No More Learning

Many, indeed, who enjoy
retreat only in imagination, content themselves with believing, that
another year will transport them to rural tranquillity, and die while
they talk of doing what, if they had lived longer, they would never have
done. But many likewise there are, either of greater resolution or more
credulity, who in earnest try the state which they have been taught to
think thus secure from cares and dangers; and retire to privacy, either
that they may improve their happiness, increase their knowledge, or
exalt their virtue.

The greater part of the admirers of solitude, as of all other classes of
mankind, have no higher or remoter view, than the present gratification
of their passions. Of these, some, haughty and impetuous, fly from
society only because they cannot bear to repay to others the regard
which themselves exact; and think no state of life eligible, but that
which places them out of the reach of censure or control, and affords
them opportunities of living in a perpetual compliance with their own
inclinations, without the necessity of regulating their actions by any
other man's convenience or opinion.

There are others, of minds more delicate and tender, easily offended by
every deviation from rectitude, soon disgusted by ignorance or
impertinence, and always expecting from the conversation of mankind more
elegance, purity and truth, than the mingled mass of life will easily
afford. Such men are in haste to retire from grossness, falsehood and
brutality; and hope to find in private habitations at least a negative
felicity, an exemption from the shocks and perturbations with which
publick scenes are continually distressing them.

To neither of these votaries will solitude afford that content, which
she has been taught so lavishly to promise. The man of arrogance will
quickly discover, that by escaping from his opponents he has lost his
flatterers, that greatness is nothing where it is not seen, and power
nothing where it cannot be felt: and he, whose faculties are employed in
too close an observation of failings and defects, will find his
condition very little mended by transferring his attention from others
to himself: he will probably soon come back in quest of new objects, and
be glad to keep his captiousness employed on any character rather than
his own.

Others are seduced into solitude merely by the authority of great names,
and expect to find those charms in tranquillity which have allured
statesmen and conquerors to the shades: these likewise are apt to wonder
at their disappointment, for want of considering, that those whom they
aspire to imitate carried with them to their country-seats minds full
fraught with subjects of reflection, the consciousness of great merit,
the memory of illustrious actions, the knowledge of important events,
and the seeds of mighty designs to be ripened by future meditation.
Solitude was to such men a release from fatigue, and an opportunity of
usefulness. But what can retirement confer upon him, who having done
nothing can receive no support from his own importance, who having known
nothing can find no entertainment in reviewing the past, and who
intending nothing can form no hopes from prospects of the future? He
can, surely, take no wiser course than that of losing himself again in
the crowd, and filling the vacuities of his mind with the news of the
day.

Others consider solitude as the parent of philosophy, and retire in
expectation of greater intimacies with science, as Numa repaired to the
groves when he conferred with Egeria. These men have not always reason
to repent. Some studies require a continued prosecution of the same
train of thought, such as is too often interrupted by the petty
avocations of common life: sometimes, likewise, it is necessary, that a
multiplicity of objects be at once present to the mind; and every thing,
therefore, must be kept at a distance, which may perplex the memory or
dissipate the attention.

But though learning may be conferred by solitude, its application must
be attained by general converse. He has learned to no purpose, that is
not able to teach; and he will always teach unsuccessfully, who cannot
recommend his sentiments by his diction or address.

Even the acquisition of knowledge is often much facilitated by the
advantages of society: he that never compares his notions with those of
others, readily acquiesces in his first thoughts, and very seldom
discovers the objections which may be raised against his opinions; he,
therefore, often thinks himself in possession of truth, when he is only
fondling an errour long since exploded. He that has neither companions
nor rivals in his studies, will always applaud his own progress, and
think highly of his performances, because he knows not that others have
equalled or excelled him. And I am afraid it may be added, that the
student who withdraws himself from the world, will soon feel that ardour
extinguished which praise or emulation had enkindled, and take the
advantage of secrecy to sleep, rather than to labour.

There remains yet another set of recluses, whose intention entitles them
to higher respect, and whose motives deserve a more serious
consideration. These retire from the world, not merely to bask in ease
or gratify curiosity, but that, being disengaged from common cares, they
may employ more time in the duties of religion; that they may regulate
their actions with stricter vigilance, and purify their thoughts by more
frequent meditation.

To men thus elevated above the mists of mortality, I am far from
presuming myself qualified to give directions. On him that appears to
"pass through things temporal," with no other care than not to "finally
lose the things eternal," I look with such veneration as inclines me to
approve his conduct in the whole, without a minute examination of its
parts; yet I could never forbear to wish, that while vice is every day
multiplying seducements, and stalking forth with more hardened
effrontery, virtue would not withdraw the influence of her presence, or
forbear to assert her natural dignity by open and undaunted perseverance
in the right. Piety practised in solitude, like the flower that blooms
in the desert, may give its fragrance to the winds of Heaven, and
delight those unbodied spirits that survey the works of God and the
actions of men; but it bestows no assistance upon earthly beings, and
however free from taints of impurity, yet wants the sacred splendour of
beneficence.

Our Maker, who, though he gave us such varieties of temper and such
difference of powers, yet designed us all for happiness, undoubtedly
intended that we should obtain that happiness by different means. Some
are unable to resist the temptations of importunity, or the impetuosity
of their own passions incited by the force of present temptations: of
these it is undoubtedly the duty to fly from enemies which they cannot
conquer, and cultivate, in the calm of solitude, that virtue which is
too tender to endure the tempests of publick life. But there are others,
whose passions grow more strong and irregular in privacy; and who cannot
maintain an uniform tenour of virtue, but by exposing their manners to
the publick eye, and assisting the admonitions of conscience with the
fear of infamy: for such it is dangerous to exclude all witnesses of
their conduct, till they have formed strong habits of virtue, and
weakened their passions by frequent victories. But there is a higher
order of men so inspired with ardour, and so fortified with resolution,
that the world passes before them without influence or regard: these
ought to consider themselves as appointed the guardians of mankind: they
are placed in an evil world, to exhibit publick examples of good life;
and may be said, when they withdraw to solitude, to desert the station
which Providence assigned them.




No. 128. SATURDAY, JANUARY 26, 1754.

_Ille sinistrorsum, hic dextrorsum abit; unus utrique
Error, sed variis illudit partibus. _--HOR. Lib. ii. Sat. iii. 50.

When in a wood we leave the certain way,
One error fools us, though we various stray,
Some to the left, and some to t'other side. FRANCIS.

It is common among all the classes of mankind, to charge each other with
trifling away life: every man looks on the occupation or amusement of
his neighbour, as something below the dignity of our nature, and
unworthy of the attention of a rational being.

A man who considers the paucity of the wants of nature, and who, being
acquainted with the various means by which all manual occupations are
now facilitated, observes what numbers are supported by the labour of a
few, would, indeed, be inclined to wonder, how the multitudes who are
exempted from the necessity of working, either for themselves or others,
find business to fill up the vacuities of life. The greater part of
mankind neither card the fleece, dig the mine, fell the wood, nor gather
in the harvest; they neither tend herds nor build houses; in what then
are they employed?

This is certainly a question, which a distant prospect of the world will
not enable us to answer. We find all ranks and ages mingled together in
a tumultuous confusion, with haste in their motions, and eagerness in
their looks; but what they have to pursue or avoid, a more minute
observation must inform them.

When we analyze the crowd into individuals, it soon appears that the
passions and imaginations of men will not easily suffer them to be idle:
we see things coveted merely because they are rare, and pursued because
they are fugitive; we see men conspire to fix an arbitrary value on that
which is worthless in itself, and then contend for the possession. One
is a collector of fossils, of which he knows no other use than to show
them; and when he has stocked his own repository, grieves that the
stones which he has left behind him should be picked up by another. The
florist nurses a tulip, and repines that his rival's beds enjoy the same
showers and sunshine with his own. This man is hurrying to a concert,
only lest others should have heard the new musician before him; another
bursts from his company to the play, because he fancies himself the
patron of an actress; some spend the morning in consultations with their
tailor, and some in directions to their cook; some are forming parties
for cards, and some laying wagers at a horse-race.

It cannot, I think, be denied, that some of these lives are passed in
trifles, in occupations by which the busy neither benefit themselves nor
others, and by which no man could be long engaged, who seriously
considered what he was doing, or had knowledge enough to compare what he
is, with what he might be made. However, as people who have the same
inclination generally flock together, every trifler is kept in
countenance by the sight of others as unprofitably active as himself; by
kindling the heat of competition, he in time thinks himself important,
and by having his mind intensely engaged, he is secured from weariness
of himself.

Some degree of self-approbation is always the reward of diligence; and I
cannot, therefore, but consider the laborious cultivation of petty
pleasures, as a more happy and more virtuous disposition, than that
universal contempt and haughty negligence, which is sometimes associated
with powerful faculties, but is often assumed by indolence when it
disowns its name, and aspires to the appellation of greatness of mind.

It has been long observed, that drollery and ridicule is the most easy
kind of wit: let it be added that contempt and arrogance is the easiest
philosophy. To find some objection to every thing, and to dissolve in
perpetual laziness under pretence that occasions are wanting to call
forth activity, to laugh at those who are ridiculously busy without
setting an example of more rational industry, is no less in the power of
the meanest than of the highest intellects.

Our present state has placed us at once in such different relations,
that every human employment, which is not a visible and immediate act of
goodness, will be in some respect or other subject to contempt; but it
is true, likewise, that almost every act, which is not directly vicious,
is in some respect beneficial and laudable. "I often," says Bruyere,
"observe from my window, two beings of erect form and amiable
countenance, endowed with the powers of reason, able to clothe their
thoughts in language, and convey their notions to each other. They rise
early in the morning, and are every day employed till sunset in rubbing
two smooth stones together, or, in other terms, in polishing marble. "

"If lions could paint," says the fable, "in the room of those pictures
which exhibit men vanquishing lions, we should see lions feeding upon
men. " If the stone-cutter could have written like Bruyere, what would he
have replied?

"I look up," says he, "every day from my shop, upon a man whom the
idlers, who stand still to gaze upon my work, often celebrate as a wit
and a philosopher. I often perceive his face clouded with care, and am
told that his taper is sometimes burning at midnight. The sight of a man
who works so much harder than myself, excited my curiosity. I heard no
sound of tools in his apartment, and, therefore, could not imagine what
he was doing; but was told at last, that he was writing descriptions of
mankind, who when he had described them would live just as they had
lived before; that he sat up whole nights to change a sentence, because
the sound of a letter was too often repeated: that he was often
disquieted with doubts, about the propriety of a word which every body
understood; that he would hesitate between two expressions equally
proper, till he could not fix his choice but by consulting his friends;
that he will run from one end of Paris to the other, for an opportunity
of reading a period to a nice ear; that if a single line is heard with
coldness and inattention, he returns home dejected and disconsolate; and
that by all this care and labour, he hopes only to make a little book,
which at last will teach no useful art, and which none who has it not
will perceive himself to want. I have often wondered for what end such a
being as this was sent into the world; and should be glad to see those
who live thus foolishly, seized by an order of the government, and
obliged to labour at some useful occupation. "

Thus, by a partial and imperfect representation, may every thing be made
equally ridiculous. He that gazed with contempt on human beings rubbing
stones together, might have prolonged the same amusement by walking
through the city, and seeing others with looks of importance heaping one
brick upon another; or by rambling into the country, where he might
observe other creatures of the same kind driving a piece of sharp iron
into the clay, or, in the language of men less enlightened, ploughing
the field.

As it is thus easy by a detail of minute circumstances to make every
thing little, so it is not difficult by an aggregation of effects to
make every thing great. The polisher of marble may be forming ornaments
for the palaces of virtue, and the schools of science; or providing
tables on which the actions of heroes and the discoveries of sages shall
be recorded, for the incitement and instruction of generations. The
mason is exercising one of the principal arts by which reasoning beings
are distinguished from the brute, the art to which life owes much of its
safety and all its convenience, by which we are secured from the
inclemency of the seasons, and fortified against the ravages of
hostility; and the ploughman is changing the face of nature, diffusing
plenty and happiness over kingdoms, and compelling the earth to give
food to her inhabitants.

Greatness and littleness are terms merely comparative; and we err in our
estimation of things, because we measure them by some wrong standard.
The trifler proposes to himself only to equal or excel some other
trifler, and is happy or miserable as he succeeds or miscarries: the man
of sedentary desire and unactive ambition sits comparing his power with
his wishes; and makes his inability to perform things impossible, an
excuse to himself for performing nothing. Man can only form a just
estimate of his own actions, by making his power the test of his
performance, by comparing what he does with what he can do. Whoever
steadily perseveres in the exertion of all his faculties, does what is
great with respect to himself; and what will not be despised by Him, who
has given to all created beings their different abilities: he faithfully
performs the task of life, within whatever limits his labours may be
confined, or how soon soever they may be forgotten.

We can conceive so much more than we can accomplish, that whoever tries
his own actions by his imagination, may appear despicable in his own
eyes. He that despises for its littleness any thing really useful, has
no pretensions to applaud the grandeur of his conceptions; since nothing
but narrowness of mind hinders him from seeing, that by pursuing the
same principles every thing limited will appear contemptible.

He that neglects the care of his family, while his benevolence expands
itself in scheming the happiness of imaginary kingdoms, might with equal
reason sit on a throne dreaming of universal empire, and of the
diffusion of blessings over all the globe: yet even this globe is
little, compared with the system of matter within our view! and that
system barely something more than nonentity, compared with the boundless
regions of space, to which neither eye nor imagination can extend.

From conceptions, therefore, of what we might have been, and from wishes
to be what we are not, conceptions that we know to be foolish, and
wishes which we feel to be vain, we must necessarily descend to the
consideration of what we are. We have powers very scanty in their utmost
extent, but which in different men are differently proportioned.
Suitably to these powers we have duties prescribed, which we must
neither decline for the sake of delighting ourselves with easier
amusements, nor overlook in idle contemplation of greater excellence or
more extensive comprehension.

In order to the right conduct of our lives, we must remember, that we
are not born to please ourselves. He that studies simply his own
satisfaction, will always find the proper business of his station too
hard or too easy for him. But if we bear continually in mind our
relation to the Father of Being, by whom we are placed in the world, and
who has allotted us the part which we are to bear in the general system
of life, we shall be easily persuaded to resign our own inclinations to
Unerring Wisdom, and do the work decreed for us with cheerfulness and
diligence.




No. 131. TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 1754.

--_Misce
Ergo aliquid nostris de moribus_. JUV. Sat. iv. 322.

And mingle something of our times to please. DRYDEN, Jun.

Fontanelle, in his panegyrick on Sir Isaac Newton, closes a long
enumeration of that great philosopher's virtues and attainments, with an
observation, that "he was not distinguished from other men, by any
singularity either natural or affected. "

It is an eminent instance of Newton's superiority to the rest of
mankind, that he was able to separate knowledge from those weaknesses by
which knowledge is generally disgraced; that he was able to excel in
science and wisdom without purchasing them by the neglect of little
things; and that he stood alone, merely because he had left the rest of
mankind behind him, not because he deviated from the beaten track.

Whoever, after the example of Plutarch, should compare the lives of
illustrious men, might set this part of Newton's character to view with
great advantage, by opposing it to that of Bacon, perhaps the only man,
of later ages, who has any pretensions to dispute with him the palm of
genius or science.

Bacon, after he had added to a long and careful contemplation of almost
every other object of knowledge a curious inspection into common life,
and after having surveyed nature as a philosopher, had examined "men's
business and bosoms" as a statesman; yet failed so much in the conduct
of domestick affairs, that, in the most lucrative post to which a great
and wealthy kingdom could advance him, he felt all the miseries of
distressful poverty, and committed all the crimes to which poverty
incites. Such were at once his negligence and rapacity, that, as it is
said, he would gain by unworthy practices that money, which, when so
acquired, his servants might steal from one end of the table, while he
sat studious and abstracted at the other.

As scarcely any man has reached the excellence, very few have sunk to
the weakness of Bacon: but almost all the studious tribe, as they obtain
any participation of his knowledge, feel likewise some contagion of his
defects; and obstruct the veneration which learning would procure, by
follies greater or less, to which only learning could betray them.

It has been formerly remarked by _The Guardian_, that the world punishes
with too great severity the errours of those, who imagine that the
ignorance of little things may be compensated by the knowledge of great;
for so it is, that as more can detect petty failings than can
distinguish or esteem great qualifications, and as mankind is in general
more easily disposed to censure than to admiration, contempt is often
incurred by slight mistakes, which real virtue or usefulness cannot
counterbalance.

Yet such mistakes and inadvertencies it is not easy for a man deeply
immersed in study to avoid; no man can become qualified for the common
intercourses of life, by private meditation: the manners of the world
are not a regular system, planned by philosophers upon settled
principles, in which every cause has a congruous effect, and one part
has a just reference to another. Of the fashions prevalent in every
country, a few have arisen, perhaps, from particular temperatures of the
climate; a few more from the constitution of the government; but the
greater part have grown up by chance; been started by caprice, been
contrived by affectation, or borrowed without any just motives of choice
from other countries.

Of all these, the savage that hunts his prey upon the mountains, and the
sage that speculates in his closet, must necessarily live in equal
ignorance: yet by the observation of those trifles it is, that the ranks
of mankind are kept in order, that the address of one to another is
regulated, and the general business of the world carried on with
facility and method.

These things, therefore, though small in themselves, become great by
their frequency: and he very much mistakes his own interest, who to the
unavoidable unskilfulness of abstraction and retirement, adds a
voluntary neglect of common forms, and increases the disadvantages of a
studious course of life by an arrogant contempt of those practices, by
which others endeavour to gain favour and multiply friendships.

A real and interior disdain of fashion and ceremony, is indeed, not very
often to be found: much the greater part of those who pretend to laugh
at foppery and formality, secretly wish to have possessed those
qualifications which they pretend to despise; and because they find it
difficult to wash away the tincture which they have so deeply imbibed,
endeavour to harden themselves in a sullen approbation of their own
colour. Neutrality is a state, into which the busy passions of man
cannot easily subside; and he who is in danger of the pangs of envy, is
generally forced to recreate his imagination with an effort of comfort.

Some, however, may be found, who, supported by the consciousness of
great abilities, and elevated by a long course of reputation and
applause, voluntarily consign themselves to singularity, affect to cross
the roads of life because they know that they shall not be jostled, and
indulge a boundless gratification of will because they perceive that
they shall be quietly obeyed. Men of this kind are generally known by
the name of Humourists, an appellation by which he that has obtained it,
and can be contented to keep it, is set free at once from the shackles
of fashion: and can go in or out, sit or stand, be talkative or silent,
gloomy or merry, advance absurdities or oppose demonstration, without
any other reprehension from mankind, than that it is his way, that he is
an odd fellow, and must be let alone.

This seems to many an easy passport through the various factions of
mankind; and those on whom it is bestowed, appear too frequently to
consider the patience with which their caprices are suffered as an
undoubted evidence of their own importance, of a genius to which
submission is universally paid, and whose irregularities are only
considered as consequences of its vigour. These peculiarities, however,
are always found to spot a character, though they may not totally
obscure it; and he who expects from mankind, that they should give up
established customs in compliance with his single will, and exacts that
deference which he does not pay, may be endured, but can never be
approved.

Singularity is, I think, in its own nature universally and invariably
displeasing. In whatever respect a man differs from others, he must be
considered by them as either worse or better: by being better, it is
well known that a man gains admiration oftener than love, since all
approbation of his practice must necessarily condemn him that gives it;
and though a man often pleases by inferiority, there are few who desire
to give such pleasure. Yet the truth is, that singularity is almost
always regarded as a brand of slight reproach; and where it is
associated with acknowledged merit, serves as an abatement or an allay
of excellence, by which weak eyes are reconciled to its lustre, and by
which, though kindness is not gained, at least envy is averted.

But let no man be in haste to conclude his own merit so great or
conspicuous, as to require or justify singularity: it is as hazardous
for a moderate understanding to usurp the prerogatives of genius, as for
a common form to play over the airs of uncontested beauty. The pride of
men will not patiently endure to see one, whose understanding or
attainments are but level with their own, break the rules by which they
have consented to be bound, or forsake the direction which they
submissively follow. All violation of established practice implies in
its own nature a rejection of the common opinion, a defiance of common
censure, and an appeal from general laws to private judgment: he,
therefore, who differs from others without apparent advantage, ought not
to be angry if his arrogance is punished with ridicule; if those whose
example he superciliously overlooks, point him out to derision, and hoot
him back again into the common road.

The pride of singularity is often exerted in little things, where right
and wrong are indeterminable, and where, therefore, vanity is without
excuse. But there are occasions on which it is noble to dare to stand
alone. To be pious among infidels, to be disinterested in a time of
general venality, to lead a life of virtue and reason in the midst of
sensualists, is a proof of a mind intent on nobler things than the
praise or blame of men, of a soul fixed in the contemplation of the
highest good, and superior to the tyranny of custom and example.

In moral and religious questions only, a wise man will hold no
consultations with fashion, because these duties are constant and
immutable, and depend not on the notions of men, but the commands of
Heaven: yet even of these, the external mode is to be in some measure
regulated by the prevailing taste of the age in which we live; for he is
certainly no friend to virtue, who neglects to give it any lawful
attraction, or suffers it to deceive the eye or alienate the affections
for want of innocent compliance with fashionable decorations.

It is yet remembered of the learned and pious Nelson[1], that he was
remarkably elegant in his manners, and splendid in his dress. He knew,
that the eminence of his character drew many eyes upon him; and he was
careful not to drive the young or the gay away from religion, by
representing it as an enemy to any distinction or enjoyment in which
human nature may innocently delight.

In this censure of singularity, I have, therefore, no intention to
subject reason or conscience to custom or example. To comply with the
notions and practices of mankind, is in some degree the duty of a social
being; because by compliance only he can please, and by pleasing only he
can become useful: but as the end is not to be lost for the sake of the
means, we are not to give up virtue to complaisance; for the end of
complaisance is only to gain the kindness of our fellow-beings, whose
kindness is desirable only as instrumental to happiness, and happiness
must be always lost by departure from virtue.


[1] The neglect of his writings must be considered as indicative of an
increasing neglect of that apostolical establishment, whose Fasts
and Festivals this author has illustrated with a raciness of style
and sentiment worthy of a primitive father of the Church.




No. 137. TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 1754.

[Greek: Ti d erexa]; PYTHAG.

What have I been doing?

As man is a being very sparingly furnished with the power of prescience,
he can provide for the future only by considering the past; and as
futurity is all in which he has any real interest, he ought very
diligently to use the only means by which he can be enabled to enjoy it,
and frequently to revolve the experiments which he has hitherto made
upon life, that he may gain wisdom from his mistakes, and caution from
his miscarriages.

Though I do not so exactly conform to the precepts of Pythagoras, as to
practise every night this solemn recollection, yet I am not so lost in
dissipation as wholly to omit it; nor can I forbear sometimes to inquire
of myself, in what employment my life has passed away. Much of my time
has sunk into nothing, and left no trace by which it can be
distinguished; and of this I now only know, that it was once in my
power, and might once have been improved.

Of other parts of life, memory can give some account; at some hours I
have been gay, and at others serious; I have sometimes mingled in
conversation, and sometimes meditated in solitude; one day has been
spent in consulting the ancient sages, and another in writing
_Adventurers_.

At the conclusion of any undertaking, it is usual to compute the loss
and profit. As I shall soon cease to write _Adventurers_, I could not
forbear lately to consider what has been the consequence of my labours;
and whether I am to reckon the hours laid out in these compositions, as
applied to a good and laudable purpose, or suffered to fume away in
useless evaporations.

That I have intended well, I have the attestation of my own heart: but
good intentions may be frustrated when they are executed without
suitable skill, or directed to an end unattainable in itself.

Some there are, who leave writers very little room for
self-congratulation; some who affirm, that books have no influence upon
the publick, that no age was ever made better by its authors, and that to
call upon mankind to correct their manners, is, like Xerxes, to scourge
the wind, or shackle the torrent.

This opinion they pretend to support by unfailing experience. The world
is full of fraud and corruption, rapine or malignity; interest is the
ruling motive of mankind, and every one is endeavouring to increase his
own stores of happiness by perpetual accumulation, without reflecting
upon the numbers whom his superfluity condemns to want: in this state of
things a book of morality is published, in which charity and benevolence
are strongly enforced; and it is proved beyond opposition, that men are
happy in proportion as they are virtuous, and rich as they are liberal.
The book is applauded, and the author is preferred; he imagines his
applause deserved, and receives less pleasure from the acquisition of
reward than the consciousness of merit. Let us look again upon mankind:
interest is still the ruling motive, and the world is yet full of fraud
and corruption, malevolence and rapine.

The difficulty of confuting this assertion, arises merely from its
generality and comprehension; to overthrow it by a detail of distinct
facts, requires a wider survey of the world than human eyes can take;
the progress of reformation is gradual and silent, as the extension of
evening shadows; we know that they were short at noon, and are long at
sunset, but our senses were not able to discern their increase: we know
of every civil nation, that it was once savage, and how was it reclaimed
but by precept and admonition?

Mankind are universally corrupt, but corrupt in different degrees; as
they are universally ignorant, yet with greater or less irradiations of
knowledge. How has knowledge or virtue been increased and preserved in
one place beyond another, but by diligent inculcation and rational
enforcement?

Books of morality are daily written, yet its influence is still little
in the world; so the ground is annually ploughed, and yet multitudes are
in want of bread. But, surely, neither the labours of the moralist nor
of the husbandman are vain: let them for a while neglect their tasks,
and their usefulness will be known; the wickedness that is now frequent
will become universal, the bread that is now scarce would wholly fail.

The power, indeed, of every individual is small, and the consequence of
his endeavours imperceptible, in a general prospect of the world.
Providence has given no man ability to do much, that something might be
left for every man to do. The business of life is carried on by a
general co-operation; in which the part of any single man can be no more
distinguished, than the effect of a particular drop when the meadows are
floated by a summer shower: yet every drop increases the inundation, and
every hand adds to the happiness or misery of mankind.

That a writer, however zealous or eloquent, seldom works a visible
effect upon cities or nations, will readily be granted. The book which
is read most, is read by few, compared with those that read it not; and
of those few, the greater part peruse it with dispositions that very
little favour their own improvement.

It is difficult to enumerate the several motives which procure to books
the honour of perusal: spite, vanity, and curiosity, hope and fear, love
and hatred, every passion which incites to any other action, serves at
one time or other to stimulate a reader.

Some are fond to take a celebrated volume into their hands, because they
hope to distinguish their penetration, by finding faults which have
escaped the publick; others eagerly buy it in the first bloom of
reputation, that they may join the chorus of praise, and not lag, as
Falstaff terms it, in "the rearward of the fashion. "

Some read for style, and some for argument: one has little care about
the sentiment, he observes only how it is expressed; another regards not
the conclusion, but is diligent to mark how it is inferred: they read
for other purposes than the attainment of practical knowledge; and are
no more likely to grow wise by an examination of a treatise of moral
prudence, than an architect to inflame his devotion by considering
attentively the proportions of a temple.

Some read that they may embellish their conversation, or shine in
dispute; some that they may not be detected in ignorance, or want the
reputation of literary accomplishments: but the most general and
prevalent reason of study is the impossibility of finding another
amusement equally cheap or constant, equally independent on the hour or
the weather. He that wants money to follow the chase of pleasure through
her yearly circuit, and is left at home when the gay world rolls to Bath
or Tunbridge; he whose gout compels him to hear from his chamber the
rattle of chariots transporting happier beings to plays and assemblies,
will be forced to seek in books a refuge from himself.

The author is not wholly useless, who provides innocent amusements for
minds like these. There are, in the present state of things, so many
more instigations to evil, than incitements to good, that he who keeps
men in a neutral state, may be justly considered as a benefactor to
life.

But, perhaps, it seldom happens, that study terminates in mere pastime.
Books have always a secret influence on the understanding; we cannot, at
pleasure, obliterate ideas: he that reads books of science, though
without any fixed desire of improvement, will grow more knowing; he that
entertains himself with moral or religious treatises, will imperceptibly
advance in goodness; the ideas which are often offered to the mind, will
at last find a lucky moment when it is disposed to receive them.

It is, therefore, urged without reason, as a discouragement to writers,
that there are already books sufficient in the world; that all the
topicks of persuasion have been discussed, and every important question
clearly stated and justly decided; and that, therefore, there is no room
to hope, that pigmies should conquer where heroes have been defeated, or
that the petty copiers of the present time should advance the great work
of reformation, which their predecessors were forced to leave
unfinished.

Whatever be the present extent of human knowledge, it is not only
finite, and therefore in its own nature capable of increase, but so
narrow, that almost every understanding may, by a diligent application
of its powers, hope to enlarge it. It is, however, not necessary that a
man should forbear to write, till he has discovered some truth unknown
before; he may be sufficiently useful, by only diversifying the surface
of knowledge, and luring the mind by a new appearance to a second view
of those beauties which it had passed over inattentively before. Every
writer may find intellects correspondent to his own, to whom his
expressions are familiar, and his thoughts congenial; and, perhaps,
truth is often more successfully propagated by men of moderate
abilities, who, adopting the opinions of others, have no care but to
explain them clearly, than by subtle speculatists and curious searchers,
who exact from their readers powers equal to their own, and if their
fabricks of science be strong, take no care to render them accessible.

For my part, I do not regret the hours which I have laid out in these
little compositions. That the world has grown apparently better, since
the publication of the _Adventurer_, I have not observed; but am willing
to think, that many have been affected by single sentiments, of which it
is their business to renew the impression; that many have caught hints
of truth, which it is now their duty to pursue; and that those who have
received no improvement, have wanted not opportunity but intention to
improve.




No. 138. SATURDAY, MARCH 2, 1754.

_Quid pure tranquillet; honos, an dulce lucellum,
An secretum iter, et fallentis semita vitae. _ HOR. Lib, i. Ep.
xviii. 102.

Whether the tranquil mind and pure,
Honours or wealth our bliss ensure:
Or down through life unknown to stray,
Where lonely leads the silent way. FRANCIS.

Having considered the importance of authors to the welfare of the
publick, I am led by a natural train of thought, to reflect on their
condition with regard to themselves; and to inquire what degree of
happiness or vexation is annexed to the difficult and laborious
employment of providing instruction or entertainment for mankind.

In estimating the pain or pleasure of any particular state, every man,
indeed, draws his decisions from his own breast, and cannot with
certainty determine whether other minds are affected by the same causes
in the same manner. Yet by this criterion we must be content to judge,
because no other can be obtained; and, indeed, we have no reason to
think it very fallacious, for excepting here and there an anomalous
mind, which either does not feel like others, or dissembles its
sensibility, we find men unanimously concur in attributing happiness or
misery to particular conditions, as they agree in acknowledging the cold
of winter and the heat of autumn.

If we apply to authors themselves for an account of their state, it will
appear very little to deserve envy; for they have in all ages been
addicted to complaint. The neglect of learning, the ingratitude of the
present age, and the absurd preference by which ignorance and dulness
often obtain favour and rewards, have been from age to age topicks of
invective; and few have left their names to posterity, without some
appeal to future candour from the perverseness and malice of their own
times.

I have, nevertheless, been often inclined to doubt, whether authors,
however querulous, are in reality more miserable than their fellow
mortals. The present life is to all a state of infelicity; every man,
like an author, believes himself to merit more than he obtains, and
solaces the present with the prospect of the future; others, indeed,
suffer those disappointments in silence, of which the writer complains,
to show how well he has learnt the art of lamentation.

There is at least one gleam of felicity, of which few writers have
missed the enjoyment: he whose hopes have so far overpowered his fears,
as that he has resolved to stand forth a candidate for fame, seldom
fails to amuse himself, before his appearance, with pleasing scenes of
affluence or honour: while his fortune is yet under the regulation of
fancy, he easily models it to his wish, suffers no thoughts of criticks
or rivals to intrude upon his mind, but counts over the bounties of
patronage, or listens to the voice of praise.

Some there are, that talk very luxuriously of the second period of an
author's happiness, and tell of the tumultuous raptures of invention,
when the mind riots in imagery, and the choice stands suspended between
different sentiments.

These pleasures, I believe, may sometimes be indulged to those, who come
to a subject of disquisition with minds full of ideas, and with fancies
so vigorous, as easily to excite, select, and arrange them. To write is,
indeed, no unpleasing employment, when one sentiment readily produces
another, and both ideas and expressions present themselves at the first
summons; but such happiness, the greatest genius does not always obtain;
and common writers know it only to such a degree, as to credit its
possibility. Composition is, for the most part, an effort of slow
diligence and steady perseverance, to which the mind is dragged by
necessity or resolution, and from which the attention is every moment
starting to more delightful amusements.

It frequently happens, that a design which, when considered at a
distance, gave flattering hopes of facility, mocks us in the execution
with unexpected difficulties; the mind which, while it considered it in
the gross, imagined itself amply furnished with materials, finds
sometimes an unexpected barrenness and vacuity, and wonders whither all
those ideas are vanished, which a little before seemed struggling for
emission.

Sometimes many thoughts present themselves; but so confused and
unconnected, that they are not without difficulty reduced to method, or
concatenated in a regular and dependent series; the mind falls at once
into a labyrinth, of which neither the beginning nor end can be
discovered, and toils and struggles without progress or extrication.

It is asserted by Horace, that, "if matter be once got together, words
will be found with very little difficulty;" a position which, though
sufficiently plausible to be inserted in poetical precepts, is by no
means strictly and philosophically true. If words were naturally and
necessarily consequential to sentiments, it would always follow, that he
who has most knowledge must have most eloquence, and that every man
would clearly express what he fully understood: yet we find, that to
think, and discourse, are often the qualities of different persons: and
many books might surely be produced, where just and noble sentiments are
degraded and obscured by unsuitable diction.

Words, therefore, as well as things, claim the care of an author. Indeed
of many authors, and those not useless or contemptible, words are almost
the only care: many make it their study, not so much to strike out new
sentiments, as to recommend those which are already known to more
favourable notice by fairer decorations; but every man, whether he
copies or invents, whether he delivers his own thoughts or those of
another, has often found himself deficient in the power of expression,
big with ideas which he could not utter, obliged to ransack his memory
for terms adequate to his conceptions, and at last unable to impress
upon his reader the image existing in his own mind.

It is one of the common distresses of a writer, to be within a word of a
happy period, to want only a single epithet to give amplification its
full force, to require only a correspondent term in order to finish a
paragraph with elegance, and make one of its members answer to the
other; but these deficiencies cannot always be supplied: and after a
long study and vexation, the passage is turned anew, and the web unwoven
that was so nearly finished.

But when thoughts and words are collected and adjusted, and the whole
composition at last concluded, it seldom gratifies the author, when he
comes coolly and deliberately to review it, with the hopes which had
been excited in the fury of the performance: novelty always captivates
the mind; as our thoughts rise fresh upon us, we readily believe them
just and original, which, when the pleasure of production is over, we
find to be mean and common, or borrowed from the works of others, and
supplied by memory rather than invention.

But though it should happen that the writer finds no such faults in his
performance, he is still to remember, that he looks upon it with partial
eyes: and when he considers, how much men, who could judge of others
with great exactness, have often failed of judging of themselves, he
will be afraid of deciding too hastily in his own favour, or of allowing
himself to contemplate with too much complacence, treasure that has not
yet been brought to the test, nor passed the only trial that can stamp
its value.
From the publick, and only from the publick, is he to await a
confirmation of his claim, and a final justification of self-esteem; but
the publick is not easily persuaded to favour an author. If mankind were
left to judge for themselves, it is reasonable to imagine, that of such
writings, at least, as describe the movements of the human passions, and
of which every man carries the archetype within him, a just opinion
would be formed; but whoever has remarked the fate of books, must have
found it governed by other causes than general consent arising from
general conviction. If a new performance happens not to fall into the
hands of some who have courage to tell, and authority to propagate their
opinion, it often remains long in obscurity, and perishes unknown and
unexamined. A few, a very few, commonly constitute the taste of the
time; the judgment which they have once pronounced, some are too lazy to
discuss, and some too timorous to contradict; it may however be, I
think, observed, that their power is greater to depress than exalt, as
mankind are more credulous of censure than of praise.

This perversion of the publick judgment is not to be rashly numbered
amongst the miseries of an author; since it commonly serves, after
miscarriage, to reconcile him to himself. Because the world has
sometimes passed an unjust sentence, he readily concludes the sentence
unjust by which his performance is condemned; because some have been
exalted above their merits by partiality, he is sure to ascribe the
success of a rival, not to the merit of his work, but the zeal of his
patrons. Upon the whole, as the author seems to share all the common
miseries of life, he appears to partake likewise of its lenitives and
abatements[1].

[1] See a pamphlet entitled "The Case of Authors by Profession," 8vo.
1758. It is the production of Mr. James Ralph, who knew from painful
experience the bitter evils incident to an employment which yielded
a bare maintenance to Johnson himself. For anecdotes of Ralph, and
the work alluded to, see Dr. Drake's Essays on Rambler, &c. vol. i.
p. 96.





THE IDLER.





ADVERTISEMENT.


The IDLER having omitted to distinguish the essays of his correspondents
by any particular signature, thinks it necessary to inform his readers,
that from the ninth, the fifteenth, thirty-third, forty-second,
fifty-fourth, sixty-seventh, seventy-sixth, seventy-ninth,
eighty-second, ninety-third, ninety-sixth, and ninety-eighth papers, he
claims no other praise than that of having given them to the publick[1].

[1] The names of the Authors of these Papers, as far as known, will be
given in the course of the present edition.




THE IDLER.




No. 1. SATURDAY, APRIL 15, 1758.

_--Vacui sub umbra
Lusimus_. --Hor. Lib. i. Ode xxxii. 1.

Those who attempt periodical essays seem to be often stopped in the
beginning, by the difficulty of finding a proper title. Two writers,
since the time of the Spectator, have assumed his name[1] without any
pretensions to lawful inheritance; an effort was once made to revive the
Tatler[2], and the strange appellations, by which other papers have been
called, show that the authors were distressed, like the natives of
America, who come to the Europeans to beg a name.

It will be easily believed of the Idler, that if his title had required
any search, he never would have found it. Every mode of life has its
conveniencies. The Idler, who habituates himself to be satisfied with
what he can most easily obtain, not only escapes labours which are often
fruitless, but sometimes succeeds better than those who despise all that
is within their reach, and think every thing more valuable as it is
harder to be acquired.

If similitude of manners be a motive to kindness, the Idler may flatter
himself with universal patronage. There is no single character under
which such numbers are comprised. Every man is, or hopes to be, an
Idler. Even those who seem to differ most from us are hastening to
increase our fraternity; as peace is the end of war, so to be idle is
the ultimate purpose of the busy.

There is perhaps no appellation by which a writer can better denote his
kindred to the human species. It has been found hard to describe man by
an adequate definition. Some philosophers have called him a reasonable
animal; but others have considered reason as a quality of which many
creatures partake. He has been termed likewise a laughing animal; but it
is said that some men have never laughed. Perhaps man may be more
properly distinguished as an idle animal; for there is no man who is not
sometimes idle. It is at least a definition from which none that shall
find it in this paper can be excepted; for who can be more idle than the
reader of the Idler?

That the definition may be complete, idleness must be not only the
general, but the peculiar characteristick of man; and perhaps man is the
only being that can properly be called idle, that does by others what he
might do himself, or sacrifices duty or pleasure to the love of ease.

Scarcely any name can be imagined from which less envy or competition is
to be dreaded. The Idler has no rivals or enemies. The man of business
forgets him; the man of enterprise despises him; and though such as
tread the same track of life fall commonly into jealousy and discord,
Idlers are always found to associate in peace; and he who is most famed
for doing nothing, is glad to meet another as idle as himself.

What is to be expected from this paper, whether it will be uniform or
various, learned or familiar, serious or gay, political or moral,
continued or interrupted, it is hoped that no reader will inquire. That
the Idler has some scheme, cannot be doubted, for to form schemes is the
Idler's privilege. But though he has many projects in his head, he is
now grown sparing of communication, having observed, that his hearers
are apt to remember what he forgets himself; that his tardiness of
execution exposes him to the encroachments of those who catch a hint and
fall to work; and that very specious plans, after long contrivance and
pompous displays, have subsided in weariness without a trial, and
without miscarriage have been blasted by derision.

Something the Idler's character may be supposed to promise. Those that
are curious after diminutive history, who watch the revolutions of
families, and the rise and fall of characters either male or female,
will hope to be gratified by this paper; for the Idler is always
inquisitive and seldom retentive. He that delights in obloquy and
satire, and wishes to see clouds gathering over any reputation that
dazzles him with its brightness, will snatch up the Idler's essays with
a beating heart. The Idler is naturally censorious; those who attempt
nothing themselves, think every thing easily performed, and consider the
unsuccessful always as criminal.

I think it necessary to give notice, that I make no contract, nor incur
any obligation. If those who depend on the Idler for intelligence and
entertainment, should suffer the disappointment which commonly follows
ill-placed expectations, they are to lay the blame only on themselves.

Yet hope is not wholly to be cast away. The Idler, though sluggish, is
yet alive, and may sometimes be stimulated to vigour and activity. He
may descend into profoundness, or tower into sublimity; for the
diligence of an Idler is rapid and impetuous, as ponderous bodies forced
into velocity move with violence proportionate to their weight.

But these vehement exertions of intellect cannot be frequent, and he
will therefore gladly receive help from any correspondent, who shall
enable him to please without his own labour. He excludes no style, he
prohibits no subject; only let him that writes to the Idler remember,
that his letters must not be long; no words are to be squandered in
declarations of esteem, or confessions of inability; conscious dulness
has little right to be prolix, and praise is not so welcome to the Idler
as quiet.


[1] The Universal Spectator in 1728, by the celebrated antiquary William
Oldys.

The Female Spectator in 1744, by Eliza Haywood.

These were followed by the New Spectator in 1784; and lastly, by the
Country Spectator in 1792. This last is a production of very
considerable merit.

[2] This attempt was made in 1750, under the title of the Tatler
Revived. After a short trial it completely failed.




No. 2. SATURDAY, APRIL 22, 1758.

--_Toto non quater anno
Membranam_. --HOR. Lib. ii. Sat. iii. 1.

Many positions are often on the tongue, and seldom in the mind; there
are many truths which every human being acknowledges and forgets. It is
generally known, that he who expects much will be often disappointed;
yet disappointment seldom cures us of expectation, or has any other
effect than that of producing a moral sentence, or peevish exclamation.
He that embarks in the voyage of life, will always wish to advance
rather by the impulse of the wind, than the strokes of the oar; and many
founder in the passage, while they lie waiting for the gale that is to
waft them to their wish.

It will naturally be suspected that the Idler has lately suffered some
disappointment, and that he does not talk thus gravely for nothing. No
man is required to betray his own secrets. I will however, confess, that
I have now been a writer almost a week, and have not yet heard a single
word of praise, nor received one hint from any correspondent.

Whence this negligence proceeds I am not able to discover. Many of my
predecessors have thought themselves obliged to return their
acknowledgments in the second paper, for the kind reception of the
first; and in a short time, apologies have become necessary to those
ingenious gentlemen and ladies, whose performances, though in the
highest degree elegant and learned, have been unavoidably delayed.

What then will be thought of me, who, having experienced no kindness,
have no thanks to return; whom no gentleman or lady has yet enabled to
give any cause of discontent, and who have therefore no opportunity of
showing how skilfully I can pacify resentment, extenuate negligence, or
palliate rejection.

I have long known that splendour of reputation is not to be counted
among the necessaries of life, and therefore shall not much repine if
praise be withheld till it is better deserved. But surely I may be
allowed to complain, that, in a nation of authors, not one has thought
me worthy of notice after so fair an invitation.

At the time when the rage of writing has seized the old and young, when
the cook warbles her lyricks in the kitchen, and the thrasher
vociferates his heroicks in the barn; when our traders deal out
knowledge in bulky volumes, and our girls forsake their samplers to
teach kingdoms wisdom; it may seem very unnecessary to draw any more
from their proper occupations, by affording new opportunities of
literary fame[1].

I should be indeed unwilling to find that, for the sake of corresponding
with the Idler, the smith's iron had cooled on the anvil, or the
spinster's distaff stood unemployed. I solicit only the contributions of
those who have already devoted themselves to literature, or, without any
determinate intention, wander at large through the expanse of life, and
wear out the day in hearing at one place what they utter at another.

Of these, a great part are already writers. One has a friend in the
country upon whom he exercises his powers; whose passions he raises and
depresses; whose understanding he perplexes with paradoxes, or
strengthens by argument; whose admiration he courts, whose praises he
enjoys; and who serves him instead of a senate or a theatre; as the
young soldiers in the Roman camp learned the use of their weapons by
fencing against a post in the place of an enemy.

Another has his pockets filled with essays and epigrams, which he reads
from house to house, to select parties; and which his acquaintances are
daily entreating him to withhold no longer from the impatience of the
publick.

If among these any one is persuaded, that, by such preludes of
composition, he has qualified himself to appear in the open world, and
is yet afraid of those censures which they who have already written, and
they who cannot write, are equally ready to fulminate against publick
pretenders to fame, he may, by transmitting his performances to the
Idler, make a cheap experiment of his abilities, and enjoy the pleasure
of success, without the hazard of miscarriage.

Many advantages not generally known arise from this method of stealing
on the publick. The standing author of the paper is always the object of
critical malignity. Whatever is mean will be imputed to him, and
whatever is excellent be ascribed to his assistants. It does not much
alter the event, that the author and his correspondents are equally
unknown; for the author, whoever he be, is an individual, of whom every
reader has some fixed idea, and whom he is therefore unwilling to
gratify with applause; but the praises given to his correspondents are
scattered in the air, none can tell on whom they will light, and
therefore none are unwilling to bestow them.

He that is known to contribute to a periodical work, needs no other
caution than not to tell what particular pieces are his own; such
secrecy is indeed very difficult; but if it can be maintained, it is
scarcely to be imagined at how small an expense he may grow
considerable.

A person of quality, by a single paper, may engross the honour of a
volume. Fame is indeed dealt with a hand less and less bounteous through
the subordinate ranks, till it descends to the professed author, who
will find it very difficult to get more than he deserves; but every man
who does not want it, or who needs not value it, may have liberal
allowances; and, for five letters in the year sent to the Idler, of
which perhaps only two are printed, will be promoted to the first rank
of writers by those who are weary of the present race of wits, and wish
to sink them into obscurity before the lustre of a name not yet known
enough to be detested.

[1] See Knox's Essays, Number 50.




No. 3. SATURDAY, APRIL 29, 1758.

--_Otia vitae
Solamur cantu_. STAT.

It has long been the complaint of those who frequent the theatres, that
all the dramatick art has been long exhausted, and that the vicissitudes
of fortune, and accidents of life, have been shown in every possible
combination, till the first scene informs us of the last, and the play
no sooner opens, than every auditor knows how it will conclude. When a
conspiracy is formed in a tragedy, we guess by whom it will be detected;
when a letter is dropt in a comedy, we can tell by whom it will be
found. Nothing is now left for the poet but character and sentiment,
which are to make their way as they can, without the soft anxiety of
suspense, or the enlivening agitation of surprise.

A new paper lies under the same disadvantages as a new play. There is
danger lest it be new without novelty. My earlier predecessors had their
choice of vices and follies, and selected such as were most likely to
raise merriment or attract attention; they had the whole field of life
before them, untrodden and unsurveyed; characters of every kind shot up
in their way, and those of the most luxuriant growth, or most
conspicuous colours, were naturally cropt by the first sickle. They that
follow are forced to peep into neglected corners, to note the casual
varieties of the same species, and to recommend themselves by minute
industry and distinctions too subtle for common eyes.

Sometimes it may happen, that the haste or negligence of the first
inquirers has left enough behind to reward another search; sometimes new
objects start up under the eye, and he that is looking for one kind of
matter, is amply gratified by the discovery of another. But still it
must be allowed, that, as more is taken, less can remain; and every
truth brought newly to light impoverishes the mine, from which
succeeding intellects are to dig their treasures.

Many philosophers imagine, that the elements themselves may be in time
exhausted; that the sun, by shining long, will effuse all its light; and
that, by the continual waste of aqueous particles, the whole earth will
at last become a sandy desert.

I would not advise my readers to disturb themselves by contriving how
they shall live without light and water. For the days of universal
thirst and perpetual darkness are at a great distance. The ocean and the
sun will last our time, and we may leave posterity to shift for
themselves.

But if the stores of nature are limited, much more narrow bounds must be
set to the modes of life; and mankind may want a moral or amusing paper,
many years before they shall be deprived of drink or day-light. This
want, which to the busy and the inventive may seem easily remediable by
some substitute or other, the whole race of Idlers will feel with all
the sensibility that such torpid animals can suffer.

When I consider the innumerable multitudes that, having no motive of
desire, or determination of will, lie freezing in perpetual inactivity,
till some external impulse puts them in motion; who awake in the
morning, vacant of thought, with minds gaping for the intellectual food,
which some kind essayist has been accustomed to supply; I am moved by
the commiseration with which all human beings ought to behold the
distresses of each other, to try some expedients for their relief, and
to inquire by what methods the listless may be actuated, and the empty
be replenished.

There are said to be pleasures in madness known only to madmen. There
are certainly miseries in idleness, which the Idler only can conceive.
These miseries I have often felt and often bewailed. I know by
experience, how welcome is every avocation that summons the thoughts to
a new image; and how much languor and lassitude are relieved by that
officiousness which offers a momentary amusement to him who is unable to
find it for himself.

It is naturally indifferent to this race of men what entertainment they
receive, so they are but entertained. They catch, with equal eagerness,
at a moral lecture, or the memoirs of a robber; a prediction of the
appearance of a comet, or the calculation of the chances of a lottery.

They might therefore easily be pleased, if they consulted only their own
minds; but those who will not take the trouble to think for themselves,
have always somebody to think for them; and the difficulty in writing is
to please those from whom others learn to be pleased.

Much mischief is done in the world with very little interest or design.
He that assumes the character of a critick, and justifies his claim by
perpetual censure, imagines that he is hurting none but the author, and
him he considers as a pestilent animal, whom every other being has a
right to persecute; little does he think how many harmless men he
involves in his own guilt, by teaching them to be noxious without
malignity, and to repeat objections which they do not understand; or how
many honest minds he debars from pleasure, by exciting an artificial
fastidiousness, and making them too wise to concur with their own
sensations. He who is taught by a critick to dislike that which pleased
him in his natural state, has the same reason to complain of his
instructer, as the madman to rail at his doctor, who, when he thought
himself master of Peru, physicked him to poverty.

If men will struggle against their own advantage, they are not to expect
that the Idler will take much pains upon them; he has himself to please
as well as them, and has long learned, or endeavoured to learn, not to
make the pleasure of others too necessary to his own.




No. 4. SATURDAY, MAY 6, 1758.

[Greek: Pantas gar phileeske. ] HOM.

Charity, or tenderness for the poor, which is now justly considered, by
a great part of mankind, as inseparable from piety, and in which almost
all the goodness of the present age consists, is, I think, known only to
those who enjoy, either immediately or by transmission, the light of
revelation.

Those ancient nations who have given us the wisest models of government,
and the brightest examples of patriotism, whose institutions have been
transcribed by all succeeding legislatures, and whose history is studied
by every candidate for political or military reputation, have yet left
behind them no mention of alms-houses or hospitals, or places where age
might repose, or sickness be relieved.

The Roman emperours, indeed, gave large donatives to the citizens and
soldiers, but these distributions were always reckoned rather popular
than virtuous: nothing more was intended than an ostentation of
liberality, nor was any recompense expected, but suffrages and
acclamations.

Their beneficence was merely occasional; he that ceased to need the
favour of the people, ceased likewise to court it; and, therefore, no
man thought it either necessary or wise to make any standing provision
for the needy, to look forwards to the wants of posterity, or to secure
successions of charity, for successions of distress.

Compassion is by some reasoners, on whom the name of philosophers has
been too easily conferred, resolved into an affection merely selfish, an
involuntary perception of pain at the involuntary sight of a being like
ourselves languishing in misery. But this sensation, if ever it be felt
at all from the brute instinct of uninstructed nature, will only produce
effects desultory and transient; it will never settle into a principle
of action, or extend relief to calamities unseen, in generations not yet
in being.

The devotion of life or fortune to the succour of the poor, is a height
of virtue, to which humanity has never risen by its own power. The
charity of the Mahometans is a precept which their teacher evidently
transplanted from the doctrines of Christianity; and the care with which
some of the Oriental sects attend, as is said, to the necessities of the
diseased and indigent, may be added to the other arguments, which prove
Zoroaster to have borrowed his institutions from the law of Moses.

The present age, though not likely to shine hereafter among the most
splendid periods of history, has yet given examples of charity, which
may be very properly recommended to imitation. The equal distribution of
wealth, which long commerce has produced, does not enable any single
hand to raise edifices of piety like fortified cities, to appropriate
manors to religious uses, or deal out such large and lasting beneficence
as was scattered over the land in ancient times, by those who possessed
counties or provinces. But no sooner is a new species of misery brought
to view, and a design of relieving it professed, than every hand is open
to contribute something, every tongue is busied in solicitation, and
every art of pleasure is employed for a time in the interest of virtue.

The most apparent and pressing miseries incident to man, have now their
peculiar houses of reception and relief; and there are few among us,
raised however little above the danger of poverty, who may not justly
claim, what is implored by the Mahometans in their most ardent
benedictions, the prayers of the poor.

Among those actions which the mind can most securely review with
unabated pleasure, is that of having contributed to an hospital for the
sick. Of some kinds of charity the consequences are dubious: some evils
which beneficence has been busy to remedy, are not certainly known to be
very grievous to the sufferer, or detrimental to the community; but no
man can question whether wounds and sickness are not really painful;
whether it be not worthy of a good man's care to restore those to ease
and usefulness, from whose labour infants and women expect their bread,
and who, by a casual hurt, or lingering disease, lie pining in want and
anguish, burthensome to others, and weary of themselves.

Yet as the hospitals of the present time subsist only by gifts bestowed
at pleasure, without any solid fund of support, there is danger lest the
blaze of charity, which now burns with so much heat and splendour,
should die away for want of lasting fuel; lest fashion should suddenly
withdraw her smile, and inconstancy transfer the publick attention to
something which may appear more eligible, because it will be new.

Whatever is left in the hands of chance must be subject to vicissitude;
and when any establishment is found to be useful, it ought to be the
next care to make it permanent.

But man is a transitory being, and his designs must partake of the
imperfections of their author. To confer duration is not always in our
power. We must snatch the present moment, and employ it well, without
too much solicitude for the future, and content ourselves with
reflecting that our part is performed. He that waits for an opportunity
to do much at once, may breathe out his life in idle wishes, and regret,
in the last hour, his useless intentions, and barren zeal.

The most active promoters of the present schemes of charity cannot be
cleared from some instances of misconduct, which may awaken contempt or
censure, and hasten that neglect which is likely to come too soon of
itself. The open competitions between different hospitals, and the
animosity with which their patrons oppose one another, may prejudice
weak minds against them all. For it will not be easily believed, that
any man can, for good reasons, wish to exclude another from doing good.
The spirit of charity can only be continued by a reconciliation of these
ridiculous feuds; and therefore, instead of contentions who shall be the
only benefactors to the needy, let there be no other struggle than who
shall be the first.




No. 5. SATURDAY, MAY 13, 1758.

--[Greek: Kallos
Ant egcheon hapanton
Ant aspidon hapason]. ANAC.

Our military operations are at last begun; our troops are marching in
all the pomp of war, and a camp is marked out on the Isle of Wight; the
heart of every Englishman now swells with confidence, though somewhat
softened by generous compassion for the consternation and distresses of
our enemies.

This formidable armament and splendid march produce different effects
upon different minds, according to the boundless diversities of temper,
occupation, and habits of thought.

Many a tender maiden considers her lover as already lost, because he
cannot reach the camp but by crossing the sea; men of a more political
understanding are persuaded that we shall now see, in a few days, the
ambassadours of France supplicating for pity. Some are hoping for a
bloody battle, because a bloody battle makes a vendible narrative; some
are composing songs of victory; some planning arches of triumph; and
some are mixing fireworks for the celebration of a peace.

Of all extensive and complicated objects, different parts are selected
by different eyes; and minds are variously affected, as they vary their
attention. The care of the publick is now fixed upon our soldiers, who
are leaving their native country to wander, none can tell how long, in
the pathless deserts of the Isle of Wight. The tender sigh for their
sufferings, and the gay drink to their success. I, who look, or believe
myself to look, with more philosophick eyes on human affairs, must
confess, that I saw the troops march with little emotion; my thoughts
were fixed upon other scenes, and the tear stole into my eyes, not for
those who were going away, but for those who were left behind.

We have no reason to doubt but our troops will proceed with proper
caution; there are men among them who can take care of themselves. But
how shall the ladies endure without them? By what arts can they, who
have long had no joy but from the civilities of a soldier, now amuse
their hours, and solace their separation?

Of fifty thousand men, now destined to different stations, if we allow
each to have been occasionally necessary only to four women, a short
computation will inform us, that two hundred thousand ladies are left to
languish in distress; two hundred thousand ladies, who must run to sales
and auctions without an attendant; sit at the play, without a critick to
direct their opinion; buy their fans by their own judgment; dispose
shells by their own invention; walk in the Mall without a gallant; go to
the gardens without a protector; and shuffle cards with vain impatience,
for want of a fourth to complete the party.

Of these ladies, some, I hope, have lap-dogs, and some monkeys; but they
are unsatisfactory companions. Many useful offices are performed by men
of scarlet, to which neither dog nor monkey has adequate abilities. A
parrot, indeed, is as fine as a colonel, and, if he has been much used
to good company, is not wholly without conversation; but a parrot, after
all, is a poor little creature, and has neither sword nor shoulder-knot,
can neither dance nor play at cards.

Since the soldiers must obey the call of their duty, and go to that side
of the kingdom which faces France, I know not why the ladies, who cannot
live without them, should not follow them. The prejudices and pride of
man have long presumed the sword and spindle made for different hands,
and denied the other sex to partake the grandeur of military glory. This
notion may be consistently enough received in France, where the salick
law excludes females from the throne; but we, who allow them to be
sovereigns, may surely suppose them capable to be soldiers.

It were to be wished that some man, whose experience and authority might
enforce regard, would propose that our encampments for the present year
should comprise an equal number of men and women, who should march and
fight in mingled bodies. If proper colonels were once appointed, and the
drums ordered to beat for female volunteers, our regiments would soon be
filled without the reproach or cruelty of an impress.

Of these heroines, some might serve on foot under the denomination of
the _Female Buffs_, and some on horseback, with the title of _Lady
Hussars_.

What objections can be made to this scheme I have endeavoured maturely
to consider; and cannot find that a modern soldier has any duties,
except that of obedience, which a lady cannot perform. If the hair has
lost its powder, a lady has a puff; if a coat be spotted, a lady has a
brush. Strength is of less importance since fire-arms have been used;
blows of the hand are now seldom exchanged; and what is there to be done
in the charge or the retreat beyond the powers of a sprightly maiden?

Our masculine squadrons will not suppose themselves disgraced by their
auxiliaries, till they have done something which women could not have
done. The troops of Braddock never saw their enemies, and perhaps were
defeated by women. If our American general had headed an army of girls,
he might still have built a fort and taken it. Had Minorca been defended
by a female garrison, it might have been surrendered, as it was, without
a breach; and I cannot but think, that seven thousand women might have
ventured to look at Rochfort, sack a village, rob a vineyard, and return
in safety.




No.