No More Learning

Soon
afterward my relation began to talk of the regularity of her family, and
the inconvenience of London hours; and at last let me know that they had
purposed that night to go to bed sooner than was usual, because they were
to rise early in the morning to make cheesecakes. This hint sent me to my
chamber, to which I was accompanied by all the ladies, who begged me to
excuse some large sieves of leaves and flowers that covered two-thirds
of the floor, for they intended to distil them when they were dry,
and they had no other room that so conveniently received the rising sun.

The scent of the plants hindered me from rest, and therefore I rose early
in the morning with a resolution to explore my new habitation. I stole
unperceived by my busy cousins into the garden, where I found nothing
either more great or elegant, than in the same number of acres cultivated
for the market. Of the gardener I soon learned that his lady was the
greatest manager in that part of the country, and that I was come hither
at the time in which I might learn to make more pickles and conserves,
than could be seen at any house a hundred miles round.

It was not long before her ladyship gave me sufficient opportunities
of knowing her character, for she was too much pleased with her own
accomplishments to conceal them, and took occasion, from some sweetmeats
which she set next day upon the table, to discourse for two long
hours upon robs and jellies; laid down the best methods of conserving,
reserving, and preserving all sorts of fruit; told us with great contempt
of the London lady in the neighbourhood, by whom these terms were very
often confounded; and hinted how much she should be ashamed to set before
company, at her own house, sweetmeats of so dark a colour as she had
often seen at mistress Sprightly's.

It is, indeed, the great business of her life, to watch the skillet on
the fire, to see it simmer with the due degree of heat, and to snatch
it off at the moment of projection; and the employments to which she has
bred her daughters, are to turn rose-leaves in the shade, to pick out the
seeds of currants with a quill, to gather fruit without brusing it, and
to extract bean-flower water for the skin. Such are the tasks with which
every day, since I came hither, has begun and ended, to which the early
hours of life are sacrificed, and in which that time is passing away
which never shall return.

But to reason or expostulate are hopeless attempts. The lady has settled
her opinions, and maintains the dignity of her own performances with all
the firmness of stupidity accustomed to be flattered. Her daughters,
having never seen any house but their own, believe their mother's
excellence on her own word. Her husband is a mere sportsman, who is
pleased to see his table well furnished, and thinks the day sufficiently
successful, in which he brings home a leash of hares to be potted by
his wife.

After a few days I pretended to want books, but my lady soon told me that
none of her books would suit my taste; for her part she never loved to
see young women give their minds to such follies, by which they would
only learn to use hard words; she bred up her daughters to understand
a house, and whoever should marry them, if they knew any thing of good
cookery, would never repent it.

There are, however, some things in the culinary sciences too sublime for
youthful intellects, mysteries into which they must not be initiated
till the years of serious maturity, and which are referred to the day of
marriage, as the supreme qualification for connubial life. She makes an
orange pudding, which is the envy of all the neighbourhood, and which she
has hitherto found means of mixing and baking with such secrecy, that the
ingredient to which it owes its flavour has never been discovered. She,
indeed, conducts this great affair with all the caution that human policy
can suggest. It is never known before-hand when this pudding will be
produced; she takes the ingredient privately into her own closet, employs
her maids and daughters in different parts of the house, orders the oven
to be heated for a pie, and places the pudding in it with her own hands,
the mouth of the oven is then stopped, and all enquiries are vain.

The composition of the pudding she has, however, promised Clarinda, that
if she pleases her in marriage, she shall be told without reserve. But
the art of making English capers she has not yet persuaded herself to
discover, but seems resolved that secret shall perish with her, as some
alchymists have obstinately suppressed the art of transmuting metals.

I once ventured to lay my fingers on her book of receipts, which she
left upon the table, having intelligence that a vessel of gooseberry
wine had burst the hoops. But though the importance of the event
sufficiently engrossed her care, to prevent any recollection of the
danger to which her secrets were exposed, I was not able to make use of
the golden moments; for this treasure of hereditary knowledge was so well
concealed by the manner of spelling used by her grandmother, her mother,
and herself, that I was totally unable to understand it, and lost the
opportunity of consulting the oracle, for want of knowing the language
in which its answers were returned.

It is, indeed, necessary, if I have any regard to her ladyship's esteem,
that I should apply myself to some of these economical accomplishments;
for I overheard her, two days ago, warning her daughters, by my mournful
example, against negligence of pastry, and ignorance in carving: for you
saw, said she, that, with all her pretensions to knowledge, she turned
the partridge the wrong way when she attempted to cut it, and, I believe,
scarcely knows the difference between paste raised, and paste in a dish.

The reason, Mr. Rambler, why I have laid Lady Bustle's character before
you, is a desire to be informed whether, in your opinion, it is worthy of
imitation, and whether I shall throw away the books which I have hitherto
thought it my duty to read, for _the lady's closet opened_, _the complete
servant maid_, and _the court cook_, and resign all curiosity after right
and wrong, for the art of scalding damascenes without bursting them, and
preserving the whiteness of pickled mushrooms.

Lady Bustle has, indeed, by this incessant application to fruits and
flowers, contracted her cares into a narrow space, and set herself free
from many perplexities with which other minds are disturbed. She has no
curiosity after the events of a war, or the fate of heroes in distress;
she can hear, without the least emotion, the ravage of a fire, or
devastations of a storm; her neighbours grow rich or poor, come into
the world or go out of it, without regard, while she is pressing the
jelly-bag, or airing the store-room; but I cannot perceive that she is
more free from disquiets than those whose understandings take a wider
range. Her marigolds, when they are almost cured, are often scattered by
the wind, and the rain sometimes falls upon fruit, when it ought to be
gathered dry. While her artificial wines are fermenting, her whole life
is restlessness and anxiety. Her sweetmeats are not always bright, and
the maid sometimes forgets the just proportions of salt and pepper, when
venison is to be baked. Her conserves mould, her wines sour, and pickles
mother; and, like all the rest of mankind, she is every day mortified
with the defeat of her schemes, and the disappointment of her hopes.

With regard to vice and virtue she seems a kind of neutral being. She has
no crime but luxury, nor any virtue but chastity; she has no desire to be
praised but for her cookery; nor wishes any ill to the rest of mankind,
but that whenever they aspire to a feast, their custards may be wheyish,
and their pie-crusts tough.

I am now very impatient to know whether I am to look on these ladies as
the great patterns of our sex, and to consider conserves and pickles as
the business of my life; whether the censures which I now suffer be just,
and whether the brewers of wines, and the distillers of washes, have a
right to look with insolence on the weakness of

CORNELIA.




No. 52. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 1750.


_----Quoties flenti Theseius heros_
_Siste modum, dixit, neque enim fortuna querenda_
_Sola tua est, similes aliorum respice casus,_
_Mitius ista feres. _
OVID, Met. xv. 492.

How oft in vain the son of Theseus said,
The stormy sorrows be with patience laid;
Nor are thy fortunes to be wept alone;
Weigh others' woes, and learn to bear thy own.
CATCOTT.


Among the various methods of consolation, to which the miseries
inseparable from our present state have given occasion, it has been, as I
have already remarked, recommended by some writers to put the sufferer in
mind of heavier pressures, and more excruciating calamities, than those
of which he has himself reason to complain.

This has, in all ages, been directed and practised; and, in conformity to
this custom, Lipsius, the great modern master of the Stoick philosophy,
has, in his celebrated treatise on _Steadiness of Mind_, endeavoured
to fortify the breast against too much sensibility of misfortune, by
enumerating the evils which have in former ages fallen upon the world,
the devastation of wide-extended regions, the sack of cities, and
massacre of nations. And the common voice of the multitude, uninstructed
by precept, and unprejudiced by authority, which, in questions that
relate to the heart of man, is, in my opinion, more decisive than the
learning of Lipsius, seems to justify the efficacy of this procedure; for
one of the first comforts which one neighbour administers to another, is
a relation of the like infelicity, combined with circumstances of greater
bitterness.

But this medicine of the mind is like many remedies applied to the body,
of which, though we see the effects, we are unacquainted with the manner
of operation, and of which, therefore, some, who are unwilling to suppose
any thing out of the reach of their own sagacity, have been inclined
to doubt whether they have really those virtues for which they are
celebrated, and whether their reputation is not the mere gift of fancy,
prejudice, and credulity.

Consolation, or comfort, are words which, in their proper acceptation,
signify some alleviation of that pain to which it is not in our power to
afford the proper and adequate remedy; they imply rather an augmentation
of the power of bearing, than a diminution of the burthen. A prisoner
is relieved by him that sets him at liberty, but receives comfort from
such as suggest considerations by which he is made patient under the
inconvenience of confinement. To that grief which arises from a great
loss, he only brings the true remedy, who makes his friend's condition
the same as before; but he may be properly termed a comforter, who by
persuasion extenuates the pain of poverty, and shews, in the style of
Hesiod, that _half is more than the whole_.

It is, perhaps, not immediately obvious, how it can lull the memory of
misfortune, or appease the throbbings of anguish, to hear that others
are more miserable; others, perhaps, unknown or wholly indifferent, whose
prosperity raises no envy, and whose fall can gratify no resentment.
Some topicks of comfort arising, like that which gave hope and spirit
to the captive of Sesostris, from the perpetual vicissitudes of life,
and mutability of human affairs, may as properly raise the dejected
as depress the proud, and have an immediate tendency to exhilarate and
revive. But how can it avail the man who languishes in the gloom of
sorrow, without prospect of emerging into the sunshine of cheerfulness,
to hear that others are sunk yet deeper in the dungeon of misery,
shackled with heavier chains, and surrounded with darker desperation?

The solace arising from this consideration seems indeed the weakest of
all others, and is perhaps never properly applied, but in cases where
there is no place for reflections of more speedy and pleasing efficacy.
But even from such calamities life is by no means free; a thousand
ills incurable, a thousand losses irreparable, a thousand difficulties
insurmountable are known, or will be known, by all the sons of men. Native
deformity cannot be rectified, a dead friend cannot return, and the hours
of youth trifled away in folly, or lost in sickness, cannot be restored.

Under the oppression of such melancholy, it has been found useful to take
a survey of the world, to contemplate the various scenes of distress
in which mankind are struggling round us, and acquaint ourselves with
the _terribiles visit formæ_, the various shapes of misery, which
make havock of terrestrial happiness, range all corners almost without
restraint, trample down our hopes at the hour of harvest, and, when we
have built our schemes to the top, ruin their foundations.

The first effect of this meditation is, that it furnishes a new employment
for the mind, and engages the passions on remoter objects; as kings have
sometimes freed themselves from a subject too haughty to be governed and
too powerful to be crushed, by posting him in a distant province, till
his popularity has subsided, or his pride been repressed. The attention
is dissipated by variety, and acts more weakly upon any single part, as
that torrent may be drawn off to different channels, which, pouring down
in one collected body, cannot be resisted. This species of comfort is,
therefore, unavailing in severe paroxysms of corporal pain, when the mind
is every instant called back to misery, and in the first shock of any
sudden evil; but will certainly be of use against encroaching melancholy,
and a settled habit of gloomy thoughts.

It is further advantageous, as it supplies us with opportunities of making
comparisons in our own favour. We know that very little of the pain,
or pleasure, which does not begin and end in our senses, is otherwise
than relative; we are rich or poor, great or little, in proportion to
the number that excel us, or fall beneath us, in any of these respects;
and therefore, a man, whose uneasiness arises from reflection on any
misfortune that throws him below those with whom he was once equal, is
comforted by finding that he is not yet the lowest.

There is another kind of comparison, less tending towards the vice of
envy, very well illustrated by an old poet[45], whose system will not
afford many reasonable motives to content. "It is," says he, "pleasing to
look from shore upon the tumults of a storm, and to see a ship struggling
with the billows; it is pleasing, not because the pain of another can give
us delight, but because we have a stronger impression of the happiness
of safety. " Thus, when we look abroad, and behold the multitudes that
are groaning under evils heavier than those which we have experienced,
we shrink back to our own state, and instead of repining that so much
must be felt, learn to rejoice that we have not more to feel.

By this observation of the miseries of others, fortitude is strengthened,
and the mind brought to a more extensive knowledge of her own powers. As
the heroes of action catch the flame from one another, so they to whom
Providence has allotted the harder task of suffering with calmness and
dignity, may animate themselves by the remembrance of those evils which
have been laid on others, perhaps naturally as weak as themselves, and
bear up with vigour and resolution against their own oppressions, when
they see it possible that more severe afflictions may be borne.

There is still another reason why, to many minds, the relation of other
men's infelicity may give a lasting and continual relief. Some, not well
instructed in the measures by which Providence distributes happiness, are
perhaps misled by divines, who, as Bellarmine makes temporal prosperity
one of the characters of the true church, have represented wealth and
ease as the certain concomitants of virtue, and the unfailing result of
the divine approbation. Such sufferers are dejected in their misfortunes,
not so much for what they feel, as for what they dread; not because
they cannot support the sorrows, or endure the wants, of their present
condition, but because they consider them as only the beginnings of
more sharp and more lasting pains. To these mourners it is an act of the
highest charity to represent the calamities which not only virtue has
suffered, but virtue has incurred; to inform them that one evidence of
a future state, is the uncertainty of any present reward for goodness;
and to remind them, from the highest authority, of the distresses and
penury of men of whom the world was not worthy.

[Footnote 45: Lucretius. ]




No. 53. TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 1750.


Φειδεο των κτεανων.
_Epigram. Vet. _

Husband thy possessions.


There is scarcely among the evils of human life any so generally dreaded
as poverty. Every other species of misery, those, who are not much
accustomed to disturb the present moment with reflection, can easily
forget, because it is not always forced upon their regard; but it is
impossible to pass a day or an hour in the confluxes of men, without
seeing how much indigence is exposed to contumely, neglect, and insult;
and, in its lowest state, to hunger and nakedness; to injuries against
which every passion is in arms, and to wants which nature cannot sustain.

Against other evils the heart is often hardened by true or by false notions
of dignity and reputation: thus we see dangers of every kind faced with
willingness, because bravery in a good or bad cause is never without its
encomiasts and admirers. But in the prospect of poverty, there is nothing
but gloom and melancholy; the mind and body suffer together; its miseries
bring no alleviations; it is a state in which every virtue is obscured,
and in which no conduct can avoid reproach: a state in which cheerfulness
is insensibility, and dejection sullenness, of which the hardships are
without honour, and the labours without reward.

Of these calamities there seems not to be wanting a general conviction; we
hear on every side the noise of trade, and see the streets thronged with
numberless multitudes, whose faces are clouded with anxiety, and whose
steps are hurried by precipitation, from no other motive than the hope
of gain; and the whole world is put in motion, by the desire of that
wealth which is chiefly to be valued as it secures us from poverty;
for it is more useful for defence than acquisition, and is not so much
able to procure good as to exclude evil.

Yet there are always some whose passions or follies lead them to a conduct
opposite to the general maxims and practice of mankind; some who seem
to rush upon poverty with the same eagerness with which others avoid
it, who see their revenues hourly lessened, and the estates which they
inherit from their ancestors mouldering away, without resolution to
change their course of life; who persevere against all remonstrances, and
go forward with full career, though they see before them the precipice
of destruction.

It is not my purpose in this paper, to expostulate with such as ruin
their fortunes by expensive schemes of buildings and gardens, which they
carry on with the same vanity that prompted them to begin, choosing,
as it happens in a thousand other cases, the remote evil before the
lighter, and deferring the shame of repentance till they incur the
miseries of distress. Those for whom I intend my present admonitions,
are the thoughtless, the negligent, and the dissolute, who having, by
the vitiousness of their own inclinations, or the seducements of alluring
companions, been engaged in habits of expense, and accustomed to move
in a certain round of pleasures disproportioned to their condition, are
without power to extricate themselves from the enchantments of custom,
avoid thought because they know it will be painful, and continue from day
to day, and from month to month, to anticipate their revenues, and sink
every hour deeper into the gulfs of usury and extortion.

This folly has less claim to pity, because it cannot be imputed to the
vehemence of sudden passion; nor can the mischief which it produces be
extenuated as the effect of any single act, which rage, or desire, might
execute before there could be time for an appeal to reason. These men are
advancing towards misery by soft approaches, and destroying themselves,
not by the violence of a blow, which, when once given, can never be
recalled, but by a slow poison, hourly repeated, and obstinately continued.

This conduct is so absurd when it is examined by the unprejudiced eye
of rational judgment, that nothing but experience could evince its
possibility; yet, absurd as it is, the sudden fall of some families, and
the sudden rise of others, prove it to be common, and every year sees
many wretches reduced to contempt and want, by their costly sacrifices to
pleasure and vanity.

It is the fate of almost every passion, when it has passed the bounds
which nature prescribes, to counteract its own purpose. Too much rage
hinders the warriour from circumspection, too much eagerness of profit
hurts the credit of the trader, too much ardour takes away from the lover
that easiness of address with which ladies are delighted.

Thus extravagance, though dictated by vanity, and incited by
voluptuousness, seldom procures ultimately either applause or pleasure.

If praise be justly estimated by the character of those from whom it
is received, little satisfaction will be given to the spendthrift by
the encomiums which he purchases. For who are they that animate him in
his pursuits, but young men, thoughtless and abandoned like himself,
unacquainted with all on which the wisdom of nations has impressed the
stamp of excellence, and devoid alike of knowledge and of virtue? By whom
is his profusion praised, but by wretches who consider him as subservient
to their purposes, Sirens that entice him to shipwreck, and Cyclops that
are gaping to devour him.

Every man, whose knowledge or whose virtue can give value to his opinion,
looks with scorn, or pity, neither of which can afford much gratification
to pride, on him whom the panders of luxury have drawn into the circle
of their influence, and whom he sees parcelled out among the different
ministers of folly, and about to be torn to pieces by tailors and
jockeys, vintners and attorneys, who at once rob and ridicule him, and
who are secretly triumphing over his weakness, when they present new
incitements to his appetite, and heighten his desires by counterfeited
applause.

Such is the praise that is purchased by prodigality. Even when it is
yet not discovered to be false, it is the praise only of those whom
it is reproachful to please, and whose sincerity is corrupted by their
interest; men who live by the riots which they encourage, and who know
that whenever their pupil grows wise, they shall loose their power. Yet
with such flatteries, if they could last, might the cravings of vanity,
which is seldom very delicate, be satisfied; but the time is always
hastening forward when this triumph, poor as it is, shall vanish, and
when those who now surround him with obsequiousness and compliments,
fawn among his equipage, and animate his riots, shall turn upon him with
insolence, and reproach him with the vices promoted by themselves.

And as little pretensions has the man who squanders his estate, by vain
or vicious expenses, to greater degrees of pleasure than are obtained by
others. To make any happiness sincere, it is necessary that we believe it
to be lasting; since whatever we suppose ourselves in danger of losing,
must be enjoyed with solicitude and uneasiness, and the more value we set
upon it, the more must the present possession be imbittered. How can he
then be envied for his felicity, who knows that its continuance cannot be
expected, and who is conscious that a very short time will give him up to
the gripe of poverty, which will be harder to be borne, as he has given
way to more excesses, wantoned in greater abundance, and indulged his
appetites with more profuseness?

It appears evident that frugality is necessary even to complete the
pleasure of expense; for it may be generally remarked of those who
squander what they know their fortune not sufficient to allow, that
in their most jovial expense, there always breaks out some proof of
discontent and impatience; they either scatter with a kind of wild
desperation, and affected lavishness, as criminals brave the gallows
when they cannot escape it, or pay their money with a peevish anxiety,
and endeavour at once to spend idly, and to save meanly: having neither
firmness to deny their passions, nor courage to gratify them, they murmur
at their own enjoyments, and poison the bowl of pleasure by reflection
on the cost.

Among these men there is often the vociferation of merriment, but very
seldom the tranquillity of cheerfulness; they inflame their imaginations
to a kind of momentary jollity, by the help of wine and riot, and
consider it as the first business of the night to stupify recollection,
and lay that reason asleep which disturbs their gaiety, and calls upon
them to retreat from ruin.

But this poor broken satisfaction is of short continuance, and must
be expiated by a long series of misery and regret. In a short time
the creditor grows impatient, the last acre is sold, the passions and
appetites still continue their tyranny, with incessant calls for their
usual gratifications, and the remainder of life passes away in vain
repentance, or impotent desire.




No. 54. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 1750.


_Truditur dies die,_
_Novteque pergunt interire Lunæ. _
_Tu secanda marmora_
_Locas sub ipsum funus, et sepulchri_
_Immemor struis domos. _
HOR. Lib. ii. Ode xviii. 15.

Day presses on the heels of day,
And moons increase to their decay;
But you, with thoughtless pride elate,
Unconscious of impending fate,
Command the pillar'd dome to rise,
When lo! thy tomb forgotten lies.
FRANCIS.


TO THE RAMBLER.

SIR,

I have lately been called, from a mingled life of business and amusement,
to attend the last hours of an old friend; an office which has filled me,
if not with melancholy, at least with serious reflections, and turned my
thoughts towards the contemplation of those subjects, which though of the
utmost importance, and of indubitable certainty, are generally secluded
from our regard, by the jollity of health, the hurry of employment, and
even by the calmer diversions of study and speculation; or if they become
accidental topicks of conversation and argument, yet rarely sink deep
into the heart, but give occasion only to some subtilties of reasoning,
or elegancies of declamation, which are heard, applauded, and forgotten.

It is, indeed, not hard to conceive how a man accustomed to extend his
views through a long concatenation of causes and effects, to trace
things from their origin to their period, and compare means with ends,
may discover the weakness of human schemes; detect the fallacies by
which mortals are deluded; shew the insufficiency of wealth, honours,
and power, to real happiness; and please himself, and his auditors, with
learned lectures on the vanity of life.

But though the speculatist may see and shew the folly of terrestrial
hopes, fears, and desires, every hour will give proofs that he never felt
it. Trace him through the day or year, and you will find him acting upon
principles which he has in common with the illiterate and unenlightened,
angry and pleased like the lowest of the vulgar, pursuing, with the same
ardour, the same designs, grasping, with all the eagerness of transport,
those riches which he knows he cannot keep, and swelling with the
applause which he has gained by proving that applause is of no value.

The only conviction that rushes upon the soul, and takes away from our
appetites and passions the power of resistance, is to be found, where
I have received it, at the bed of a dying friend. To enter this school
of wisdom is not the peculiar privilege of geometricians; the most
sublime and important precepts require no uncommon opportunities, nor
laborious preparations; they are enforced without the aid of eloquence,
and understood without skill in analytick science. Every tongue can utter
them, and every understanding can conceive them. He that wishes in
earnest to obtain just sentiments concerning his condition, and would
be intimately acquainted with the world, may find instructions on every
side. He that desires to enter behind the scene, which every art has been
employed to decorate, and every passion labours to illuminate, and wishes
to see life stripped of those ornaments which make it glitter on the
stage, and exposed in its natural meanness, impotence, and nakedness, may
find all the delusion laid open in the chamber of disease: he will there
find vanity divested of her robes, power deprived of her sceptre, and
hypocrisy without her mask.

The friend whom I have lost was a man eminent for genius, and, like others
of the same class, sufficiently pleased with acceptance and applause.
Being caressed by those who have preferments and riches in their
disposal, he considered himself as in the direct road of advancement,
and had caught the flame of ambition by approaches to its object. But
in the midst of his hopes, his projects, and his gaieties, he was seized
by a lingering disease, which, from its first stage, he knew to be
incurable. Here was an end of all his visions of greatness and happiness;
from the first hour that his health declined, all his former pleasures
grew tasteless. His friends expected to please him by those accounts
of the growth of his reputation, which were formerly certain of being
well received; but they soon found how little he was now affected by
compliments, and how vainly they attempted, by flattery, to exhilarate
the languor of weakness, and relieve the solicitude of approaching
death. Whoever would know how much piety and virtue surpass all external
goods, might here have seen them weighed against each other, where all
that gives motion to the active, and elevation to the eminent, all that
sparkles in the eye of hope, and pants in the bosom of suspicion, at once
became dust in the balance, without weight and without regard. Riches,
authority, and praise, lose all their influence when they are considered
as riches which to-morrow shall be bestowed upon another, authority which
shall this night expire for ever, and praise which, however merited, or
however sincere, shall, after a few moments, be heard no more.

In those hours of seriousness and wisdom, nothing appeared to raise his
spirits, or gladden his heart, but the recollection of acts of goodness;
nor to excite his attention, but some opportunity for the exercise of
the duties of religion. Every thing that terminated on this side of the
grave was received with coldness and indifference, and regarded rather
in consequence of the habit of valuing it, than from any opinion that
it deserved value; it had little more prevalence over his mind than a
bubble that was now broken, a dream from which he was awake. His whole
powers were engrossed by the consideration of another state, and all
conversation was tedious, that had not some tendency to disengage him
from human affairs, and open his prospects into futurity.

It is now past, we have closed his eyes, and heard him breathe the groan
of expiration. At the sight of this last conflict, I felt a sensation
never known to me before; a confusion of passions, an awful stillness
of sorrow, a gloomy terrour without a name. The thoughts that entered my
soul were too strong to be diverted, and too piercing to be endured; but
such violence cannot be lasting, the storm subsided in a short time, I
wept, retired, and grew calm.

I have from that time frequently revolved in my mind, the effects which
the observation of death produces, in those who are not wholly without
the power and use of reflection; for, by far the greater part, it is
wholly unregarded. Their friends and their enemies sink into the grave
without raising any uncommon emotion, or reminding them that they are
themselves on the edge of the precipice, and that they must soon plunge
into a gulf of eternity.

It seems to me remarkable that death increases our veneration for the
good, and extenuates our hatred of the bad. Those virtues which once
we envied, as Horace observes, because they eclipsed our own, can now
no longer obstruct our reputation, and we have therefore no interest to
suppress their praise. That wickedness, which we feared for its malignity,
is now become impotent, and the man whose name filled us with alarm, and
rage, and indignation, can at last be considered only with pity, or
contempt.

When a friend is carried to his grave, we at once find excuses for
every weakness, and palliations of every fault; we recollect a thousand
endearments, which before glided off our minds without impression, a
thousand favours unrepaid, a thousand duties unperformed, and wish,
vainly wish, for his return, not so much that we may receive, as that we
may bestow happiness, and recompense that kindness which before we never
understood.

There is not, perhaps, to a mind well instructed, a more painful
occurrence, than the death of one whom we have injured without
reparation. Our crime seems now irretrievable, it is indelibly recorded,
and the stamp of fate is fixed upon it. We consider, with the most
afflictive anguish, the pain which we have given, and now cannot
alleviate, and the losses which we have caused, and now cannot repair.

Of the same kind are the emotions which the death of an emulator or
competitor produces. Whoever had qualities to alarm our jealousy, had
excellence to deserve our fondness; and to whatever ardour of opposition
interest may inflame us, no man ever outlived an enemy, whom he did not
then wish to have made a friend. Those who are versed in literary history
know, that the elder Scaliger was the redoubted antagonist of Cardan
and Erasmus; yet at the death of each of his great rivals he relented,
and complained that they were snatched away from him before their
reconciliation was completed:

_Tu-ne etiam moreris? Ah! quid me linquis, Erasme,_
_Ante meus quam sit conciliatus amor? _

Art thou too fallen? Ere anger could subside
And love return, has great Erasmus died?

Such are the sentiments with which we finally review the effects of
passion, but which we sometimes delay till we can no longer rectify our
errours. Let us, therefore, make haste to do what we shall certainly at
last wish to have done; let us return the caresses of our friends, and
endeavour by mutual endearments to heighten that tenderness which is
the balm of life. Let us be quick to repent of injuries while repentance
may not be a barren anguish, and let us open our eyes to every rival
excellence, and pay early and willingly those honours which justice will
compel us to pay at last.

ATHANATUS.




No. 55. TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 1750.


_Maturo propior desine funeri_
_Inter ludere virgines,_
_Et stellis nebulam spargere candidis. _
_Non siquid Pholoen satis,_
_Et te, Chlori, decet. _
HOR. Lib. iii. Ode xv. 4.

Now near to death that comes but slow,
Now thou art stepping down below;
Sport not amongst the blooming maids,
But think on ghosts and empty shades:
What suits with Pholoe in her bloom,
Grey Chloris, will not thee become;
A bed is different from a tomb.
CREECH.


TO THE RAMBLER.

SIR,

I have been but a little time conversant in the world, yet I have
already had frequent opportunities of observing the little efficacy of
remonstrance and complaint, which, however extorted by oppression, or
supported by reason, are detested by one part of the world as rebellion,
censured by another as peevishness, by some heard with an appearance
of compassion, only to betray any of those sallies of vehemence and
resentment, which are apt to break out upon encouragement, and by others
passed over with indifference and neglect, as matters in which they have
no concern, and which if they should endeavour to examine or regulate,
they might draw mischief upon themselves.

Yet since it is no less natural for those who think themselves injured to
complain, than for others to neglect their complaints, I shall venture to
lay my case before you, in hopes that you will enforce my opinion, if you
think it just, or endeavour to rectify my sentiments, if I am mistaken.
I expect at least, that you will divest yourself of partiality, and that
whatever your age or solemnity may be, you will not, with the dotard's
insolence, pronounce me ignorant and foolish, perverse and refractory,
only because you perceive that I am young.

My father dying when I was but ten years old, left me, and a brother two
years younger than myself, to the care of my mother, a woman of birth
and education, whose prudence or virtue he had no reason to distrust.
She felt, for some time, all the sorrow which nature calls forth, upon
the final separation of persons dear to one another; and as her grief was
exhausted by its own violence, it subsided into tenderness for me and my
brother, and the year of mourning was spent in caresses, consolations,
and instruction, in celebration of my father's virtues, in professions of
perpetual regard to his memory, and hourly instances of such fondness as
gratitude will not easily suffer me to forget.

But when the term of this mournful felicity was expired, and my mother
appeared again without the ensigns of sorrow, the ladies of her
acquaintance began to tell her, upon whatever motives, that it was time
to live like the rest of the world; a powerful argument, which is seldom
used to a woman without effect. Lady Giddy was incessantly relating
the occurrences of the town, and Mrs. Gravely told her privately, with
great tenderness, that it began to be publickly observed how much she
overacted her part, and that most of her acquaintance suspected her hope
of procuring another husband to be the true ground of all that appearance
of tenderness and piety.

All the officiousness of kindness and folly was busied to change her
conduct. She was at one time alarmed with censure, and at another fired
with praise. She was told of balls, where others shone only because
she was absent; of new comedies, to which all the town was crowding;
and of many ingenious ironies, by which domestick diligence was made
contemptible.

It is difficult for virtue to stand alone against fear on one side, and
pleasure on the other; especially when no actual crime is proposed, and
prudence itself can suggest many reasons for relaxation and indulgence.
My mamma was at last persuaded to accompany Miss Giddy to a play. She
was received with a boundless profusion of compliments, and attended
home by a very fine gentleman. Next day she was with less difficulty
prevailed on to play at Mrs. Gravely's, and came home gay and lively;
for the distinctions that had been paid her awakened her vanity, and good
luck had kept her principles of frugality from giving her disturbance.
She now made her second entrance into the world, and her friends were
sufficiently industrious to prevent any return to her former life; every
morning brought messages of invitation, and every evening was passed in
places of diversion, from which she for some time complained that she
had rather be absent. In a short time she began to feel the happiness
of acting without controul, of being unaccountable for her hours, her
expenses, and her company; and learned by degrees to drop an expression
of contempt, or pity, at the mention of ladies whose husbands were
suspected of restraining their pleasures, or their play, and confessed
that she loved to go and come as she pleased.

I was still favoured with some incidental precepts and transient
endearments, and was now and then fondly kissed for smiling like my
papa: but most part of her morning was spent in comparing the opinion of
her maid and milliner, contriving some variation in her dress, visiting
shops, and sending compliments; and the rest of the day was too short for
visits, cards, plays, and concerts.

She now began to discover that it was impossible to educate children
properly at home. Parents could not have them always in their sight; the
society of servants was contagious; company produced boldness and spirit;
emulation excited industry; and a large school was naturally the first
step into the open world. A thousand other reasons she alleged, some of
little force in themselves, but so well seconded by pleasure, vanity, and
idleness, that they soon overcame all the remaining principles of kindness
and piety, and both I and my brother were despatched to boarding schools.

How my mamma spent her time when she was thus disburthened I am not able
to inform you, but I have reason to believe that trifles and amusements
took still faster hold of her heart. At first, she visited me at school,
and afterwards wrote to me; but in a short time, both her visits and her
letters were at an end, and no other notice was taken of me than to remit
money for my support.

When I came home at the vacation, I found myself coldly received, with an
observation, "that this girl will presently be a woman.
" I was, after the
usual stay, sent to school again, and overheard my mother say, as I was
a-going, "Well, now I shall recover. "

In six months more I came again, and, with the usual childish alacrity,
was running to my mother's embrace, when she stopt me with exclamations
at the suddenness and enormity of my growth, having, she said, never seen
any body shoot up so much at my age. She was sure no other girls spread
at that rate, and she hated to have children look like women before their
time. I was disconcerted, and retired without hearing any thing more than
"Nay, if you are angry, Madam Steeple, you may walk off. "

When once the forms of civility are violated, there remains little hope
of return to kindness or decency. My mamma made this appearance of
resentment a reason for continuing her malignity; and poor Miss May-pole,
for that was my appellation, was never mentioned or spoken to but, with
some expression of anger or dislike.

She had yet the pleasure of dressing me like a child, and I know not when
I should have been thought fit to change my habit, had I not been rescued
by a maiden sister of my father, who could not bear to see women in
hanging-sleeves, and therefore presented me with brocade for a gown, for
which I should have thought myself under great obligations, had she not
accompanied her favour with some hints that my mamma might now consider
her age, and give me her ear-rings, which she had shewn long enough in
publick places.

I now left the school, and came to live with my mamma, who considered me
as an usurper that had seized the rights of a woman before they were due,
and was pushing her down the precipice of age, that I might reign without
a superior. While I am thus beheld with jealousy and suspicion, you will
readily believe that it is difficult to please. Every word and look is an
offence. I never speak, but I pretend to some qualities and excellencies
which it is criminal to possess; if I am gay, she thinks it early enough
to coquette; if I am grave, she hates a prude in bibs; if I venture into
company, I am in haste for a husband; if I retire to my chamber, such
matron-like ladies are lovers of contemplation. I am on one pretence or
other generally excluded from her assemblies, nor am I ever suffered to
visit at the same place with my mamma. Every one wonders why she does
not bring Miss more into the world, and when she comes home in vapours I
am certain that she has heard either of my beauty or my wit, and expect
nothing for the ensuing week but taunts and menaces, contradiction and
reproaches.

Thus I live in a state of continual persecution, only because I was born
ten years too soon, and cannot stop the course of nature or of time, but
am unhappily a woman before my mother can willingly cease to be a girl.
I believe you would contribute to the happiness of many families, if, by
any arguments or persuasions, you could make mothers ashamed of rivalling
their children; if you could shew them, that though they may refuse to
grow wise, they must inevitably grow old; and that the proper solaces of
age are not musick and compliments, but wisdom and devotion; that those
who are so unwilling to quit the world will soon be driven from it; and
that it is therefore their interest to retire while there yet remain a
few hours for nobler employments.

I am, &c.




No. 56. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 1750.


_----Valeat res ludicra, si me_
_Palma negata macrum, donata reducit opimum. _
HOR. Lib. ii. Ep. i. 180.

Farewell the stage; for humbly I disclaim
Such fond pursuits of pleasure, or of fame,
If I must sink in shame, or swell with pride,
As the gay palm is granted or denied.
FRANCIS.


Nothing is more unpleasing than to find that offence has been received
when none was intended, and that pain has been given to those who were
not guilty of any provocation. As the great end of society is mutual
beneficence, a good man is always uneasy when he finds himself acting in
opposition to the purposes of life; because, though his conscience may
easily acquit him of _malice prepense_, of settled hatred or contrivances
of mischief, yet he seldom can be certain, that he has not failed by
negligence, or indolence; that he has not been hindered from consulting
the common interest by too much regard to his own ease, or too much
indifference to the happiness of others.

Nor is it necessary, that, to feel this uneasiness, the mind should be
extended to any great diffusion of generosity, or melted by uncommon
warmth of benevolence; for that prudence which the world teaches, and a
quick sensibility of private interest, will direct us to shun needless
enmities; since there is no man whose kindness we may not some time want,
or by whose malice we may not some time suffer.

I have therefore frequently looked with wonder, and now and then with
pity, at the thoughtlessness with which some alienate from themselves
the affections of all whom chance, business, or inclination, brings in
their way. When we see a man pursuing some darling interest, without
much regard to the opinion of the world, we justly consider him as
corrupt and dangerous, but are not long in discovering his motives; we
see him actuated by passions which are hard to be resisted, and deluded
by appearances which have dazzled stronger eyes. But the greater part of
those who set mankind at defiance by hourly irritation, and who live but
to infuse malignity, and multiply enemies, have no hopes to foster, no
designs to promote, nor any expectations of attaining power by insolence,
or of climbing to greatness by trampling on others. They give up all the
sweets of kindness, for the sake of peevishness, petulance, or gloom; and
alienate the world by neglect of the common forms of civility, and breach
of the established laws of conversation.

Every one must, in the walks of life, have met with men of whom all speak
with censure, though they are not chargeable with any crime, and whom
none can be persuaded to love, though a reason can scarcely be assigned
why they should be hated; and who, if their good qualities and actions
sometimes force a commendation, have their panegyrick always concluded
with confessions of disgust; "he is a good man, but I cannot like him. "
Surely such persons have sold the esteem of the world at too low a price,
since they have lost one of the rewards of virtue, without gaining the
profits of wickedness.

This ill economy of fame is sometimes the effect of stupidity. Men whose
perceptions are languid and sluggish, who lament nothing but loss of
money, and feel nothing but a blow, are often at a difficulty to guess
why they are encompassed with enemies, though they neglect all those arts
by which men are endeared to one another. They comfort themselves that
they have lived irreproachably; that none can charge them with having
endangered his life, or diminished his possessions; and therefore conclude
that they suffer by some invincible fatality, or impute the malice of
their neighbours to ignorance or envy. They wrap themselves up in their
innocence, and enjoy the congratulations of their own hearts, without
knowing or suspecting that they are every day deservedly incurring
resentments, by withholding from those with whom they converse, that
regard, or appearance of regard, to which every one is entitled by the
customs of the world.

There are many injuries which almost every man feels, though he does not
complain, and which, upon those whom virtue, elegance, or vanity, have
made delicate and tender, fix deep and lasting impressions; as there are
many arts of graciousness and conciliation, which are to be practised
without expense, and by which those may be made our friends, who have
never received from us any real benefit. Such arts, when they include
neither guilt nor meanness, it is surely reasonable to learn, for who
would want that love which is so easily to be gained? And such injuries
are to be avoided; for who would be hated without profit?

Some, indeed, there are, for whom the excuse of ignorance or negligence
cannot be alleged, because it is apparent that they are not only
careless of pleasing, but studious to offend; that they contrive to make
all approaches to them difficult and vexatious, and imagine that they
aggrandize themselves by wasting the time of others in useless attendance,
by mortifying them with slights, and teazing them with affronts.

Men of this kind are generally to be found among those that have not
mingled much in general conversation, but spent their lives amidst the
obsequiousness of dependants, and the flattery of parasites; and by long
consulting only their own inclination, have forgotten that others have
claim to the same deference.

Tyranny thus avowed, is indeed an exuberance of pride, by which all
mankind is so much enraged, that it is never quietly endured, except
in those who can reward the patience which they exact; and insolence is
generally surrounded only by such whose baseness inclines them to think
nothing insupportable that produces gain, and who can laugh at scurrility
and rudeness with a luxurious table and an open purse.

But though all wanton provocations and contemptuous insolence are to
be diligently avoided, there is no less danger in timid compliance and
tame resignation. It is common for soft and fearful tempers to give
themselves up implicitly to the direction of the bold, the turbulent,
and the overbearing; of those whom they do not believe wiser or better
than themselves; to recede from the best designs where opposition must
be encountered, and to fall off from virtue for fear of censure.

Some firmness and resolution is necessary to the discharge of duty; but it
is a very unhappy state of life in which the necessity of such struggles
frequently occurs; for no man is defeated without some resentment, which
will be continued with obstinacy while he believes himself in the right,
and exerted with bitterness, if even to his own conviction he is detected
in the wrong.

Even though no regard be had to the external consequences of contrariety
and dispute, it must be painful to a worthy mind to put others in pain,
and there will be danger lest the kindest nature may be vitiated by too
long a custom of debate and contest.

I am afraid that I may be taxed with insensibility by many of my
correspondents, who believe their contributions unjustly neglected.
And, indeed, when I sit before a pile of papers, of which each is the
production of laborious study, and the offspring of a fond parent, I, who
know the passions of an author, cannot remember how long they have lain
in my boxes unregarded, without imagining to myself the various changes
of sorrow, impatience, and resentment, which the writers must have felt
in this tedious interval.

These reflections are still more awakened, when, upon perusal, I find some
of them calling for a place in the next paper, a place which they have
never yet obtained: others writing in a style of superiority and
haughtiness, as secure of deference, and above fear of criticism; others
humbly offering their weak assistance with softness and submission,
which they believe impossible to be resisted; some introducing their
compositions with a menace of the contempt which he that refuses them will
incur; others applying privately to the booksellers for their interest
and solicitation; every one by different ways endeavouring to secure
the bliss of publication. I cannot but consider myself as placed in a
very incommodious situation, where I am forced to repress confidence,
which it is pleasing to indulge, to repay civilities with appearances of
neglect, and so frequently to offend those by whom I never was offended.

I know well how rarely an author, fired with the beauties of his new
composition, contains his raptures in his own bosom, and how naturally
he imparts to his friends his expectations of renown; and as I can easily
conceive the eagerness with which a new paper is snatched up, by one
who expects to find it filled with his own production, and perhaps has
called his companions to share the pleasure of a second perusal, I grieve
for the disappointment which he is to feel at the fatal inspection. His
hopes, however, do not yet forsake him; he is certain of giving lustre
the next day. The next day comes, and again he pants with expectation,
and having dreamed of laurels and Parnassus, casts his eyes upon the
barren page, with which he is doomed never more to be delighted.

For such cruelty what atonement can be made? For such calamities what
alleviation can be found? I am afraid that the mischief already done must
be without reparation, and all that deserves my care is prevention for
the future. Let therefore the next friendly contributor, whoever he be,
observe the cautions of Swift, and write secretly in his own chamber,
without communicating his design to his nearest friend, for the nearest
friend will be pleased with an opportunity of laughing. Let him carry
it to the post himself, and wait in silence for the event. If it is
published and praised, he may then declare himself the author; if it be
suppressed, he may wonder in private without much vexation; and if it be
censured, he may join in the cry, and lament the dulness of the writing
generation.




No. 57. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 2, 1750.


_Non intelligunt homines quam magnum vectigal sit parsimonia. _
TULL. Par. vi.

The world has not yet learned the riches of frugality.


TO THE RAMBLER.

SIR,

I am always pleased when I see literature made useful, and scholars
descending from that elevation, which, as it raises them above common
life, must likewise hinder them from beholding the ways of men otherwise
than in a cloud of bustle and confusion. Having lived a life of business,
and remarked how seldom any occurrences emerge for which great qualities
are required, I have learned the necessity of regarding little things;
and though I do not pretend to give laws to the legislators of mankind,
or to limit the range of those powerful minds that carry light and heat
through all the regions of knowledge, yet I have long thought, that the
greatest part of those who lose themselves in studies by which I have not
found that they grow much wiser, might, with more advantage both to the
publick and themselves, apply their understandings to domestick arts, and
store their minds with axioms of humble prudence, and private economy.

Your late paper on frugality was very elegant and pleasing, but, in my
opinion, not sufficiently adapted to common readers, who pay little
regard to the musick of periods, the artifice of connection, or the
arrangement of the flowers of rhetorick; but require a few plain and
cogent instructions, which may sink into the mind by their own weight.

Frugality is so necessary to the happiness of the world, so beneficial
in its various forms to every rank of men, from the highest of human
potentates, to the lowest labourer or artificer; and the miseries which
the neglect of it produces are so numerous and so grievous, that it
ought to be recommended with every variation of address, and adapted
to every class of understanding.

Whether those who treat morals as a science will allow frugality to be
numbered among the virtues, I have not thought it necessary to inquire.
For I, who draw my opinions from a careful observation of the world, am
satisfied with knowing what is abundantly sufficient for practice; that
if it be not a virtue, it is, at least, a quality which can seldom exist
without some virtues, and without which few virtues can exist. Frugality
may be termed the daughter of prudence, the sister of temperance, and the
parent of liberty. He that is extravagant will quickly become poor, and
poverty will enforce dependence, and invite corruption; it will almost
always produce a passive compliance with the wickedness of others; and
there are few who do not learn by degrees to practice those crimes which
they cease to censure.

If there are any who do not dread poverty as dangerous to virtue, yet
mankind seem unanimous enough in abhorring it as destructive to happiness;
and all to whom want is terrible, upon whatever principle, ought to
think themselves obliged to learn the sage maxims of our parsimonious
ancestors, and attain the salutary arts of contracting expense; for
without frugality none can be rich, and with it very few would be poor.

To most other acts of virtue or exertions of wisdom, a concurrence of many
circumstances is necessary, some previous knowledge must be attained,
some uncommon gifts of nature possessed, or some opportunity produced
by an extraordinary combination of things; but the mere power of saving
what is already in our hands, must be easy of acquisition to every mind;
and as the example of Bacon may shew, that the highest intellect cannot
safely neglect it, a thousand instances will every day prove, that the
meanest may practise it with success.

Riches cannot be within the reach of great numbers, because to be rich
is to possess more than is commonly placed in a single hand; and, if
many could obtain the sum which now makes a man wealthy, the name of
wealth must then be transferred to still greater accumulation. But I am
not certain that it is equally impossible to exempt the lower classes
of mankind from poverty; because, though whatever be the wealth of the
community, some will always have least, and he that has less than any
other is comparatively poor; yet I do not see any co-active necessity
that many should be without the indispensable conveniencies of life; but
am sometimes inclined to imagine, that, casual calamities excepted, there
might, by universal prudence, be procured an universal exemption from
want; and that he who should happen to have least, might notwithstanding
have enough.

But without entering too far into speculations which I do not remember
that any political calculator has attempted, and in which the most
perspicacious reasoner may be easily bewildered, it is evident that they
to whom Providence has allotted no other care but of their own fortune
and their own virtue, which make far the greater part of mankind, have
sufficient incitements to personal frugality, since, whatever might
be its general effect upon provinces or nations, by which it is never
likely to be tried, we know with certainty, that there is scarcely
any individual entering the world, who, by prudent parsimony, may not
reasonably promise himself a cheerful competence in the decline of life.

The prospect of penury in age is so gloomy and terrifying, that every man
who looks before him must resolve to avoid it; and it must be avoided
generally by the science of sparing. For, though in every age there are
some, who by bold adventures, or by favourable accidents, rise suddenly
to riches, yet it is dangerous to indulge hopes of such rare events:
and the bulk of mankind must owe their affluence to small and gradual
profits, below which their expense must be resolutely reduced.

You must not therefore think me sinking below the dignity of a practical
philosopher, when I recommend to the consideration of your readers,
from the statesman to the apprentice, a position replete with mercantile
wisdom, _A penny saved is two-pence got_; which may, I think, be
accommodated to all conditions, by observing not only that they who
pursue any lucrative employment will save time when they forbear expense,
and that the time may be employed to the increase of profit; but that
they who are above such minute considerations will find, by every victory
over appetite or passion, new strength added to the mind, will gain the
power of refusing those solicitations by which the young and vivacious
are hourly assaulted, and in time set themselves above the reach of
extravagance and folly.

It may, perhaps, be inquired by those who are willing rather to cavil
than to learn, what is the just measure of frugality? and when expense,
not absolutely necessary, degenerates into profusion? To such questions
no general answer can be returned; since the liberty of spending,
or necessity of parsimony, may be varied without end by different
circumstances. It may, however, be laid down as a rule never to be
broken, that a _man's voluntary expense should not exceed his revenue_.
A maxim so obvious and incontrovertible, that the civil law ranks the
prodigal with the madman[46], and debars them equally from the conduct of
their own affairs. Another precept arising from the former, and indeed
included in it, is yet necessary to be distinctly impressed upon the
warm, the fanciful, and the brave; _Let no man anticipate uncertain
profits_. Let no man presume to spend upon hopes, to trust his own
abilities for means of deliverance from penury, to give a loose to his
present desires, and leave the reckoning to fortune or to virtue.

To these cautions, which, I suppose, are, at least among the graver part
of mankind, undisputed, I will add another, _Let no man squander against
his inclination_. With this precept it may be, perhaps, imagined easy to
comply; yet if those whom profusion has buried in prisons, or driven into
banishment, were examined, it would be found that very few were ruined by
their own choice, or purchased pleasure with the loss of their estates;
but that they suffered themselves to be borne away by the violence of
those with whom they conversed, and yielded reluctantly to a thousand
prodigalities, either from a trivial emulation of wealth and spirit,
or a mean fear of contempt and ridicule; an emulation for the prize of
folly, or the dread of the laugh of fools.

I am, Sir,

Your humble servant,

SOPHRON.

[Footnote 46: Institut. i. 23. 3. De furiosis et prodigis. ]




No. 58. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 6, 1750.


_----Improbæ_
_Crescunt divitiæ; tamen_
_Curtæ nescio quid semper abest rei. _
HOR. Lib. iii. Ode xxiv. 62.

But, while in heaps his wicked wealth ascends,
He is not of his wish possess'd;
There's something wanting still to make him bless'd.
FRANCIS.


As the love of money has been, in all ages, one of the passions that have
given great disturbance to the tranquillity of the world, there is no
topick more copiously treated by the ancient moralists than the folly of
devoting the heart to the accumulation of riches. They who are acquainted
with these authors need not be told how riches excite pity, contempt,
or reproach, whenever they are mentioned; with what numbers of examples
the danger of large possessions is illustrated; and how all the powers
of reason and eloquence have been exhausted in endeavours to eradicate a
desire, which seems to have intrenched itself too strongly in the mind
to be driven out, and which, perhaps, had not lost its power, even over
those who declaimed against it, but would have broken out in the poet or
the sage, if it had been excited by opportunity, and invigorated by the
approximation of its proper object.

Their arguments have been, indeed, so unsuccessful, that I know not
whether it can be shewn, that by all the wit and reason which this
favourite cause has called forth, a single convert was ever made; that
even one man has refused to be rich, when to be rich was in his power,
from the conviction of the greater happiness of a narrow fortune; or
disburthened himself of wealth when he had tried its inquietudes, merely
to enjoy the peace and leisure and security of a mean and unenvied state.

It is true, indeed, that many have neglected opportunities of raising
themselves to honours and to wealth, and rejected the kindest offers of
fortune: but however their moderation may be boasted by themselves, or
admired by such as only view them at a distance, it will be, perhaps,
seldom found that they value riches less, but that they dread labour
or danger more, than others; they are unable to rouse themselves to
action, to strain in the race of competition, or to stand the shock of
contest; but though they, therefore, decline the toil of climbing, they
nevertheless wish themselves aloft, and would willingly enjoy what they
dare not seize.

Others have retired from high stations, and voluntarily condemned
themselves to privacy and obscurity. But even these will not afford
many occasions of triumph to the philosopher; for they have commonly
either quitted that only which they thought themselves unable to hold,
and prevented disgrace by resignation; or they have been induced to try
new measures by general inconstancy, which always dreams of happiness
in novelty, or by a gloomy disposition, which is disgusted in the same
degree with every state, and wishes every scene of life to change as soon
as it is beheld. Such men found high and low stations equally unable to
satisfy the wishes of a distempered mind, and were unable to shelter
themselves in the closest retreat from disappointment, solicitude, and
misery.

Yet though these admonitions have been thus neglected by those who either
enjoyed riches, or were able to procure them, it is not rashly to be
determined that they are altogether without use; for since far the
greatest part of mankind must be confined to conditions comparatively
mean, and placed in situations from which they naturally look up with
envy to the eminences before them, those writers cannot be thought ill
employed that have administered remedies to discontent almost universal,
by shewing, that what we cannot reach may very well be forborne; that the
inequality of distribution, at which we murmur, is for the most part less
than it seems, and that the greatness, which we admire at a distance, has
much fewer advantages, and much less splendour, when we are suffered to
approach it.

It is the business of moralists to detect the frauds of fortune, and to
shew that she imposes upon the careless eye, by a quick succession of
shadows, which will shrink to nothing in the gripe; that she disguises
life in extrinsick ornaments, which serve only for shew, and are laid
aside in the hours of solitude, and of pleasure; and that when greatness
aspires either to felicity or to wisdom, it shakes off those distinctions
which dazzle the gazer, and awe the supplicant.

It may be remarked, that they whose condition has not afforded them the
light of moral or religious instruction, and who collect all their ideas
by their own eyes, and digest them by their own understandings, seem to
consider those who are placed in ranks of remote superiority, as almost
another and higher species of beings. As themselves have known little
other misery than the consequences of want, they are with difficulty
persuaded that where there is wealth there can be sorrow, or that those
who glitter in dignity, and glide along in affluence, can be acquainted
with pains and cares like those which lie heavy upon the rest of mankind.

This prejudice is, indeed, confined to the lowest meanness, and the
darkest ignorance; but it is so confined only because others have been
shewn its folly, and its falsehood, because it has been opposed in its
progress by history and philosophy, and hindered from spreading its
infection by powerful preservatives.

The doctrine of the contempt of wealth, though it has not been able to
extinguish avarice or ambition, or suppress that reluctance with which a
man passes his days in a state of inferiority, must, at least, have made
the lower conditions less grating and wearisome, and has consequently
contributed to the general security of life, by hindering that fraud and
violence, rapine and circumvention, which must have been produced by an
unbounded eagerness of wealth, arising from an unshaken conviction that
to be rich is to be happy.

Whoever finds himself incited, by some violent impulse of passion, to
pursue riches as the chief end of being, must surely be so much alarmed
by the successive admonitions of those whose experience and sagacity
have recommended them as the guides of mankind, as to stop and consider
whether he is about to engage in an undertaking that will reward his
toil, and to examine, before he rushes to wealth, through right and
wrong, what it will confer when he has acquired it; and this examination
will seldom fail to repress his ardour, and retard his violence.

Wealth is nothing in itself, it is not useful but when it departs from
us; its value is found only in that which it can purchase, which, if
we suppose it put to its best use by those that possess it, seems not
much to deserve the desire or envy of a wise man. It is certain that,
with regard to corporal enjoyment, money can neither open new avenues
to pleasure, nor block up the passages of anguish. Disease and infirmity
still continue to torture and enfeeble, perhaps exasperated by luxury,
or promoted by softness. With respect to the mind, it has rarely been
observed, that wealth contributes much to quicken the discernment,
enlarge the capacity, or elevate the imagination; but may, by hiring
flattery, or laying diligence asleep, confirm errour, and harden stupidity.

Wealth cannot confer greatness, for nothing can make that great, which the
decree of nature has ordained to be little. The bramble may be placed in
a hot-bed, but can never become an oak. Even royalty itself is not able
to give that dignity which it happens not to find, but oppresses feeble
minds, though it may elevate the strong. The world has been governed in
the name of kings, whose existence has scarcely been perceived by any
real effects beyond their own palaces.

When therefore the desire of wealth is taking hold of the heart, let us
look round and see how it operates upon those whose industry or fortune
has obtained it. When we find them oppressed with their own abundance,
luxurious without pleasure, idle without ease, impatient and querulous in
themselves, and despised or hated by the rest of mankind, we shall soon
be convinced, that if the real wants of our condition are satisfied, there
remains little to be sought with solicitude, or desired with eagerness.




No. 59. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 9, 1750.


_Est aliquid fatale malum per verba levare,_
_Hoc querulam Prognen Halcyonenque facit:_
_Hoc erat in gelido quare Pæantius antro_
_Voce fatigaret Lemnia saxa sua. _
_Strangulat inclusus dolor, atque exæstuat intus,_
_Cogitur et vires multiplicare suas. _
OVID, Trist. vi. 59.

Complaining oft gives respite to our grief;
From hence the wretched Progne sought relief,
Hence the Pæantian chief his fate deplores,
And vents his sorrow to the Lemnian shores:
In vain by secrecy we would assuage
Our cares; conceal'd they gather tenfold rage.
F. LEWIS.


It is common to distinguish men by the names of animals which they are
supposed to resemble. Thus a hero is frequently termed a lion, and a
statesman a fox, an extortioner gains the appellation of vulture, and
a fop the title of monkey. There is also among the various anomalies of
character, which a survey of the world exhibits, a species of beings
in human form, which may be properly marked out as the screech-owls
of mankind.

These screech-owls seem to be settled in an opinion that the great business
of life is to complain, and that they were born for no other purpose than
to disturb the happiness of others, to lessen the little comforts, and
shorten the short pleasures of our condition, by painful remembrances of
the past, or melancholy prognosticks of the future; their only care is
to crush the rising hope, to damp the kindling transport, and allay the
golden hours of gaiety with the hateful dross of grief and suspicion.

To those whose weakness of spirits, or timidity of temper, subjects them
to impressions from others, and who are apt to suffer by fascination,
and catch the contagion of misery, it is extremely unhappy to live within
the compass of a screech-owl's voice; for it will often fill their ears
in the hour of dejection, terrify them with apprehensions, which their
own thoughts would never have produced, and sadden, by intruded sorrows,
the day which might have been passed in amusements or in business; it
will burthen the heart with unnecessary discontents, and weaken for a
time that love of life which is necessary to the vigorous prosecution of
any undertaking.

Though I have, like the rest of mankind, many failings and weaknesses,
I have not yet, by either friends or enemies, been charged with
superstition; I never count the company which I enter, and I look at
the new moon indifferently over either shoulder. I have, like most other
philosophers, often heard the cuckoo without money in my pocket, and
have been sometimes reproached as fool-hardy for not turning down my eyes
when a raven flew over my head. I never go home abruptly because a snake
crosses my way, nor have any particular dread of a climacterical year;
yet I confess that, with all my scorn of old women, and their tales,
I consider it as an unhappy day when I happen to be greeted, in the
morning, by Suspirius the screech-owl.

I have now known Suspirius fifty-eight years and four months, and have
never yet passed an hour with him in which he has not made some attack
upon my quiet. When we were first acquainted, his great topick was the
misery of youth without riches; and whenever we walked out together he
solaced me with a long enumeration of pleasures, which, as they were
beyond the reach of my fortune, were without the verge of my desires, and
which I should never have considered as the objects of a wish, had not
his unseasonable representations placed them in my sight.

Another of his topicks is the neglect of merit, with which he never fails
to amuse every man whom he sees not eminently fortunate. If he meets
with a young officer, he always informs him of gentlemen whose personal
courage is unquestioned, and whose military skill qualifies them to
command armies, that have, notwithstanding all their merit, grown old
with subaltern commissions. For a genius in the church, he is always
provided with a curacy for life. The lawyer he informs of many men of
great parts and deep study, who have never had an opportunity to speak
in the courts: and meeting Serenus the physician, "Ah, doctor," says
he, "what a-foot still, when so many block-heads are rattling in their
chariots? I told you seven years ago that you would never meet with
encouragement, and I hope you will now take more notice, when I tell you
that your Greek, and your diligence, and your honesty, will never enable
you to live like yonder apothecary, who prescribes to his own shop, and
laughs at the physician. "

Suspirius has, in his time, intercepted fifteen authors in their way to
the stage; persuaded nine and thirty merchants to retire from a prosperous
trade for fear of bankruptcy, broke off an hundred and thirteen matches
by prognostications of unhappiness, and enabled the small-pox to kill
nineteen ladies, by perpetual alarms of the loss of beauty.

Whenever my evil stars bring us together, he never fails to represent to
me the folly of my pursuits, and informs me that we are much older than
when we began our acquaintance, that the infirmities of decrepitude are
coming fast upon me, that whatever I now get, I shall enjoy but a little
time, that fame is to a man tottering on the edge of the grave of very
little importance, and that the time is at hand when I ought to look for
no other pleasures than a good dinner and an easy chair.

Thus he goes on in his unharmonious strain, displaying present miseries,
and foreboding more, νυκτικοραξ αει θανατηφορος, every syllable is loaded
with misfortune, and death is always brought nearer to the view. Yet, what
always raises my resentment and indignation, I do not perceive that his
mournful meditations have much effect upon himself. He talks and has long
talked of calamities, without discovering otherwise than by the tone of
his voice, that he feels any of the evils which he bewails or threatens,
but has the same habit of uttering lamentations, as others of telling
stories, and falls into expressions of condolence for past, or
apprehension of future mischiefs, as all men studious of their ease have
recourse to those subjects upon which they can most fluently or copiously
discourse[47].

It is reported of the Sybarites, that they destroyed all their cocks, that
they might dream out their morning dreams without disturbance. Though I
would not so far promote effeminacy as to propose the Sabarites for an
example, yet since there is no man so corrupt or foolish, but something
useful may be learned from him, I could wish that, in imitation of a
people not often to be copied, some regulations might be made to exclude
screech-owls from all company, as the enemies of mankind, and confine
them to some proper receptacle, where they may mingle sighs at leisure,
and thicken the gloom of one another.

_Thou prophet of evil_, says Homer's Agamemnon, _thou never foretellest me
good, but the joy of thy heart is to predict misfortunes_. Whoever is of
the same temper, might there find the means of indulging his thoughts,
and improving his vein of denunciation, and the flock of screech-owls
might hoot together without injury to the rest of the world.

Yet, though I have so little kindness for this dark generation, I am very
far from intending to debar the soft and tender mind from the privilege of
complaining, when the sigh arises from the desire not of giving pain, but
of gaining ease. To hear complaints with patience, even when complaints
are vain, is one of the duties of friendship; and though it must be
allowed that he suffers most like a hero that hides his grief in silence,

_Spem vultu simulat, premit altum corde dolorem;_

His outward smiles conceal'd his inward smart;
DRYDEN.

yet it cannot be denied, that he who complains acts like a man, like a
social being, who looks for help from his fellow-creatures. Pity is to
many of the unhappy a source of comfort in hopeless distresses, as it
contributes to recommend them to themselves, by proving that they have
not lost the regard of others; and heaven seems to indicate the duty even
of barren compassion, by inclining us to weep for evils which we cannot
remedy.

[Footnote 47: Suspirius, the screech-owl, is presumed by some to have
suggested the character of Croaker to Goldsmith, in his Comedy of the
Good-natured Man. ]




No. 60. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 13, 1750.


_Quid sit pulchrum, quid turpe, quid utile, quid non,_
_Plenius ac melius Chrysippo et Crantore dicit. _
HOR. Lib. i. Epist. ii. 3.

Whose works the beautiful and base contain,
Of vice and virtue more instructive rules,
Than all the sober sages of the schools.
FRANCIS.


All joy or sorrow for the happiness or calamities of others is produced
by an act of the imagination, that realizes the event however fictitious,
or approximates it however remote, by placing us, for a time, in the
condition of him whose fortune we contemplate; so that we feel, while the
deception lasts, whatever motions would be excited by the same good or
evil happening to ourselves.

Our passions are therefore more strongly moved, in proportion as we
can more readily adopt the pains or pleasure proposed to our minds,
by recognising them as once our own, or considering them as naturally
incident to our state of life. It is not easy for the most artful
writer to give us an interest in happiness or misery, which we think
ourselves never likely to feel, and with which we have never yet been
made acquainted. Histories of the downfal of kingdoms, and revolutions of
empires, are read with great tranquillity; the imperial tragedy pleases
common auditors only by its pomp of ornament, and grandeur of ideas; and
the man whose faculties have been engrossed by business, and whose heart
never fluttered but at the rise or fall of the stocks, wonders how the
attention can be seized, or the affection agitated, by a tale of love.

Those parallel circumstances and kindred images, to which we readily
conform our minds, are, above all other writings, to be found in
narratives of the lives of particular persons; and therefore no species
of writing seems more worthy of cultivation than biography, since none
can be more delightful or more useful, none can more certainly enchain
the heart by irresistible interest, or more widely diffuse instruction to
every diversity of condition.

The general and rapid narratives of history, which involve a thousand
fortunes in the business of a day, and complicate innumerable incidents
in one great transaction, afford few lessons applicable to private
life, which derives its comforts and its wretchedness from the right
or wrong management of things, which nothing but their frequency makes
considerable, _Parva si non fiant quotidie_, says Pliny, and which
can have no place in those relations which never descend below the
consultation of senates, the motions of armies, and the schemes of
conspirators.

I have often thought that there has rarely passed a life of which a
judicious and faithful narrative would not be useful. For, not only
every man has, in the mighty mass of the world, great numbers in the same
condition with himself, to whom his mistakes and miscarriages, escapes
and expedients, would be of immediate and apparent use; but there is such
an uniformity in the state of man, considered apart from adventitious and
separable decorations and disguises, that there is scarce any possibility
of good or ill, but is common to human kind. A great part of the time of
those who are placed at the greatest distance by fortune, or by temper,
must unavoidably pass in the same manner; and though, when the claims of
nature are satisfied, caprice, and vanity, and accident, begin to produce
discriminations and peculiarities, yet the eye is not very heedful or
quick, which cannot discover the same causes still terminating their
influence in the same effects, though sometimes accelerated, sometimes
retarded, or perplexed by multiplied combinations. We are all prompted
by the same motives, all deceived by the same fallacies, all animated by
hope, obstructed by danger, entangled by desire, and seduced by pleasure.