No More Learning

----
Verba etiam res exiguas angusta sequuntur,
Ingentesque juvant ingentia: cuncta gigantem
Vasta decent, vultus immanes, pectora lata,
Et magni membrorum artus, magna ossa, lacertique.
Atque adeo, siquid geritur molimine magno,
Adde moram, et pariter tecum quoque verba laborent
Segnia: seu quando vi multa gleba coactis
Æternum frangenda bidentibus, æquore seu cum
Cornua velatarum obvertimus antennarum.
At mora si fuerit damno, properare jubebo.
Si se forte cava extulerit mala vipera terra,
Tolle moras, cape saxa manu, cape robora, pastor:
Ferte citi flammas, date tela, repellite pestem.
Ipse etiam versus ruat, in præcepsque feratur,
Immenso cum præcipitans ruit Oceano nox,
Aut cum perculsus graviter procumbit humi bos.
Cumque etiam requies rebus datur, ipsa quoque ultro
Carmina paulisper cursu cessare videbis
In medio interrupta: quiêrunt cum freta ponti,
Postquam auræ posuere, quiescere protinus ipsum
Cernere erit, mediisque incœptis sistere versum.
Quid dicam, senior cum telum imbelle sine ictu
Invalidus jacit, et defectis viribus æger?
Num quoque tum versus segni pariter pede languet:
Sanguis hebet, frigent effœtæ in corpore vires.
Fortem autem juvenem deceat prorumpere in arces,
Evertisse domos, præfractaque quadrupedantum
Pectora pectoribus perrumpere, sternere turres
Ingentes, totoque, ferum dare funera campo.
LIB. iii. 365.


'Tis not enough his verses to complete,
In measure, number, or determin'd feet.
To all, proportion'd terms he must dispense,
And make the sound a picture of the sense;
The correspondent words exactly frame,
The look, the features, and the mien the same.
With rapid feet and wings, without delay,
This swiftly flies, and smoothly skims away:
This blooms with youth and beauty in his face,
And Venus breathes on ev'ry limb a grace;
That, of rude form, his uncouth members shows,
Looks horrible, and frowns with his rough brows;
His monstrous tail, in many a fold and wind,
Voluminous and vast, curls up behind;
At once the image and the lines appear,
Rude to the eye, and frightful to the ear.
Lo! when the sailors steer the pond'rous ships,
And plough, with brazen beaks, the foamy deeps,
Incumbent on the main that roars around,
Beneath the lab'ring oars the waves resound;
The prows wide echoing through the dark profound.
To the loud call each distant rock replies;
Tost by the storm the tow'ring surges rise;
While the hoarse ocean beats the sounding shore,
Dash'd from the strand, the flying waters roar,
Flash at the shock, and gathering in a heap,
The liquid mountains rise, and over-hang the deep.
But when blue Neptune from his car surveys,
And calms at one regard the raging seas,
Stretch'd like a peaceful lake the deep subsides,
And the pitch'd vessel o'er the surface glides.
When things are small, the terms should still be so;
For low words please us when the theme is low.
But when some giant, horrible and grim,
Enormous in his gait, and vast in every limb,
Stalks tow'ring on; the swelling words must rise
In just proportion to the monster's size.
If some large weight his huge arms strive to shove,
The verse too labours; the throng'd words scarce move.
When each stiff clod beneath the pond'rous plough
Crumbles and breaks, th' encumber'd lines must flow.
Nor less, when pilots catch the friendly gales,
Unfurl their shrouds, and hoist the wide-stretch'd sails.
But if the poem suffers from delay,
Let the lines fly precipitate away,
And when the viper issues from the brake,
Be quick; with stones, and brands, and fire, attack
His rising crest, and drive the serpent back.
When night descends, or stunn'd by num'rous strokes,
And groaning, to the earth drops the vast ox;
The line too sinks with correspondent sound
Flat with the steer, and headlong to the ground.
When the wild waves subside, and tempests cease,
And hush the roarings of the sea to peace;
So oft we see the interrupted strain
Stopp'd in the midst--and with the silent main
Pause for a space--at last it glides again.
When Priam strains his aged arms, to throw
His unavailing jav'line at the foe;
(His blood congeal'd, and ev'ry nerve unstrung)
Then with the theme complies the artful song;
Like him, the solitary numbers flow,
Weak, trembling, melancholy, stiff, and slow.
Not so young Pyrrhus, who with rapid force
Beats down embattled armies in his course.
The raging youth on trembling Ilion falls,
Burns her strong gates, and shakes her lofty walls;
Provokes his flying courser to the speed,
In full career to charge the warlike steed:
He piles the field with mountains of the slain;
He pours, he storms, he thunders thro' the plain. --PITT.

From the Italian gardens Pope seems to have transplanted this flower, the
growth of happier climates, into a soil less adapted to its nature, and
less favourable to its increase.

Soft is the strain, when Zephyr gentle blows,
And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows;
But when loud billows lash the sounding shore,
The hoarse rough verse should like the torrent roar.
When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw,
The line too labours, and the words move slow;
Nor so when swift Camilla scours the plain,
Flies o'er th' unbending corn, and skims along the main.

From these lines, laboured with attention, and celebrated by a rival wit,
may be judged what can be expected from the most diligent endeavours
after this imagery of sound. The verse intended to represent the whisper
of the vernal breeze, must be confessed not much to excel in softness
or volubility: and the smooth stream runs with a perpetual clash of
jarring consonants. The noise and turbulence of the torrent, is, indeed,
distinctly imaged, for it requires very little skill to make our language
rough: but in these lines, which mention the effort of Ajax, there is no
particular heaviness, obstruction, or delay. The swiftness of Camilla is
rather contrasted than exemplified; why the verse should be lengthened
to express speed, will not easily be discovered. In the dactyls used
for that purpose by the ancients, two short syllables were pronounced
with such rapidity, as to be equal only to one long; they, therefore,
naturally exhibit the act of passing through a long space in a short
time. But the Alexandrine, by its pause in the midst, is a tardy and
stately measure; and the word _unbending_, one of the most sluggish and
slow which our language affords, cannot much accelerate its motion.

These rules and these examples have taught our present criticks to inquire
very studiously and minutely into sounds and cadences. It is, therefore,
useful to examine with what skill they have proceeded; what discoveries
they have made; and whether any rules can be established which may guide
us hereafter in such researches.




No. 93. TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 1751.


_----Experiar, quid concedatur in illos,_
_Quorum flaminia tegitur cinis atque Latina. _
JUV. Sat. i. 170.

More safely truth to urge her claim presumes,
On names now found alone on books and tombs.


There are few books on which more time is spent by young students, than
on treatises which deliver the characters of authors; nor any which
oftener deceive the expectation of the reader, or fill his mind with
more opinions which the progress of his studies and the increase of his
knowledge oblige him to resign.

Baillet has introduced his collection of the decisions of the learned, by
an enumeration of the prejudices which mislead the critick, and raise the
passions in rebellion against the judgment. His catalogue, though large,
is imperfect; and who can hope to complete it? The beauties of writing
have been observed to be often such as cannot in the present state of
human knowledge be evinced by evidence, or drawn out into demonstrations;
they are therefore wholly subject to the imagination, and do not force
their effects upon a mind pre-occupied by unfavourable sentiments, nor
overcome the counteraction of a false principle or of stubborn partiality.

To convince any man against his will is hard, but to please him against
his will is justly pronounced by Dryden to be above the reach of human
abilities. Interest and passion will hold out long against the closest
siege of diagrams and syllogisms, but they are absolutely impregnable
to imagery and sentiment; and will for ever bid defiance to the most
powerful strains of Virgil or Homer, though they may give way in time to
the batteries of Euclid or Archimedes.

In trusting therefore to the sentence of a critick, we are in danger not
only from that vanity which exalts writers too often to the dignity of
teaching what they are yet to learn, from that negligence which sometimes
steals upon the most vigilant caution, and that fallibility to which the
condition of nature has subjected every human understanding; but from
a thousand extrinsick and accidental causes, from every thing which can
excite kindness or malevolence, veneration or contempt.

Many of those who have determined with great boldness upon the various
degrees of literary merit, may be justly suspected of having passed
sentence, as Seneca remarks of Claudius,

_Una tantum parte audita,_
_Sæpe et nulla,_

without much knowledge of the cause before them: for it will not easily
be imagined of Langbaine, Borrichius, or Rapin, that they had very
accurately perused all the books which they praise or censure: or that,
even if nature and learning had qualified them for judges, they could
read for ever with the attention necessary to just criticism. Such
performances, however, are not wholly without their use; for they are
commonly just echoes to the voice of fame, and transmit the general
suffrage of mankind when they have no particular motives to suppress it.

Criticks, like the rest of mankind, are very frequently misled by
interest. The bigotry with which editors regard the authors whom they
illustrate or correct, has been generally remarked. Dryden was known to
have written most of his critical dissertations only to recommend the
work upon which he then happened to be employed: and Addison is suspected
to have denied the expediency of poetical justice, because his own Cato
was condemned to perish in a good cause.

There are prejudices which authors, not otherwise weak or corrupt, have
indulged without scruple; and perhaps some of them are so complicated
with our natural affections, that they cannot easily be disentangled from
the heart. Scarce any can hear with impartiality a comparison between the
writers of his own and another country; and though it cannot, I think, be
charged equally on all nations, that they are blinded with this literary
patriotism, yet there are none that do not look upon their authors with
the fondness of affinity, and esteem them as well for the place of their
birth, as for their knowledge or their wit. There is, therefore, seldom
much respect due to comparative criticism, when the competitors are of
different countries, unless the judge is of a nation equally indifferent
to both. The Italians could not for a long time believe, that there
was any learning beyond the mountains; and the French seem generally
persuaded, that there are no wits or reasoners equal to their own. I can
scarcely conceive that if Scaliger had not considered himself as allied
to Virgil, by being born in the same country, he would have found his
works so much superior to those of Homer, or have thought the controversy
worthy of so much zeal, vehemence, and acrimony.

There is, indeed, one prejudice, and only one, by which it may be doubted
whether it is any dishonour to be sometimes misguided. Criticism has so
often given occasion to the envious and ill-natured of gratifying their
malignity, that some have thought it necessary to recommend the virtue
of candour without restriction, and to preclude all future liberty of
censure. Writers possessed with this opinion are continually enforcing
civility and decency, recommending to criticks the proper diffidence of
themselves, and inculcating the veneration due to celebrated names.

I am not of opinion that these professed enemies of arrogance and severity
have much more benevolence or modesty than the rest of mankind; or that
they feel in their own hearts, any other intention than to distinguish
themselves by their softness and delicacy. Some are modest because
they are timorous, and some are lavish of praise because they hope to
be repaid.

There is indeed some tenderness due to living writers, when they attack
none of those truths which are of importance to the happiness of mankind,
and have committed no other offence than that of betraying their own
ignorance or dulness. I should think it cruelty to crush an insect
who had provoked me only by buzzing in my ear; and would not willingly
interrupt the dream of harmless stupidity, or destroy the jest which
makes its author laugh. Yet I am far from thinking this tenderness
universally necessary; for he that writes may be considered as a kind of
general challenger, whom every one has a right to attack; since he quits
the common rank of life, steps forward beyond the lists, and offers his
merit to the publick judgment. To commence author is to claim praise,
and no man can justly aspire to honour, but at the hazard of disgrace.
But whatever be decided concerning contemporaries, whom he that knows
the treachery of the human heart, and considers how often we gratify
our own pride or envy under the appearance of contending for elegance
and propriety will find himself not much inclined to disturb; there can
surely be no exemptions pleaded to secure them from criticism, who can
no longer suffer by reproach, and of whom nothing now remains but their
writings and their names. Upon these authors the critick is undoubtedly
at full liberty to exercise the strictest severity, since he endangers
only his own fame, and, like Æneas when he drew his sword in the
infernal regions, encounters phantoms which cannot be wounded. He may
indeed pay some regard to established reputation; but he can by that
shew of reverence consult only his own security, for all other motives
are now at an end.

The faults of a writer of acknowledged excellence are more dangerous,
because the influence of his example is more extensive; and the interest
of learning requires that they should be discovered and stigmatized,
before they have the sanction of antiquity conferred upon them, and
become precedents of indisputable authority.

It has, indeed, been advanced by Addison, as one of the characteristicks
of a true critick, that he points out beauties rather than faults. But
it is rather natural to a man of learning and genius to apply himself
chiefly to the study of writers who have more beauties than faults to
be displayed: for the duty of criticism is neither to depreciate, nor
dignify by partial representations, but to hold out the light of reason,
whatever it may discover; and to promulgate the determinations of truth,
whatever she shall dictate.




No. 94. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 1751.


_----Bonus atque fidus_
_Judex * * * * per obstantes catervas_
_Explicuit sua victor arma. _
HOR. Lib. iv. Od. ix. 40.

Perpetual magistrate is he
Who keeps strict justice full in sight;
Who bids the crowd at awful distance gaze,
And virtue's arms victoriously displays.
FRANCIS.


The resemblance of poetick numbers, to the subject which they mention or
describe, may be considered as general or particular; as consisting in
the flow and structure of a whole passage taken together, or as comprised
in the sound of some emphatical and descriptive words, or in the cadence
and harmony of single verses.

The general resemblance of the sound to the sense is to be found in every
language which admits of poetry, in every author whose force of fancy
enables him to impress images strongly on his own mind, and whose choice
and variety of language readily supply him with just representations. To
such a writer it is natural to change his measure with his subject, even
without any effort of the understanding, or intervention of the judgment.
To revolve jollity and mirth necessarily tunes the voice of a poet to gay
and sprightly notes, as it fires his eye with vivacity; and reflection
on gloomy situations and disastrous events, will sadden his numbers,
as it will cloud his countenance. But in such passages there is only
the similitude of pleasure to pleasure, and of grief to grief, without
any immediate application to particular images. The same flow of joyous
versification will celebrate the jollity of marriage, and the exultation
of triumph; and the same languor of melody will suit the complaints of an
absent lover, as of a conquered king.

It is scarcely to be doubted, that on many occasions we make the musick
which we imagine ourselves to hear, that we modulate the poem by our own
disposition, and ascribe to the numbers the effects of the sense. We may
observe in life, that it is not easy to deliver a pleasing message in
an unpleasing manner, and that we readily associate beauty and deformity
with those whom for any reason we love or hate. Yet it would be too
daring to declare that all the celebrated adaptations of harmony are
chimerical; that Homer had no extraordinary attention to the melody of
his verse when he described a nuptial festivity;

Νυμφας δ' εκ θαλαμων, δαιδων ὑπολαμπομεναων,
Ηγινεον ανα αστυ, πολυς δ' ὑμεναιος ορωρει.

Here sacred pomp and genial feast delight,
And solemn dance, and hymeneal rite;
Along the street the new-made brides are led,
With torches flaming, to the nuptial bed;
The youthful dancers, in a circle, bound
To the soft flute, and cittern's silver sound.
POPE.

That Vida was merely fanciful, when he supposed Virgil endeavouring to
represent, by uncommon sweetness of numbers, the adventitious beauty
of Æneas;

_Os, humerosque Deo similis: namque ipse decoram_
_Cæsariem nato genetrix, lumenque juventæ_
_Purpureum, et lætos oculis afflârat honores. _

The Trojan chief appeared in open sight,
August in visage, and serenely bright.
His mother goddess, with her hands divine,
Had form'd his curling locks, and made his temples shine;
And giv'n his rolling eyes a sparkling grace,
And breath'd a youthful vigour on his face.
DRYDEN.

Or that Milton did not intend to exemplify the harmony which he mentions:

Fountains! and ye that warble as ye flow,
Melodious murmurs! warbling tune his praise.

That Milton understood the force of sounds well adjusted, and knew the
compass and variety of the ancient measures, cannot be doubted; since he
was both a musician and a critick; but he seems to have considered these
conformities of cadence, as either not often attainable in our language,
or as petty excellencies unworthy of his ambition: for it will not be
found that he has always assigned the same cast of numbers to the same
objects. He has given in two passages very minute descriptions of angelic
beauty; but though the images are nearly the same, the numbers will be
found, upon comparison, very different:

And now a stripling cherub he appears,
Not of the prime, yet such as in his face
Youth smil'd celestial, and to every limb
_Suitable grace diffus'd, so well he feign'd;_
Under a coronet his flowing hair
_In curls on either cheek play'd: wings he wore_
_Of many a coloured plume, sprinkled with gold. _

Some of the lines of this description are remarkably defective in harmony,
and therefore by no means correspondent with that symmetrical elegance
and easy grace, which they are intended to exhibit. The failure, however,
is fully compensated by the representation of Raphael, which equally
delights the ear and imagination:

A seraph wing'd: six wings he wore to shade
His lineaments divine; the pair that clad
Each shoulder broad, came mantling o'er his breast
With regal ornament: the middle pair
Girt like a starry zone his waist, and round
Skirted his loins and thighs, with downy gold,
And colours dipp'd in heav'n; the third his feet
Shadow'd from either heel with feather'd mail,
Sky-tinctur'd grain! like Maia's son he stood,
And shook his plumes, that heav'nly fragrance fill'd
The circuit wide. ----

The adumbration of particular and distinct images by an exact and
perceptible resemblance of sound, is sometimes studied, and sometimes
casual. Every language has many words formed in imitation of the noises
which they signify. Such are _stridor_, _balo_, and _beatus_, in Latin; and
in English to _growl_, to _buzz_, to _hiss_, and to _jarr_. Words of this
kind give to a verse the proper similitude of sound, without much labour
of the writer, and such happiness is therefore to be attributed rather to
fortune than skill; yet they are sometimes combined with great propriety,
and undeniably contribute to enforce the impression of the idea. We hear
the passing arrow in this line of Virgil;

Et fugit _horrendum stridens_ elapsa sagitta;
Th' impetuous arrow whizzes on the wing.
POPE.

And the creaking of hell-gates, in the description by Milton;

--------Open fly
With impetuous recoil and jarring sound
Th' infernal doors: and on their hinges grate
Harsh thunder. ----

But many beauties of this kind, which the moderns, and perhaps the
ancients, have observed, seem to be the product of blind reverence acting
upon fancy. Dionysius himself tells us, that the sound of Homer's verses
sometimes exhibits the idea of corporeal bulk. Is not this a discovery
nearly approaching to that of the blind man, who, after long inquiry into
the nature of the scarlet colour, found that it represented nothing so
much as the clangour of a trumpet? The representative power of poetick
harmony consists of sound and measure; of the force of the syllables
singly considered, and of the time in which they are pronounced. Sound
can resemble nothing but sound, and time can measure nothing but motion
and duration.

The criticks, however, have struck out other similitudes; nor is there any
irregularity of numbers which credulous admiration cannot discover to be
eminently beautiful. Thus the propriety of each of these lines has been
celebrated by writers whose opinion the world has reason to regard:

_Vertitur interea cœlum, et ruit oceano nox. _

Meantime the rapid heav'us rowl'd down the light,
And on the shaded ocean rush'd the night.
DRYDEN.

_Sternitur, exanimisque tremens procumbit humi bos. _

Down drops the beast, nor needs a second wound;
But sprawls in pangs of death, and spurns the ground.
DRYDEN.

_Parturiunt montes, nascitur ridiculus mus. _

The mountains labour, and a mouse is born.
ROSCOMMON.

If all these observations are just, there must be some remarkable
conformity between the sudden succession of night to day, the fall of an
ox under a blow, and the birth of a mouse from a mountain; since we are
told of all these images, that they are very strongly impressed by the
same form and termination of the verse.

We may, however, without giving way to enthusiasm, admit that some
beauties of this kind may be produced. A sudden stop at an unusual
syllable may image the cessation of action, or the pause of discourse;
and Milton has very happily imitated the repetitions of an echo:

--------I fled, and cried out _death_:
Hell trembled at the hedious name, and sigh'd
From all her caves, and back resounded _death_.

The measure of time in pronouncing may be varied so as very strongly
to represent, not only the modes of external motion, but the quick or
slow succession of ideas, and consequently the passions of the mind.
This at least was the power of the spondaick and dactylick harmony, but
our language can reach no eminent diversities of sound. We can indeed
sometimes, by encumbering and retarding the line, show the difficulty
of a progress made by strong efforts and with frequent interruptions, or
mark a slow and heavy motion. Thus Milton has imaged the toil of Satan
struggling through chaos;

So he with difficulty and labour hard
Mov'd on: with difficulty and labour he--

Thus he has described the leviathans or whales;

Wallowing unwieldy, enormous in their gait.

But he has at other times neglected such representations, as may be
observed in the volubility and levity of these lines, which express an
action tardy and reluctant.

--------Descent and fall
To us is adverse. Who but felt of late,
When the fierce foe hung on our broken rear
Insulting, and pursu'd us through the deep,
With what confusion and laborious flight
We sunk thus low! Th' ascent is easy then.

In another place, he describes the gentle glide of ebbing waters in a line
remarkably rough and halting;

--------Tripping ebb; that stole
With soft foot tow'rds the deep who now had stopp'd
His sluices.

It is not, indeed, to be expected, that the sound should always assist the
meaning, but it ought never to counteract it; and therefore Milton has
here certainly committed a fault like that of a player, who looked on the
earth when he implored the heavens, and to the heavens when he addressed
the earth.

Those who are determined to find in Milton an assemblage of all the
excellencies which have ennobled all other poets, will perhaps be
offended that I do not celebrate his versification in higher terms; for
there are readers who discover that in this passage,

So stretch'd out huge in length the arch-fiend lay,

a _long_ form is described in a _long_ line; but the truth is, that
length of body is only mentioned in a _slow_ line, to which it has only
the resemblance of time to space, of an hour to a maypole.

The same turn of ingenuity might perform wonders upon the description of
the ark:

Then from the mountains hewing timber tall,
Began to build a vessel of huge bulk;
Measur'd by cubit, length, and breadth, and height.

In these lines the poet apparently designs to fix the attention upon
bulk; but this is effected by the enumeration, not by the measure; for
what analogy can there be between modulations of sound, and corporeal
dimensions?

Milton indeed seems only to have regarded this species of embellishment so
far as not to reject it when it came unsought; which would often happen
to a mind so vigorous, employed upon a subject so various and extensive.
He had, indeed, a greater and nobler work to perform; a single sentiment
of moral or religious truth, a single image of life or nature, would
have been cheaply lost for a thousand echoes of the cadence of the sense;
and he who had undertaken to _vindicate the ways of God to man_, might
have been accused of neglecting his cause, had he lavished much of his
attention upon syllables and sounds.




No. 95. TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 1751.


_Parcus Deorum cultor et infrequens,_
_Insanientis dum sapientiæ_
_Consultus erro; nunc retrorsum_
_Vela dare, atque iterare cursus_
_Cogor relictos. _
HOR. Lib. i. Od. xxxiv. 1.

A fugitive from heav'n and prayer,
I mock'd at all religious fear,
Deep scienc'd in the mazy lore
Of mad philosophy; but now
Hoist sail, and back my voyage plow
To that blest harbour, which I left before.
FRANCIS.


TO THE RAMBLER.

SIR,

There are many diseases both of the body and mind, which it is far easier
to prevent than to cure, and therefore I hope you will think me employed
in an office not useless either to learning or virtue, if I describe the
symptoms of an intellectual malady, which, though at first it seizes only
the passions, will, if not speedily remedied, infect the reason, and, from
blasting the blossoms of knowledge, proceed in time to canker the root.

I was born in the house of discord. My parents were of unsuitable ages,
contrary tempers, and different religions, and therefore employed the
spirit and acuteness which nature had very liberally bestowed upon both,
in hourly disputes, and incessant contrivances to detect each other
in the wrong; so that from the first exertions of reason I was bred a
disputant, trained up in all the arts of domestick sophistry, initiated
in a thousand low stratagems, nimble shifts, and sly concealments; versed
in all the turns of altercation, and acquainted with the whole discipline
of _fending_ and _proving_.

It was necessarily my care to preserve the kindness of both the
controvertists, and therefore I had very early formed the habit of
suspending my judgment, of hearing arguments with indifference, inclining
as occasion required to either side, and of holding myself undetermined
between them till I knew for what opinion I might conveniently declare.

Thus, Sir, I acquired very early the skill of disputation; and, as we
naturally love the arts in which we believe ourselves to excel, I did not
let my abilities lie useless, nor suffer my dexterity to be lost for want
of practice. I engaged in perpetual wrangles with my school-fellows, and
was never to be convinced or repressed by any other arguments than blows,
by which my antagonists commonly determined the controversy, as I was,
like the Roman orator, much more eminent for eloquence than courage.

At the university I found my predominant ambition completely gratified
by the study of logick. I impressed upon my memory a thousand axioms,
and ten thousand distinctions, practised every form of syllogism, passed
all my days in the schools of disputation, and slept every night with
Smiglecius[55] on my pillow.

You will not doubt but such a genius was soon raised to eminence by
such application. I was celebrated in my third year for the most artful
opponent that the university could boast, and became the terrour and envy
of all the candidates for philosophical reputation.

My renown, indeed, was not purchased but at the price of all my time and
all my studies. I never spoke but to contradict, nor declaimed but in
defence of a position universally acknowledged to be false, and therefore
worthy, in my opinion, to be adorned with all the colours of false
representation, and strengthened with all the art of fallacious subtilty.

My father, who had no other wish than to see his son richer than himself,
easily concluded that I should distinguish myself among the professors
of the law; and therefore, when I had taken my first degree, dispatched
me to the Temple with a paternal admonition, that I should never suffer
myself to feel shame, for nothing but modesty could retard my fortune.

Vitiated, ignorant, and heady as I was, I had not yet lost my reverence
for virtue, and therefore could not receive such dictates without
horrour; but, however, was pleased with his determination of my course
of life, because he placed me in the way that leads soonest from the
prescribed walks of discipline and education, to the open fields of
liberty and choice.

I was now in the place where every one catches the contagion of vanity,
and soon began to distinguish myself by sophisms and paradoxes. I declared
war against all received opinions and established rules, and levelled my
batteries particularly against those universal principles which had stood
unshaken in all the vicissitudes of literature, and are considered as the
inviolable temples of truth, or the impregnable bulwarks of science.

I applied myself chiefly to those parts of learning which have filled
the world with doubt and perplexity, and could readily produce all the
arguments relating to matter and motion, time and space, identity and
infinity.

I was equally able and equally willing to maintain the system of Newton or
Descartes, and favoured occasionally the hypothesis of Ptolemy, or that
of Copernicus. I sometimes exalted vegetables to sense, and sometimes
degraded animals to mechanism.

Nor was I less inclined to weaken the credit of history, or perplex the
doctrines of polity. I was always of the party which I heard the company
condemn.

Among the zealots of liberty I could harangue with great copiousness upon
the advantages of absolute monarchy, the secrecy of its counsels, and the
expedition of its measures; and often celebrated the blessings produced
by the extinction of parties, and preclusion of debates.

Among the assertors of regal authority, I never failed to declaim with
republican warmth upon the original charter of universal liberty, the
corruption of courts, and the folly of voluntary submission to those whom
nature has levelled with ourselves.

I knew the defects of every scheme of government, and the inconveniences
of every law. I sometimes shewed how much the condition of mankind would
be improved, by breaking the world into petty sovereignties, and sometimes
displayed the felicity and peace which universal monarchy would diffuse
over the earth.

To every acknowledged fact I found innumerable objections; for it was my
rule, to judge of history only by abstracted probability, and therefore
I made no scruple of bidding defiance to testimony. I have more than once
questioned the existence of Alexander the Great; and having demonstrated
the folly of erecting edifices like the pyramids of Egypt, I frequently
hinted my suspicion that the world had been long deceived, and that they
were to be found only in the narratives of travellers.

It had been happy for me could I have confined my scepticism to historical
controversies and philosophical disquisitions; but having now violated
my reason, and accustomed myself to inquire not after proofs, but
objections, I had perplexed truth with falsehood, till my ideas were
confused, my judgment embarrassed, and my intellects distorted. The habit
of considering every proposition as alike uncertain, left me no test by
which any tenet could be tried; every opinion presented both sides with
equal evidence, and my fallacies began to operate upon my own mind in
more important inquiries.
It was at last the sport of my vanity to weaken
the obligations of moral duty, and efface the distinctions of good and
evil, till I had deadened the sense of conviction, and abandoned my heart
to the fluctuations of uncertainty, without anchor and without compass,
without satisfaction of curiosity, or peace of conscience, without
principles of reason, or motives of action.

Such is the hazard of repressing the first perceptions of truth, of
spreading for diversion the snares of sophistry, and engaging reason
against its own determinations.

The disproportions of absurdity grow less and less visible, as we are
reconciled by degrees to the deformity of a mistress; and falsehood, by
long use, is assimilated to the mind, as poison to the body.

I had soon the mortification of seeing my conversation courted only by
the ignorant or wicked, by either boys who were enchanted by novelty, or
wretches, who having long disobeyed virtue and reason, were now desirous
of my assistance to dethrone them.

Thus alarmed, I shuddered at my own corruption, and that pride by which
I had been seduced, contributed to reclaim me. I was weary of continual
irresolution, and a perpetual equipoise of the mind; and ashamed of
being the favourite of those who were scorned and shunned by the rest
of mankind.

I therefore retired from all temptation to dispute, prescribed a new
regimen to my understanding, and resolved, instead of rejecting all
established opinions which I could not prove, to tolerate though not adopt
all which I could not confute. I forebore to heat my imagination with
needless controversies, to discuss questions confessedly uncertain, and
refrained steadily from gratifying my vanity by the support of falsehood.

By this method I am at length recovered from my argumental delirium, and
find myself in the state of one awakened from the confusion and tumult
of a feverish dream. I rejoice in the new possession of evidence and
reality, and step on from truth to truth with confidence and quiet.

I am, Sir, &c.

PERTINAX.

[Footnote 55: A Polish writer, whose "Logick" was formerly held in great
estimation in this country, as well as on the continent. ]




No. 96. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 1751.


_Quod si Platonis musa personat verum,_
_Quod quisque discit, immemor recordatur. _
BOETHIUS.

Truth in Platonick ornaments bedeck'd,
Inforc'd we love, unheeding recollect.


It is reported of the Persians, by an ancient writer, that the sum of
their education consisted in teaching youth _to ride, to shoot with the
bow, and to speak truth_.

The bow and the horse were easily mastered, but it would have been happy
if we had been informed by what arts veracity was cultivated, and by
what preservatives a Persian mind was secured against the temptations
to falsehood.

There are, indeed, in the present corruption of mankind, many incitements
to forsake truth; the need of palliating our own faults, and the
convenience of imposing on the ignorance or credulity of others, so
frequently occur; so many immediate evils are to be avoided, and so
many present gratifications obtained, by craft and delusion, that very
few of those who are much entangled in life, have spirit and constancy
sufficient to support them in the steady practice of open veracity.

In order that all men may be taught to speak truth, it is necessary that
all likewise should learn to hear it; for no species of falsehood is
more frequent than flattery, to which the coward is betrayed by fear,
the dependant by interest, and the friend by tenderness. Those who are
neither servile nor timorous, are yet desirous to bestow pleasure; and
while unjust demands of praise continue to be made, there will always be
some whom hope, fear, or kindness, will dispose to pay them.

The guilt of falsehood is very widely extended, and many whom their
conscience can scarcely charge with stooping to a lie, have vitiated the
morals of others by their vanity, and patronized the vice they believe
themselves to abhor.

Truth is, indeed, not often welcome for its own sake; it is generally
unpleasing, because contrary to our wishes and opposite to our practice;
and as our attention naturally follows our interest, we hear unwillingly
what we are afraid to know, and soon forget what we have no inclination
to impress upon our memories.

For this reason many arts of instruction have been invented, by which
the reluctance against truth may be overcome; and as physick is given
to children in confections, precepts have been hidden under a thousand
appearances, that mankind may be bribed by pleasure to escape destruction.

While the world was yet in its infancy, Truth came among mortals from
above, and Falsehood from below. Truth was the daughter of Jupiter and
Wisdom; Falsehood was the progeny of Folly impregnated by the Wind. They
advanced with equal confidence to seize the dominion of the new creation,
and, as their enmity and their force were well known to the celestials,
all the eyes of heaven were turned upon the contest.

Truth seemed conscious of superiour power and juster claim, and therefore
came on towering and majestick, unassisted and alone; Reason, indeed,
always attended her, but appeared her follower, rather than companion.
Her march was slow and stately, but her motion was perpetually
progressive, and when once she had grounded her foot, neither gods nor
men could force her to retire.

Falsehood always endeavoured to copy the mien and attitudes of Truth, and
was very successful in the arts of mimickry. She was surrounded, animated,
and supported by innumerable legions of appetites and passions, but
like other feeble commanders, was obliged often to receive law from her
allies. Her motions were sudden, irregular, and violent; for she had no
steadiness nor constancy. She often gained conquests by hasty incursions,
which she never hoped to keep by her own strength, but maintained by the
help of the passions, whom she generally found resolute and faithful.

It sometimes happened that the antagonists met in full opposition. In
these encounters, Falsehood always invested her head with clouds, and
commanded Fraud to place ambushes about her. In her left hand she bore
the shield of Impudence, and the quiver of Sophistry rattled on her
shoulder. All the Passions attended at her call; Vanity clapped her wings
before, and Obstinacy supported her behind. Thus guarded and assisted,
she sometimes advanced against Truth, and sometimes waited the attack;
but always endeavoured to skirmish at a distance, perpetually shifted
her ground, and let fly her arrows in different directions; for she
certainly found that her strength failed, whenever the eye of Truth
darted full upon her.

Truth had the awful aspect though not the thunder of her father, and when
the long continuance of the contest brought them near to one another,
Falsehood let the arms of Sophistry fall from her grasp, and holding up
the shield of Impudence with both her hands, sheltered herself amongst
the Passions.

Truth, though she was often wounded, always recovered in a short time; but
it was common for the slightest hurt, received by Falsehood, to spread
its malignity to the neighbouring parts, and to burst open again when it
seemed to have been cured.

Falsehood, in a short time, found by experience that her superiority
consisted only in the celerity of her course, and the changes of her
posture. She therefore ordered Suspicion to beat the ground before her,
and avoid with great care to cross the way of Truth, who, as she never
varied her point, but moved constantly upon the same line, was easily
escaped by the oblique and desultory movements, the quick retreats, and
active doubles which Falsehood always practised, when the enemy began to
raise terrour by her approach.

By this procedure Falsehood every hour encroached upon the world, and
extended her empire through all climes and regions. Wherever she carried
her victories she left the Passions in full authority behind her;
who were so well pleased with command, that they held out with great
obstinacy when Truth came to seize their posts, and never failed to
retard her progress, though they could not always stop it. They yielded
at last with great reluctance, frequent rallies, and sullen submission;
and always inclined to revolt when Truth ceased to awe them by her
immediate presence.

Truth, who, when she first descended from the heavenly palaces, expected
to have been received by universal acclamation, cherished with kindness,
heard with obedience, and invited to spread her influence from province
to province, now found that wherever she came she must force her
passage. Every intellect was precluded by prejudice, and every heart
preoccupied by passion. She indeed advanced, but she advanced slowly;
and often lost the conquests which she left behind her, by sudden
insurrections of the appetites, that shook off their allegiance, and
ranged themselves again under the banner of her enemy.

Truth, however, did not grow weaker by the struggle, for her vigour was
unconquerable; yet she was provoked to see herself thus baffled and
impeded by an enemy, whom she looked on with contempt, and who had no
advantage but such as she owed to inconstancy, weakness, and artifice.
She, therefore, in the anger of disappointment, called upon her father
Jupiter to reestablish her in the skies, and leave mankind to the
disorder and misery which they deserved, by submitting willingly to the
usurpation of falsehood.

Jupiter compassionated the world too much to grant her request, yet was
willing to ease her labours and mitigate her vexation. He commanded
her to consult the muses by what methods she might obtain an easier
reception, and reign without the toil of incessant war. It was then
discovered, that she obstructed her own progress by the severity of
her aspect, and the solemnity of her dictates; and that men would
never willingly admit her till they ceased to fear her, since by giving
themselves up to falsehood, they seldom make any sacrifice of their
ease or pleasure, because she took the shape that was most engaging,
and always suffered herself to be dressed and painted by desire. The
muses wove, in the loom of Pallas, a loose and changeable robe, like
that in which falsehood captivated her admirers; with this they invested
truth, and named her fiction. She now went out again to conquer with
more success; for when she demanded entrance of the passions, they often
mistook her for falsehood, and delivered up their charge: but when she
had once taken possession, she was soon disrobed by reason, and shone
out, in her original form, with native effulgence and resistless dignity.




No. 97. TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 1751.


_Fœcunda culpæ sœcula nuptias_
_Primum inquinavere, et genus, et domos. _
_Hoc fonte derivala clades_
_In patriam populumque fluxit. _
HOR. Lib. iii Od. vi. 17.

Fruitful of crimes, this age first stain'd
Their hapless offspring, and profan'd
The nuptial bed; from whence the woes,
Which various and unnumber'd rose
From this polluted fountain head,
O'er Rome and o'er the nations spread.
FRANCIS.


The reader is indebted for this day's entertainment to an author from whom
the age has received greater favours, who has enlarged the knowledge of
human nature, and taught the passions to move at the command of virtue.


TO THE RAMBLER.

SIR,

When the Spectator was first published in single papers, it gave me so
much pleasure, that it is one of the favourite amusements of my age
to recollect it; and when I reflect on the foibles of those times,
as described in that useful work, and compare them with the vices
now reigning among us, I cannot but wish that you would oftener take
cognizance of the manners of the better half of the human species, that
if your precepts and observations be carried down to posterity, the
Spectators may show to the rising generation what were the fashionable
follies of their grandmothers, the Rambler of their mothers, and that
from both they may draw instruction and warning.

When I read those Spectators which took notice of the misbehaviour of
young women at church, by which they vainly hope to attract admirers,
I used to pronounce such forward young women Seekers, in order to
distinguish them, by a mark of infamy, from those who had patience and
decency to stay till they were sought.

But I have lived to see such a change in the manners of women, that I
would now be willing to compound with them for that name, although I then
thought it disgraceful enough, if they would deserve no worse; since now
they are too generally given up to negligence of domestick business, to
idle amusements, and to wicked rackets, without any settled view at all
but of squandering time.

In the time of the Spectator, excepting sometimes in appearance in the
ring, sometimes at a good and chosen play, sometimes on a visit at the
house of a grave relation, the young ladies contented themselves to
be found employed in domestick duties; for then routes, drums, balls,
assemblies, and such like markets for women, were not known.

Modesty and diffidence, gentleness and meekness, were looked upon as
the appropriate virtues and characteristick graces of the sex; and if
a forward spirit pushed itself into notice, it was exposed in print as
it deserved.

The churches were almost the only places where single women were to be
seen by strangers. Men went thither expecting to see them, and perhaps
too much for that only purpose.

But some good often resulted, however improper might be their motives.
Both sexes were in the way of their duty. The man must be abandoned
indeed, who loves not goodness in another; nor were the young fellows
of that age so wholly lost to a sense of right, as pride and conceit has
since made them affect to be. When therefore they saw a fair-one whose
decent behaviour and cheerful piety shewed her earnest in her first
duties, they had the less doubt, judging politically only, that she would
have conscientious regard to her second.

With what ardour have I seen watched for, the rising of a kneeling beauty;
and what additional charms has devotion given to her recommunicated
features?

The men were often the better for what they heard. Even a Saul was once
found prophesying among the prophets whom he had set out to destroy. To a
man thus put into good humour by a pleasing object, religion itself looked
more amiable. The Men Seekers of the Spectator's time loved the holy place
for the object's sake, and loved the object for her suitable behaviour
in it.

Reverence mingled with their love, and they thought that a young lady of
such good principles must be addressed only by the man who at least made
a shew of good principles, whether his heart was yet quite right or not.

Nor did the young lady's behaviour, at any time of the service, lessen
this reverence. Her eyes were her own, her ears the preacher's. Women are
always most observed when they seem themselves least to observe, or to
lay out for observation. The eye of a respectful lover loves rather to
receive confidence from the withdrawn eye of the fair-one, than to find
itself obliged to retreat.

When a young gentleman's affection was thus laudably engaged, he pursued
its natural dictates; keeping then was a rare, at least a secret and
scandalous vice, and a wife was the summit of his wishes. Rejection
was now dreaded, and pre-engagement apprehended. A woman whom he loved,
he was ready to think must be admired by all the world. His fears, his
uncertainties, increased his love.

Every inquiry he made into the lady's domestick excellence, which, when a
wife is to be chosen, will surely not be neglected, confirmed him in his
choice. He opens his heart to a common friend, and honestly discovers the
state of his fortune. His friend applies to those of the young lady, whose
parents, if they approve his proposals, disclose them to their daughter.

She perhaps is not an absolute stranger to the passion of the young
gentleman. His eyes, his assiduities, his constant attendance at a
church, whither, till of late, he used seldom to come, and a thousand
little observances that he paid her, had very probably first forced her
to regard, and then inclined her to favour him.

That a young lady should be in love, and the love of the young gentleman
undeclared, is an heterodoxy which prudence, and even policy, must not
allow. But, thus applied to, she is all resignation to her parents.
Charming resignation, which inclination opposes not.

Her relations applaud her for her duty; friends meet; points are adjusted;
delightful perturbations, and hopes, and a few lover's fears, fill up the
tedious space till an interview is granted; for the young lady had not
made herself cheap at publick places.

The time of interview arrives. She is modestly reserved; he is not
confident. He declares his passion; the consciousness of her own worth,
and his application to her parents, take from her any doubt of his
sincerity; and she owns herself obliged to him for his good opinion. The
inquiries of her friends into his character, have taught her that his
good opinion deserves to be valued.

She tacitly allows of his future visits; he renews them; the regard of
each for the other is confirmed; and when he presses for the favour of
her hand, he receives a declaration of an entire acquiescence with her
duty, and a modest acknowledgment of esteem for him.

He applies to her parents therefore for a near day; and thinks himself
under obligation to them for the cheerful and affectionate manner with
which they receive his agreeable application.

With this prospect of future happiness, the marriage is celebrated.
Gratulations pour in from every quarter. Parents and relations on both
sides, brought acquainted in the course of the courtship, can receive the
happy couple with countenances illumined, and joyful hearts.

The brothers, the sisters, the friends of one family, are the brothers,
the sisters, the friends of the other. Their two families, thus made one,
are the world to the young couple.

Their home is the place of their principal delight, nor do they ever
occasionally quit it but they find the pleasure of returning to it
augmented in proportion to the time of their absence from it.

Oh, Mr. Rambler! forgive the talkativeness of an old man! When I courted
and married my Lætitia, then a blooming beauty, every thing passed just
so! But how is the case now? The ladies, maidens, wives, and widows,
are engrossed by places of open resort and general entertainment, which
fill every quarter of the metropolis, and, being constantly frequented,
make home irksome. Breakfasting-places, dining-places, routes, drums,
concerts, balls, plays, operas, masquerades for the evening, and even for
all night, and lately, publick sales of the goods of broken housekeepers,
which the general dissoluteness of manners has contributed to make
very frequent, come in as another seasonable relief to these modern
time-killers.

In the summer there are in every country-town assemblies; Tunbridge, Bath,
Cheltenham, Scarborough! What expense of dress and equipage is required
to qualify the frequenters for such emulous appearance!

By the natural infection of example, the lowest people have places of
six-penny resort, and gaming-tables for pence. Thus servants are now
induced to fraud and dishonesty, to support extravagance, and supply
their losses.

As to the ladies who frequent those publick places, they are not ashamed
to shew their faces wherever men dare go, nor blush to try who shall
stare most impudently, or who shall laugh loudest on the publick walks.

The men who would make good husbands, if they visit those places,
are frighted at wedlock, and resolve to live single, except they are
bought at a very high price. They can be spectators of all that passes,
and, if they please, more than spectators, at the expense of others.
The companion of an evening and the companion for life, require very
different qualifications.

Two thousand pounds in the last age, with a domestick wife, would go
farther than ten thousand in this. Yet settlements are expected, that
often, to a mercantile man especially, sink a fortune into uselessness;
and pin-money is stipulated for, which makes a wife independent,
and destroys love, by putting it out of a man's power to lay any
obligation upon her, that might engage gratitude, and kindle affection.
When to all this the card-tables are added, how can a prudent man think
of marrying?

And when the worthy men know not where to find wives, must not the sex
be left to the foplings, the coxcombs, the libertines of the age, whom
they help to make such? And need even these wretches marry to enjoy the
conversation of those who render their company so cheap?

And what, after all, is the benefit which the gay coquette obtains by her
flutters? As she is approachable by every man without requiring, I will
not say incense or adoration, but even common complaisance, every fop
treats her as upon the level, looks upon her light airs as invitations,
and is on the watch to take the advantage: she has companions indeed, but
no lovers; for love is respectful and timorous; and where among all her
followers will she find a husband?

Set, dear Sir, before the youthful, the gay, the inconsiderate, the
contempt as well as the danger to which they are exposed. At one time or
other, women, not utterly thoughtless, will be convinced of the justice
of your censure, and the charity of your instruction.

But should your expostulations and reproofs have no effect upon those
who are far gone in fashionable folly, they may be retailed from their
mouths to their nieces, (marriage will not often have entitled these
to daughters,) when they, the meteors of a day, find themselves elbowed
off the stage of vanity by other flutterers; for the most admired women
cannot have many Tunbridge, many Bath seasons to blaze in; since even
fine faces, often seen, are less regarded than new faces, the proper
punishment of showy girls for rendering themselves so impolitickly cheap.

I am, Sir,

Your sincere admirer, &c. [56]

[Footnote 56: The writer of this paper was Richardson, the Novelist.
See Preface. ]




No. 98. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 1751.


_----Quæ nec Sarmentus iniquas_
_Cæsaris ad mensas, nec vilis Galba talisset. _
JUV. Sat. v. 3.

Which not Sarmentus brook'd at Cæsar's board,
Nor grov'ling Galba from his haughty Lord.
ELPHINSTON.


TO THE AUTHOR OF THE RAMBLER.

MR. RAMBLER,

You have often endeavoured to impress upon your readers an observation of
more truth than novelty, that life passes, for the most part, in petty
transactions; that our hours glide away in trifling amusements and slight
gratifications; and that there very seldom emerges any occasion that can
call forth great virtue or great abilities.

It very commonly happens that speculation has no influence on conduct.
Just conclusions, and cogent arguments, formed by laborious study, and
diligent inquiry, are often reposited in the treasuries of memory, as
gold in a miser's chest, useless alike to others and himself. As some are
not richer for the extent of their possessions, others are not wiser for
the multitude of their ideas.

You have truly described the state of human beings, but it may be doubted
whether you have accommodated your precepts to your description; whether
you have not generally considered your readers as influenced by the
tragick passions, and susceptible of pain or pleasure only from powerful
agents, and from great events.

To an author who writes not for the improvement of a single art, or
the establishment of a controverted doctrine, but equally intends the
advantage and equally courts the perusal of all the classes of mankind,
nothing can justly seem unworthy of regard, by which the pleasure of
conversation may be increased, and the daily satisfactions of familiar
life secured from interruption and disgust.

For this reason you would not have injured your reputation, if you had
sometimes descended to the minuter duties of social beings, and enforced
the observance of those little civilities and ceremonious delicacies,
which, inconsiderable as they may appear to the man of science, and
difficult as they may prove to be detailed with dignity, yet contribute
to the regulation of the world, by facilitating the intercourse between
one man and another, and of which the French have sufficiently testified
their esteem, by terming the knowledge and practice of them _Sçavoir
vivre_, The art of living.

Politeness is one of those advantages which we never estimate rightly
but by the inconvenience of its loss. Its influence upon the manners
is constant and uniform, so that, like an equal motion, it escapes
perception. The circumstances of every action are so adjusted to each
other, that we do not see where any errour could have been committed, and
rather acquiesce in its propriety than admire its exactness.

But as sickness shews us the value of ease, a little familiarity with
those who were never taught to endeavour the gratification of others, but
regulate their behaviour merely by their own will, will soon evince the
necessity of established modes and formalities to the happiness and quiet
of common life.

Wisdom and virtue are by no means sufficient, without the supplemental
laws of good-breeding, to secure freedom from degenerating to rudeness,
or self-esteem from swelling into insolence; a thousand incivilities may
be committed, and a thousand offices neglected, without any remorse of
conscience or reproach from reason.

The true effect of genuine politeness seems to be rather ease than
pleasure. The power of delighting must be conferred by nature, and cannot
be delivered by precept, or obtained by imitation; but though it be the
privilege of a very small number to ravish and to charm, every man may
hope by rules and caution not to give pain, and may, therefore, by the
help of good-breeding, enjoy the kindness of mankind, though he should
have no claim to higher distinctions.

The universal axiom in which all complaisance is included, and from
which flow all the formalities which custom has established in civilized
nations, is, _That no man shall give any preference to himself_. A rule
so comprehensive and certain, that, perhaps, it is not easy for the mind
to image an incivility, without supposing it to be broken.

There are, indeed, in every place some particular modes of the ceremonial
part of good-breeding, which, being arbitrary and accidental, can
be learned only by habitude and conversation; such are the forms
of salutation, the different gradations of reverence, and all the
adjustments of place and precedence. These, however, may be often
violated without offence, if it be sufficiently evident, that neither
malice nor pride contributed to the failure; but will not atone, however
rigidly observed, for the tumour of insolence, or petulance of contempt.

I have, indeed, not found among any part of mankind, less real and
rational complaisance, than among those who have passed their time in
paying and receiving visits, in frequenting publick entertainments,
in studying the exact measures of ceremony, and in watching all the
variations of fashionable courtesy.

They know, indeed, at what hour they may beat the door of an acquaintance,
how many steps they must attend him towards the gate, and what interval
should pass before his visit is returned; but seldom extend their care
beyond the exterior and unessential parts of civility, nor refuse their
own vanity any gratification, however expensive to the quiet of another.

Trypherus is a man remarkable for splendour and expense; a man, that having
been originally placed by his fortune and rank in the first class of the
community, has acquired that air of dignity, and that readiness in the
exchange of compliments, which courts, balls, and levees, easily confer.

But Trypherus, without any settled purposes of malignity, partly by his
ignorance of human nature, and partly by the habit of contemplating with
great satisfaction his own grandeur and riches, is hourly giving disgust
to those whom chance or expectation subjects to his vanity.

To a man whose fortune confines him to a small house, he declaims upon
the pleasure of spacious apartments, and the convenience of changing his
lodging-room in different parts of the year; tells him, that he hates
confinement; and concludes, that if his chamber was less, he should never
wake without thinking of a prison.

To Eucretas, a man of birth equal to himself, but of much less estate, he
shewed his services of plate, and remarked that such things were, indeed,
nothing better than costly trifles, but that no man must pretend to the
rank of a gentleman without them; and that for his part, if his estate
was smaller, he should not think of enjoying but increasing it, and would
inquire out a trade for his eldest son.

He has, in imitation of some more acute observer than himself, collected a
great many shifts and artifices by which poverty is concealed; and among
the ladies of small fortune, never fails to talk of frippery and slight
silks, and the convenience of a general mourning.

I have been insulted a thousand times with a catalogue of his pictures,
his jewels, and his rarities, which, though he knows the humble neatness
of my habitation, he seldom fails to conclude by a declaration, that
wherever he sees a house meanly furnished, he despises the owner's taste,
or pities his poverty.

This, Mr. Rambler, is the practice of Trypherus, by which he is become
the terrour of all who are less wealthy than himself, and has raised
innumerable enemies without rivalry, and without malevolence.

Yet though all are not equally culpable with Trypherus, it is scarcely
possible to find any man who does not frequently, like him, indulge his
own pride by forcing others into a comparison with himself when he knows
the advantage is on his side, without considering that unnecessarily
to obtrude unpleasing ideas, is a species of oppression; and that it is
little more criminal to deprive another of some real advantage, than to
interrupt that forgetfulness of its absence which is the next happiness
to actual possession.

I am, &c.

EUTROPIUS.




No. 99. TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 1751.


_Scilicet ingeniis aliqua est concordia junctis,_
_Et servat studii fœdera quisque sui. _
_Rusticus agricolam, miles fera bella gerentem,_
_Rectorem dubiæ navita puppis amat. _
OVID, Ex Pon. v. 59.

Congenial passions souls together bind,
And ev'ry calling mingles with its kind;
Soldier unites with soldier, swain with swain,
The mariner with him that roves the main.
F. LEWIS.


It has been ordained by Providence, for the conservation of order in the
immense variety of nature, and for the regular propagation of the several
classes of life with which the elements are peopled, that every creature
should be drawn by some secret attraction to those of his own kind; and
that not only the gentle and domestick animals which naturally unite
into companies, or co-habit by pairs, should continue faithful to their
species; but even those ravenous and ferocious savages which Aristotle
observes never to be gregarious, should range mountains and deserts in
search of one another, rather than pollute the world with a monstrous
birth.