No More Learning

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 neighbouring
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.

_Sæpe rogare soles, qualis sim, Prisce, futurus,
Si fiam locuples, simque repente potens.
Quemquam posse putas mores narrare futuros?
Die mihi, si fias tu leo, qualis eris? _ MART. Lib. xii. Ep. 93.

Priscus, 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 resentment,
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 12, 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 errour 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
wherever 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 Fabricius 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 in 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 chance, and the gusts of opposition, ought
to make some improvements in the chart of life, by marking the rocks on
which he has been dashed, and the shallows where he has been stranded.

The 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 bebauchees; [Transcriber's note: sic] 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 portae, 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 show, 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 [Greek: oi
pleones kakoi], "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 him 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 hire 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 conveniences 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 ecstacy, 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.

_Purs sanitatis velle sanuria 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 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 publick 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 if 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 fell 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 farther extended; and imagined that he should find his
reputation universally prevalent, and the influence of learning every
where the same.