No More Learning

The poets, among all those that enjoy the blessings of sleep, have been
least ashamed to acknowledge their benefactor. How much Statius
considered the evils of life as assuaged and softened by the balm of
slumber, we may discover by that pathetick invocation, which he poured
out in his waking nights: and that Cowley, among the other felicities of
his darling solitude, did not forget to number the privilege of sleeping
without disturbance, we may learn from the rank that he assigns among
the gifts of nature to the poppy, "which is scattered," says he, "over
the fields of corn, that all the needs of man may be easily satisfied,
and that bread and sleep may be found together. "

Si quis invisum Cereri benignæ
Me putat germen, vehementer errat;
Illa me in partem recipit libenter
Fertilis agri.

Meque frumentumque simul per omnes
Consulens mundo Dea spargit oras;
Crescite, O! dixit, duo magna sustentaculu
vitæ,

Carpe, mortalis, mea dona lætus,
Carpe, nec plantas alias require,
Sed satur panis, satur et soporis,
Cætera sperue,

He wildly errs who thinks I yield
Precedence in the well-cloth'd field,
Tho' mix'd with wheat I grow:
Indulgent Ceres knew my worth,
And to adorn the teeming earth,
She bade the Poppy blow.

Nor vainly gay the sight to please,
But blest with pow'r mankind to ease,
The goddess saw me rise:
"Thrive with the life-supporting grain,"
She cried, "the solace of the swain,
The cordial of his eyes.

Seize, happy mortal, seize the good;
My hand supplies thy sleep and food,
And makes thee truly blest:
With plenteous meals enjoy the day,
In slumbers pass the night away,
And leave to fate the rest. " C. B.

Sleep, therefore, as the chief of all earthly blessings, is justly
appropriated to induustry and temperance; the refreshing rest, and the
peaceful night, are the portion only of him who lies down weary with
honest labour, and free from the fumes of indigested luxury; it is the
just doom of laziness and gluttony, to be inactive without ease, and
drowsy without tranquillity.

Sleep has been often mentioned as the image of death[1]; "so like it,"
says Sir Thomas Brown, "that I dare not trust it without my prayers:"
their resemblance is, indeed, apparent and striking; they both, when
they seize the body, leave the soul at liberty: and wise is he that
remembers of both, that they can be safe and happy only by virtue.

[1]
Lovely sleep! thou beautiful image of terrible death,
Be thou my pillow-companion, my angel of rest!
Come, O sleep! for thine are the joys of living and dying:
Life without sorrow, and death with no anguish, no pain.
_From the German of Schmidt_




No. 41. TUESDAY, MARCH 27, 1753.

--_Si mutabile pectus
Est tibi, consiliis, non curribus, utere nostris;
Dum potes, et solidis etiamnum sedibus adstas,
Dumque male optatos nondum premis inscius axes. _ OVID. Met. ii. 143.

--Th' attempt forsake,
And not my chariot but my counsel take;
While yet securely on the earth you stand;
Nor touch the horses with too rash a hand. ADDISON.

TO THE ADVENTURER.

Sir, Fleet, March 24.

I now send you the sequel of my story, which had not been so long
delayed, if I could have brought myself to imagine, that any real
impatience was felt for the fate of Misargyrus; who has travelled no
unbeaten track to misery, and consequently can present the reader only
with such incidents as occur in daily life. You have seen me, Sir, in
the zenith of my glory, not dispensing the kindly warmth of an
all-cheering sun: but, like another Phaeton, scorching and blasting
every thing round me. I shall proceed, therefore, to finish my career,
and pass as rapidly as possible through the remaining vicissitudes of my
life.

When I first began to be in want of money, I made no doubt of an
immediate supply. The newspapers were perpetually offering directions to
men, who seemed to have no other business than to gather heaps of gold
for those who place their supreme felicity in scattering it. I posted
away, therefore, to one of these advertisers, who by his proposals
seemed to deal in thousands; and was not a little chagrined to find,
that this general benefactor would have nothing to do with any larger
sum than thirty pounds, nor would venture that without a joint note from
myself and a reputable housekeeper, or for a longer time than three
months.

It was not yet so bad with me, as that I needed to solicit surety for
thirty pounds: yet partly from the greediness that extravagance always
produces, and partly from a desire of seeing the humour of a petty
usurer, a character of which I had hitherto lived in ignorance, I
condescended to listen to his terms. He proceeded to inform me of my
great felicity in not falling into the hands of an extortioner; and
assured me, that I should find him extremely moderate in his demands: he
was not, indeed, certain that he could furnish me with the whole sum,
for people were at this particular time extremely pressing and
importunate for money: yet, as I had the appearance of a gentleman, he
would try what he could do, and give me his answer in three days.

At the expiration of the time, I called upon him again; and was again
informed of the great demand for money, and that, "money was money now:"
he then advised me to be punctual in my payment, as that might induce
him to befriend me hereafter; and delivered me the money, deducting at
the rate of five and thirty _per cent_. with another panegyrick upon his
own moderation.

I will not tire you with the various practices of usurious oppression;
but cannot omit my transaction with Squeeze on Tower-hill, who, finding
me a young man of considerable expectations, employed an agent to
persuade me to borrow five hundred pounds, to be refunded by an annual
payment of twenty per cent_. during the joint lives of his daughter
Nancy Squeeze and myself. The negociator came prepared to enforce his
proposal with all his art; but, finding that I caught his offer with the
eagerness of necessity, he grew cold and languid; "he had mentioned it
out of kindness; he would try to serve me: Mr. Squeeze was an honest
man, but extremely cautious. " In three days he came to tell me, that his
endeavours had been ineffectual, Mr. Squeeze having no good opinion of
my life; but that there was one expedient remaining: Mrs. Squeeze could
influence her husband, and her good will might be gained by a
compliment. I waited that afternoon on Mrs. Squeeze, and poured out
before her the flatteries which usually gain access to rank and beauty:
I did not then know, that there are places in which the only compliment
is a bribe. Having yet credit with a jeweller, I afterwards procured a
ring of thirty guineas, which I humbly presented, and was soon admitted
to a treaty with Mr. Squeeze. He appeared peevish and backward, and my
old friend whispered me, that he would never make a dry bargain: I
therefore invited him to a tavern. Nine times we met on the affair; nine
times I paid four pounds for the supper and claret; and nine guineas I
gave the agent for good offices. I then obtained the money, paying ten
_per cent_. advance; and at the tenth meeting gave another supper, and
disbursed fifteen pounds for the writings.

Others who styled themselves brokers, would only trust their money upon
goods: that I might, therefore, try every art of expensive folly, I took
a house and furnished it. I amused myself with despoiling my moveables
of their glossy appearance, for fear of alarming the lender with
suspicions: and in this I succeeded so well, that he favoured me with
one hundred and sixty pounds upon that which was rated at seven hundred.
I then found that I was to maintain a guardian about me to prevent the
goods from being broken or removed. This was, indeed, an unexpected tax;
but it was too late to recede: and I comforted myself, that I might
prevent a creditor, of whom I had some apprehensions, from seizing, by
having a prior execution always in the house.

By such means I had so embarrassed myself, that my whole attention was
engaged in contriving excuses, and raising small sums to quiet such as
words would no longer mollify. It cost me eighty pounds in presents to
Mr. Leech the attorney, for his forbearance of one hundred, which he
solicited me to take when I had no need. I was perpetually harassed with
importunate demands, and insulted by wretches, who a few months before
would not have dared to raise their eyes from the dust before me. I
lived in continual terrour, frighted by every noise at the door, and
terrified at the approach of every step quicker than common. I never
retired to rest without feeling the justness of the Spanish proverb,
"Let him who sleeps too much, borrow the pillow of a debtor:" my
solicitude and vexation kept me long waking; and when I had closed my
eyes, I was pursued or insulted by visionary bailiffs.

When I reflected upon the meanness of the shifts I had reduced myself
to, I could not but curse the folly and extravagance that had
overwhelmed me in a sea of troubles, from which it was highly improbable
that I should ever emerge. I had some time lived in hopes of an estate,
at the death of my uncle; but he disappointed me by marrying his
housekeeper; and, catching an opportunity soon after of quarrelling with
me, for settling twenty pounds a year upon a girl whom I had seduced,
told me that he would take care to prevent his fortune from being
squandered upon prostitutes.

Nothing now remained, but the chance of extricating myself by marriage;
a scheme which, I flattered myself, nothing but my present distress
would have made me think on with patience. I determined, therefore, to
look out for a tender novice, with a large fortune, at her own disposal;
and accordingly fixed my eyes upon Miss Biddy Simper. I had now paid her
six or seven visits; and so fully convinced her of my being a gentleman
and a rake, that I made no doubt that both her person and fortune would
be soon mine.

At this critical time, Miss Gripe called upon me, in a chariot bought
with my money, and loaded with trinkets that I had, in my days of
affluence, lavished on her. Those days were now over; and there was
little hope that they would ever return. She was not able to withstand
the temptation of ten pounds that Talon the bailiff offered her, but
brought him into my apartment disguised in a livery; and taking my sword
to the window, under pretence of admiring the workmanship, beckoned him
to seize me.

Delay would have been expensive without use, as the debt was too
considerable for payment or bail: I, therefore, suffered myself to be
immediately conducted to gaol.

_Vestibulum ante ipsum, primisque in faucibus Orci,
Luctus et ultrices posuere cubilia curae:
Pallentesque habitant morbi, tristisque senectus,
Et metus, et malesuada fames, et turpis egestas. _ VIRG. Aen. vi. 273.

Just in the gate and in the jaws of hell,
Revengeful cares and sullen sorrows dwell;
And pale diseases, and repining age;
Want, fear, and famine's unresisted rage. DRYDEN.

Confinement of any kind is dreadful; a prison is sometimes able to shock
those, who endure it in a good cause: let your imagination, therefore,
acquaint you with what I have not words to express, and conceive, if
possible, the horrours of imprisonment attended with reproach and
ignominy, of involuntary association with the refuse of mankind, with
wretches who were before too abandoned for society, but, being now freed
from shame or fear, are hourly improving their vices by consorting with
each other.

There are, however, a few, whom, like myself, imprisonment has rather
mortified than hardened: with these only I converse; and of these you
may, perhaps, hereafter receive some account from

Your humble servant, MISARGYRUS.




No. 45. TUESDAY, APRIL 10, 1753

_Nulla fides regni sociis, omnisque potestas
Impatiens consortis erit. _--LUCAN. Lib. i. 92.

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

It is well known, that many things appear plausible in speculation,
which can never be reduced to practice; and that of the numberless
projects that have flattered mankind with theoretical speciousness, few
have served any other purpose than to show the ingenuity of their
contrivers. A voyage to the moon, however romantick and absurd the
scheme may now appear, since the properties of air have been better
understood, seemed highly probable to many of the aspiring wits in the
last century, who began to dote upon their glossy plumes, and fluttered
with impatience for the hour of their departure:

--_Pereunt vestigia mille
Ante fugam, absentemque ferit gravis ungula campum. _

Hills, vales and floods appear already crost;
And, ere he starts, a thousand steps are lost. POPE.

Among the fallacies which only experience can detect, there are some, of
which scarcely experience itself can destroy the influence; some which,
by a captivating show of indubitable certainty, are perpetually gaining
upon the human mind; and which, though every trial ends in
disappointment, obtain new credit as the sense of miscarriage wears
gradually away, persuade us to try again what we have tried already, and
expose us by the same failure to double vexation.

Of this tempting, this delusive kind, is the expectation of great
performances by confederated strength. The speculatist, when he has
carefully observed how much may be performed by a single hand,
calculates by a very easy operation the force of thousands, and goes on
accumulating power till resistance vanishes before it; then rejoices in
the success of his new scheme, and wonders at the folly or idleness of
former ages, who have lived in want of what might so readily be
procured, and suffered themselves to be debarred from happiness by
obstacles which one united effort would have so easily surmounted.

But this gigantick phantom of collective power vanishes at once into air
and emptiness, at the first attempt to put it into action. The different
apprehensions, the discordant passions, the jarring interests of men,
will scarcely permit that many should unite in one undertaking.

Of a great and complicated design, some will never be brought to discern
the end; and of the several means by which it may be accomplished, the
choice will be a perpetual subject of debate, as every man is swayed in
his determination by his own knowledge or convenience. In a long series
of action some will languish with fatigue, and some be drawn off by
present gratifications; some will loiter because others labour, and some
will cease to labour because others loiter: and if once they come within
prospect of success and profit, some will be greedy and others envious;
some will undertake more than they can perform, to enlarge their claims
of advantage; some will perform less than they undertake, lest their
labours should chiefly turn to the benefit of others.

The history of mankind informs us that a single power is very seldom
broken by a confederacy. States of different interests, and aspects
malevolent to each other, may be united for a time by common distress;
and in the ardour of self-preservation fall unanimously upon an enemy,
by whom they are all equally endangered. But if their first attack can
be withstood, time will never fail to dissolve their union: success and
miscarriage will be equally destructive: after the conquest of a
province, they will quarrel in the division; after the loss of a battle,
all will be endeavouring to secure themselves by abandoning the rest.

From the impossibility of confining numbers to the constant and uniform
prosecution of a common interest, arises the difficulty of securing
subjects against the encroachment of governours. Power is always
gradually stealing away from the many to the few, because the few are
more vigilant and consistent; it still contracts to a smaller number,
till in time it centres in a single person.

Thus all the forms of governments instituted among mankind, perpetually
tend towards monarchy; and power, however diffused through the whole
community, is, by negligence or corruption, commotion or distress,
reposed at last in the chief magistrate.

"There never appear," says Swift, "more than five or six men of genius
in an age; but if they were united, the world could not stand before
them. " It is happy, therefore, for mankind, that of this union there is
no probability. As men take in a wider compass of intellectual survey,
they are more likely to choose different objects of pursuit; as they see
more ways to the same end, they will be less easily persuaded to travel
together; as each is better qualified to form an independent scheme of
private greatness, he will reject with greater obstinacy the project of
another; as each is more able to distinguish himself as the head of a
party, he will less readily be made a follower or an associate.

The reigning philosophy informs us, that the vast bodies which
constitute the universe, are regulated in their progress through the
ethereal spaces by the perpetual agency of contrary forces; by one of
which they are restrained from deserting their orbits, and losing
themselves in the immensity of heaven; and held off by the other from
rushing together, and clustering round their centre with everlasting
cohesion.

The same contrariety of impulse may be perhaps discovered in the motions
of men: we are formed for society, not for combination; we are equally
unqualified to live in a close connexion with our fellow-beings, and in
total separation from them; we are attracted towards each other by
general sympathy, but kept back from contact by private interests.

Some philosophers have been foolish enough to imagine, that improvements
might be made in the system of the universe, by a different arrangement
of the orbs of heaven; and politicians, equally ignorant and equally
presumptuous, may easily be led to suppose, that the happiness of our
world would be promoted by a different tendency of the human mind. It
appears, indeed, to a slight and superficial observer, that many things
impracticable in our present state, might be easily effected, if mankind
were better disposed to union and co-operation: but a little reflection
will discover, that if confederacies were easily formed, they would lose
their efficacy, since numbers would be opposed to numbers, and unanimity
to unanimity; and instead of the present petty competitions of
individuals or single families, multitudes would be supplanting
multitudes, and thousands plotting against thousands.

There is no class of the human species, of which the union seems to have
been more expected, than of the learned: the rest of the world have
almost always agreed to shut scholars up together in colleges and
cloisters; surely not without hope, that they would look for that
happiness in concord, which they were debarred from finding in variety;
and that such conjunctions of intellect would recompense the munificence
of founders and patrons, by performances above the reach of any single
mind.

But discord, who found means to roll her apple into the banqueting
chamber of the goddesses, has had the address to scatter her laurels in
the seminaries of learning. The friendship of students and of beauties
is for the most part equally sincere, and equally durable: as both
depend for happiness on the regard of others, on that of which the value
arises merely from comparison, they are both exposed to perpetual
jealousies, and both incessantly employed in schemes to intercept the
praises of each other.

I am, however, far from intending to inculcate that this confinement of
the studious to studious companions, has been wholly without advantage
to the publick: neighbourhood, where it does not conciliate friendship,
incites competition; and he that would contentedly rest in a lower
degree of excellence, where he had no rival to dread, will be urged by
his impatience of inferiority to incessant endeavours after great
attainments.

These stimulations of honest rivalry are, perhaps, the chief effects of
academies and societies; for whatever be the bulk of their joint
labours, every single piece is always the production of an individual,
that owes nothing to his colleagues but the contagion of diligence, a
resolution to write, because the rest are writing, and the scorn of
obscurity while the rest are illustrious[1].


[1] It may not be uninteresting to place in immediate comparison with
this finished paper its first rough draught as given in Boswell,
vol. i.

"_Confederacies difficult; why_.

"Seldom in war a match for single persons--nor in peace; therefore
kings make themselves absolute. Confederacies in learning--every
great work the work of one. _Bruy_. Scholars friendship like
ladies. Scribebamus, &c. Mart. The apple of discord--the laurel of
discord--the poverty of criticism. Swift's opinion of the power of
six geniuses united. That union scarce possible. His remarks just;
--man a social, not steady nature. Drawn to man by words, repelled
by passions. Orb drawn by attraction, rep. [_repelled_] by
centrifugal.

"Common danger unites by crushing other passions--but they return.
Equality hinders compliance. Superiority produces insolence and
envy. Too much regard in each to private interest;--too little.

"The mischiefs of private and exclusive societies. --The fitness of
social attraction diffused through the whole. The mischiefs of too
partial love of our country. Contraction of moral duties.
[Greek: Oi philoi, ou philos].

"Every man moves upon his own centre, and therefore repels others
from too near a contact, though he may comply with some general
laws. Of confederacy with superiors every one knows the
inconvenience. With equals no authority;--every man his own
opinion--his own interest.

"Man and wife hardly united;--scarce ever without children.
Computation, if two to one against two, how many against five? If
confederacies were easy--useless;--many oppresses many. --If possible
only to some, dangerous. _Principum amicitias_. "




No. 50. SATURDAY, APRIL 28, 1753.

_Quicunque turpi fraude semel innotuit,
Etiamsi verum dicit, amittit fidem. _ PHÆD. Lib. i. Fab. x. l.

The wretch that often has deceiv'd,
Though truth he speaks, is ne'er believ'd.

When Aristotle was once asked, what a man could gain by uttering
falsehoods? he replied, "Not to be credited when he shall tell the
truth. "

The character of a liar is at once so hateful and contemptible, that
even of those who have lost their virtue it might be expected that from
the violation of truth they should be restrained by their pride. Almost
every other vice that disgraces human nature, may be kept in countenance
by applause and association: the corrupter of virgin innocence sees
himself envied by the men, and at least not detested by the women; the
drunkard may easily unite with beings, devoted like himself to noisy
merriments or silent insensibility, who will celebrate his victories
over the novices of intemperance, boast themselves the companions of his
prowess, and tell with rapture of the multitudes whom unsuccessful
emulation has hurried to the grave; even the robber and the cut-throat
have their followers, who admire their address and intrepidity, their
stratagems of rapine, and their fidelity to the gang.

The liar, and only the liar, is invariably and universally despised,
abandoned, and disowned: he has no domestick consolations, which he can
oppose to the censure of mankind; he can retire to no fraternity, where
his crimes may stand in the place of virtues; but is given up to the
hisses of the multitude, without friend and without apologist. It is the
peculiar condition of falsehood, to be equally detested by the good and
bad: "The devils," says Sir Thomas Brown, "do not tell lies to one
another; for truth is necessary to all societies: nor can the society of
hell subsist without it. "

It is natural to expect, that a crime thus generally detested should be
generally avoided; at least, that none should expose himself to unabated
and unpitied infamy, without an adequate temptation; and that to guilt
so easily detected, and so severely punished, an adequate temptation
would not readily be found.

Yet so it is, that in defiance of censure and contempt, truth is
frequently violated; and scarcely the most vigilant and unremitted
circumspection will secure him that mixes with mankind, from being
hourly deceived by men of whom it can scarcely be imagined, that they
mean any injury to him or profit to themselves: even where the subject
of conversation could not have been expected to put the passions in
motion, or to have excited either hope or fear, or zeal or malignity,
sufficient to induce any man to put his reputation in hazard, however
little he might value it, or to overpower the love of truth, however
weak might be its influence.

The casuists have very diligently distinguished lies into their several
classes, according to their various degrees of malignity: but they have,
I think, generally omitted that which is most common, and perhaps, not
least mischievous; which, since the moralists have not given it a name,
I shall distinguish as the _lie of vanity_.

To vanity may justly be imputed most of the falsehoods which every man
perceives hourly playing upon his ear, and, perhaps, most of those that
are propagated with success. To the lie of commerce, and the lie of
malice, the motive is so apparent, that they are seldom negligently or
implicitly received; suspicion is always watchful over the practices of
interest; and whatever the hope of gain, or desire of mischief, can
prompt one man to assert, another is by reasons equally cogent incited
to refute. But vanity pleases herself with such slight gratifications,
and looks forward to pleasure so remotely consequential, that her
practices raise no alarm, and her stratagems are not easily discovered.

Vanity is, indeed, often suffered to pass unpursued by suspicion,
because he that would watch her motions, can never be at rest: fraud and
malice are bounded in their influence; some opportunity of time and
place is necessary to their agency; but scarce any man is abstracted one
moment from his vanity; and he, to whom truth affords no gratifications,
is generally inclined to seek them in falsehoods.

It is remarked by Sir Kenelm Digby, "that every man has a desire to
appear superior to others, though it were only in having seen what they
have not seen. " Such an accidental advantage, since it neither implies
merit, nor confers dignity, one would think should not be desired so
much as to be counterfeited: yet even this vanity, trifling as it is,
produces innumerable narratives, all equally false; but more or less
credible in proportion to the skill or confidence of the relater. How
many may a man of diffusive conversation count among his acquaintances,
whose lives have been signalized by numberless escapes; who never cross
the river but in a storm, or take a journey into the country without
more adventures than befel the knights-errant of ancient times in
pathless forests or enchanted castles! How many must he know, to whom
portents and prodigies are of daily occurrence; and for whom nature is
hourly working wonders invisible to every other eye, only to supply them
with subjects of conversation.

Others there are that amuse themselves with the dissemination of
falsehood, at greater hazard of detection and disgrace; men marked out
by some lucky planet for universal confidence and friendship, who have
been consulted in every difficulty, intrusted with every secret, and
summoned to every transaction: it is the supreme felicity of these men,
to stun all companies with noisy information; to still doubt, and
overbear opposition, with certain knowledge or authentick intelligence.
A liar of this kind, with a strong memory or brisk imagination, is often
the oracle of an obscure club, and, till time discovers his impostures,
dictates to his hearers with uncontrouled authority; for if a publick
question be started, he was present at the debate; if a new fashion be
mentioned, he was at court the first day of its appearance; if a new
performance of literature draws the attention of the publick, he has
patronized the author, and seen his work in manuscript; if a criminal of
eminence be condemned to die, he often predicted his fate, and
endeavoured his reformation: and who that lives at a distance from the
scene of action, will dare to contradict a man, who reports from his own
eyes and ears, and to whom all persons and affairs are thus intimately
known?

This kind of falsehood is generally successful for a time, because it is
practised at first with timidity and caution: but the prosperity of the
liar is of short duration; the reception of one story is always an
incitement to the forgery of another less probable; and he goes on to
triumph over tacit credulity, till pride or reason rises up against him,
and his companions will no longer endure to see him wiser than
themselves.

It is apparent, that the inventors of all these fictions intend some
exaltation of themselves, and are led off by the pursuit of honour from
their attendance upon truth: their narratives always imply some
consequence in favour of their courage, their sagacity, or their
activity, their familiarity with the learned, or their reception among
the great; they are always bribed by the present pleasure of seeing
themselves superior to those that surround them, and receiving the
homage of silent attention and envious admiration.

But vanity is sometimes excited to fiction by less visible
gratifications: the present age abounds with a race of liars who are
content with the consciousness of falsehood, and whose pride is to
deceive others without any gain or glory to themselves. Of this tribe it
is the supreme pleasure to remark a lady in the playhouse or the park,
and to publish, under the character of a man suddenly enamoured, an
advertisement in the news of the next day, containing a minute
description of her person and her dress. From this artifice, however, no
other effect can be expected, than perturbations which the writer can
never see, and conjectures of which he never can be informed; some
mischief, however, he hopes he has done; and to have done mischief, is
of some importance. He sets his invention to work again, and produces a
narrative of a robbery or a murder, with all the circumstances of time
and place accurately adjusted. This is a jest of greater effect and
longer duration: if he fixes his scene at a proper distance, he may for
several days keep a wife in terrour for her husband, or a mother for her
son; and please himself with reflecting, that by his abilities and
address some addition is made to the miseries of life.

There is, I think, an ancient law of Scotland, by which _leasing-making_
was capitally punished. I am, indeed, far from desiring to increase in
this kingdom the number of executions; yet I cannot but think, that they
who destroy the confidence of society, weaken the credit of
intelligence, and interrupt the security of life; harass the delicate
with shame, and perplex the timorous with alarms; might very properly be
awakened to a sense of their crimes, by denunciations of a whipping-post
or pillory: since many are so insensible of right and wrong, that they
have no standard of action but the law; nor feel guilt, but as they
dread punishment.




No. 53. TUESDAY, MAY 8, 1753.

_Quisque suos patimur manes_. VIRG. Aen. Lib. vi. 743.

Each has his lot, and bears the fate he drew.

Sir, Fleet, May 6.
In consequence of my engagements, I address you once more from the
habitations of misery. In this place, from which business and pleasure
are equally excluded, and in which our only employment and diversion is
to hear the narratives of each other, I might much sooner have gathered
materials for a letter, had I not hoped to have been reminded of my
promise; but since I find myself placed in the regions of oblivion,
where I am no less neglected by you than by the rest of mankind, I
resolved no longer to wait for solicitation, but stole early this
evening from between gloomy sullenness and riotous merriment, to give
you an account of part of my companions.

One of the most eminent members of our club is Mr. Edward Scamper, a man
of whose name the Olympick heroes would not have been ashamed. Ned was
born to a small estate, which he determined to improve; and therefore,
as soon as he became of age, mortgaged part of his land to buy a mare
and stallion, and bred horses for the course. He was at first very
successful, and gained several of the king's plates, as he is now every
day boasting, at the expense of very little more than ten times their
value. At last, however, he discovered, that victory brought him more
honour than profit: resolving, therefore, to be rich as well as
illustrious, he replenished his pockets by another mortgage, became on a
sudden a daring bettor, and resolving not to trust a jockey with his
fortune, rode his horse himself, distanced two of his competitors the
first heat, and at last won the race by forcing his horse on a descent
to full speed at the hazard of his neck. His estate was thus repaired,
and some friends that had no souls advised him to give over; but Ned now
knew the way to riches, and therefore without caution increased his
expenses. From this hour he talked and dreamed of nothing but a
horse-race; and rising soon to the summit of equestrian reputation, he
was constantly expected on every course, divided all his time between
lords and jockeys, and, as the unexperienced regulated their bets by his
example, gained a great deal of money by laying openly on one horse and
secretly on the other. Ned was now so sure of growing rich, that he
involved his estate in a third mortgage, borrowed money of all his
friends, and risked his whole fortune upon Bay Lincoln. He mounted with
beating heart, started fair, and won the first heat; but in the second,
as he was pushing against the foremost of his rivals, his girth broke,
his shoulder was dislocated, and before he was dismissed by the surgeon,
two bailiffs fastened upon him, and he saw Newmarket no more. His daily
amusement for four years has been to blow the signal for starting, to
make imaginary matches, to repeat the pedigree of Bay Lincoln, and to
form resolutions against trusting another groom with the choice of his
girth.

The next in seniority is Mr. Timothy Snug, a man of deep contrivance and
impenetrable secrecy. His father died with the reputation of more wealth
than he possessed: Tim, therefore, entered the world with a reputed
fortune of ten thousand pounds. Of this he very well knew that eight
thousand was imaginary: but being a man of refined policy, and knowing
how much honour is annexed to riches, he resolved never to detect his
own poverty; but furnished his house with elegance, scattered his money
with profusion, encouraged every scheme of costly pleasure, spoke of
petty losses with negligence, and on the day before an execution entered
his doors, had proclaimed at a public table his resolution to be jolted
no longer in a hackney coach.

Another of my companions is the magnanimous Jack Scatter, the son of a
country gentleman, who, having no other care than to leave him rich,
considered that literature could not be had without expense; masters
would not teach for nothing; and when a book was bought and read, it
would sell for little. Jack was, therefore, taught to read and write by
the butler; and when this acquisition was made, was left to pass his
days in the kitchen and the stable, where he heard no crime censured but
covetousness and distrust of poor honest servants, and where all the
praise was bestowed on good housekeeping, and a free heart. At the death
of his father, Jack set himself to retrieve the honour of his family: he
abandoned his cellar to the butler, ordered his groom to provide hay and
corn at discretion, took his housekeeper's word for the expenses of the
kitchen, allowed all his servants to do their work by deputies,
permitted his domesticks to keep his house open to their relations and
acquaintance, and in ten years was conveyed hither, without having
purchased by the loss of his patrimony either honour or pleasure, or
obtained any other gratification than that of having corrupted the
neighbouring villagers by luxury and idleness.

Dick Serge was a draper in Cornhill, and passed eight years in
prosperous diligence, without any care but to keep his books, or any
ambition but to be in time an alderman: but then, by some unaccountable
revolution in his understanding, he became enamoured of wit and humour,
despised the conversation of pedlars and stock-jobbers, and rambled
every night to the regions of gaiety, in quest of company suited to his
taste. The wits at first flocked about him for sport, and afterwards for
interest; some found their way into his books, and some into his
pockets; the man of adventure was equipped from his shop for the
pursuit, of a fortune; and he had sometimes the honour to have his
security accepted when his friends were in distress. Elated with these
associations, he soon learned to neglect his shop; and having drawn his
money out of the funds, to avoid the necessity of teasing men of honour
for trifling debts, he has been forced at last to retire hither, till
his friends can procure him a post at court.

Another that joins in the same mess is Bob Cornice, whose life has been
spent in fitting up a house. About ten years ago Bob purchased the
country habitation of a bankrupt: the mere shell of a building Bob holds
no great matter; the inside is the test of elegance. Of this house he
was no sooner master than he summoned twenty workmen to his assistance,
tore up the floors and laid them anew, stripped off the wainscot, drew
the windows from their frames, altered the disposition of doors and
fire-places, and cast the whole fabrick into a new form: his next care
was to have his ceilings painted, his pannels gilt, and his
chimney-pieces carved: every thing was executed by the ablest hands:
Bob's business was to follow the workmen with a microscope, and call
upon them to retouch their performances, and heighten excellence to
perfection.

The reputation of his house now brings round him a daily confluence of
visitants, and every one tells him of some elegance which he has
hitherto overlooked, some convenience not yet procured, or some new mode
in ornament or furniture. Bob, who had no wish but to be admired, nor
any guide but the fashion, thought every thing beautiful in proportion
as it was new, and considered his work as unfinished, while any observer
could suggest an addition; some alteration was therefore every day made,
without any other motive than the charms of novelty. A traveller at last
suggested to him the convenience of a grotto: Bob immediately ordered
the mount of his garden to be excavated: and having laid out a large sum
in shells and minerals, was busy in regulating the disposition of the
colours and lustres, when two gentlemen, who had asked permission to see
his gardens, presented him a writ, and led him off to less elegant
apartments.

I know not, Sir, whether among this fraternity of sorrow you will think
any much to be pitied; nor indeed do many of them appear to solicit
compassion, for they generally applaud their own conduct, and despise
those whom want of taste or spirit suffers to grow rich. It were happy
if the prisons of the kingdom were filled only with characters like
these, men whom prosperity could not make useful, and whom ruin cannot
make wise: but there are among us many who raise different sensations,
many that owe their present misery to the seductions of treachery, the
strokes of casualty, or the tenderness of pity; many whose sufferings
disgrace society, and whose virtues would adorn it: of these, when
familiarity shall have enabled me to recount their stories without
horrour, you may expect another narrative from

Sir,

Your most humble servant,

MISARGYRUS.




No. 58. SATURDAY, MAY 25, 1753.

_Damnant quod non intelligunt_. CIC.

They condemn what they do not understand.

Euripides, having presented Socrates with the writings of Heraclitus[1],
a philosopher famed for involution and obscurity, inquired afterwards
his opinion of their merit. "What I understand," said Socrates, "I find
to be excellent; and, therefore, believe that to be of equal value which
I cannot understand. "

The reflection of every man who reads this passage will suggest to him
the difference between the practice of Socrates, and that of modern
criticks: Socrates, who had, by long observation upon himself and
others, discovered the weakness of the strongest, and the dimness of the
most enlightened intellect, was afraid to decide hastily in his own
favour, or to conclude that an author had written without meaning,
because he could not immediately catch his ideas; he knew that the
faults of books are often more justly imputable to the reader, who
sometimes wants attention, and sometimes penetration; whose
understanding is often obstructed by prejudice, and often dissipated by
remissness; who comes sometimes to a new study, unfurnished with
knowledge previously necessary; and finds difficulties insuperable, for
want of ardour sufficient to encounter them.

Obscurity and clearness are relative terms: to some readers scarce any
book is easy, to others not many are difficult: and surely they, whom
neither any exuberant praise bestowed by others, nor any eminent
conquests over stubborn problems, have entitled to exalt themselves
above the common orders of mankind, might condescend to imitate the
candour of Socrates; and where they find incontestable proofs of
superior genius, be content to think that there is justness in the
connexion which they cannot trace, and cogency in the reasoning which
they cannot comprehend.

This diffidence is never more reasonable than in the perusal of the
authors of antiquity; of those whose works have been the delight of
ages, and transmitted as the great inheritance of mankind from one
generation to another: surely, no man can, without the utmost arrogance,
imagine that he brings any superiority of understanding to the perusal
of these books which have been preserved in the devastation of cities,
and snatched up from the wreck of nations; which those who fled before
barbarians have been careful to carry off in the hurry of migration, and
of which barbarians have repented the destruction. If in books thus made
venerable by the uniform attestation of successive ages, any passages
shall appear unworthy of that praise which they have formerly received,
let us not immediately determine, that they owed their reputation to
dulness or bigotry; but suspect at least that our ancestors had some
reasons for their opinions, and that our ignorance of those reasons
makes us differ from them.

It often happens that an author's reputation is endangered in succeeding
times, by that which raised the loudest applause among his
contemporaries: nothing is read with greater pleasure than allusions to
recent facts, reigning opinions, or present controversies; but when
facts are forgotten, and controversies extinguished, these favourite
touches lose all their graces; and the author in his descent to
posterity must be left to the mercy of chance, without any power of
ascertaining the memory of those things, to which he owed his luckiest
thoughts and his kindest reception.

On such occasions, every reader should remember the diffidence of
Socrates, and repair by his candour the injuries of time: he should
impute the seeming defects of his author to some chasm of intelligence,
and suppose that the sense which is now weak was once forcible, and the
expression which is now dubious formerly determinate.

How much the mutilation of ancient history has taken away from the
beauty of poetical performances, may be conjectured from the light which
a lucky commentator sometimes effuses, by the recovery of an incident
that had been long forgotten: thus, in the third book of Horace, Juno's
denunciations against, those that should presume to raise again the
walls of Troy, could for many ages please only by splendid images and
swelling language, of which no man discovered the use or propriety, till
Le Fevre, by showing on what occasion the Ode was written, changed
wonder to rational delight. Many passages yet undoubtedly remain in the
same author, which an exacter knowledge of the incidents of his time
would clear from objections. Among these I have always numbered the
following lines:

_Aurum per medios ire satellites,
Et perrumpere amat saxa, potentius
Ictu fulmineo. Concidit auguris
Argivi domus ob lucrum
Demersa exitio. Diffidit urbium
Portas vir Macedo, et subruit aemulos
Regis muneribus_: Munera navium
Saevos illaqueant duces. HOR. Lib. iii. Ode xvi. 9.

Stronger than thunder's winged force,
All-powerful gold can spread its course,
Thro' watchful guards its passage make,
And loves thro' solid walls to break:
From gold the overwhelming woes
That crush'd the Grecian augur rose:
Philip with gold thro' cities broke,
And rival monarchs felt his yoke;
_Captains of ships to gold are slaves,
Tho' fierce as their own winds and waves. _ FRANCIS.

The close of this passage, by which every reader is now disappointed and
offended, was probably the delight of the Roman Court: it cannot be
imagined, that Horace, after having given to gold the force of thunder,
and told of its power to storm cities and to conquer kings, would have
concluded his account of its efficacy with its influence over naval
commanders, had he not alluded to some fact then current in the mouths
of men, and therefore more interesting for a time than the conquests of
Philip. Of the like kind may be reckoned another stanza in the same
book:

--_Jussa coram non sine conscio
Surgit marito, seu vocat_ institor,
_Seu_ navis Hispanae magister,
_Dedecorum pretiosus emptor_. HOR. Lib. iii. Ode. vi. 29.

The conscious husband bids her rise,
_When some rich factor courts her charms_,
Who calls the wanton to his arms,
And, prodigal of wealth and fame,
Profusely buys the costly shame. FRANCIS.

He has little knowledge of Horace who imagines that the _factor_, or the
_Spanish merchant_, are mentioned by chance: there was undoubtedly some
popular story of an intrigue, which those names recalled to the memory
of his reader.

The flame of his genius in other parts, though somewhat dimmed by time,
is not totally eclipsed; his address and judgment yet appear, though
much of the spirit and vigour of his sentiment is lost: this has
happened in the twentieth Ode of the first book:

_Vile potabis modicis Sabinum
Cantharis, Graecâ quod ego ipse testâ
Conditum levi, datus in theatro
Cum tibi plausus,
Care Maecenas eques: ut paterni
Fluminis ripae, simul et jocosa
Redderet laudes tibi Vaticani
Montis imago. _

A poet's beverage humbly cheap,
(Should great Maecenas be my guest,)
The vintage of the Sabine grape,
But yet in sober cups shall crown the feast:
'Twas rack'd into a Grecian cask,
Its rougher juice to melt away;
I seal'd it too--a pleasing task!
With annual joy to mark the glorious day,
When in applausive shouts thy name
Spread from the theatre around,
Floating on thy own Tiber's stream,
And Echo, playful nymph, return'd the sound. FRANCIS.

We here easily remark the intertexture of a happy compliment with an
humble invitation; but certainly are less delighted than those, to whom
the mention of the applause bestowed upon Maecenas, gave occasion to
recount the actions or words that produced it.

Two lines which have exercised the ingenuity of modern criticks, may, I
think, be reconciled to the judgment, by an easy supposition: Horace
thus addresses Agrippa:

_Scriberis Vario fortis, et hostium
Victor_, Maeonii carminis alite. HOR. Lib. i. Ode vi. 1.

Varius, a _swan of Homer's wing_,
Shall brave Agrippa's conquests sing.

That Varius should be called "A bird of Homeric song," appears so harsh
to modern ears, that an emendation of the text has been proposed: but
surely the learning of the ancients had been long ago obliterated, had
every man thought himself at liberty to corrupt the lines which he did
not understand. If we imagine that Varius had been by any of his
contemporaries celebrated under the appellation of _Musarum ales_, "the
swan of the Muses," the language of Horace becomes graceful and
familiar; and that such a compliment was at least possible, we know from
the transformation feigned by Horace of himself.

The most elegant compliment that was paid to Addison, is of this obscure
and perishable kind;

When panting Virtue her last efforts made,
You brought your Clio to the virgin's aid.

These lines must please as long as they are understood; but can be
understood only by those that have observed Addison's signatures in the
Spectator.

The nicety of these minute allusions I shall exemplify by another
instance, which I take this occasion to mention, because, as I am told,
the commentators have omitted it. Tibullus addressed Cynthia in this
manner:

_Te spectem, suprema mihi cum venerit hora,
Te teneam moriens deficiente manu. _ Lib. i. El. i. 73.

Before my closing eyes dear Cynthia stand,
Held weakly by my fainting trembling hand.

To these lines Ovid thus refers in his Elegy on the death of Tibullus:

Cynthia discedens, Felicius, inquit, amata
Sum tibi; vixisti dum tuus ignis eram.
Cui Nemesis, quid, ait, tibi sint mea damna dolori?
Me tenuit moriens deficiente manu. Am. Lib. in. El. ix. 56.

Blest was my reign, retiring Cynthia cry'd;
Not till he left my breast, Tibullus dy'd.
Forbear, said Nemesis, my loss to moan,
The _fainting trembling hand_ was mine alone.

The beauty of this passage, which consists in the appropriation made by
Nemesis of the line originally directed to Cynthia, had been wholly
imperceptible to succeeding ages, had chance, which has destroyed so
many greater volumes, deprived us likewise of the poems of Tibullus.

[1] The obscurity of this philosopher's style is complained of by
Aristotle in his treatise on Rhetoric, iii. 5. We make the reference
with the view of recommending to attention the whole of that book,
which is interspersed with the most acute remarks, and with rules of
criticism founded deeply on the workings of the human mind. It is
undervalued only by those who have not scholarship to read it, and
surely merits this slight tribute of admiration from an Editor of
Johnson's works, with whom a Translation of the Rhetoric was long a
favourite project.




No. 62. SATURDAY, JUNE 9, 1753.

_O fortuna viris, invida fortibus
Quam non aequa bonis praemia dividis. _ SENECA.

Capricious Fortune ever joys,
With partial hand to deal the prize,
To crush the brave and cheat the wise.

TO THE ADVENTURER.

Fleet, June 6.

SIR,

To the account of such of my companions as are imprisoned without being
miserable, or are miserable without any claim to compassion, I promised
to add the histories of those, whose virtue has made them unhappy or
whose misfortunes are at least without a crime. That this catalogue
should be very numerous, neither you nor your readers ought to expect:
_rari quippe boni_; "the good are few. " Virtue is uncommon in all the
classes of humanity; and I suppose it will scarcely be imagined more
frequent in a prison than in other places.

Yet in these gloomy regions is to be found the tenderness, the
generosity, the philanthropy of Serenus, who might have lived in
competence and ease, if he could have looked without emotion on the
miseries of another. Serenus was one of those exalted minds, whom
knowledge and sagacity could not make suspicious; who poured out his
soul in boundless intimacy, and thought community of possessions the law
of friendship. The friend of Serenus was arrested for debt, and after
many endeavours to soften his creditor, sent his wife to solicit that
assistance which never was refused. The tears and importunity of female
distress were more than was necessary to move the heart of Serenus; he
hasted immediately away, and conferring a long time with his friend,
found him confident that if the present pressure was taken off, he
should soon be able to reestablish his affairs. Serenus, accustomed to
believe, and afraid to aggravate distress, did not attempt to detect the
fallacies of hope, nor reflect that every man overwhelmed with calamity
believes, that if that was removed he shall immediately be happy: he,
therefore, with little hesitation offered himself as surety.

In the first raptures of escape all was joy, gratitude, and confidence:
the friend of Serenus displayed his prospects, and counted over the sums
of which he should infallibly be master before the day of payment.
Serenus in a short time began to find his danger, but could not prevail
with himself to repent of beneficence; and therefore suffered himself
still to be amused with projects which he durst not consider, for fear
of finding them impracticable. The debtor, after he had tried every
method of raising money which art or indigence could prompt, wanted
either fidelity or resolution to surrender himself to prison, and left
Serenus to take his place.

Serenus has often proposed to the creditor, to pay him whatever he shall
appear to have lost by the flight of his friend: but however reasonable
this proposal may be thought, avarice and brutality have been hitherto
inexorable, and Serenus still continues to languish in prison. In this
place, however, where want makes almost every man selfish, or
desperation gloomy, it is the good fortune of Serenus not to live
without a friend: he passes most of his hours in the conversation of
Candidus, a man whom the same virtuous ductility has, with some
difference of circumstances, made equally unhappy. Candidus, when he was
young, helpless, and ignorant, found a patron that educated, protected,
and supported him; his patron being more vigilant for others than
himself, left at his death an only son, destitute and friendless.
Candidus was eager to repay the benefits he had received; and having
maintained the youth for a few years at his own house, afterwards placed
him with a merchant of eminence, and gave bonds to a great value as a
security for his conduct.

The young man, removed too early from the only eye of which he dreaded
the observation, and deprived of the only instruction which he heard
with reverence, soon learned to consider virtue as restraint, and
restraint as oppression: and to look with a longing eye at every expense
to which he could not reach, and every pleasure which he could not
partake: by degrees he deviated from his first regularity, and unhappily
mingling among young men busy in dissipating the gains of their fathers'
industry, he forgot the precepts of Candidus, spent the evening in
parties of pleasure, and the morning in expedients to support his riots.
He was, however, dexterous and active in business: and his master, being
secured against any consequences of dishonesty, was very little
solicitous to inspect his manners, or to inquire how he passed those
hours, which were not immediately devoted to the business of his
profession: when he was informed of the young man's extravagance or
debauchery, "let his bondsman look to that," said he, "I have taken care
of myself. "

Thus the unhappy spendthrift proceeded from folly to folly, and from
vice to vice, with the connivance, if not the encouragement, of his
master; till in the heat of a nocturnal revel he committed such
violences in the street as drew upon him a criminal prosecution. Guilty
and unexperienced, he knew not what course to take; to confess his crime
to Candidus, and solicit his interposition, was little less dreadful
than to stand before the frown of a court of justice. Having, therefore,
passed the day with anguish in his heart and distraction in his looks,
he seized at night a very large sum of money in the compting-house, and
setting out he knew not whither, was heard of no more.

The consequence of his flight was the ruin of Candidus; ruin surely
undeserved and irreproachable, and such as the laws of a just government
ought either to prevent or repair: nothing is more inequitable than that
one man should suffer for the crimes of another, for crimes which he
neither prompted nor permitted, which he could neither foresee nor
prevent. When we consider the weakness of human resolutions and the
inconsistency of human conduct, it must appear absurd that one man shall
engage for another, that he will not change his opinions or alter his
conduct.

It is, I think, worthy of consideration, whether, since no wager is
binding without a possibility of loss on each side, it is not equally
reasonable, that no contract should be valid without reciprocal
stipulations; but in this case, and others of the same kind, what is
stipulated on his side to whom the bond is given? he takes advantage of
the security, neglects his affairs, omits his duty, suffers timorous
wickedness to grow daring by degrees, permits appetite to call for new
gratifications, and, perhaps, secretly longs for the time in which he
shall have power to seize the forfeiture; and if virtue or gratitude
should prove too strong for temptation, and a young man persist in
honesty, however instigated by his passions, what can secure him at last
against a false accusation? I for my part always shall suspect, that he
who can by such methods secure his property, will go one step further to
increase it; nor can I think that man safely trusted with the means of
mischief, who, by his desire to have them in his hands, gives an evident
proof how much less he values his neighbour's happiness than his own.

Another of our companions is Lentulus, a man whose dignity of birth was
very ill supported by his fortune. As some of the first offices in the
kingdom were filled by his relations, he was early invited to court, and
encouraged by caresses and promises to attendance and solicitation; a
constant appearance in splendid company necessarily required
magnificence of dress; and a frequent participation of fashionable
amusements forced him into expense: but these measures were requisite to
his success; since every body knows, that to be lost to sight is to be
lost to remembrance, and that he who desires to fill a vacancy, must be
always at hand, lest some man of greater vigilance should step in before
him.

By this course of life his little fortune was every day made less: but
he received so many distinctions in publick, and was known to resort so
familiarly to the houses of the great, that every man looked on his
preferment as certain, and believed that its value would compensate for
its slowness: he, therefore, found no difficulty in obtaining credit for
all that his rank or his vanity made necessary: and, as ready payment
was not expected, the bills were proportionably enlarged, and the value
of the hazard or delay was adjusted solely by the equity of the
creditor. At length death deprived Lentulus of one of his patrons, and a
revolution in the ministry of another; so that all his prospects
vanished at once, and those that had before encouraged his expenses,
began to perceive that their money was in danger; there was now no other
contention but who should first seize upon his person, and, by forcing
immediate payment, deliver him up naked to the vengeance of the rest.

In pursuance of this scheme, one of them invited him to a tavern, and
procured him to be arrested at the door; but Lentulus, instead of
endeavouring secretly to pacify him by payment, gave notice to the rest,
and offered to divide amongst them the remnant of his fortune: they
feasted six hours at his expense, to deliberate on his proposal; and at
last determined, that as he could not offer more than five shillings in
the pound, it would be more prudent to keep him in prison, till he could
procure from his relations the payment of his debts.

Lentulus is not the only man confined within these walls, on the same
account: the like procedure, upon the like motives, is common among men
whom yet the law allows to partake the use of fire and water with the
compassionate and the just; who frequent the assemblies of commerce in
open day, and talk with detestation and contempt of highwaymen or
housebreakers: but, surely, that man must be confessedly robbed, who is
compelled, by whatever means, to pay the debts which he does not owe:
nor can I look with equal hatred upon him, who, at the hazard of his
life, holds out his pistol and demands my purse, as on him who plunders
under shelter of the law, and by detaining my son or my friend in
prison, extorts from me the price of their liberty. No man can be more
an enemy to society than he, by whose machinations our virtues are
turned to our disadvantage; he is less destructive to mankind that
plunders cowardice, than he that preys upon compassion.

I believe, Mr. Adventurer, you will readily confess, that though not one
of these, if tried before a commercial judicature, can be wholly
acquitted from imprudence or temerity; yet that, in the eye of all who
can consider virtue as distinct from wealth, the fault of two of them,
at least, is outweighed by the merit; and that of the third is so much
extenuated by the circumstances of his life, as not to deserve a
perpetual prison: yet must these, with multitudes equally blameless,
languish in confinement, till malevolence shall relent, or the law be
changed.

I am, Sir,

Your humble servant, MISARGYRUS.




No. 67. TUESDAY, JUNE 26, 1753.

_Inventas--vitam excolucre per artes_. VIRG. Aen. vi. 663.

They polish life by useful arts.

That familiarity produces neglect, has been long observed. The effect of
all external objects, however great or splendid, ceases with their
novelty; the courtier stands without emotion in the royal presence; the
rustick tramples under his foot the beauties of the spring with little
attention to their colours or their fragrance; and the inhabitant of the
coast darts his eye upon the immense diffusion of waters, without awe,
wonder, or terrour.

Those who have past much of their lives in this great city, look upon
its opulence and its multitudes, its extent and variety, with cold
indifference; but an inhabitant of the remoter parts of the kingdom is
immediately distinguished by a kind of dissipated curiosity, a busy
endeavour to divide his attention amongst a thousand objects, and a wild
confusion of astonishment and alarm.

The attention of a new comer is generally first struck by the
multiplicity of cries that stun him in the streets, and the variety of
merchandize and manufactures which the shopkeepers expose on every hand;
and he is apt, by unwary bursts of admiration, to excite the merriment
and contempt of those who mistake the use of their eyes for effects of
their understanding, and confound accidental knowledge with just
reasoning.

But, surely, these are subjects on which any man may without reproach
employ his meditations: the innumerable occupations, among which the
thousands that swarm in the streets of London, are distributed, may
furnish employment to minds of every cast, and capacities of every
degree. He that contemplates the extent of this wonderful city, finds it
difficult to conceive, by what method plenty is maintained in our
markets, and how the inhabitants are regularly supplied with the
necessaries of life; but when he examines the shops and warehouses, sees
the immense stores of every kind of merchandize piled up for sale, and
runs over all the manufactures of art and products of nature, which are
every where attracting his eye and soliciting his purse, he will be
inclined to conclude, that such quantities cannot easily be exhausted,
and that part of mankind must soon stand still for want of employment,
till the wares already provided shall be worn out and destroyed.

As Socrates was passing through the fair at Athens, and casting his eyes
over the shops and customers, "how many things are here," says he, "that
I do not want! " The same sentiment is every moment rising in the mind of
him that walks the streets of London, however inferior in philosophy to
Socrates: he beholds a thousand shops crowded with goods, of which he
can scarcely tell the use, and which, therefore, he is apt to consider
as of no value: and indeed, many of the arts by which families are
supported, and wealth is heaped together, are of that minute and
superfluous kind, which nothing but experience could evince possible to
be prosecuted with advantage, and which, as the world might easily want,
it could scarcely be expected to encourage.

But so it is, that custom, curiosity, or wantonness, supplies every art
with patrons, and finds purchasers for every manufacture; the world is
so adjusted, that not only bread, but riches may be obtained without
great abilities or arduous performances: the most unskilful hand and
unenlightened mind have sufficient incitements to industry; for he that
is resolutely busy, can scarcely be in want. There is, indeed, no
employment, however despicable, from which a man may not promise himself
more than competence, when he sees thousands and myriads raised to
dignity, by no other merit than that of contributing to supply their
neighbours with the means of sucking smoke through a tube of clay; and
others raising contributions upon those, whose elegance disdains the
grossness of smoky luxury, by grinding the same materials into a. powder
that may at once gratify and impair the smell.

Not only by these popular and modish trifles, but by a thousand unheeded
and evanescent kinds of business, are the multitudes of this city
preserved from idleness, and consequently from want. In the endless
variety of tastes and circumstances that diversify mankind, nothing is
so superfluous, but that some one desires it: or so common, but that
some one is compelled to buy it. As nothing is useless but because it is
in improper hands, what is thrown away by one is gathered up by another;
and the refuse of part of mankind furnishes a subordinate class with the
materials necessary to their support.

When I look round upon those who are thus variously exerting their
qualifications, I cannot but admire the secret concatenation of society
that links together the great and the mean, the illustrious and the
obscure; and consider with benevolent satisfaction, that no man, unless
his body or mind be totally disabled, has need to suffer the
mortification of seeing himself useless or burthensome to the community:
he that will diligently labour, in whatever occupation, will deserve the
sustenance which he obtains, and the protection which he enjoys; and may
lie down every night with the pleasing consciousness of having
contributed something to the happiness of life.

Contempt and admiration are equally incident to narrow minds: he whose
comprehension can take in the whole subordination of mankind, and whose
perspicacity can pierce to the real state of things through the thin
veils of fortune or of fashion, will discover meanness in the highest
stations, and dignity in the meanest; and find that no man can become
venerable but by virtue, or contemptible but by wickedness.

In the midst of this universal hurry, no man ought to be so little
influenced by example, or so void of honest emulation, as to stand a
lazy spectator of incessant labour; or please himself with the mean
happiness of a drone, while the active swarms are buzzing about him: no
man is without some quality, by the due application of which he might
deserve well of the world; and whoever he be that has but little in his
power, should be in haste to do that little, lest he be confounded with
him that can do nothing.

By this general concurrence of endeavours, arts of every kind have been
so long cultivated, that all the wants of man may be immediately
supplied; idleness can scarcely form a wish which she may not gratify by
the toil of others, or curiosity dream of a toy, which the shops are not
ready to afford her.

Happiness is enjoyed only in proportion as it is known; and such is the
state or folly of man, that it is known only by experience of its
contrary: we who have long lived amidst the conveniencies of a town
immensely populous, have scarce an idea of a place where desire cannot
be gratified by money. In order to have a just sense of this artificial
plenty, it is necessary to have passed some time in a distant colony, or
those parts of our island which are thinly inhabited: he that has once
known how many trades every man in such situations is compelled to
exercise, with how much labour the products of nature must be
accommodated to human use, how long the loss or defect of any common
utensil must be endured, or by what awkward expedients it must be
supplied, how far men may wander with money in their hands before any
can sell them what they wish to buy, will know how to rate at its proper
value the plenty and ease of a great city.

But that the happiness of man may still remain imperfect, as wants in
this place are easily supplied, new wants likewise are easily created;
every man, in surveying the shops of London, sees numberless instruments
and conveniencies, of which, while he did not know them, he never felt
the need; and yet, when use has made them familiar, wonders how life
could be supported without them. Thus it comes to pass, that our desires
always increase with our possessions; the knowledge that something
remains yet unenjoyed, impairs our enjoyment of the good before us.

They who have been accustomed to the refinements of science, and
multiplications of contrivance, soon lose their confidence in the
unassisted powers of nature, forget the paucity of our real necessities,
and overlook the easy methods by which they may be supplied. It were a
speculation worthy of a philosophical mind, to examine how much is taken
away from our native abilities, as well as added to them, by artificial
expedients. We are so accustomed to give and receive assistance, that
each of us singly can do little for himself; and there is scarce any one
among us, however contracted may be his form of life, who does not enjoy
the labour of a thousand artists.

But a survey of the various nations that inhabit the earth will inform
us, that life may be supported with less assistance; and that the
dexterity, which practice enforced by necessity produces, is able to
effect much by very scanty means. The nations of Mexico and Peru erected
cities and temples without the use of iron; and at this day the rude
Indian supplies himself with all the necessaries of life: sent like the
rest of mankind naked into the world, as soon as his parents have nursed
him up to strength, he is to provide by his own labour for his own
support. His first care is to find a sharp flint among the rocks; with
this he undertakes to fell the trees of the forest; he shapes his bow,
heads his arrows, builds his cottage, and hollows his canoe, and from
that time lives in a state of plenty and prosperity; he is sheltered
from the storms, he is fortified against beasts of prey, he is enabled
to pursue the fish of the sea, and the deer of the mountains; and as he
does not know, does not envy the happiness of polished nations, where
gold can supply the want of fortitude and skill, and he whose laborious
ancestors have made him rich, may lie stretched upon a couch, and see
all the treasures of all the elements poured down before him.

This picture of a savage life if it shows how much individuals may
perform, shows likewise how much society is to be desired. Though the
perseverance and address of the Indian excite our admiration, they
nevertheless cannot procure him the conveniencies which are enjoyed by
the vagrant beggar of a civilized country: he hunts like a wild beast to
satisfy his hunger; and when he lies down to rest after a successful
chase, cannot pronounce himself secure against the danger of perishing
in a few days: he is, perhaps, content with his condition, because he
knows not that a better is attainable by man; as he that is born blind
does not long for the perception of light, because he cannot conceive
the advantages which light would afford him; but hunger, wounds, and
weariness, are real evils, though he believes them equally incident to
all his fellow-creatures; and when a tempest compels him to lie starving
in his hut, he cannot justly be concluded equally happy with those whom
art has exempted from the power of chance, and who make the foregoing
year provide for the following.

To receive and to communicate assistance, constitutes the happiness of
human life: man may, indeed, preserve his existence in solitude, but can
enjoy it only in society; the greatest understanding of an individual,
doomed to procure food and clothing for himself, will barely supply him
with expedients to keep off death from day to day; but as one of a large
community performing only his share of the common business, he gains
leisure for intellectual pleasures, and enjoys the happiness of reason
and reflection.




No. 69. TUESDAY, JULY 3, 1753.

_Fere libenter homines id quod volunt credunt. _ Cæsar.

Men willingly believe what they wish to be true.

Tully has long ago observed, that no man, however weakened by long life,
is so conscious of his own decrepitude, as not to imagine that he may
yet hold his station in the world for another year.

Of the truth of this remark every day furnishes new confirmation: there
is no time of life, in which men for the most part seem less to expect
the stroke of death, than when every other eye sees it impending; or are
more busy in providing for another year, than when it is plain to all
but themselves, that at another year they cannot arrive. Though every
funeral that passes before their eyes evinces the deceitfulness of such
expectations, since every man who is born to the grave thought himself
equally certain of living at least to the next year; the survivor still
continues to flatter himself, and is never at a loss for some reason why
his life should be protracted, and the voracity of death continue to be
pacified with some other prey.

But this is only one of the innumerable artifices practised in the
universal conspiracy of mankind against themselves: every age and every
condition indulges some darling fallacy; every man amuses himself with
projects which he knows to be improbable, and which, therefore, he
resolves to pursue without daring to examine them. Whatever any man
ardently desires, he very readily believes that he shall some time
attain: he whose intemperance has overwhelmed him with diseases, while
he languishes in the spring, expects vigour and recovery from the summer
sun; and while he melts away in the summer, transfers his hopes to the
frosts of winter: he that gazes upon elegance or pleasure, which want of
money hinders him from imitating or partaking, comforts himself that the
time of distress will soon be at an end, and that every day brings him
nearer to a state of happiness; though he knows it has passed not only
without acquisition of advantage, but perhaps without endeavours after
it, in the formation of schemes that cannot be executed, and in the
contemplation of prospects which cannot be approached.