their
entertainment.  But there are unmerciful exactors of
adulation, who withhold the wages of venality; retain
their encomiast from year to year by general
promises and ambiguous blandishments; and when
he has run through the whole compass of flattery,
dismiss him with contempt, because his vein of fiction
is exhausted.

A continual feast of commendation is only to be
obtained by merit or by wealth; many are therefore
obliged to content themselves with single morsels,
and recompense the infrequency of their enjoyment
by excess and riot, whenever fortune sets the banquet
before 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 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
complains 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 surely the happiest
and greatest; for what is greatness or happiness but
independence on external influences, exemption
from hope or fear, and the power of supplying every
want from the common stores of nature, which can
neither be exhausted nor prohibited?  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 withhold; but no human
power can deprive the boaster of his own encomiums.
Infamy may hiss, or contempt may growl,
the hirelings of the great may follow fortune, and
the votaries of truth may attend 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 hopeless task of fixing caprice, and propitiating
malice.

This art of happiness has been long practised by
periodical writers, with little apparent violation of
decency.  When we think our excellencies overlooked
by the world, or desire 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 character
we assume, always addresses us with the deference
due to a superior intelligence; proposes his doubts
with a proper sense of his own inability; offers an
objection with trembling diffidence; and at last has
no other pretensions to our notice than his profundity
of respect, and sincerity of admiration, his
submission to our dictates, and zeal for our success.
To such a reader, it is impossible to refuse regard,
nor can it easily be imagined with how much alacrity
we snatch up the pen which indignation or despair
had condemned to inactivity, when we find such candour
and judgment 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--unbounded genius--
soul of Homer, Pythagoras, and Plato--solidity
of thought--accuracy of distinction--elegance
of combination--vigour of fancy--strength of
reason--and regularity of composition--that I
had once determined to lay it before the publick.
Three times I sent it to the printer, and three times
I fetched it back.  My modesty 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.



No. 194. SATURDAY, JANUARY 25, 1752

 Si damnosa senem juvat alea, ludit et heres
 Bullatus, parvoque eadem movet arma fritillo.

JUV. Sat. xiv. 4.

 If gaming does an aged sire entice,
 Then my young master swiftly learns the vice,
 And shakes in hanging sleeves the little box and dice.

J. DRYDEN, jun.


TO THE RAMBLER.

SIR,

THAT vanity which keeps every man important
in his own eyes, inclines me to believe that
neither you nor your readers 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
narrative without preface or recapitulation.

My pupil, in a very short time, by his mother's
countenance and direction, accomplished himself
with all those qualifications 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 dancing-master, and constant
practice before the glass, for he had some rustick
habits to overcome; but, what will not time and
industry perform?  A fortnight more furnished him
with all the airs and forms of familiar and respectful
salutation, from the clap on the shoulder to the
humble bow; he practises the stare of strangeness,
and the smile of condescension, the solemnity of
promise, and the graciousness of encouragement, as
if he had been nursed at a levee; and pronounces,
with no less propriety than his father, the
monosyllables of coldness, and sonorous periods of
respectful profession.

He immediately lost the reserve and timidity
which solitude and study are apt to impress upon
the most courtly genius; was able to enter a crowded
room with airy civility; to meet the glances of a
hundred eyes without 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 reason to suspect
me not much delighted with his acquisitions; but
she attributed my discontent 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 nobleman, or communicate
the knowledge of the world.  This knowledge she
comprises in the rules of visiting, the history of the
present 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 pursues with great application.
He is twice a day in the Mall, where he studies the
dress of every man splendid 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 inquiring 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 creatures on the stage."

But his acuteness was most eminently signalized
at the masquerade, where he discovered his acquaintance
through their disguises, with such wonderful
facility, as has afforded the family an inexhaustible
topick of conversation.  Every new visitor is
informed how one was detected by his gait, and
another by the swinging of his arms, a third by the
toss of his head, and another by his favourite phrase;
nor can you doubt but these performances receive
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 endeavouring at purity

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